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One of the empty buildings I saw was for sale, but for an absurd price.

I agree restaurants and especially bars are doing better than office and retail. Eating is one thing people are doing less of at home.

Another major retailer is closing completely, all 250 stores shutting:

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-suncapital-limitedstores-idUSKBN14R015?il=0

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I can’t think of anything in my home I want to automate.

There were some wifi light switches with computer times, but they had really bad reviews on Amazon and cost $30 each.

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I got laminate wood flooring for 49 or 59, don’t remember now, marked down from 99c.

They have this sale regularly, rotating colors. The boxes are yellow and come in 24 sq ft containers.

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There is still a lot of vacant CRE in OB/Point Loma/Midway/Morena/Rosecrans areas I follow.

The area behind Sports Arena, Kurtz and Hancock streets, is at least half empty and costs less than $1/sf generally.

I like the area, if not the immediate vicinity, problem is there are multiple adult bookstores there. I do not want to be close to one of those. At some point though the Internet will put them all out of business like regular bookstores and Blockbuster.

Overall the trend is for people to do more at home: work from home and shop from home.

Visiting the midwest, you see a lot of older suburbs where every house has an owner or a tenant, every house has christmas lights on the facade and cars in the driveway, but then half the strip malls are boarded up and empty.

I’m sure San Diego’s big shopping malls with tourist business will continue to do well, but Amazon is getting very aggressive into every last aspect of retail, even furniture and groceries.

For these reasons I prefer residential over CRE.

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Flu I have done the same thing, buying country ETFs and CEFs during “crisis” that seems overblown.

I have done OK with Thailand and Italy and a couple days ago bought a Turkish one, TKF. If you look at the chart since inception, there are some really gigantic spikes when Turkey goes from OMG Coup! mode back to normal. Between 03 and 05 it went from 4 to 25, and from 09 to 10 it went from 5 to 18.

Now it is at 6.5, and putting a little cash in now seems like a decent bet to me.

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One retro item that works as well or better than modern ones are digital alarm clocks from the 80’s.

During my very brief vacation rental experiment, I put different ones in every bedroom. Now I have a pile of them in storage, so I am set for life.

https://img1.etsystatic.com/058/1/8411034/il_570xN.714716571_m88z.jpg

http://thumbs.picclick.com/00/s/NjY5WDg5OQ==/z/wt8AAOSwaB5XvP92/$/Vintage-70s-Spartus-Alarm-Clock-Radio-Old-School-_1.jpg

That does not match with FlyerHI’s “W Hotel Look” though, more like “Ramada Inn That Has Not Been Renovated in 35 Years Look”. In an old beach house, however, they looked great by the nightstand.

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The cabinets in the 1967 kitchen in the condo were filthy, but cleaning them, a whole bunch of Howard’s Orange Oil Feed-N-Wax, and some clear coat left them looking as good as new. Now I just need to clean the hinges and clean or replace the pulls.

The one thing better about 1977 cars were the fuzzy sofa style seats. Maybe not ergonomic for very long drives, but great for three up front or just lounging in the passenger seat.

I seriously considered trying to save the working and relatively clean/rust-free 50 year old fridge and dishwasher, but the fridge guzzled power and the dishwasher had minor issues that would be easier to replace with a new, modern $350 stainless model.

I loved the thick heavy metal buttons on it and the sound they make when you push them, as well as the fact it just had three of them: on, off, extra rinse.

My grandmother had a 50 year old dishwasher that came with her new suburban house just like it that worked perfectly the whole time…. until it caught on fire. That also scared me away from trying to repair it.

Anyway the work is now 95% done and the tenant is paid and moved in. I told him I charged him too little when I saw it furnished with new paint, flooring, outlets, ceiling, lights, etc together with the near-180 degree ocean view, close enough to see the beach itself and waves crashing, not just a blue blur in the distance (my current house).

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You really cannot do a single rental price per square foot for rentals. 500sf 1 bedrooms will not be as low as 1000 very often, but most 1400sf will be lower than 2800.

A 2/2 will also rent for more than a 2/1 of the same size, and the gap gets larger comparing a 3/1 house with a 3/2 of the same size.

A private garage does not go into square footage but of course is a big advantage.

A lot of the official rent statistics come from large complexes that charge high rents to people with bad or no credit that small landlords usually avoid. They are different markets. They also do gimmicks like first month free or half off.

When I was in the rental market I was amazed how bad the values were in large apartment complexes.

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Yes water contact can quickly destroy the cheaper Ikea items.

For under the kitchen sink, I put in cheap ceramic tiles. It looks classy to have tiles where normally there is mildewy painted wood.

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I’m with you on Apple, but I swore off buying particle board a few years ago. Plastic, metal, and wood are all great. Some ikea items last a long time, like the ones with thick glossy coating. But the melamine ones fall right apart.

I just ended a three-month experiment with Android, and now I am back to iphone.

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Something like this?

http://www.completehome.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/3-understated-white-contemporary-kitchen.jpg

There are worse things than having a kitchen look like a lab or Apple Store.

I actually have purchased two solid wood lab tables with the heavy black coating on top. It is probably the only indoor table I could jump up and down on without worry.

From this collection:

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I used SD lookup for 92107 and 09.

The site does miss some multifamily listings, as in duplexes and triplexes.

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White quartz looks like a laboratory or commercial kitchen. Light tan stone colors seem outdated, like a mid 2000s renovation or new construction. I think brown, grey, gold, and dark green are nice colors that look modern. And black stone always looks good.

Avocado stone could look good with brand new non stainless appliances, like un update on the 70s.

http://www.kitchen-design-ideas.org/images/kitchen-cabinets-traditional-white-024a-s9006373-wood-hood-island.jpg

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The typical CL listing is a little overpriced. The listings priced at or below market are usually gone in a couple days, the overpriced ones just sit there.

Zillow rent estimate is another source to consider.

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The price of TV sets, clothing, a basic car, kitchen appliances, phone service, home computers, entertainment media, and many other things keep falling.

Some of that extra income will be sopped up by medical and college tuition. But for the most part, housing is the big category that will benefit from deflation in manufacturered and digital goods.

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