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October 18, 2007 at 9:50 PM in reply to: Grrrr…Can’t stand people like my neighbors that want to plant so much crap on such a small lot. #90066
patientrenter
Participantflu, I am pretty hopeless at these things in practice. As is often the case, however, the most clueless are often the first to volunteer advice, so here goes…
How about setting up some discussion with you, your neighbor, and a landscaper, so the landscaper can discuss all the pros and cons of various plants and HOA rules as if they were just giving helpful advice to two good neighbors with no gardening or other issues between them? For example, tell your neighbor that it’s great that he’s making changes, because you just happen to be talking to a really smart and helpful landscaper about what works and doesn’t work on your own lot. Ask your neighbor if he wants to sit in when the landscaper comes over next. You like your neighbor so much (you tell him) that you can just set it up so you’ll all be there, and have a few drinks and talk plants.
Just make sure the landscaper is the right guy who says the right things!
Patient renter in OC
October 18, 2007 at 9:50 PM in reply to: Grrrr…Can’t stand people like my neighbors that want to plant so much crap on such a small lot. #90075Participantflu, I am pretty hopeless at these things in practice. As is often the case, however, the most clueless are often the first to volunteer advice, so here goes…
How about setting up some discussion with you, your neighbor, and a landscaper, so the landscaper can discuss all the pros and cons of various plants and HOA rules as if they were just giving helpful advice to two good neighbors with no gardening or other issues between them? For example, tell your neighbor that it’s great that he’s making changes, because you just happen to be talking to a really smart and helpful landscaper about what works and doesn’t work on your own lot. Ask your neighbor if he wants to sit in when the landscaper comes over next. You like your neighbor so much (you tell him) that you can just set it up so you’ll all be there, and have a few drinks and talk plants.
Just make sure the landscaper is the right guy who says the right things!
Patient renter in OC
Participantdavelj, I agree that returns on money invested in housing must be higher after adjusting for access to, and use of, leverage; tax deductibility of the interest and property taxes; re-fi options; the mail-back-the-key put option on the house itself; and low taxes on the gains.
Have you, or anyone else, seen studies of returns with all these factors brought into play? How about studies with all of them maximized?
Patient renter in OC
Participantdavelj, I agree that returns on money invested in housing must be higher after adjusting for access to, and use of, leverage; tax deductibility of the interest and property taxes; re-fi options; the mail-back-the-key put option on the house itself; and low taxes on the gains.
Have you, or anyone else, seen studies of returns with all these factors brought into play? How about studies with all of them maximized?
Patient renter in OC
Participantdavelj, I agree with your post’s content, but I wish you had expressed yourself differently about golfgal. She seems a good sort, whether we agree with her or not. I’ve responded in blogs differently than I would face to face, and in the long run I regret letting myself do that.
Patient renter in OC
Participantdavelj, I agree with your post’s content, but I wish you had expressed yourself differently about golfgal. She seems a good sort, whether we agree with her or not. I’ve responded in blogs differently than I would face to face, and in the long run I regret letting myself do that.
Patient renter in OC
ParticipantHLS is spot-on. Keeping home prices high is what most voters want, and making the majority of voters feel good is what politicians and their government employees will try to do, at almost any cost, especially in an election year.
Can the pols succeed? Probably not 100%, because there’s a lot of water to hold back. But whereas prices in Southern California probably should drop by at least 50% in a free market, they might drop by only 20-25% with concerted government action. And I predict that govt actions will progressively increase in scale and ferocity as prices go down another 5, 10, 15, 20, 25%.
This is a moment when I will temporarily go along with all the doomsayers on moral hazard, dollar exchange rates, and inflation. I hope a Chinese central banker makes a few warning bond sales that nip all these rescue programs in the bud, but I don’t see that as likely.
Patient renter in OC
ParticipantHLS is spot-on. Keeping home prices high is what most voters want, and making the majority of voters feel good is what politicians and their government employees will try to do, at almost any cost, especially in an election year.
Can the pols succeed? Probably not 100%, because there’s a lot of water to hold back. But whereas prices in Southern California probably should drop by at least 50% in a free market, they might drop by only 20-25% with concerted government action. And I predict that govt actions will progressively increase in scale and ferocity as prices go down another 5, 10, 15, 20, 25%.
This is a moment when I will temporarily go along with all the doomsayers on moral hazard, dollar exchange rates, and inflation. I hope a Chinese central banker makes a few warning bond sales that nip all these rescue programs in the bud, but I don’t see that as likely.
Patient renter in OC
ParticipantTemeculaguy, your story-telling skills are better than the average chimp. Keep posting!
Patient renter in OC
ParticipantTemeculaguy, your story-telling skills are better than the average chimp. Keep posting!
Patient renter in OC
ParticipantIt’s an apocalyptic article, saying foreigners have lost faith in US financial investments because they feel misled by sub-prime mortgage hucksters.
If true, it’s hard to explain how come long Treasury yields are still very low. (10T today was about 4.5%.)
I think it’s a prediction of what will happen, not a description of what has happened, as it purports.
Patient renter in OC
ParticipantHave you considered closing by year-end and selling a future based on the San Diego Case-Shiller index at the same time?
Patient renter in OC
ParticipantNeetaT, your story strikes a chord with me.
You are now where I was 2 years ago. Then 2 years ago, I had to take part in a charity event involving picking stocks. They turned out to be made-up companies, like in Monopoly, but I didn’t know that beforehand.
To prepare for the event, I read Jeremy Siegel’s “Stocks for the Long Run”. His argument about stocks having lower risk than bonds over long holding periods made some sense to me. So did his argument that inflation is better hedged by stocks than bonds. I bought into his theory that the world of dividend-paying stocks is more rewarding than the non-dividend-paying stock world, based on what I know of the corporate world.
Finally and very importantly, I was tired of progressing towards my financial goals at a snail’s pace, despite a very high saving rate, when homeowners and stock investors and others were mostly doing much better than me, even though they spent way more than me (and saved way less). So I began immediately to research individual stocks with good dividends, and buying them as soon as I saw one I really liked. I am very pleased with the results 2 years later.
You should allow yourself to think about what long-term investments you really believe in, and then take actions to get familiar with them and make diversified purchases over a reasonably long period. Make sure you have your own arguments worked out that enable you to live with the investments through temporary ups and downs.
Sorry for the unsolicited advice but, like I said, your story struck a chord…
Patient renter in OC
Participanteye-pod, you won’t see much in the way of shorters’ reports until the market takes a dive… someday.
I think home prices will go down mainly because prices are so astronomically high compared to incomes and savings and rents and 10 years ago. But the stock market is being driven up by high corporate profits and a wall of money from China and other countries exporting to the USA. Who knows exactly when that will turn around? The timing is not as clear as for the overvalued residential real estate market.
Patient renter in OC
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