Forum Replies Created
-
AuthorPosts
-
gzz
Participant80%+ of active funds under-perform the S&P. If you’re good enough to pick and buy the best 20% of funds in advance, you might be even better at picking stocks.
That JPM fund was ranked 11 out of 600+ funds in its category.
Also, “Front load 5.25%”
Wow!
Participantsvelte: Agree on all points.
scaredy: Mutual funds are more convenient, but if you just buy a whole bunch of small investments in large caps, you can harvest tax losses in a way that an identical mutual fund can’t.
flu: Visa and MC and amex make their money on interchange fees, which are higher in the USA than other developed nations. Will they stay that way forever?
If Biden wants to make three large companies angry but a zillion companies that take credit cards happy, he can crack down on the fees. This is not a wild scenario: it already happened in many other nations all over the world.
ParticipantI routinely see 1960s cars in front of Sunset Cliffs Automotive, and they always did good and cheap work on my prior 2004 car.
Near there is RaceRods at Cable and Voltaire. They mainly do 50s to 70s sports cars, a mix of US and Italian makes plus MGs, not much German or Japanese.
ParticipantWow what a pretty house. Poor job with the MLS photos however, they are tiny and disorganized.
ParticipantEP: California has been net losing native-born American population for decades. All that’s happening now is the net immigration is dropping fast too.
From my perspective, I prefer quality over quantity. I don’t know an easy way to look to see if this is a real trend, but it certainly seems like we’re getting less “huddled masses” and more highly educated immigrants, both young and mid-career.
As for “ominous trends,” we’re seeing a strong trend toward smaller household sizes, especially in older suburbs. The fact that empty nest boomers are staying in 3 and 4 bedroom SFRs when earlier generations might have moved to a smaller apartment or multi-gen household does not strike me as ominous, but simply the result of California’s very low property taxes and general high quality of life and prosperity.
To take a random example, Del Mar’s population dropped from 4,389 in the 2000 census to 4,161 in 2010.
ParticipantOB Elementary now rated 10/10 by Great Schools, the rating company Zillow uses. It was 9/10 for as long as I can remember.
ParticipantYes, Gram was born in 1930.
Her mother was born in 1913 and lived to 2016, meaning in early 2016 my grandmother was 86 years old but had a living mother, which I doubt happens to more than 1 in 10,000 people.
ParticipantCalifornia’s major market housing prices are not especially high compared to other high income and high amenity urban areas with low crime and strong investor protections. Check out prices in Sydney and Tel Aviv as two wealthy places with mild weather plus safe and stable.
You can also look at Seattle, but your might find your home is suddenly with a “CHOP” mob ruled area for a month.
Prices do seem a bit high in our lower income inland cities like Fresno compared to similar places elsewhere in the sunbelt. That may be a Prop 13 artifact.
Participant— $221 AMAZON FOAM BED UPDATE —
I don’t much like it. While it is plenty fine for just sleeping, 10 inches is too thin, I should have done 12 or 14. It is also too low, so the bed is less nice for sitting and general lounging purposes.
Now I am leaning toward getting a California King bed frame and foam mattress. I liked the upgrade from twin to full, and from full to queen. I expect the upgrade to CalKing will be a positive too.
Participant>Stick to what you know
I have seen the data and do know. I picked a random example, and you say that’s a bad example and mispriced. But it would be easy for you to show me contrary examples.
Low end areas went up more than high end areas, that’s the case in both the current and prior bull markets as well as the very long term trend.
Areas that started medium-low and gentrified went up the most.
Sorry, the gentrified areas that used to have high crime and now are high end went up more than suburban areas that were always nice. That’s the case here, as well as LA and the Bay Area.
ParticipantMy grandmother is about to turn 91, but not yet ready to retire from her side gig of house staging:
https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/4505-Long-Branch-Ave-San-Diego-CA-92107/16963044_zpid/
ParticipantThe boomers were unhappy when Nati’s Mexican closed down after 60 years of operation. It was pretty awful from my two visits over 15 years, expensive but heavy and bland.
I lacked the nostalgic connection with it, though it did evoke ChiChi’s bad Mexican chain food in Ohio in the 1990s. 1990s ChiChi’s was so bad that it had a menu item called “fried ice cream” and even that was bad.
In its place is a drastically better hipster Mexican place that has a great semi-outdoor setup. And the prices are about the same as Nati’s, just better environment and food.
Participant1. For my own lifestyle, Blue Water’s opening was huge. I really like high end local-caught fish!
2. The single biggest physical change is the old antique mall on Newport was replaced with a small-format Target. The same location decades ago was a Coronet, a defunct chain pretty similar to Target.
The whole Cable to Sunset Cliffs block was about 75% antique stores when I moved here, now there is only a single one left. Several of the spots are beer, wine, and hard kambucha tasting rooms.
3. Another positive change has been the introduction of a private neighborhood security force. There are still bums, but I have not seen any aggressive panhandling since they arrived a few years ago.
4. On the beach block, a run-down biker bar was replaced by the Holding Company. They constructed a brand new building with a stunning roof deck and ample space for live music. It is owned by the Noodle House guy and is his third OB restaurant, and the food is great. I am not much of a drinker so I have not been there for the evening bar periods.
5. Right across the street from Holding Company, and also with rooftop view seating, is OB Brewery. Seems like a nice place to mostly drink with some light snacks.
6. Kilowatt is another tasting room that replaced a dirty old auto repair shop. I did not drink there, but it is really pretty with elaborate trippy lighting.
7. The Wednesday farmer’s market keeps physically expanding and spilling out into new areas, including the grassy field by the beach and side streets.
8. Appletree supermarket reopened in a new location on Newport that used to be a theater. It is completely different than the old downscale store. Now it is most similar to a Sprouts.
9. The small shopping plaza on Santa Monica and Cable was knocked down and rebuilt and now has a Dirty Birds and Mr. Moto Pizza, both of which are great.
10. A few new yoga studios, mini-gyms, and hair salons have opened. I don’t patronize those places, but their move-in renovations mean these places all look nicer than the prior tenants. There must be at least 6 yoga places in the central OB area, which I define as Sunset Cliffs to the Beach north of Niagara.
ParticipantI enjoyed rereading all the prior comments from 2015. I largely agree with them.
I don’t think I’d say the pace of gentrification is “rapid” anymore with regard to commercial outlets. It certainly was 2012-2016, but since then it has been slow and steady, with a few dumpy places going upscale each and every year.
Residential has been on fire non-stop since 2012.
Flu doubted a condo purchase would double in 2015… they more than doubled. My condo’s zestimate is 141% higher than my purchase price from late 2016!
Somebody said they liked Blue Water’s fish tacos better than South Beach.
Three years after that comment, Blue Water chose OB as the spot for its second location. It is such a great place, the $6 fish tacos are ultra fresh, grilled, and filling enough to have just one for a light lunch. I get their raw fish to cook at home pretty often too.
-
AuthorPosts