[patientrenter]

[quote=Scarlett] ….saving another 10% down payment or 50-60K may take years and years, realistically (in my case). In the mean time, with kids, it’s nice to have a larger house & yard while they are still young. I didn’t mean that I would buy something right away, but perhaps in the next year or two – hopefully by then the prices would have reached their last/bottom leg in areas I am looking.
[/quote]

Scarlett, I am sure that you are a wonderful person, but if it would take you “years and years” to save 10% of the price of the home you want to buy, then you cannot afford it. The only way you can “afford” it is if its price only goes up, not down. That is never guaranteed. It is widespread denial of the simple ‘cash flow’ criterion for affordability that got the entire economy into its current fix.

[patientrenter]

[quote=Scarlett] ….saving another 10% down payment or 50-60K may take years and years, realistically (in my case). In the mean time, with kids, it’s nice to have a larger house & yard while they are still young. I didn’t mean that I would buy something right away, but perhaps in the next year or two – hopefully by then the prices would have reached their last/bottom leg in areas I am looking.
[/quote]

Scarlett, I am sure that you are a wonderful person, but if it would take you “years and years” to save 10% of the price of the home you want to buy, then you cannot afford it. The only way you can “afford” it is if its price only goes up, not down. That is never guaranteed. It is widespread denial of the simple ‘cash flow’ criterion for affordability that got the entire economy into its current fix.

[patientrenter]

[quote=Scarlett] ….saving another 10% down payment or 50-60K may take years and years, realistically (in my case). In the mean time, with kids, it’s nice to have a larger house & yard while they are still young. I didn’t mean that I would buy something right away, but perhaps in the next year or two – hopefully by then the prices would have reached their last/bottom leg in areas I am looking.
[/quote]

Scarlett, I am sure that you are a wonderful person, but if it would take you “years and years” to save 10% of the price of the home you want to buy, then you cannot afford it. The only way you can “afford” it is if its price only goes up, not down. That is never guaranteed. It is widespread denial of the simple ‘cash flow’ criterion for affordability that got the entire economy into its current fix.

[patientrenter]

[quote=Scarlett] ….saving another 10% down payment or 50-60K may take years and years, realistically (in my case). In the mean time, with kids, it’s nice to have a larger house & yard while they are still young. I didn’t mean that I would buy something right away, but perhaps in the next year or two – hopefully by then the prices would have reached their last/bottom leg in areas I am looking.
[/quote]

Scarlett, I am sure that you are a wonderful person, but if it would take you “years and years” to save 10% of the price of the home you want to buy, then you cannot afford it. The only way you can “afford” it is if its price only goes up, not down. That is never guaranteed. It is widespread denial of the simple ‘cash flow’ criterion for affordability that got the entire economy into its current fix.

[patientrenter]

patientlywaiting, the Irish property bubble was beyond belief. In the article, the authors point out that an ordinary single family residence in an ordinary area of Dublin cost could as much as a home in Beverly Hills. And the weather s**ks. I can vouch for both.

My brother sold his nice, but ordinary, 175-year-old house in Dublin for $2 million many years before the peak. My niece, visiting in 2001, thought that the SFRs in Crystal Cove (Orange County) were unbelievably cheap. She was just out of college and not planning to leave Ireland, but was tempted to buy one because it looked so cheap compared to houses in Dublin.

It is this extreme disconnect between price and value in Ireland (and the UK) that made me think that the situation here in So Cal could not only continue, but get worse, before it got better. I am still not quite sure why the bubble here popped when it did. China and others lending us the money are still anxious for a continuation of the old days, and God knows the homeowners and pols and bankers are too.

50% off a ridiculous peak is still very high (for what you get). My Irish and English relatives are salivating at the prices they see here. It’s all I can do to get them to wait a while longer before picking up a few investment properties.

[patientrenter]

patientlywaiting, the Irish property bubble was beyond belief. In the article, the authors point out that an ordinary single family residence in an ordinary area of Dublin cost could as much as a home in Beverly Hills. And the weather s**ks. I can vouch for both.

