[JES]

If you add job lossses and a recession everyone will be impacted. I agree with you that there are a large number of people who will be hit hard, but will have a relief valve in the form of putting the wife to work, lowering expenses, or moving down. Even for these folks this will create an urgency to get out of their current prediciment and could result in more inventory and lower prices.

[JES]

With regards to disconting prices, I have been told that they can indeed do it but they really try not to for a number of reasons. First, it pisses off buyers who paid more for the same house in earlier phases. Second, builders negotiate prices for upgrades and get good deals due to the volume of business. $25,000 in upgrades will actually only cost the builder, say, $15,000, making it a better approach than slashing prices. Third, options don’t appear in comps but a discounted house price does. Over time, this lowers all of the home prices, including phases that are not yet built.

If I were your friend, I would demand a lowered price plus incentives. Are there any homes that are built or being built that are not sold yet? They really up the incentives on unsold inventory, including price reductions and many times options are already included. EG: The builder will add granite and tile floors even though it is unsold knowing it will be easier to sell that way. Find out when Shea’s fiscal year ends; they will be in a rush to close as many homes as possible to make the year look better for stockholders. For many companies, December is the date! If your friend has 20% down and is non-contingent, they should be salivating to get her business.

Note: If this is the Calico Bluffs development in Old Creek Ranch, I do not think that is considered San Elijo Hills. It is right next to it though.

[JES]

Is this a townhome? Those prices appear to be townhome prices for SEH.

[JES]

Let’s just all be a little thicker skinned around here and everything will be well and dandy. Don’t start talking about my momma though or we gonna have trouble!

[JES]

mydogsarelazy – Never look back, right:) That money may have been a hidden curse!

On the rules, getting a degree has got to be the first on any list. I’m amazed at the number of relatives I know in their early 20s who are not in school but still find time to party and just hang out with no plan for their lives. It’s one thing to decide not to go to college because you have something much better in mind, but that’s not what is going on.

[JES]

Although we should strive to focus on attacking the issue and not the person, there are plenty of times that the person needs to get dragged in as well. EG: There are those who are not fond of our current president, and they are well within their right to be critical of him and his programs.

[JES]

This is facinating and I’m wondering if it is possible to actually predict some of these things with some degree of certaintly, unlike the stock market which is nearly perfectly efficient. New information and tracking past performance with stocks really doesn’t help (Modern Portfolio Theory) since everyone is doing the same thing and information absorbtion is nearly instantaneous. Even active portfolio managers have a worse track record than the S&P500 index.

It’s always been clear to me that housing presents opportunities to uncover hidden gems and underpriced properties, but do you think this advantage extends to analyzing past trends to predict the future? You gain information in doing so with stocks, but that does not give you an advantage because the market is too efficient. Since housing is very local, and far from a perfectly efficient market, it would seem that strong past analysis can in fact provide you with a huge advantage.

JGs great charts got me thinking about this the other day!

[JES]

Wow, who was that artist?

My ideas:
1. Be very, very selective about who you marry.
2. Pursue your career passions during your 20s.
3. Place little value on material wealth. When you die it is unlikely that people will look down at your casket at your funeral and say “boy, he sure did have alot of money in his bank account and a nice car.” We lose it all when we die, and yet the goal of most people in SoCal seems to be to accumulate more, impress their neighbors, & go for flash.

[JES]

justme – Since you have such strong feelings on these issues why don’t you tell us how you would fight this battle. With smoke still rising from the Pentagon and WTC, would you have had the courage to invade Afghanistan and topple the Taliban? Or would you have frozen, unable to take decisive action because of your belief that democracy is no better a form of government than any other, including the oppressive Taliban regime?

Democracy is in fact better, and we should have no hesitation in telling this to the dictatorial countries of the world; especially those who support terrorism against our innocent citizens and have as their stated goal the destruction of western society. What more do you need to convince yourself of the seriousness of this threat?

[JES]

Barnaby – I plead guilty to joining with JG in taking this thread off on a tangent, but you should give credit where credit is due. CTLMDJB initiated this by slighting American Christians and talking politics. Follow-on posters also felt compelled to continue the discussion.

I’m with you though and feel pretty compelled to end it now:) If you agree to read that book, that is. I will send you a free copy if you’d like. Just kidding. Actually, I must admit that these books did provide me with the hard facts and analysis that I often found lacking in religious based study. EG: What archeological evidence exists for Christianity, what proof is there that the major players even existed etc. There is actually a chance that an agnostic or atheist reading them will become more convinced of their own beliefs, but at least they will have gained some knowledge that they likely wont find elsewhere. A few years ago I did a whole bunch of research into allowing gays into the military and ended up changing my own views on the matter and now think it is perfectly fine.

