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gzz
ParticipantThe other partners are not buying the guy out. They either lack the funds or are not willing to pay the price your son is. What does that tell you? Sounds like a potential disaster.
ParticipantI had little problem doing it myself. Lots of caulk!
I am not sure how a contractor would find a leak that isn’t active. Water stained could be a clue in a few cases.
So you just have to wait for one.
ParticipantI am looking into a tankless hot water heater for the energy and space savings. It might require a bit of electrical upgrade. My oldest gas heater is 12 years old and works fine, but is an eyesore. Property costs $500+/sf here, so just the space savings of about 2sf is worth $1000. Reviews are pretty good on them, and small one shower models I used overseas worked perfectly.
ParticipantMy remaining non LED lights are long tube lights in the garage and workroom. For $30 I replaced one so far with a long tube style LED fixture, and the light is brighter, nicer, quieter, and makes the room look bigger because the ballast is much smaller and hangs down less.
SDGE was nice enough to pick up and properly dispose of the huge box of old unused flortubes my house came with. I look forward to replacing the remaining tube fixtures. I am just not decided on what type of LED fixture to use.
ParticipantEco I got rid of my non LED overhead floods almost all at once. The light quality is better and they look nicer than CFL floods which take a few seconds to warm up and you can see the ugly spiral through the top. There is a small time savings in just getting the ladder out once and bulk discount on the LED floods, now which cost about $1.50 in multipacks.
ParticipantI was at a party last year at a place full of incandescent bulbs. It drove me nuts to see them, I had to resist being Al Gore.
I have multiple LED bulbs that are five years old and none have failed. It was CFLs that often failed far sooner than they were listed. Often they’d last 6 months. LEDs look better than they used too as well, no more strange shapes, too blue light, or too focused light. Early LEDs sometimes failed out of the box, but not anymore.
I have a Simon toy from 1978 and the 39 year old incandescent bulbs inside all work fine.
ParticipantQualcomm is doing well with its market share, but the stock options owned by its local employees are not.
ParticipantI agree a SFH in La Jolla does not pencil out as a rental., but that is more because people who have 20,000 a month to spend on housing are going to buy something not rent. Other than little 550sf cottages by the beach, very few are occupied by renters so in markets like this rent does not have much relevance.
A SFH in La Jolla is a trophy property. These never follow the normal rules because the owners receive value simply from ownership beyond any “rational” economic factor.
I think La Jolla rents are also suppressed by the pickiness of the owners. They worry, correctly, that their home would be used as a big party house.
ParticipantRegarding fizz buzz test, I could do that in half an hour at age 15 in BASIC or VB4, which I taught myself when I was in 9th grade for fun.
Hard to believe that any career programmers could not do the same.
I mostly used my VB skills to make Pacman and space invaders style games for Windows 95. It was pretty fun changing the enemy AI code a bit and seeing the results each time.
ParticipantI don’t think Chinese money will stop until China is as safe, clean, and secure place to live as the favored overseas destinations. In the mean time, the incomes and savings of the upper and upper middle class will continue to grow 5-10% a year.
Keep in mind that SF Bay, LA, Vancouver and London have all greatly outpaced San Diego’s growth. San Diego County is currently 11.1% Asian which is a good critical mass to make overseas Chinese feel comfortable.
ParticipantThe margin rate for short sales depends on the stock, but for most it is 0. The 7% rate you saw is for buying on margin which requires you to borrow cash.
All major brokers loan their customers shares as a free courtesy when available. You can call to confirm this if you want.
You also have to pay negative dividends if the stock you short pays them.
ParticipantI don’t think stocks will be doing great the next few years, but 3% increases on top of 3% dividends easily beats a savings account.
ParticipantPut Qualcomm up for sale for the highest and best use, which is probably housing. Use the money to cut taxes.
The only other use I’d support is luring a major tech firm to move their HQ here.
ParticipantAn issue with CRE is liquidity. There are a fair number of CRE listings out there below $3 million, but they are mostly very overpriced. As in, more than 50% overpriced compared to breakeven on an 80% mortgage despite being developed.
Typically broker fees are also higher than residential. And many pay broker fees again to get them rented.
One sign of there being too much CRE inventory is that at least on the greater peninsula area, PPSF rents are a lot higher for residential than commercial. You will regularly see commercial for $1 to $1.5sf, good luck finding a house or apartment that rents that low. Likewise, CRE vacancy is much higher. Getting the old Cabrillo hospital rented, vacant for a decade, involved in being converted to student HOUSING.
How many empty offices and stores can you find on Midway, Sports Arena Blvd, Rosecrans, Morena? Likely more than 10%, going up to 25% in some buildings. By contrast market-priced apartments go off the market in less than a week and overall vacancy is very low. I cannot think of a single house in all of OB that has been visibly empty outside of active renovations, but lots of CREs have been empty forever.
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