[poorgradstudent]

California’s women (and men?) are amazing compared to most of the world. I grew up in the midwest where most of us went into hibernation and packed on pounds during the cold winter months. We have year-round pleasant weather in Cali which makes it both easier and provides incentive for year round maintainance.

When I was 16 and underweight I loved big glasses with free refills of soda. Now I love big glasses with free refills of water (which you can’t get in some parts of Europe). Plus ice! None of that lukewarm water for us.

That said, anyone who loves California Freeways probably doesn’t drive much at rush hour!

[poorgradstudent]

We found we often had to just do piecemeal searches, a combination of zillow, craigslist and just driving around the areas we wanted to buy in.

In a perfect world open houses would all be scheduled ahead of time, but there were inevitably homes that popped up the day of, and sometimes those were the best we saw.

As a general word of warning: Open Houses can be useful to get a feel for an area and what you do and don’t like. But beyond a first “debut” open house, there often has to be something wrong with the home or the pricing for it to go to a second, third, fourth open house. In this fairly balanced market reasonably priced, well maintained homes sell fairly quickly. A lot of the best homes we saw never went on open house.

[poorgradstudent]

For latex paint all you need to clean your brushes is soap and hot water.

But yes, it’s stupid when you can buy multiple 14 oz cans of something but not a 1 gallon bucket.

For indoor I would never use a paint that wasn’t low VOC, but I don’t like paint fumes. But you may be talking about outdoor paint, which I’m far less concerned about.

[poorgradstudent]

I didn’t see you mention a wife, OP. If you’re presently single and unattached, good for you, BUT…

I wouldn’t buy a house now assuming that three years from now you’ll meet the girl of your dreams and she’ll gladly move into the home you built for yourself, to your needs. She’s going to have her own ideas and desires.

If you’re a sworn bachelor for life by all means execute your plan.

I would definitely approach this more as an investment than “I’m gonna buy a house and never move again”. Since you’re prepared to put in sweat equity your plan is far from crazy. Just understand you may end up selling down the road.

[poorgradstudent]

Job growth is always a lagging economic indicator. We’re in the late stages of what I like to call the “Obama Boom”, when Joe Six Pack finally starts to get his share of the growth.

“calling for a recesssion in the next few years” is like calling for rain sometime in the next few months. It’s such a big window it’s basically guaranteed to be true, and gives you zero information on if you should pack your umbrella today or not.

Those of us who closely watched this most recent bubble learned first hand that while markets are somewhat predictable, government actions can be all over the board. Predicting a specific policy response is kind of a fool’s errand.

I think this is where it all then comes back to fundamentals. Fundamentally San Diego county real estate is probably slightly overpriced right now. Someone looking to buy a home or investment property should tread very carefully. But rents arguably can support current prices in most areas. There’s still an untapped resevior of millenial basement dwellers who are bound to emerge sooner or later and prop up the rental market.

These sort of grand predictions can attract attention, but are often pure speculation.

[poorgradstudent]

“San Diego and Virginia Beach-Norfolk have large military presences, so reductions in defense spending could be limiting job growth in those areas.”

[poorgradstudent]

The hilarious thing about beach communities is some of the complete remodels will involve building a home in a completely different style. There are parts of La Jolla where it goes Craftsman, Spanish Style, Super Modern, etc, all on the same street.

[poorgradstudent]

From what I’ve read, although Europe is relatively cheaper once you get there these days, airfare prices are actually quite high.

[poorgradstudent]

I’d love for the Chargers to stay in San Diego. But I really don’t want to see significant public money be used to finance a stadium deal.

[poorgradstudent]

[quote=moneymaker]I’ve come close to canceling my Costco membership several times, partly because I buy too much there and partly because a lot of bulk food ends up getting trashed, maybe this will push me into canceling, I don’t know because generally going to Costco is always a better experience than going to Walmart.[/quote]

There definitely is a strategy to proper CostCo shopping. I’m not sure if you’re married with kids; Buying a house with a garage, getting married and having a child who now eats a decent amount of food definitely made CostCo more “worth it” for me.

There are things like Toilet Paper and Paper Towels where there are cost savings as long as you have a place to store them, with the bonus of running out of TP less than you might otherwise!

Obviously my family of 3 goes through eggs and milk a lot faster than I did as a single guy. Their organic food prices are quite good, and with three of us in the house we always go through a full bag of apples, bananas or organges.

The downside is it’s very hard to buy 100% of your grocery needs at CostCo. Some things you just don’t want or need in bulk.

[poorgradstudent]

18,140 today at close.

I’m at the point where I’m feeling very tempted to shift my 401k out of stock funds to try to time the market, but I’ve had very mixed luck with that in the past.

[poorgradstudent]

[quote=dumbrenter]Funny that those that argue that women should have control over their bodies turn around and want needles to be poked into everyone else.[/quote]
Actually, the Anti-Vax community is an odd hodgepodge of the far left and far right. They tend to be very white and fairly affluent with access to good health care; poor minorities are more likely to be behind on vaccinations when entering school without intent.

It’s actually most of us in the relative middle that support mandatory vaccinations.

[poorgradstudent]

[quote=scaredyclassic]Capital one strikes me as a cheesy company. Like loansharks. Maybe that was the old days? I recall getting offers for some bizarrely high interest rates.[/quote]

Capital One has historically pursued college kids and people with questionable credit as customers, then reaped high interest rates and fees.

Like any lending you can make an argument they are slightly predatory, or you can make an argument they are extending credit to customers other banks aren’t very interested in, but charging a rate appropriate to risk.

If you’re at a point in your life where you can qualify for a mortgage, Capital One *probably* isn’t for you.

[poorgradstudent]

[quote=HLS]Approvals don’t care about how much debt you have, they only look at minimum monthly payments on a credit report.
Many people are not aware that they can raise their credit scores relatively easily & quickly.

[/quote]

It’s kind of scary how easy it is to manipulate the numbers if you plan ahead. For example, most student loans offer a variety of payback plans. One option is graduated repayment, where payments go up with time, under the assumption income will improve. So even if the payment will be more like $200/mo over the life of a mortgage, it can look like $100/mo to the lender if that’s your current monthly minimum.

Shuffling credit card debt onto 0% interest cards also lowers the minimum monthly payment, since most CC’s use a variant of Interest Accrued During Billing Cycle + X% of account balance. Of course shuffling debt can negatively impact a credit score in the short run.

The way income is counted is weird and somewhat frustraing as well. In particular it’s annoying that “contract” work isn’t counted, even if it’s a 6 month contract that has been renewed every time for the last couple of years. Considering California is an At Will employment state, to me it would make more sense to look at income history rather than current employment status and salary.

It’s a messy system that can be manipulated, but brokers legally aren’t supposed to coach you through how to pull some of the levers.

[poorgradstudent]

[quote=scaredyclassic]Here’s some legal advice.

If you have to go to trial and choose between 2 lawyers. One who’s real good with the law, data or scientific evidence….and another one who seems a little dumber but who is a riveting storyteller…

Take the latter.[/quote]

Or hire a firm that has both, with the storyteller doing the talking in court and the brain doing research and feeding the talker notes in the courtroom.

I actually know a lawyer who is more the former, but he rarely sets foot in an actual court room.

[Author]

Posts