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During a conversation recently with my mother, she told me that she wished she had caught the RE bubble/appreciation wave sooner than she did because then she could get a HELOC and use it to buy stuff. GASP! No doubt this is exactly what all of her friends have done. Forget about retirement, let’s party like it is 1999!!

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San Diego has a very large pool of military renters. The majority of military moves occur in the summer. Available rentals probably spike in July but demand also spikes. I also think things will start to sort themselves out in about six months.

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Perhaps we all need to invest in residential elevators instead. 🙂

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I think that straw bale houses are very interesting. I also read up on a San Diego company that makes a machine that makes large, interlocking bricks out of the soil at your homesite. You send them a sample of the dirt and they send you a recipe for mixing the dirt so that the brick is durable. They are very energy efficient houses that are also environmentally friendly.
As a side note, I think that all new homes in areas with a certain amount of sunlight (like AZ) should be required by law to have solar roof tiles (tiles, not the big ugly sheets).

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I am certainly an addict of the site but am trying to exercise some self-control. It is kind of like chocolate, however. If it is there (candy bar in the cupboard, computer turned on), I eventually give in. I could do without the histrionics and sniping but I suppose little doses can be amusing.
I have developed a feeling of camaraderie with the posters on the board, even the ones with whom I rarely agree. However, I am quite sure that there are one or two who would rather spit in my face than return the compliment. Oh well!
My favorite literary quote from Mr. Bennett in Pride and Prejudice (from memory, may contain an error): “Well, well, what do we live for but to make sport for our neighbors and laugh at them in our turn.”

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They are marketing the Fashion Walk condos pretty heavily at the Westfield mall. There a number of posters up as well as standing advertisments on the tables at the food court. The photos are all of attractive women in their mid-twenties with a couple of lucky looking men sprinkled in among the women.
The Subliminal Message:
“Girls, you can live by the mall and shop, shop, shop, becoming more beautiful and thin the by day! Guys, there are tons of stupid, beautiful women here who spend so much time shopping that they don’t have a boyfriend… And better yet, they shop so much they’ll never know that you are dating twenty of their neighbors too! Hurry! Be hip, be hot! You can shop, or not!”

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Argument: “Prices have never gone down without employment problems”
Response “It will be different this time”

The argument should actually be: “Prices have never gone down with some kind of shock (like unemployment)”
Response: “It won’t be different this time (crazy loans, possible global recession)”

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We are selling a condo in a bubble area. It has been for sale for a couple of months with no offers. Last week, we increased the commission. We have two offers this week.

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It is the realtor’s job to protect his/her buyer. Buyers rely on their realtor to look out for them.

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You seem to advocate buying gold. What is your target price for buying?

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sdduuuude, I think that declining sales are a result of the following:
Fewer speculators
Fewer second home purchases
Reduced upward pressure (first time buyers aren’t buying)
People have cashed in and moved elsewhere to purchase at a lower price.

Although I don’t have any data to support this, I think the number of people who have sold and are renting account for only a small part of the reduction in sales volume. There are many of us on this board who have put their house equity in the bank but I think we are the exception. I made no secret of the reason I was selling in 2005. Everybody thought we were crazy. I sold my house for just under 800k. My neighbor insisted that we were fools and that our house would be worth 2mil in 5 years. He probably still believes that. When the masses start to see the truth, then we will have a wave of people trying to sell in order to save their equity. The period we are in right now is like the strange, confusing quiet when all the water was sucked out to sea before the huge tsunami came roaring through the land.

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What are the best recession proof industries? Healthcare? Food production?

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My husband and I spent a lot of time checking out Yuma real estate last year as we thought there was a chance we could end up there. There has been HUGE residential building in Yuma. I think RE in Yuma is going to crash big time. There has been wild speculation already and big price increases. The time to make money over this refinery and a possible expansion of the Marine base is over.

There is land for sale as far as the eye can see. I doubt that there will be a boom around the refinery. There may be a few employees who plop down a doublewide but that will be the extent of it. The whole thing sounds like a Florida swamp deal.

We just drove through Yuma last weekend. I was surprised to see that two huge RV dealerships seem to have gone belly up in the last six months.

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Thanks for the interesting information. Do you have info for Coronado 92118?

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I was watching this development before they started selling as I was interested in buying there. The initial price for the first homes was supposed to be $650,000 (as per the mailings I received). I went to the grand opening. There were so many people there that they had buses to transport people from their cars to the model homes. It was packed! They had many tables set up in the street for people to fill out their purchase forms. The initial prices turned out to be just under $900,000. These builders have already made huge profits. If they would have had a profit at 650k, then they raked it in. That may be part of the reason that they have not felt the pressure to reduce prices.

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