[Fearful]

The SEC investigates unusual activity in a stock. Its investigation diligence is independent of the sizes of transactions. So if there is unusual activity, and the SEC investigates, you could get in trouble for trading a single share. To be safe, you would have to route trades through an unrelated party – which would involve you transferring cash to that party, which would then be detected by the IRS, assuming you routed significant amounts of cash. And, as “sandiego” pointed out, if you do not do this with significant amounts of cash, it will not return enough to be worthwhile.

[Fearful]

The SEC investigates unusual activity in a stock. Its investigation diligence is independent of the sizes of transactions. So if there is unusual activity, and the SEC investigates, you could get in trouble for trading a single share. To be safe, you would have to route trades through an unrelated party – which would involve you transferring cash to that party, which would then be detected by the IRS, assuming you routed significant amounts of cash. And, as “sandiego” pointed out, if you do not do this with significant amounts of cash, it will not return enough to be worthwhile.

[Fearful]

And get that thing through escrow as fast as possible! I did a two week close on my San Jose house and am damn glad I did – the credit markets seized up about three weeks after close.

[Fearful]

And get that thing through escrow as fast as possible! I did a two week close on my San Jose house and am damn glad I did – the credit markets seized up about three weeks after close.

[Fearful]

If you really are interested in analysis, it would be helpful to post info about your house rather than just that it sold at full price.

[Fearful]

If you really are interested in analysis, it would be helpful to post info about your house rather than just that it sold at full price.

[Fearful]

The secondary market for hot tubs is pretty close to zilch. Hot tubs are typically impulse buys.

Most often they are disposed of when a house is sold. The buyers of the hot tub are loath to admit their mistake. Buyers of the house don’t have the same sunk cost fallacy.

The seller of this hot tub clearly has a grossly inflated idea of its value if he thinks used wire is $6 a foot. He needs a reality check: Send him bids from a bunch of different email accounts, each offering him sub-$1,000 prices. Then, after he is conditioned that the value is minimal, offer him over $1,000 and see if he bites.

Or just keep an eye on craigslist. There will be realistic sellers coming along.

[Fearful]

All they have to do is allow a capital loss on a your primary residence and most if not all of this debt forgiveness issue would disappear.

It is a mystery to me how you can get a capital gain on a house, $250 / 500K exclusion notwithstanding, but not a capital loss.

[Fearful]

First let me say, RENTING SUCKS!

I echo your frustration. I am sitting in a 1700 sf Torrey Hills house. Everything in here is cheapest of the builder cheap, and daily I ponder whether to just install a good faucet, good dishwasher, and so on, myself. I could put $1K into fixtures and make this a happier place, no doubt. Of course, I draw the line at the crappy laminate flooring and cheap builder carpet; too much $$ to replace those.

Would I rather be still sitting in my $900K San Jose house? Hell no. When I need consolation I just log in to schwab.com. This is what I had to do to get myself, my kids, and my dog out of the bay area, and I’m not looking back.

Your concern about Chinese propping up values is fringe speculation and equates to the “immigration will bolster housing prices” argument. Sure, some overseas folks will buy U.S. properties, but that hardly seems enough to prop up the values across large areas. Anecdotal reports of immigrant buyers are belied by the indices, which continue to march downward.

You are embittered by your rent payments, but how do they compare with the cost of mortgages, property taxes, maintenance, HOA fees … and let’s not forget, if you are a cash buyer, the opportunity cost of the money … that $700K could have been earning you 5% or so, almost risk free.

And lest we forget, the immense transaction costs associated with selling a house. Casually buying a $700K house … you’ll incur a, say, $35K transaction cost when you sell it.

So a question for you: With your $millions, why not rent a phat house with all the goodies, like home theater, that you seek? Treat yourself to a really great place, to console you for the lack of ability to customize. Get away from your looky-loos and nosy landlord, and get a pool, a view, whatever gives you a woody. You’ve got the dough; pay some dudes to come in and pack up all your stuff for you and move you.

[Fearful]

If you hate clouds you will want to be at least a little bit inland, no? I am new to the area myself so I don’t know this for sure, but I understand that the marine layer typically penetrates about eight miles inland.

Personally, I love the marine layer clouds and how they keep things cool. I moved from San Jose and am glad to see the clouds again – I grew up in Santa Barbara. Home again!

Best of luck to you; in a way, having substantial cash makes the decisions tougher, no? When you can afford 99% of the houses, there are both a lot of choices in the 99% and the 1% is that much more enticing!

[Fearful]

A major downgrade of the debt enough to cause billions to be dumped would probably set it off.

Might it not blow suddenly, that is, a rush to the exits? Like if a downgrade is seen to be looming, the holders rush to sell before the downgrade forces the situation to be made public?

[Fearful]

I could see rental rates rising in the near term as houses are forced to vacancy in the foreclosure process, or otherwise as unsold houses sit vacant.

I also surmise that foreclosed-upon people will be more likely to pursue renting an apartment than a house similar to what they owned, thus putting upward pressure on apartment rents.

As the city continues to suffer housing related job losses, it is hard to imagine apartment rents not coming down.

[Fearful]

There is a HUGE amount of resistence from sellers and lenders to do all they can to avoid taking a loss, only when they HAVE to will prices be slashed like no tommorow. This is also beginning to happen with the builders due to skyrocketing cancellation rates and severe lack of demand, they need to sell inventory to avoid holding costs and to recoup their cash.

Yes – builder sales are the only place to see accurate house prices. They are the only dispassionate and, well, I hesitate to call them this, but – smart sellers out there. Individuals are loath to recognize losses, and banks are little better, as they hate to flow loss on a foreclosure through to their P&L. But the builders know what’s going on; they know to get rid of that inventory as fast as they can, almost regardless of the price.

[Fearful]

Two different dimensions. Alt-A refers to the riskiness of the borrower, for example their lack of ability or inclination to document their income.

Negative amortization and other ARMs are possibly correlated to borrower riskiness, but not constrained to a specific borrower class.

[Fearful]

70% food, 25% water, 5% ammo

[Author]

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