[PD]

Illegal or not, they are still spending and contributing to the local economy.  If large numbers of people leave because of a reduction in jobs, it will have an impact.  They are lower wage earners, so you could argue that the impact would not too large.  However, all of the those people have to pay rent, buy groceries and shop at Walmart.

The loss of jobs in real estate will have an impact, too.  How large that will be is also debatable.

Another big unknown is whether consumer spending will dry up when people quit feeling house rich and start feeling house poor. 

[PD]

We are not going to buy… at least not yet.  If there is a severe correction, we might try to pick a condo up at foreclosure.  We were just trying to get familiar with what is out there.

[PD]

I pulled up condos on realtor.com and over 700 showed up.  What is the actual number of condos for sale right now (not including those planned)?  The assoc. fees are pretty big.  It looks like most condos pay at least $500 a month.

We drove downtown yesterday to look at condos and it was not easy.  There were sign people on streetcorners directing people but we had a hard time figuring out where to go.  We ended up at the Park Terrace sales center and I picked up some info.  We gave up after that.

[PD]

There could be a correlation between number of sales (percentage of overall supply) and price increases.

[PD]

You might have a hard time finding something with more than one bathroom for $2,800 but there are a few. Rents are much cheaper in IB but the schools are bad. However, if you work on Coronado, you have a good reason for requesting that your kids go to school on the island (not a sure a thing).
I think military are regarded in a positive light. However, we had a verbal agreement to rent a house here and the landlord ended up renting to a civilian because their last renter received new orders after only 10 months and moved. They were angry that they had to let the renter go because of the military clause and did not want that to happen again.

[PD]

A handprinted sign I saw on a street corner today (the misspelling was theirs):

Real estate investor needs apprestice – 20k mo

[PD]

Are you saying a 30% drop in only a few markets will cause the recession?

[PD]

I agree, he is a moron. The property taxes here are 1.2% and the assoc. fee is something like $350 a month. He has made a ton speculating here in the last few years and is convinced that nothing matters except appreciation.

[PD]

There are areas in Florida where there are 30 to 50 percent decreases in number of sales.

Does anybody know if there is a correlation between an increase in the number of sales to an increase in price? If there is a quantifiable correlation, would you be able to extrapolate what a decrease in the number of sales would do to prices? You would have to assume that interest rates and other variables remained the same….

[PD]

They may be trying to pass on their additional costs but they are just going to have their property sit empty longer. The main pool of renters in this area are military officers. The push to increase rents here is putting the prices well beyond what those people are getting for a housing allowance. A LtCol/Commander gets about $2,400 a month for housing. There is no way that $4,100 is in the ballpark.

[PD]

The Bankers Assoc. said that 30.5% of recent loan applications are for ARMs. What is the current percentage in SD? There are still areas of the country that will experience price increases and people won’t get hurt with an ARM because they will be able to sell.

[PD]

Landlords in my area are attempting to push rents up significantly but I don’t know if they are getting the higher rents. In spring 2005 I decided against renting a certain house at 3k a month. The same house is currently advertised at 4.1k a month right now. I think they are crazy.

[PD]

I don’t think all investors have quit buying. There are still some housing bulls out there. My very rich neighbor just bought a 1.2M townhouse on the water and is trying to rent it for $3,400 a month. He will buy another one if he thinks it is a good deal. I fully expect him to do what many others did in the stock market in 2000 – buy all the way down.

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That is what I’m doing. I feel a little like a buzzard, waiting for the carrion to materialize. We sold our house, have our war chest ready and are watching the market closely.

[PD]

The lady got fat, took a deep breath and is about to start singing (a very sad song).

[Author]

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