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Flyer, there are a lot of neat options in the app, such as seeing the bandwidth used by each device. I suppose you could set up a main and guest network for each unit. It wasn’t clear if more than a main and guest network could be set up. I also don’t know if it has remote management. I use the app and bluetooth has to be turned on my phone to do so.

Overall the big value is people who want the easy access to advanced options, and who simply want a single big-range and strong network, not a bunch of random wifi routers with different logins, which is the standard thing people who have one ISP connection over a large area do it.

For people with 2000sf and under on a standard suburban lot, one has plenty of coverage, looks really cool, and has very easy setup and options. But the $80-100 price is a pretty big premium over older ones.

SPDrun: I prefer a wired connection for my main work computer out of habit and principle, but wifi has come a long way and 99.9% of the time you don’t notice the difference if the configuration is done right.

I think most of Flyer’s units are monthly corporate type rentals. If they really care about security they can just purchase their own connection or use 4G. I think his typical tenant cares about speed, free, easy setup, and prefers to use wifi.

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There’s no sign of a recession. Lots of employers have vacancies they want to fill, but not so badly they will raise wages on everyone to fill it.

Cal RE has a lot of factors that could allow another bubble to form. This time I want to ride it up!

The biggest “untapped” possible factor is $15 trillion worth of foreign mature market gov bonds making 0% to 1% decides they want the higher yields US assets offer. They got burned last time they did that because they stupidly purchased “AAA” private-label MBS.

Those memories are fading, meanwhile German/Japanese investors who invested in the USA 2 to 6 years ago massively outperformed their conservative brothers who purchased low to negative yield government bonds.

And these days no need to buy private MBS. Plain old Treasury Notes and GSE bonds still pay a ton more than their local bonds.

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I did a lot of price/quality research and definitely did not overpay. If anything, I was inefficient spending too much time to avoid overpaying.

Keep in mind I have a gas dryer (adds about $100) and also required stackable units as my hookup area does not have room for side-by-side.

GE still makes a small number of high-end appliances in house, but low to medium end are made by Haier in China under license and have serious quality issues.

GE, according to an appliance retailer in New England, has several times the rate of service requests as other companies. Maytag and Samsung seem to be the best for washer and dryer quality. LG is a mixed bag and also makes it much harder to get warranty service if needed.

Home Depot’s black friday sale also required hoop jumping: gift cards, paying for any installation materials like the metal gas hose if the old one isn’t compatible.

The old modem with built in wifi was whatever ATT provides to residential customers who get internet only, no TV or phone. It didn’t give me any signal in the back of my back yard. Google Wifi gives either 2/3 or 3/3 signal in the same spot.

Google Wifi would work great for multiple units as it creates a mesh, and it the cheapest product that does this with an easy setup. It is extremely easy to add additional ones to the network.

A lot of the online reviews are people who tried other methods to provide strong wifi signals to 5000sf houses with thick internal walls, or who have multiple units on one large property.

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Stocks rebounding but rates still around 8-month lows!

If they had fallen today I was going to buy AAPL. Adjusting for their cash horde their PE is about 8! Still cheap after today’s 5% gain, but I think there will likely be a better entry point in the next month or two.

They do have a problem with phones not getting better anymore and upgrade cycles going from about 2 years to 3 or 4 years. I think they made a mistake not getting into premium TV sets a few years ago. Now TVs are getting cheap and are no longer the opportunity of 5-10 years ago.

Nonetheless, iphone/ipad/macbook will still be a cash cow if a declining one, and there could be some upside if they enter new markets.

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Gas is much cheaper than electric. I have a gas dryer, water heater, wall heater, and oven. My bill is about $25-40 a month in winter and $8 in summer.

I really doubt anything electric can cheaply replicate a roaring gas flame. My only issue with my gas oven is that it is harder to adjust at the very low end to get a slight simmer. I have to hunch down a bit and slowly turn the knob down. Otherwise it is either too high or goes out entirely.

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S&P 500 down 17% since Oct 3!

As I noted yesterday, I gradually exited the stock market completely the last 18 months, doing my final ETF sales a week ago. (Well timed!).

The last time I did major buying of stocks, prices were a lot lower than today. I don’t plan to buy again unless prices go down another 10%, at which point I’d but half into ETFs and half into megacaps like AAPL and GOOG.

5-10 years ago, I’d look at particular stocks and they’d seem clearly under or overvalued so I’d buy or short them. Today, most stocks seem to be pretty close to fair value, or perhaps slightly undervalued on the whole.

The problem with F is (1) GM used bankruptcy to dump a lot of bond and pension liabilities and jettison low-volume legacy low-volume dealers. F avoiding bankruptcy, so still has these issues; (2) people are gradually driving less while cars are becoming more reliable and longer lasting.

