[forsale_2007]

LOL. Too bad I just got a damn traditional 30year fixed jumbo from BsOfAss.

I remember attending a mortgage sales pitch by Countrywide. You know what was a selling point? How “flexible” the loan payments could be… The crowd was basically a bunch of first time home buyers, who under normal circumstances wouldn’t have been able to qualify. Countrywide wrote the book in creative mortgages imho.

[forsale_2007]

Yes I am pulling this out of the rear. But you take say 8000 jobs at qualcomm and cut them by 30% because of a bad quarter or future prospects, and I guarantee you that housing will be affected.

But that will have to wait. Until the prospects of companies like QC crumble drastically, there are plenty of millionaires roaming these streets.

[forsale_2007]

$100k difference for granite travertine/hardwood though? Come on. a five digit difference maybe. But, $100k difference?

We use to own a townhome in CV, I’ve been monitoring comps. An upgrade and/or a +- 25sqft difference would at most fetch a $50k difference.

The airoso unit is by far no comparison to the other unit listed in here off of el camino offered at $575. The latter one is in a prime location, next to a community center, shopping mall in old carmel valley. Plus access walking distance to torrey pines middle school, an elementary school that belongs to solana beach (weird), and a public library.

Airoso is off of 56. Granted it’s newer, but not nearly as much in terms of surrounding neighborhood. Also, I believe the school system access is poway, not CV. Not saying there’s anything wrong with Poway Unified. Excellent school system too. But people usually pay premium for the CV district.

It makes no sense that this Airoso unit is selling above the latter unit off of el camino.

[forsale_2007]

if you’re planning to stick around in your , I’d refi into a 30year fixed while you still qualify imho. Who knows what happens financially to you in the future. You might not be able to qualify moving forward.

Don’t feel too bad about buying in 2004. We did also. But frankly I don’t care if things on my primary depreciate, because I wasn’t planning to make money off of my primary to begin with.

[forsale_2007]

Ouch…

http://sandiego.houserebate.com/search/homeview.asp?id=1630935&p3=-1&ix=59

At peak, these units sold at $620k-$640k…

I wonder what this buyers entry point was…

The original asking price 749k was even more absurd than the airoso unit above.

Note: it says short sale. I wonder if it is.

[forsale_2007]

I never knew Chula Vista until I drove through to go to the Otay Ranch Town Center a couple of months ago. To be fair to Chula Vista (the eastern part near Eastlake and Otay Ranch), the development is exactly the same as Carmel Valley, in my view. I don't see any physical difference. Granted, the school district and ethnic makeup might be different. Not counting whites, are Chinese/Asians and Indians from India neighbors better or worse than Hispanic neighbors?

Race has nothing to do with it imho.

Financial background/value system/social background/surrounding environment has everything to do with it. First, I'm not saying Carmel Valley is the end all/be all place. It's inflated just like everywhere else.But, I'm merely pointing out a $700k home in Chula Vista imho is ridiculous, considering it's not close to the coast, there's no decent school system , it borders the old chula vista parts which is crime infested, and it's not close to where most of the high paying jobs are.

What other advantages does living in Chula Vista have that you couldn't find in Poway, Rancho Penesquito, Carmel Valley if you were willing to compromise on the square footage? A 700k price tag seems steep for the sacrifice you'd make in quality of everything else. It just doesn't make sense imho.

I sure as hell wouldn't want to live there, no matter how nice the home looks or the immediate neighborhood is…It's really the entire package. For the sake of my family, I'd rather live in something smaller in a neighborhood where school good and crime is low. I don't want to send my kids to any high school that has an auto-shop class. And I would say people from a white-collar background probably would feel more or less the same. But that's just my opinion.

As far as Carmel Valley is concerned, I believe things are going to get hit too. How hard depends on how long the housing slump sustains. I would say though that Condos in Carmel Valley will get hit the hardest versus SFH. $600+k for a 3 bedroom TOWNHOME with $200-300 HOA on top of that is ridiculous. And most of the time, people who purchased these where first time buyers that way over-extended. A lot where purchased by flippers/”investors”… Plus, there were plenty of condo units newly constructed and apartment converts….If we can get a 3 br townhome with attached garage for $400k, we’ll probably get back in. I’ve seen some of the units come down in price, but not significantly.

[forsale_2007]

Assuming this is for a primary home, and not a rental.

1. Take your original loan terms you were planning to take for the condo, then add $500/month extra (minus other costs associated with owning a SFH versus a condo- such as insurance)…. That your tell you how much more you can borrow subject to the same loan terms. This would be a rough estimate of how much more of a home without HOA you could buy…

2) Property Tax: If you pay more for a home, you’ll pay more property tax. Calculate your property tax on the SFH you can buy, versus your condo. You can then refactor how much you can really afford, by sutracting your extra monthly property tax amount from $500, and then recompute how much you can borrow.

