[Jim Brubaker]

Lets look at gold silver and housing from a different aspect.

Lets say your house is paid off. You have an asset that is a hedge against inflation. You basically don’t need gold or silver in this case.

If you have $100,000 in cash in the bank, $10,000 in gold and silver would be an insurance investment against inflation.

There is a mindset here, you don’t buy a house as an investment. It doesn’t produce anything and if you think it through, it will never be an investment. The gold and silver you buy will also not be an investment, they are there to protect you from the government printing presses. Inflation is a tax. Its a very cruel tax on savers (in my opinion)

ETF’s or Exchange Traded Futures contracts, is not an area I would dabble in to build financial wealth. Its a zero sum game, one person looses and another gains.

You have to look at gold silver and housing as a store of value. You’re not trying to get rich, you just want to be able to retire with only taxes to pay (no house payment)and some money in the bank.

Since everyone is dropping their blog address, I’ll put in mine; http://greatdepression2006.blogspot.com/

The comment I made about the 500 words wasn’t really for my benefit, you can talk for ever, It doesn’t really matter, what I was trying to point out, is that people tend to skim when articles get long, and a lot of what you type is not really read. A constructive post of under 500 words that is well organized and too the point will be received quit well. We are all on the same wavelength, otherwise we wouldn’t be reading this web page.

[Jim Brubaker]

Powayseller is right, anybody can become a Realtor. The reason I got in the business, nobody wants to hire somebody over the age of 45. The test isn’t hard unless you don’t study the material.

A real estate agent that keeps his mouth shut and is a VERY GOOD LISTENER is liable to make a lot of money.

I don’t feel that there is any real dishonesty in the business as a whole, agents want to sell you that house, there is no commission if they don’t.

If you need an agent, Sdreator suggested ask for a recommendation from a friend. It stands to reason, the longer you have been in business, the better you are at it.

Welcome back Powayseller, we missed you.

[Jim Brubaker]

I’m seeing 20K on ziprealty right now. http://bubbletracking.blogspot.com/ reported hitting that mark yesterday using ziprealty. Ziprealty does have a little flakiness to it, I’ve seen a 2,000 house discrepancy before, but figured that they were tweaking something and and sure enough it changed back to more realistic numbers.

[Jim Brubaker]

Sdduuuude

The median has been going up because nobody is buying the “starter homes.” The rich can always afford to buy. The sale of a couple of one million dollar homes makes it seem as if the median price has gone up.

I you examine what is going on, houses 500k and less are not selling. Above that, they are. What we have is a market top, the data implys that the market is going up, but what it shows, is that the bottom has fallen out of the market.

[Jim Brubaker]

Chris

What is your definition of “commercials?” I’m not familiar with the term.

[Jim Brubaker]

I think with the current inventory in San Diego at 20,000, you have an appraisal system that gone into confusion. If they were priced to sell (correctly) there wouldn’t be that many houses for sale. Its kind of an understatement, isn’t it?

Its reminds me of the joke about the guy that bought a two million dollar dog. His friend asks him where he got the money and he says, I traded 2 one million dollar cats for the dog.

[Jim Brubaker]

Your keeping me honest, I keep thinking that the market should collapse–but in reality that isn’t going to happen in the next month. Its kind of like watching paint dry–its going to take a while.

Does it seem as if the bottom part of the market has disappeared and the only thing left is the high priced real estate? That would explain why prices are going up but sales are dropping?

[Jim Brubaker]

I had to read all 6 pages of the thread, it caught my interest. Its length must be a record.

I think that the forum has come a long way, there are a lot of new faces talking now, lots of new input and questions. Makes it a lot more interesting.

I know that if I see my name on the Forum Marque more than three times, I cringe–I must be talking too much

keep up the good work SDRealtor

[Jim Brubaker]

You have two things to look at, was the rental price reasonable when you moved in, and the other factor, has the landlord been bumping up the rent every year?

A fair size of landlords will bump the rent $25 per year figuring that you won’t move–it isn’t worth the aggravation. If the property is as you say, I would vote with my feet and move.

You could mail the landlord a letter suggesting that you would move unless the rent is dropped because of the conditions that you have listed. Painting, re-carpeting,etc can cost about $2,500, plus he’ll loose about two months rent fixing it up, so the landlord might think twice. Its a game of poker, you can’t loose, only the owner will loose.

Our place here in San Marcos is 2,450 sq ft we pay $1,750 month (figure another $400 for utilities).

Remember one thing, a renter has to come up with a first and last months rent, your landlord isn’t going to find very many of them floating around anymore.

You need $3,000 to $4,600 cash to rent–there aren’t too many landlords that are dumb enough to piss off a good tenant.

hope this is of some help

[Jim Brubaker]

Don’t get me wrong, when I was in High School a 500 word report was a dreaded assignment– TWO typewritten pages.

I don’t think that anyone should be limited by “us other posters,” it more of a courtesy sort of thing.

What I am trying to point out, is that a short post will be read, a long post will most likely be skimmed or skipped.

[Jim Brubaker]

Steve hit the nail on the head. The landlord can charge anything he wants. If it takes him 3 months to rent it out, divide his 9 months rent by 12 to get an effective rental rate. So the supply really determines the price not the landlord. $1,700 to $2,000 in SM for 2200 sq ft is about right. Our neighbor took 4 months to rent his at $2200. The owners negative on it and I think he rented it to a relative.

[Jim Brubaker]

Rocky I have no qualms with the original post length. Its the replies that were getting to me. Some of the threads get to be 5 pages long, and from there its very hard to follow the issue unless you have a lot of time to read each post. From reading some of the replies, it looks to me like the very long responses just get skimmed over and not really read.

Everyone has something to say, its the listener or reader that has limited time.

[Jim Brubaker]

Powayseller: I think the “make sense part” has to to with two things; Fiscal policy and Monetary policy.

Greenspan gave the Japanese economy a free ride on our T-bills for several years. Japans 0% interest rate made it advantageous to invest in the US market (T-bill = No Risk). Now fast forward to now, and 15 rate increases and the 30 year bond rate jumped only 1/2 a point? Its not suppose to work that way. Quite possibly, they are pushing on a string.

Now take Fisical policy, the war in Iran, the budget,the aging baby boomers health care, Social Security that is not funded and you get a real mess.

Congress is saying “Drinks for everyone,” and the Fed is saying “Whoa.” This might sound biased (take it for what its worth) your congressman wants to get reelected, facing reality could kibosh that.

With the two conflicting operators Monetary vs Fiscal, there is no-one out there that can run any sort of cohesive coalition.

My answer; No, it makes no sense.

[Jim Brubaker]

I agree with you Rich, the investment companies, mortgage companies, banks etc are holding up this house of cards. Whats holding it up should collapse first, and from there it will be quick.

The baby boomers are going to take it in the shorts–pun intended.

[Jim Brubaker]

I think that we are making a mistake by thinking that the real estate bubble is a one item event. I believe that its going to hit in other ways first, Stock market crash, banking collapse, foreign exchange panic, massive unemployment, war,take your pick.

Whatever combination that it might be, it will drastically change our mind set about the future.

On the way up, every stock bond or house has an owner, the same is true on the way down. When prices are revalued downward, money evaporates from the monetary system.

As for the time span, its kind of like the kids in the back seat asking “are we there yet?”

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