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Flyer, I lived in Mexico for 6 months doing study abroad when the peso was at almost exactly 10. Made doing conversions quite easy. Last time I was there it was a difficult 17.7. I just did 15 or 20 and rounded, but it wasn’t very precise.

Shoveler, it is nice to be called right!

I am feeling cocky now as I gradually sold off all my stocks over 2017-2018 and in October purchased a whole lot of taxable munis near their 52-week low, which have now gone up about 8% while stocks have dropped 15%.

Nobody talks much about taxable munis, probably because the market for them is small and they aren’t great for rich people in the highest brackets. But if you are interested, check morningstar.com for GBAB and BBN.

Tax-free muni funds often held Puerto Rico debt and lost serious money on them. The taxable funds didn’t, probably because PR didn’t issue taxable munis, and meanwhile have been paying out about 7% a year since they were created with no default losses.

Main difference between the two is BBN is a tad more leveraged and thus rate sensitive so will go up and down with rates more than GBAB.

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Fed raises short term rates again…. long term rates don’t change, still around 10-month lows.

We are talking about recession risk. Do the NY/DC elites on the Fed hate Trump so much they’ll try to force a recession? I am not that cynical, but can’t rule it out entirely.

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Flyer, why do you think a downturn is more likely than another bubble?

We still have a growing population and economy with extremely low new construction. Tech is the world’s most important industry, will continue to gobble up a larger share of world GDP, and its immovable center is the bay area.

The amount of wealth there is so huge it is crazy prices aren’t even higher. So many people worth $50+ million with only 5% of their net worth or less in real estate, when the American norm and tradition is more like 20 to 50%.

Even at their current high prices, the Bay Area isn’t that expensive compared to Manhattan, London, Dubai, Hong Kong, etc. And incomes are higher when you consider the value of stock options.

Related point: San Diego prices have gone up less on a percentage basis not just than SF/LA, but also less than cities like Denver, Austin, Seattle, Portland, Miami, and DC.

While we still aren’t cheap, there is no longer much of a premium in San Diego compared to other tier 2 cities.

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Civita is still ugly midrise stucco blocks, but I’ll concede is the best looking use of the style in San Diego large complexes. Much nicer than flu’s overpriced CV townhouse.

I hope the Qualcomm development is midrise stucco block free. Needs some Bosa style towers with lots of glass and steel and lots of green park space.

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Is there really such a difference between the various greater Del Mar area public schools?

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Flu, looks like that is the single most expensive PPSF in all of Carmel Valley except for a house on an 9-acre lot.

This house is twice as big but only 10% more expensive:

https://www.sdlookup.com/MLS-180066499-7691_Marker_Rd_San_Diego_CA_92130

It says “furniture included.” I think the target is a mainland Chinese guy who wants a safer place for his wife and one child with a minimum of set-up and fuss and good school district. Brand new construction and furnished fits the bill.

The listing agent has a large all-Chinese-surname staff.

http://sandiegosunriserealty.blogspot.com/

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What’s with those tiny roof-deck looking things at the top of the units? For roof repair access? Why are they irregularly spaced and three different designs but the same tiny size?

They remind me of a person wearing a comically small hat.

https://vice.typepad.com/.a/6a00d8341c625053ef011571d89568970b-400wi?resize=320

If it is a roof deck, can you see anything other than the giant arterial street? Can you fit more than two small chairs?

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I hate the look and feel of those three story suburban stucco apartment blocks. There are many along Friars Rd. too. The interiors are nice of course, but they are ugly and claustrophobic in person. Parking is always scarce and tight.

That complex in particular is really actively ugly.

If you need more density than single family or duplexes, build towers with green space around them and parking underground.

Townhouse areas can be really charming, but they need to be in an urban type grid and look separate from each other. They also can’t be 95% blank stucco with small irregular windows.

I blame the city more than the developer. They set the rules, and it seems oppressively ugly beige stucco blocks is what they economically incentivize.

Meanwhile, most of the new towers downtown look nice. So does most infill around the beach. The new Veer complex in OB looks pretty nice and is the same basic format of 2-3 bedroom townhouses with parking at the bottom.

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“there are uncountable people who have smoked high-grade marijuana regularly for decades. ”

ZK, Mark Kleiman of UCLA has been writing about the topic of very heavy marijuana users for a while, and I find his work convincing. He is far from a drug warrior, and was hired by Wash state to implement its legalization. He is pretty concerned about the effects of legalization on this group, and also the easier access to young people to high THC product.

There really is evidence that heavy use is pretty bad for you. What it comes down to is whether the heavy users would have been heavy drinkers otherwise, in which case the substitution is a net positive.

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