3. Primary Home Tax Deduction: Buy a copy of a tax software, and run the numbers of your new loan payment for the SFH and property tax versus the condo.

The $500 extra in a loan, depending on your loan terms, is partially deductible…HOA payments are not. Also, your property tax is also tax deductible (provided you aren’t limited by AMT).

$500/month HOA is pretty steep, imho.
Assuming a 30year fixed loan at say 6.00% with 20% down, every $500/month toward your mortgage corresponds to about roughtly $80k extra you can borrow.

[forsale_2007]

One thing I also found interesting. Occasionally, a few sales occurs due to unusual circumstances. One of my neighbors in Torrey Hills bought their home at the peek close to $1.2m, put in about $150k upgrades. Then, they put it back on the market, 3 months later. It finally closed escrow recently about $1.1m. At first, I thought this was a flipper. But it turns out that the couple bought the house because they were trying to rebuild a family. Things turned even more sour, and they ended up separating. Hence their “motivation” for sales at the huge loss. It’s sort of sad, but reality is that a lot of times, these things happen to people that don’t necessarily have “credit issues” or “finance” issues.

Moral of the story
1) never make big financial decisions if you’re having family problems.
2) sometimes market annomalities can be found by sellers of unusual circumstances.

…About the home. Nice home….But imho bad feng-shui. The previous owner was also a couple that got divorced. For the sake of the current owner, I hope it was just a coincident.

About nice areas falling in price….imho…It really depends on on how long the housing correction lasts. It always starts in the less desirable area. But once those areas come down in price, and become property that have more bang for the buck, it will start impacting nicer areas.

i think the reason why homes in nicer areas haven’t quite fallen as much, is simply because home prices in less nicer areas haven’t drastically detorriated yet. Once it does, then all homes will be impacted, except possibly the multi-mullion (+$3million homes)- people who buy those homes usually don’t do any financing and are immune to any market correction. There hasn’t been enough price differentiation yet. For example, it ridiculous that anyone would pay for $700k for a home in chula vista, when you could get something slightly smaller in say Rancho Pensequito, or even Carmel Vally for $720k (much smaller), regardless of the how big the home is in Chula Vista is. Why? Because regardless of whether it’s new or bigger, it’s still in Chula Vista- bad neighborhood, with bad schools, and bad environment. It doesn’t make sense. If you make that much money to afford something $700k, you don’t want to live in area where the majority folks around you don’t…Frankly, I wouldn’t even pay $500k for a home in Chula Vista, because before I’d buy there, I’d buy in Mira Mesa. Other areas like Chula Vista need to significantly correct, and there needs to be enough price difference between different locations before we see “nicer areas” take any signficant hit in a meaningful way.

[forsale_2007]

On Toyota.. how much better can a company do? It seems like everything they do is a win for the company and customers maybe I'm drinking the koolaid..(TM is up like 30%+ in last year). They are firing on all cylinders.. Toyota is just killing it with everything they do, with their FJ(stealing road raged women from Hummer) and their Tundra(owns every other truck in it's class), Camry(seen the new body style??) and Prius etc etc… Even facing a recession I am still tempted to get back into Toyota stock… I had an 05 Tacoma that I recently sold.. I used it for 2 years, and sold it for around 15% less than I bought it for NEW… it ended up costing ~$250 a month including sales tax and license to use the truck for 2 years. I wasn't so fortunate when I sold my Ford a few years earlier, especially because I wasn't willing to withhold any information about some of it's expensive or time-bomb quirks!

 

Unfortunately, Toyota and Hondas these days have their own quirks too. A lot more recalls these days, although probably not the same level of quality problems that plagues other makers. Surprisely, GM vehicle quality I believe has been on the way up. It's ranked higher than Nissan overall, and I believe their trucks have pretty good reliability. However, resale value is  still a big problem.   

[forsale_2007]

Yes … my house will have steel and concrete only … my new house.
Cool.
cow_tipping

 

 

In an earthquake proned Southern California? Are you sure? 🙂

 

[forsale_2007]

The current asking price seems to be $619k. Of course as Jim mentioned there is only one photo of interior (kitchen) that too recently added. There are also some caveats (to buyers) on staying away from a unfinished deck LOL. powayseller, membership seems to be $39.95 per month (a bit steep for just browsers) but probably justified if you are serious about buying right now.

 

 

Or if you're cheap..Just signup for a 1 week free membership and cancel.
 Then re-signup…. 🙂

 

[forsale_2007]

To diversify I'd suggest looking at experienced hard money lenders to put you in first trust deeds. Many are with developers who are entitling land and need the money for a year or two. You can get 12-18% returns backed by first trust deeds. Look in the major newspapers of any urban area as well as the Wall Street Journal. You should look for LTV ratios under 70% and not put all the funds in one loan. These are NOT subprime lenders. Those guys were doing 100% loans to folks with horrible credit which was a stupid business practice. Hard money lending focuses almost entirely on the value of property so when a problem arises you can sell the property if needed. It's not a liquid investment, but is a good vehicle for a 1-3 year period.

