[PerryChase]

socalalarm, much of the discussion here is about the San Diego market. LA and Orange County don’t seem to have dropped as much as San Diego yet. So you may still get lucky and get the price that you want to your house near Hollywood.

Please let us know what happens as time goes by.

[PerryChase]

That was a little sexist, vcjim.

Having said that, if given the choice, I’d rather marry a pretty, pleasant young lady than a strong-willed, professional, smart woman, ha.ha.ha.

But I’m still a big fan of powayseller. Without her, this site would boring.

[PerryChase]

part of powayseller’s charm is her strong character. I would rather have her frank hard-hitting posts than the comments of some boring economist.

[PerryChase]

I’m afraid that these discussion forums will die if it weren’t for powayseller’s posts.

The Professor updates his contents only once in a while and I beleive that his new job as a financial consultant prevents him from posting in user forums.

In my view, Piggington is all about the bubble. It’s not a site for circumspect “balanced” analysis of the real estate market. For that we can all read Business Week.

I love how powayseller pokes fun at the perma-bulls.

powayseller, i’m a fan of yours. Let us know were you go and I’ll follow.

jg, I’m surprised you don’t like the “Union Buffoon.” Isn’t it a conservative newspaper? Do you watch Fox News?

[PerryChase]

zk, I also think you have your stuff together.

But why be against affirmative action? Life is not about being the smartest. For example a Black student may not have the best test scores or the best grades but he may turn out to be the best doctor caring for the sick in his community, thus enhancing overall health care in our society. We then all benefit.

My Asian friends would love the end of affirmative action because their kids have the best exams scores and could then get into the top universities.

[PerryChase]

I enjoy powayseller’s posts. If you don’t like them, don’t read them.

[PerryChase]

The Red States are not anymore virtuous. They commit more sins so they have a lot more to repent!

I was just talking to my sister-in-law who’s from small town Kentucky. She said that the rate of teen pregnancy there is sky high. In fact, her brother who’s married just got some other girl pregnant. So much for the virtuous heartland. Why do think that religious people have so many children? Because they fxxx like rabbits!

[PerryChase]

Not surprising. I’d surmise that the greatest proportion of houses that sold for $700k or above in SD have ARMs. For that reason, the pain at the higher end will be felt much more severely. I expect $1 million houses to go begging.

[PerryChase]

” Nothaft: Take out a HELOC so you can make other investments and diversify.”

Yeah, take out a loan on a decling asset to make other investments?! That’s not diversifying but rather taking on more risk.

[PerryChase]

I refuse to even listen to anything that Buchanan has to say, much less debate his arguments. Not worth to dignify with a response.

[PerryChase]

If I were you, I’d sell.

1) Condos in the UTC area are all pretty much the same so you could rent and your lifestyle would not change much.

2) By selling you would insulate yourself from the downturn and you buy a similar unit when prices crash.

3) Your mortgage being about the same as rent, you’re not “saving” any money by owning rather than renting, while still maintaining your lifestyle. I would keep only if the mortgage was 1/2 of the rent. Say that the condo drops another $100k, you will loose that money without “saving” anything from owning.

For example if your mortgage is $1k (interest, property tax, HOA) but comparable rent is $2k, then, in my mind, you’re saving $1k each monthly when you own. Every year, you could have a 12k yearly loss in equity and still be “even.” That’s only if you take lifestyle into consideration, otherwise any reduction in wealth is a net loss.

Just my personal opinion.

[PerryChase]

If borrowers can no longer lie, then a chuck of buyers will no longer qualify thus reducing demand. I see the credit standards tightening …

From Calculated Risk blog:
—————————

IRS introduces New Tool for Mortgage Income Verification
The Hartford Courant reports: Lenders Will Be Spotting Income Fibs Much Faster

Starting Monday, it’s going to get much riskier to fib about your income when you apply for a home mortgage. That’s because the Internal Revenue Service is overhauling a key income verification tool used by lenders – making it faster and easier to pull up electronically the confidential income tax information of borrowers.
…
Many lenders in recent years have offered “stated income” and other limited documentation mortgages aimed especially at self-employed applicants. Dubbed “liar loans” by industry critics, stated-income mortgage programs allow applicants to bypass standard underwriting requirements for W-2s or copies of personal and corporate income tax records.

Instead, applicants simply assure the loan officer or broker that, yes indeed, we earn enough to qualify for the mortgage, and the transaction proceeds to closing. Often lenders will ask borrowers to fill out what is known as an IRS Form 4506-T along with their other mortgage documents.

That form authorizes the lender or the investor providing the money for the mortgage to obtain transcripts from the IRS summarizing income and tax data for as many as four years. The form must be signed by the borrower and can be used only during the 60-day period after the date of signing.

Until now, the process of faxing in 4506-T requests to the IRS and obtaining transcripts has been paper-driven and non-electronic – making income verifications slow and difficult to fit into lenders’ highly automated loan underwriting systems. Most lenders have used 4506-T forms as a way to perform quality-control checks on pools of closed mortgages.

But now, with the IRS promising to provide electronic transcript tax data within one to two business days in an electronic format, more lenders are likely to run income checks before closing – even on loans to applicants who are not self-employed or using stated-income programs.

[PerryChase]

Interesting that the FBI is now involved. Will we see people go to jail for fraud?

You guys who are for moral clarity, do you think that mortgage fraud is as bad as shoplifting, or worse? What kind of time should someone who lies on his mortgage appplication and causes 100s of thousands in looses do? What about the independent mortgage brokers who were complicit in the schemes?

I’ve heard of mortgage brokers who walked borrowers through the lying process.

I remember posting here a while ago and someone chastised me for suggesting that people would commit fraud (like lie about owner occupied instead of investment). Well said, powayseller, when this unravels, we’ll see the extent of the fraud.

[PerryChase]

Daniel is right on. Many Communist countries (Russia and Vietnam are examples) have some big real estate bubles (way more than San Diego) because of corruption and restrictions on building. Communists don’t exactly believe in God.

[PerryChase]

It’s true, different strokes for different folks.

I could live in a nicer house. But I’d rather spend my money traveling around the world. I could also be saving that money or donating it to charity. Or if I worked even harder, I could buy an even greater house and spend all my time beautifying it. But then I would work to feed the real estate related industries and I wouldn’t have time to kick back.

My brothers drive nice cars but I’m not interested at all in cars so I just drive the hand-me-downs. They don’t charge me, so I never have car expenses. 🙂

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