My brother sold his nice, but ordinary, 175-year-old house in Dublin for $2 million many years before the peak. My niece, visiting in 2001, thought that the SFRs in Crystal Cove (Orange County) were unbelievably cheap. She was just out of college and not planning to leave Ireland, but was tempted to buy one because it looked so cheap compared to houses in Dublin.

It is this extreme disconnect between price and value in Ireland (and the UK) that made me think that the situation here in So Cal could not only continue, but get worse, before it got better. I am still not quite sure why the bubble here popped when it did. China and others lending us the money are still anxious for a continuation of the old days, and God knows the homeowners and pols and bankers are too.

50% off a ridiculous peak is still very high (for what you get). My Irish and English relatives are salivating at the prices they see here. It’s all I can do to get them to wait a while longer before picking up a few investment properties.

[patientrenter]

patientlywaiting, the Irish property bubble was beyond belief. In the article, the authors point out that an ordinary single family residence in an ordinary area of Dublin cost could as much as a home in Beverly Hills. And the weather s**ks. I can vouch for both.

My brother sold his nice, but ordinary, 175-year-old house in Dublin for $2 million many years before the peak. My niece, visiting in 2001, thought that the SFRs in Crystal Cove (Orange County) were unbelievably cheap. She was just out of college and not planning to leave Ireland, but was tempted to buy one because it looked so cheap compared to houses in Dublin.

It is this extreme disconnect between price and value in Ireland (and the UK) that made me think that the situation here in So Cal could not only continue, but get worse, before it got better. I am still not quite sure why the bubble here popped when it did. China and others lending us the money are still anxious for a continuation of the old days, and God knows the homeowners and pols and bankers are too.

50% off a ridiculous peak is still very high (for what you get). My Irish and English relatives are salivating at the prices they see here. It’s all I can do to get them to wait a while longer before picking up a few investment properties.

[patientrenter]

patientlywaiting, the Irish property bubble was beyond belief. In the article, the authors point out that an ordinary single family residence in an ordinary area of Dublin cost could as much as a home in Beverly Hills. And the weather s**ks. I can vouch for both.

My brother sold his nice, but ordinary, 175-year-old house in Dublin for $2 million many years before the peak. My niece, visiting in 2001, thought that the SFRs in Crystal Cove (Orange County) were unbelievably cheap. She was just out of college and not planning to leave Ireland, but was tempted to buy one because it looked so cheap compared to houses in Dublin.

It is this extreme disconnect between price and value in Ireland (and the UK) that made me think that the situation here in So Cal could not only continue, but get worse, before it got better. I am still not quite sure why the bubble here popped when it did. China and others lending us the money are still anxious for a continuation of the old days, and God knows the homeowners and pols and bankers are too.

50% off a ridiculous peak is still very high (for what you get). My Irish and English relatives are salivating at the prices they see here. It’s all I can do to get them to wait a while longer before picking up a few investment properties.

[patientrenter]

patientlywaiting, the Irish property bubble was beyond belief. In the article, the authors point out that an ordinary single family residence in an ordinary area of Dublin cost could as much as a home in Beverly Hills. And the weather s**ks. I can vouch for both.

My brother sold his nice, but ordinary, 175-year-old house in Dublin for $2 million many years before the peak. My niece, visiting in 2001, thought that the SFRs in Crystal Cove (Orange County) were unbelievably cheap. She was just out of college and not planning to leave Ireland, but was tempted to buy one because it looked so cheap compared to houses in Dublin.

It is this extreme disconnect between price and value in Ireland (and the UK) that made me think that the situation here in So Cal could not only continue, but get worse, before it got better. I am still not quite sure why the bubble here popped when it did. China and others lending us the money are still anxious for a continuation of the old days, and God knows the homeowners and pols and bankers are too.

50% off a ridiculous peak is still very high (for what you get). My Irish and English relatives are salivating at the prices they see here. It’s all I can do to get them to wait a while longer before picking up a few investment properties.

[patientrenter]

Isn’t IndyMac the bank that Sheila Bair is using to launch her populist political career?