Not assuming anything from your remark about living in Hillcrest:) But since you gave me a kiss and told me to watch out…well, I wanted to share a happy story with you to offset all the serious talk!

[JES]

Without a certain amount of universal morality there would be chaos and brutality would go unchecked. For example, should we just stand by and allow the following activities to continue in order to respect what others consider moral: Female genital mutilation in Africa, polygamy and abuse by the Warren Jeffs of the world and ethnic cleansing in the Balkans and Africa? Isn’t there a certain amount of universal morality at work when we take action against those who committed abuse at Abu Garib, and when we (and the world) hold our government accountable for the way we treat detainees in Cuba and at secret prisons around the world? We all know that there are groups, like Al Queda, who argue that 9/11 was morally just. Are we supposed to just sit back and respect their morality?

To be my own devils advocate, I do understand that we can only take this so far. I wouldn’t agree that all childless people, and even many divorcees, are immoral, but some certainly are. When it comes to marriage and divorce, there has to be a certain amount of universal morailty that we attach to it don’t you agree? To flat out deny any use of universal morailty is to deny the very fabric that holds this country together. I’m sure you are not advocating that, but then where exactly do we draw the line?

[JES]

Take a drive through Bressi Ranch if you want to see architecture gone awry. Nothing like cracker box houses, alleys for driveways, narrow streets, and best of all Colonial, Spanish, and a bunch of other styles next to one another. Absolutely no flow whatsoever when you have something that looks like the front of the white house next to a stucco’d, Spanish style home.

[JES]

Take a drive through Bressi Ranch if you want to see architecture gone awry. Nothing like cracker box houses, alleys for driveways, narrow streets, and best of all Colonial, Spanish, and a bunch of other styles next to one another. Absolutely no flow whatsoever when you have something that looks like the front of the white house next to a stucco’d, Spanish style home.

[JES]

I’m loving the references to the Puritans. I grew up attending the UCC (United Church of Christ), the church that is supposed to have descended from the Puritans. It is now the most liberal Protestant denomination in the country. If this is the modern day Puritan ideal that we are referring to I claim no part of it:)

[JES]

ctlmdjb: I challenge you to read the book The Case for Christ and the follow-on book The Case for Faith by Lee Strobel, a Yale trained lawyer who used to be an atheist. In these books he tackles most of the objections to Christianity and his analysis is very analytical and does not merely rely on just having faith.

The fact that we live in a fallen world provides all the explanation I need for the situation that some people go to church and then to the strip club. It is a sad state of affairs that only 6% of your countrymen attend church services; more immigrants attend Muslim services there than Christian services, by the way. Does it provide you peace of mind to know that by many projections, within 75 years, Islam will be the majority religion in Europe and your liberal, socialist policies will be replaced by Islamic law?

And exactly how to you propose the western world should respond to terrorists that hide amongst the civilian populations, launch rockets at our cities, slice off the heads of innocent children and whose stated goal is the downfall of our entire civilization? Were you equally appalled at Hamas when they blew up the U.S. Marine barracks in Beruit killing 225+ U.S. Marines in the 1980s? Do you blame George Bush for the London subway attacks, the Spanish train attacks, the recent plot uncovered to bomb trains in Germany? Is the U.S. media at fault for the radical Islamic ferver sweeping the streets of Amsterdam and the suburbs of Paris?

The undeniable truth is that the style of warfare the enemy is waging upon us is forcing us to make difficult decisions. In my opinion, and the opinion of the vast majority of analysts, Israel responded with kid gloves. It is a sad and unfortunate state of affairs that civilians die in warfare, so why don’t we ask the terrorists to fight fair and stay away from civilians? Let’s put the blame on them and not on George Bush. Let’s recognize that it’s militants and not the US Military who are killing innocents in Iraq, beheading families and slaughtering bus drivers.

Living a liberal, carefree life where every point of view and belief is accepted and celebrated sure is appealing isn’t it? We could all live in communes, practice yoga and meditate all day long. Unfortunately we live in a world where there are people who would nuke an American or British city if given the chance and kill millions of our innocent people, and there are countries who would support them. How would you go about killing them on the battlefield? Do you have a better way of avoiding civilian casualties? Or perhaps you would rather we just let them go free? After all, who are we to call anyone an enemy purely based on their beliefs and stated goal of destroying us.

[Author]

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