[north park girl]

I wish I knew more, just a comment I heard from a lawyer friend who’s pretty active in the startup scene, who heard it from someone else. All unsubstantiated rumors, possibly just wishful thinking on my part.

[north park girl]

I grew up in Milpitas and just moved back to the Bay Area. It’s pretty suburby, schools are OK but not great, and actually has a reputation for having a bed small due to being upwind of a water treatment plant and a landfill. Not the worst place to live (I grew up there and ended up ok 🙂 ) but probably on the lower half of Bay Area communities in terms of overall desirability.

Got a nice pay bump moving out here, but after I started looking seriously at housing costs, I realized SD cost of living far outweighs any increase in income. I’ve got way more career opportunities in Silicon Valley, plus my family is here, but I’m already missing how much richer I felt in SD. Plus better weather, easier beach access, less traffic…

I looked at smaller condos and houses in Mountain View, and nearly all were going for about $1000/sq.ft. Rent is also pretty ridiculous so those prices don’t actually seem that crazy. Waiting for what I call “the stupid app bubble” to crash, though I’ve been saying that since Instagram got bought for $1billion three years ago–that seems almost quaint now.

[north park girl]

I recently tried relayrides.com which is AirBnB for cars. Mine actually picked me up from the airport then back to his place for the handoff. I got a big truck (I can’t remember the exact model, but it was F150ish in size) for $25/day. A bit used and beat up (like borrowing a friends truck), but seems to get the job done if you jst need a cheap car to get from A to B.

I’ve tried the super discount car rentals but the service was so bad and nothing was covered so I had to pay a bunch of extra fees, that going a brand name (Avis/Budget/Hertz) would have actually been more economical.

[north park girl]

Thanks for all the advice. I’m going to push to put it on the market by April, but one of the tenants is on lease until June 30. I figured if I offered a month or two of free rent (or pay out the equivalent on move-out) I could get her to move out early. The only articles I’ve found involve buying out a rent controlled unit–I freaked out when most articles seemed to cite 5 figure buyouts, some 7 figures, until I realized that situation doesn’t apply here…I think. Anyone have experience with breaking a lease in a non-rent controlled situation? What’s a reasonable amount to offer?

[north park girl]

[quote=livinincali][quote=north park girl]
FWIW, I played around with Case Schiller San Diego numbers, comparing each month’s index to the two year moving average (one year before and one year after) for 2004-2013 (basically, I tried to determine what the seasonal adjustment is). Not the most rigorous analysis, but these numbers indicate July-August-September as the best months to close price wise. So that would seem to place May-July as the best times to put it on the market.

Jan -1.6%
Feb -1.9%
Mar -1.7%
Apr -0.9%
May -0.1%
Jun 0.8%
Jul 1.5%
Aug 1.6%
Sep 1.5%
Oct 0.6%
Nov 0.1%
Dec -0.7%

Spring seems to be below average for sales price, so I’m wondering why people are saying to sell in the spring? Any data to show why that would be better that I’m missing?

I do like the idea of putting it on the market right away and testing the waters (with a credit for renovations). I do have a specific number in mind, so if I can’t get it, I may go ahead with the remodel.[/quote]

Case-Shiller is a 3 month rolling average of the previous 3 months. I.e. 1.5% in July represents April/May/June average. 1.6% Aug = May/June/July average.

In addition it looks at closing prices so the homes were likely listed somewhere between 30-60 days before the closing price was reported. So the July number is looking at stuff listed in Feb/March/April/May.[/quote]

Good to know, thanks for the clarification.

[north park girl]

Thanks all for the comments so far.

I’ve thought for a while about whether to sell or keep renting it. It’s marginally cash flow positive right now. North Park has changed (gentrified) quite a bit from when I first moved there, and it’s a perfect rental property for the neighborhood. But being a remote landlord for a few years means a lot of deferred maintenance is overdue (eating into any earnings). My new job offers a generous relocation package including paying closing costs. That, plus losing my capital gains exemption next year means leaving ~$50K on the table. Would also be nice to have the cash in case I decide to enter the crazy Bay Area housing market.

FWIW, I played around with Case Schiller San Diego numbers, comparing each month’s index to the two year moving average (one year before and one year after) for 2004-2013 (basically, I tried to determine what the seasonal adjustment is). Not the most rigorous analysis, but these numbers indicate July-August-September as the best months to close price wise. So that would seem to place May-July as the best times to put it on the market.

Jan -1.6%
Feb -1.9%
Mar -1.7%
Apr -0.9%
May -0.1%
Jun 0.8%
Jul 1.5%
Aug 1.6%
Sep 1.5%
Oct 0.6%
Nov 0.1%
Dec -0.7%

Spring seems to be below average for sales price, so I’m wondering why people are saying to sell in the spring? Any data to show why that would be better that I’m missing?

I do like the idea of putting it on the market right away and testing the waters (with a credit for renovations). I do have a specific number in mind, so if I can’t get it, I may go ahead with the remodel.

[north park girl]

[quote=paramount]
Oh, and if I were you I’d stay the hell out Arizona; especially if you have brown skin.[/quote]

Just an anecdote, but I have a brown skinned (Indian) friend who drove down to southern AZ for a camping trip with some friends. He got pulled over 4 or 5 times (has a clean driving record, so it’s not like he’s a reckless driver). Halfway through, he switched driving with a white friend in the car, they didn’t get pulled over once.