If that’s the bank, then clearly the taxpayer will be suckered in for vast amounts so she can win political support. Whether the bank was held by the FDIC or “sold off” whilst almost all the losses continue to be covered by the taxpayer makes little difference. At the end of the day, the taxpayer loss will be in the many billions, and will just be a little less or more depending on whether this PE deal was good or not.

I suspect it’s being sold only because that gets the cost of IndyMac’s generous loan mods off the govt’s books for a while, until Sheila has moved on. That may cost the taxpayers a little more than keeping it, but I doubt Sheila is very concerned about that.

[patientrenter]

Isn’t IndyMac the bank that Sheila Bair is using to launch her populist political career?

If that’s the bank, then clearly the taxpayer will be suckered in for vast amounts so she can win political support. Whether the bank was held by the FDIC or “sold off” whilst almost all the losses continue to be covered by the taxpayer makes little difference. At the end of the day, the taxpayer loss will be in the many billions, and will just be a little less or more depending on whether this PE deal was good or not.

I suspect it’s being sold only because that gets the cost of IndyMac’s generous loan mods off the govt’s books for a while, until Sheila has moved on. That may cost the taxpayers a little more than keeping it, but I doubt Sheila is very concerned about that.

[patientrenter]

Isn’t IndyMac the bank that Sheila Bair is using to launch her populist political career?

If that’s the bank, then clearly the taxpayer will be suckered in for vast amounts so she can win political support. Whether the bank was held by the FDIC or “sold off” whilst almost all the losses continue to be covered by the taxpayer makes little difference. At the end of the day, the taxpayer loss will be in the many billions, and will just be a little less or more depending on whether this PE deal was good or not.

I suspect it’s being sold only because that gets the cost of IndyMac’s generous loan mods off the govt’s books for a while, until Sheila has moved on. That may cost the taxpayers a little more than keeping it, but I doubt Sheila is very concerned about that.

[patientrenter]

Isn’t IndyMac the bank that Sheila Bair is using to launch her populist political career?

If that’s the bank, then clearly the taxpayer will be suckered in for vast amounts so she can win political support. Whether the bank was held by the FDIC or “sold off” whilst almost all the losses continue to be covered by the taxpayer makes little difference. At the end of the day, the taxpayer loss will be in the many billions, and will just be a little less or more depending on whether this PE deal was good or not.

I suspect it’s being sold only because that gets the cost of IndyMac’s generous loan mods off the govt’s books for a while, until Sheila has moved on. That may cost the taxpayers a little more than keeping it, but I doubt Sheila is very concerned about that.

[patientrenter]

Isn’t IndyMac the bank that Sheila Bair is using to launch her populist political career?

If that’s the bank, then clearly the taxpayer will be suckered in for vast amounts so she can win political support. Whether the bank was held by the FDIC or “sold off” whilst almost all the losses continue to be covered by the taxpayer makes little difference. At the end of the day, the taxpayer loss will be in the many billions, and will just be a little less or more depending on whether this PE deal was good or not.

I suspect it’s being sold only because that gets the cost of IndyMac’s generous loan mods off the govt’s books for a while, until Sheila has moved on. That may cost the taxpayers a little more than keeping it, but I doubt Sheila is very concerned about that.

[patientrenter]

As long as the SIPC rules are not changed as a special accommodation for Bernie Madoff investors with powerful connections, I think this is actually a play with a satisfactory ending. People who were greedy – planning to get something for nothing – will pay a high price. It’s a rough but fair form of justice.

So far, we’ve had nothing but examples of people who planned to get something for nothing using some scheme, and then got bailed out so they didn’t have to bear their full share of the loss when the scheme failed.

There are stories in the media about sympathetic “little people” who lost all to Bernie Madoff’s scam. But most of the money lost came from very well-off people, and most of the investors had many other investments. Also, Bernie Madoff’s fund was open only to sophisticated and wealthy investors, the people allowed by the SEC to invest in hedge funds. Anyone who got in who was unsophisticated or poor was ‘sneaking in’ when they shouldn’t have. If someone sneaks into a vat of acid at the local factory who doesn’t work there, their relatives can’t (or shouldn’t) hold others liable for the consequences.

[Author]

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