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Dixieline closed at 6pm before covid. Now maybe they are like traditional Mexican banks, 9-11 and 2-3.

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I never eat breakfast because I have zero appetite until about 12:30. My daily “fast” is between last snack around 10:30pm and first meal around 1:30.

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I love the Phoenix area, but I would not expect any big gains there. There is so much space to develop, both virgin and infill/teardown. Any newly developed suburban area with 350k+ houses there is going have good schools, that does not make Chandler unique. And in 15 years you’re competing with a lot of brand new places with the latest smart home cool features fully built in.

With the area’s excellent and mostly new and wide highway system, and general decentralization, living far away isn’t a big deal.

To look at it another way, the Dallas metro area is much larger, fairly well off (until the oil bust), and also has lots of wide open spaces. Even with its huge population, prices are pretty low there. Check out what 550k gets you in Plano:

https://www.zillow.com/community/heritage-ridge-estates/2084054456_zpid/

It is tacky but I like it anyway.

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Stock market is higher than 5-6 months ago.

Money printer goes brrrrrrr, ride the wave!

Expected 30 year rate based on bond prices is 2.7% versus actual 3.3%. That means we have a likely additional half point decline in mortgage rates coming.

More work from home means more space needed. Family of four with two home offices needs a 5-bed not 3-bed house.

Also means tech employees can get double their value in San Diego and still commute to SV when needed.

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In your house or yard? They are in my yard and are harmless even though they look sort of mean.

Sometimes I find the queens when digging wholes and they are huge.

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As I recall they went bankrupt a couple years ago and closed 90% of locations. San Diego locations were partly spared.

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The three month forbearance is essentially a tiny HELOC folded into your mortgage balance at the same rate and terms. As long as its paid I don’t see why people get moralistic about it. If you find getting e.g., $8000 at 3.75% apr attractive, you’re probably not rolling around in excess cash.

At the moment about 6.7% of mortgages are in this program.

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Peter Schiff has predicted a massive recession and spike in gold every year for the past 20. This is finally his year to be stopped-clock-right.

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Coronita, I got good news for you. The paper price of gold is 1700, however the cash price for physical gold is 1800 and up. You will have no problem getting $1800 from a reputable dealer, ebay, etc.

Silver has an even larger physical premium of $3+ an ounce, though $1 is normal. Silver Eagles normally sell for $2 above spot silver, now it is $6 to $9 above.

ApMex is a large reputable seller, and they want $28 for silver eagles, and they can’t even keep them in stock.

https://www.apmex.com/product/196100/2020-1-oz-silver-american-eagle-bu

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The QOZ program seems to let you defer capital gains tax on something like selling stock if you buy a property there. Sounds good to me if you have a lot of appreciated stock you want to invest. Ideally you’d hold it until death and never pay!

If you enjoy renovating, I’d again suggest OB. Very easy to find tenants and lots of old houses and small complexes. Some are 50+ years old and never have been renovated. I’ve done 3 so far and really enjoyed it. I finished the last one 2 years ago and am missing the fun of tossing 90lb bags of concrete into my car and the smell of fresh cut lumber. The streets behind sports arena blvd, Hancock and Kurtz, have a bunch of smaller and unique hardware stores that often have crazy prices. Those places, home depot, OB Hardware, and Dixieline are all very quick drives making the process simpler.

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10+ unit buildings these days are owned by either people who got them in ancient times or full time owners with corporate management. The market is fairly different and involves a different lending market. In the midwest this is more common because 10 unit complex can be under $500,000, and rarely go above $2 million.

Scaredy: REITs are not good investments for someone already well exposed to RE.

I actually am short SPG, a mall reit. This is as a hedge against my own local portfolio.

“Worst case” is that they go up and my much larger investment in rentals goes up too.

What could happen with spg is even if things reopen fairly soon, some of their marginal tenants won’t survive. Retail was already doing badly before Covid. A 2 month shutdown, another 2 month partial shutdown, then a recession….

The company is leveraged by about 10, so if you assume a 10% decline in the value of malls, their balance sheet is negative.

That’s an oversimplification, as they’ve taken a lot of paper depreciation losses that as of 1/2020, did not reflect the market.

Finally, they agreed to buy another mall reit for cash at a giant market premium. I read the sales agreement, and I don’t think they can wiggle out.

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With your income, owning your own home is a no-brainer for tax and stability reasons for your kids. If you don’t, go for it.

Given that you probably already own your own home and will inherit 3 more, that’s already plenty of exposure to our local market. For that reason, I’d say focus on stocks and bonds.

My favorite stocks now are MET IRBT and KHC.

iRobot is an established pure-play and profitable robot company with pentagon contracts and I assume a nice portfolio of patents. I think it will eventually be gobbled up by a tech giant like Amazon or Microsoft for a 30-50% premium.

For your IRA, I like the taxable muni fund GBAB.

If you do want to buy property, I think City Heights will do well due to its location and amenities compared to its price. For established areas, Ocean Beach I believe has the best value. But nearly all of San Diego is attractively priced compared to rents.

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I felt a preshock 3 hours before it. So minor I dismissed it. Aeron chairs make you more sensitive to minor shakes.

I think it was the strongest one I felt in 5 years at least, one jolt then it was over very fast.

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VLC media player is free and plays everything.

It could play h264 years ago. I think there’s a newer 265 now too.

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I am not so bullish on stocks.

Short term, we’re still way above 2009 lows adjusted for inflation.

Sometime this month we may hit Great Depression levels of unemployment. We’re probably at a post-GD all time high right now.

Fed intervention is very appropriate, but pumping money in response to a supply and demand shock doesn’t seem like it fixes things. Many of us won’t spend it, and the ones that do drive inflation. The latter is important now to prevent deflation, but getting it right is hard and the modern Fed has always erred on the deflationary side.

Non-US returns measured in dollars will suffer if people all pile into and drive up the dollar. This is already happening, with the peso quickly going from 18 to 24.

SP500 range in 2016 was 1900-2300. It is about 2600 now. It has looooong way to drop still without being a strong buy.

When Tesla isn’t worth more than GM and Honda and Ford put together, maybe then stocks won’t look so frothy.

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