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I own this lamp:

Wow does it look great it person.

When it arrived, I tried it out in several different rooms, and everywhere I put it made the room look classier. Something about the hi-gloss wood and steel look. Reminds me of the lamps used in very high end library reading rooms.

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FlyerinHI, my favorite style is rustic, heavy solid wood furniture. I also like Art Deco and the supermodern W hotel style, though I lack the talent to make it work.

My two houses are both about 105 years old and made of redwood, so the rustic look makes more sense for me.

I agree with your friend that the lamp you linked to is ugly. I hate to say this after seeing you spent a couple hundred on them, but I figure you wouldn’t ask if you didn’t want the truth.

Both the style and gold color strongly remind me of the rural Holiday Inns/motel 6s from family vacations in the 1990’s. I mean really dated and common looking. I hate it as much as it is possible to hate a sconce.

In general, I think the best look for a bedroom is no wall light at all, and instead a dimmer switch and overhead light that allows some late night mood lighting.

I think the sleek simple style look a lot better too. The majority of the ones on lampsplus I like much better, but this is my favorite for near a bed after a quick browse:

http://www.lampsplus.com/products/possini-euro-midtown-15-inch-high-white-glass-chrome-wall-sconce__t9724.html

This one is also really cool:

http://www.lampsplus.com/products/possini-euro-design-10-inch-high-cutout-wall-sconce__72660.html

For color, I’d rank metal trim items as follows:

1. polished copper (great look but high maintenance to keep it looking nice)
2. brushed light silver metals
3. brushed dark silver metals
4. polished chrome
5. black metal
6. gold plate

I paid a fair amount of money to restore to a bright polish the exposed copper pipes in my basement ceiling, and then used Martha Stewart metallic copper paint on the iron gas pipes. I am very happy with the result. The pipes have since lost part of the polish but still look great.

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I’d buy it for $450,000 and I am not even in the market.

I think most likely sale price after seeing the pictures is $520,000.

Another interesting OB property you may have seen is the building with a pet bird store next to Roberto’s. I checked it out, for the size, location, and favorable commercial zoning, the asking $750,000 was pretty reasonable. I have long wanted a commercial building with offices for my business so I can stop renting.

Then I realized the problem: it is next to Robertos. There are drunks and stoners there all day every day and all night, and bums hang out on the tables at night. Even a 1/4 block down Voltaire might be OK, but not right next door.

Same problem for the little three building compound owned by an artist next to Jack in the Box that was on the market for about $850k last year but did not sell. That is an even bigger hangout for bums and drunks.

Last time I was in Jack in the Box there was a woman sleeping on Jack in the Box lawn next to a shopping cart with her bare ass completely 100% exposed to the air. I called the non-emergency police line, who then transferred me to the emergency medical line that sent an ambulance.

I can live with this a block away, but not next door.

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I think the narrow streets like Long Branch with few/no apartments because of the small lot sizes have the maximum small town charm going for them. I can’t think of another place where so many fat domestic cats are lounging next to the sidewalk and walk up to people. In “bad” areas a cat would have a few bad experiences and no longer walk up to strangers.

As for price, there seems to be an usually large number of old 2-bedroom cottages on the market right now. That might hold the price down.

Here’s a flip of a house on a smaller lot/louder street nearby:

http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/2076-Cable-St-San-Diego-CA-92107/16961063_zpid/

This one is the same size on a bigger lot:

http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/2124-Froude-Street-San-Diego-CA-92107/2101042806_zpid/

Here’s one that is overpriced given it is on the wrong side of Nimitz, but a nice partial renovation:

http://www.sdlookup.com/MLS-150045317-2616_Camulos_St_San_Diego_CA_92107

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It is a 2 bedroom.

Plenty of people want a place a short walk from dog beach with an enclosed private yard for their dog and are willing to pay for it. I am having second thoughts on saying 550,000 is a good price given that the listing is now a week old and still has no interior photos.

OB has momentum and at least relative value.

I am a landlord and resident here too. Must be nice to have properties purchased 20+ years ago at 1/4 or less of market price, and still taxed that way too. My residence purchased as a short sale in 2011 is at least 40% below market price, so I have that!

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“Then again this one is even more pricey when you look at ppsf”

That house is a 1 minute walk from the dog beach entrance and has two off-street spaces.

Not quite beach front, but close enough to hear the waves on a quiet night or early morning.

It can also be upgraded to about 1100sq feet.

It has been used as a vacation rental for many years so its price is a function of the profits on doing so.

If you want actual land, not a share of a condo complex, that is about as cheap as you can get close to the beach.

