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The high end houses in St George look kinda ugly and desolate due to lack of mature landscaping.

There’s significantly less greenery than high end homes in Phoenix or East County. I looked at every listing in the 5/4 5000+ sq ft .5+ acre bracket and not a single big lush shade tree!

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Just looked at St George on zillow. Seems basically the same price as Rancho San Diego and similar newish “near-exurban” parts of San Diego County. Maybe St George is 10-20% less.

My commute from here to my old house in OB is 22 minutes. Same for my office in Bay Park.

I think RSD will appreciate more because St G seems to be priced well above construction costs, and there seems to be a lot of developable land around it on almost all sides.

 

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For “cash” in brokerage I like Vanguard Short Term Bond ETF (BSV).

For conservative near-cash state and federal tax free income, I like Nuveen California Muni CEF (NAC).

 

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There’s chatter Schwab could collapse next, they also have big undeclared and unrealized losses on long bonds.

Their stock dropped 25% in the last two days.

I think a collapse is unlikely but they do seem like they need an equity raise, and announcing this after your stock craters looks bad. The people who got out of SIVB fast got all their money, those that remained are going to get part of their money Monday and then a certificate of claim from the fdic they can sell or hold and receive distributions as the fdic sells off assets.

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As the market drops, I keep feeling “I’m not short enough.”

I read articles suggesting that SPX could drop 20-35% and find them plausible. But

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Yes to a good existing tenant.

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I think most properties on the market are not going to cash flow for 3 years or more. But longer term rents will go up, prices will go up, and you only need to refi at a great rate once and then you’re set for 30 years.

I do not like interacting with condo HOA, but the advantage of no exterior costs or hassle is a big positive.

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Glad you like it, it is very green to keep old computer parts in service.

There is a known issue: you can’t run an older logitech webcam and meta quest VR on the same PC

I have the quest 2 that doesn’t need a PC, but wanted to play the huge and cheap/free legacy library that runs off a PC.

The Quest microphone driver runs havoc on other programs.

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I wasn’t speaking about your proclivities but Americans with savings generally.

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Is 5% going to be enough to get people to pull money out of the stock market and decrease consumption spending?

I tend to think not.

Inflation expectations are starting to become entrenched. Buy a car and it will probably appreciate more than 5%. And small investors did poorly last year, but memories of easy money remain and I don’t think they will be satisfied with 5% per year with memories of 5% per day runs on meme stocks fresh in their heads.

Perhaps we’ll see interest rate sensitive parts of the economy get hit hard by the Fed again and again, without much effect on most of the economy.

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I decided to wait on another vehicle. My 2021 Mazda SUV still only has 5500 miles on it and I am working from home more and driving less. My other vehicle is a Japanese hatchback with only has 40k on it, but it is a 2010 that’s always been parked outside so it has a fair amount of sun damage and general aging. I am really bored with it, but the rest of my family likes it, and it is fast-ish (light and 165HP) and handles well.

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I think the chance of an Israel-Iran hot war this year is about 10%.

Similar risk of the Ukraine War spilling into Moldova. Already both sides are accusing each other of false flags and provocations. Russia occupies part of Moldova on the Ukraine border and it is physically isolated from Russia proper.

A Taiwan invasion by China would be a real disaster and cause an instant global depression. Maybe 3 to 5% chance this year?

I like Western Hemisphere focused oil stocks because they are cheap and benefit from a strong economy as well as geopolitical instability. While a long deflationary recession would be bad, OPEC cuts and extended underinvestment and production declines will mitigate the pain in such scenario.

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My OB rentals all have very cheap insurance. E.g. ~800 a year on a 2000sf wood SFH.

Going from 50k to 500k of car insurance only increases the cost by about double, not 10-fold.

A RP condo might be worth 900k but have replacement cost of 300k with the other 600k the land value and development right.

So I think the 50m was cheap excess insurance which they decided to drop in the context of a drastic increase in the meat of the policy, which is replacement value in a fire.

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My advice is to wait 6 months to buy a car. The car market is experiencing extreme unprecedented deflation right now.

Carvana is in major financial distress and may go from a huge net buyer of late model cars to mass liquidation.

Lots of people underwater on subprime auto loans too, 20% and more APR.

Unlike with homes, you can let your car loan default and immediately get another car loan. Subprime auto loans are less regulated than mortgages.

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Commercial inventory has always been tight in OB.

For 15 years I kept an eye on it waiting for a nice office space I could walk to. Never happened.

Turnover is high but there’s never a shortage of people who dream of having a small business by the beach and willing to spend a lot of money on the chance.

This place just opened on Voltaire and is amazing, good food and very spacious seating.

https://m.yelp.ie/biz/harumama-noodles-and-buns-san-diego-4?utm_source=ishare

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