[north park girl]

Dropbox installs like a drive or folder on your computer, so you can save directly to it from your local computer as if it were a regular drive. You can also save any kind of file. To open or edit docs, you will still need to have a program from it (locally installed MS Office for example). But you don’t have to open a browser to use it, and there’s no additional downloading to your local computer to edit it locally, it’s just there.

Google Docs is useful for editing specific documents in real time with others, but not particularly useful for sharing multiple files. Both are cloud based, but have very different uses.

Dropbox gives you 2GB free, but if you get a referral, you get an extra 500MB, and the referrer gets an extra 500MB as well. So here’s my shameless attempt to get more space: http://db.tt/T2DsT63h

[north park girl]

[quote=svelte]From your handle, should we presume the home is in North Park?[/quote]
Yes

[north park girl]

When I was in high school, I went enginerd camp. It was three weeks at Notre Dame (other schools have similar programs) learning about the differences between the engineering fields and doing some group projects. That was somewhat helpful in picking what I wanted to do (I went with a friend, who was considering engineering and learned that she *didn’t* want to do engineering), and more fun than it sounds. Looked good on college apps as well. My brother went to a similar program at Santa Clara, and his was free (sponsored by companies), but only a week.

Found a link that looks like its lists this sort of stuff: http://www.engineeringedu.com/camps/ca.html

[north park girl]

When I was in high school, I went enginerd camp. It was three weeks at Notre Dame (other schools have similar programs) learning about the differences between the engineering fields and doing some group projects. That was somewhat helpful in picking what I wanted to do (I went with a friend, who was considering engineering and learned that she *didn’t* want to do engineering), and more fun than it sounds. Looked good on college apps as well. My brother went to a similar program at Santa Clara, and his was free (sponsored by companies), but only a week.

Found a link that looks like its lists this sort of stuff: http://www.engineeringedu.com/camps/ca.html

[north park girl]

When I was in high school, I went enginerd camp. It was three weeks at Notre Dame (other schools have similar programs) learning about the differences between the engineering fields and doing some group projects. That was somewhat helpful in picking what I wanted to do (I went with a friend, who was considering engineering and learned that she *didn’t* want to do engineering), and more fun than it sounds. Looked good on college apps as well. My brother went to a similar program at Santa Clara, and his was free (sponsored by companies), but only a week.

Found a link that looks like its lists this sort of stuff: http://www.engineeringedu.com/camps/ca.html

[north park girl]

When I was in high school, I went enginerd camp. It was three weeks at Notre Dame (other schools have similar programs) learning about the differences between the engineering fields and doing some group projects. That was somewhat helpful in picking what I wanted to do (I went with a friend, who was considering engineering and learned that she *didn’t* want to do engineering), and more fun than it sounds. Looked good on college apps as well. My brother went to a similar program at Santa Clara, and his was free (sponsored by companies), but only a week.

Found a link that looks like its lists this sort of stuff: http://www.engineeringedu.com/camps/ca.html

[north park girl]

When I was in high school, I went enginerd camp. It was three weeks at Notre Dame (other schools have similar programs) learning about the differences between the engineering fields and doing some group projects. That was somewhat helpful in picking what I wanted to do (I went with a friend, who was considering engineering and learned that she *didn’t* want to do engineering), and more fun than it sounds. Looked good on college apps as well. My brother went to a similar program at Santa Clara, and his was free (sponsored by companies), but only a week.

Found a link that looks like its lists this sort of stuff: http://www.engineeringedu.com/camps/ca.html

[north park girl]

[quote=walterwhite]Maybe burst is the wrong word. How about balk? Or at least hesitate, question and think before enrolling.[/quote]

I was considering an MBA last year, even applying to a few top schools for technology (Stanford, MIT, Berkeley). After getting rejected from all three, I thought about casting a wider net, then saw this article about law school debt: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/09/business/09law.html

Now rethinking the whole MBA thing–at least with law school you come out with a more concrete skill–with business programs I feel like I’m paying for a name on a resume and possibly a network, less so an education.

As for undergrad programs, I don’t see it letting up anytime soon. There’s a perception that more expensive is better (I remember reading an article about a school that raised tuition and got MORE applications the subsequent year). If you read college guidebooks that compare different schools, they talk as much about the campus, food, dorms, and athletic facilities as they do the classes–these things seem important to a 17 year old. Looking back, I wasn’t nearly mature enough to get the most out of all the opportunities there were at my school–I had too much fum living with 300 people my age unsupervised.

A teacher friend of mine told me that if she got back into the classroom (she manages after school programs now) she would do an exercise with her high school students working backwards: say you want to live in a nice house one day. Maybe in a nice San Diego neighborhood. Look at the cost of a house, how much payments are. Add in other expenses and taxes, how much do you need to make to afford that (don’t forget saving for retirement)? What kind of jobs would pay that much? How much education do you need to do that job (most science fields, you need a PhD, for example, an undergrad degree won’t cut it)? How much does all that cost? Make sure to add it to your list of expenses. I think every student should do this–gets students thinking about the future in a realistic way and picking a major that gets them where they want, and also realizing how expensive being an adult is!

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