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“Yeah! Might be able to pull $2k/month if it has a garage. You’d only need to come in with about 70% down to get to zero cash flow. Where do I sign up?”

It does have a garage. $2200 is more like it.

Demanding immediate positive cash flow would have caused you to miss out on half of the current upswing in San Diego, and more like 80% in the Bay Area.

If you look at my other posts, you can see I am bullish on ocean beach. It is more convenient to both the 5 and 8 and quieter with very few large apartment complexes.

I think it will go up faster than the SD market in general. This house would be $750,000 an equal distance from the beach in PB and maybe $1 million in La Jolla.

I think the premium PB has over OB will narrow. The school district here is already better for every grade level, except the very north tip of PB zoned for La Jolla schools.

Not to be negative about PB though, I think it is great too, just not as much appreciation potential.

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“What size bed fits in a 10 foot, 1-dimensional space?”

A flat bed

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Fasting glucose of 100 is getting close to pre-diabetes. I doubt it is the four fruits a day, more likely the effect of your prior habits.

AFAIK your sodium level is not a concern.

CRP is good proxy for heart disease risk not on your test. It is a cheap test if you are concerned about long-term health.

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Apple, pear, and banana are all white flesh fruits high in sugar. Try to mix this up with less sweet and more colorful fruit.

Your weight lifting might involve weights that are too light if you are able to do it twice a day.

Overall though, these are better habits than 95% of Americans, so most important is not letting the ideal become the enemy of the good.

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I don’t see this as unreasonable or a sign of a bubble. Middle class people can get down payments of with 3% FHA loans and 5% with conforming loans. What’s wrong with the lower rich putting down 15% instead of 20%?

In fact, these are likely lower risk loans than the FHA 3% down loans. Foreclosure costs as a percentage of the loan will be much lower for high-end properties in the event of default. And when the market turned down last time, the 1-3 million range suffered the least. Small condos in City Heights? down 60%. Single families in La Jolla? Maybe 30%.

Another thing is that with rising prices, more and more homes now require jumbo mortgages. Without this sort of policy, standards would automatically get tighter each year. The extended conforming loan limit seems to go up much less each year than actual prices. Chase didn’t become the largest bank in the USA by being stupid, like, say WaMu.

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FlyerInHi, I appreciate the advice you gave me a couple months ago before I started the vacation rental.

Do you have a day job? That’s my downfall, the money is fairly good but summer is slow and I am not getting the extra relaxing free time I did in prior years.

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My summer rental experience has been profitable, but it really is a big PITA to have the place completely clean every week. With taxes, credit card fees, etc plus a maid and vacancies, I can’t imagine doing it year round when rates drop. I think my maid is hosing me a bit too but she knows I am charging a lot and can’t find someone else I trust on short notice. She’s probably getting $25-30 an hour v. the $18-20 she’s been getting for years to clean my house.

I will finish up the summer to help pay for all the renovations and furniture, but it probably isn’t worth the hassle to make an extra $2500 a month after expenses.

Part of the problem is that I feel that if you’re paying $250-$400 a night, you should be getting a really good experience so that means extra efforts to make the landscaping nice, the toaster and oven clean, stock the fridge with water, half n half, etc.

I also get strange questions by people who contact me on VRBO. Like: is it close to LegoLand? Google Maps has been around for 15 years now and you have the address online of the house!

Playing e-mail tag with four people for every one who actually books is also no fun.

I might do this again next summer if I rent to the PLNU students and they move out, but that will be the last time if it does happen.

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If he’s getting 40 calls in one day, he should be charging more. I only left my e-mail, and got three serious inquiries the first day I ran my ad: a young professional, PLNU students, and some hippies.

They all seem fine to me. I don’t know much about PLNU other than it is very christian, expensive, and full of surfers. Sounds OK to me.

When I rented a cottage on an OB beach block, I did a walk by/window peak of the unit, realized it was extremely underpriced, and then immediately went to the property manager with a completed application, a cashier’s check for two months’ rent (which was not required) plus the security deposit, my last pay stub, and a printout of my credit report.

My rent was never raised so after a few years it got to the point that my cottage with two parking spaces and a small yard was $300/mo less than 1-bedrooms with no parking further from the beach on the same street.

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My grandparents paid about $35,000 for a house in suburban Detroit in the early 1960’s. It is now worth … about $40,000. If only they had moved to San Francisco and spent $35,000 there!

During the 90’s boom it probably got up to about $150,000, and at one point in 2010 similar places were selling for $15,000 when there were several foreclosures per block.

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