 

 

Thanks for the info.. I'll do some research…

 

 

[forsale_2007]

About commercial RE….I’m just curious. Do you have any insight on the commercial RE markets? I’m have a small portion Vanguard REIT Index Fund, which I believe tracks mostly commercial. I’m trying to decide whether to get out.

Top holdeings

Simon Property Group, Inc. REIT 6,961,496 $705,129,930
Equity Office Properties Trust REIT 11,021,025 $530,882,774
Vornado Realty Trust REIT 4,293,967 $521,716,991
ProLogis REIT 7,715,527 $468,872,576
Equity Residential REIT 9,158,592 $464,798,544
Archstone-Smith Trust REIT 6,743,946 $392,565,097
Public Storage, Inc. REIT 3,963,024 $386,394,840
Boston Properties, Inc. REIT 3,417,878 $382,392,191
Host Hotels & Resorts Inc. REIT 15,563,531 $382,084,686
General Growth Properties Inc. REIT 6,835,791 $357,033,364
Kimco Realty Corp. REIT 7,077,947 $318,153,718
Avalonbay Communities, Inc. REIT 2,342,892 $304,693,105
Health Care Properties Investors REIT 6,105,327 $224,798,140
Developers Diversified Realty Corp. REIT 3,454,047 $217,432,259
SL Green Realty Corp. REIT 1,558,724 $206,967,373
The Macerich Co. REIT 2,260,380 $195,681,097
Duke Realty Corp. REIT 4,252,488 $173,926,759
Apartment Investment & Management Co. Class A REIT 3,064,974 $171,699,843
Regency Centers Corp. REIT 2,164,021 $169,161,522
AMB Property Corp. REIT 2,782,105 $163,059,174
Federal Realty Investment Trust REIT 1,733,648 $147,360,080
Liberty Property Trust REIT 2,833,586 $139,242,416
UDR, Inc. REIT 4,237,519 $134,710,729
Camden Property Trust REIT 1,774,930 $131,078,581
Hospitality Properties Trust REIT 2,716,065 $129,094,569
Ventas, Inc. REIT 2,946,727 $124,705,487
Reckson Associates Realty Corp. REIT 2,620,543 $119,496,761
Weingarten Realty Investors REIT 2,541,335 $117,180,957
BRE Properties Inc. Class A REIT 1,623,293 $105,546,511
Mack-Cali Realty Corp. REIT 1,964,053 $100,166,703
Brandywine Realty Trust REIT 2,833,729 $94,221,489
Health Care Inc. REIT 2,183,474 $93,933,051
Alexandria Real Estate Equities, Inc. REIT 916,109 $91,977,344
New Plan Excel Realty Trust REIT 3,298,929 $90,654,569
Essex Property Trust, Inc. REIT 692,046 $89,446,946
Realty Income Corp. REIT 3,142,880 $87,057,776
Taubman Co. REIT 1,661,618 $84,509,891
CBL & Associates Properties, Inc. REIT 1,933,140 $83,801,619
HRPT Properties Trust REIT 6,609,865 $81,631,833
Kilroy Realty Corp. REIT 1,019,549 $79,524,822
Nationwide Health Properties, Inc. REIT 2,520,811 $76,178,908
First Industrial Realty Trust REIT 1,410,375 $66,132,484
Colonial Properties Trust REIT 1,373,973 $64,411,854
Corporate Office Properties Trust, Inc. REIT 1,267,883 $63,990,055
Post Properties, Inc. REIT 1,360,551 $62,177,181
Home Properties, Inc. REIT 1,045,231 $61,950,841
Crescent Real Estate, Inc. REIT 3,067,687 $60,586,818
Healthcare Realty Trust Inc. REIT 1,505,051 $59,509,717
Senior Housing Properties Trust REIT 2,419,392 $59,226,716
Highwood Properties, Inc. REIT

[forsale_2007]

I have about 15-20% of my portfolio in an international index fund. It has beat the returns in my U.S. index funds so far this year better than 3:1 (>13% ytd versus about 4%). However, even though it is an index fund, it's far from low risk which is why I've resisted the urge to try and multiply my gains by funneling more money into it

 

Thanks for the info. Actually, I'm trying to stay away from the entire stock market with this set of funds. The only reason is because as is 80% of all my total assets are already in the stock market in one shape or form (stocks, indexes, mutual) in both domestic and international. And i really don't this next chunk to be also.

I wanted to add additional positions to one particular fund: Vanguard Precious metals, but VPMSX is closed to new investors, and my current stake is in a retirement account- limiting how much I can add to that position.

The commodity market seems kinda risky…But honestly, I have no idea what it's about. I'll have to research that.

 

 

 

[forsale_2007]

Why can’t I be a victim of my own stock trading losses? Should I call up Congress and demand a refund because I lose money in an investment? PPPPlease….

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