[powayseller]

I’ve mulled this over quite a bit, and it seems that we must have a tiered society. If the guy repairing my car or serving fries at McDonalds made as much as we do, then we couldn’t afford to hire them. So we need a lower paid tier. So those of us in the middle class or those making $300 mil per year can afford to hire everyone below them. It’s kind of a service tier, isn’t it?

One thing I don’t know is if wealth could be better distributed. If every hedge fund manager and CEO was paid only $200K, could we raise minimum wage to a “living wage” and provide health insurance to everyone? Would this bridge the gap to the poor?

Are we destined to keep shrinking our middle class?

Are tens of millions of America’s children destined to grow up in poverty? It’s a shame, we are supposed to be the richest country in the world but we have a high rate of infant mortality (highest in the industrialized world, higher than Poland and parts of Russia) and a high rate of poverty. Our health care costs more per person than any other industrialized country, but we get less for it.

[powayseller]

My expectation of a realtor on this forum, is that he will give us market insights such as that provided by Bob.

[powayseller]

You’re an admirable man. Yet, I still have to ask you: don’t you think we need people to repair our A/Cs and potholes, sell movie theater tickets, serve our meals at restaurants, check us out at the grocery store, show us how to set up the tent at REI, put out our fires and jail our thieves, teach our kids, clean the bathrooms at the airport? Can all these jobs go exclusively to people under age 23, those who don’t expect to be married or own a home? Under the scenario you describe, police officers, teachers, book keepers, librarians, should be those who are in 2nd jobs, or providing their families part time income, or under house buying age. Not a realistic economic model….in other words, we need people to do all those jobs. Maybe people in those jobs should be content as renters and living a poverty level life style. Not everyone is entitled to everything.

I used to think $250K was a good salary, until I read about the thousands of people in New York who make over $200 million. $500 million is change for a hedge fund manager. That’s a whole different league. I bet they look down on people like us. So we shouldn’t look down on the $30K /year worker either, right?

[powayseller]

2nd trust deeds are recourse loans. The bank can go after you.

IRS gets you whether it’s foreclosure or short sale. The difference is only whether the lender can come after you for any difference owed: in a short sale they can’t. But come on, how many lenders will agree to a short sale? If the short sale puts them more than $50K at a loss, I think they would rather sell the house at auction. Privatebanker, any thoughts?

[powayseller]

desmond, Bob Casagrand is one of the best realtors out there. I have posted about him often. He is the only realtor in San Diego who provides this level of data analysis of the MLS for the benefit of us all.

I used to post his monthly reports, and other information he conveyed to me. Bob is like a Rich with MLS access, and he spends several days every month putting the MLS data in to Excel, and analyzing it and posting the monthly reports. He is the contact person for one of the major brokerages’ retail analysts (from New York). They call him to get the San Diego housing market updates.

Unfortunately, because of someone’s name calling of Bob as you saw above, I decided I couldn’t post Bob’s comments here any longer. That one person kept picking on Bob, hiding behind his anonymity, making pot shots for no reason, other than envy and jealousy. I for one still converse with Bob, so I get a lot of info that I cannot post here, that I have to keep to myself. It’s a real shame… So as long as these low shots continue, I cannot share this information, and Bob will not participate in any forums where people hide behind their anonymity.

I am embarrased to be part of a group that allows name calling and just looks the other way. sdr’s behavior, making fun of a collegue’s name, is horrendous. It’s an embarassment to the profession, to this forum, and it keeps good people like Bob from wanting anything to do with us. It’s a real shame.

[powayseller]

I agree that value pricing is stupid. We had a unique home. I think we were about the only brand new house in the Poway school district on 5 acres with ocean view and under $900K. The point of the range is to show up in the MLS for people searching up to $799K, so they’ll come out to see the house. Once they fall in love with it, you negotiate with them for the higher price you really want.

It’s more of a point of pride/ego to get the full amount. This is the problem that the 22,000 sellers out there all have. Sellers’ ego prevents them from listing at market value. They are emotionally attached to their homes and don’t want to “give away” even $5. It’s crazy, I know. I am thrilled with the price we got, but only because I believe the future offers would have got lower.

[powayseller]

Good idea for the Tijuana sewage sludge making its way to Imperial Beach and Coronado. I believe we should pay for Tijuana’s sewage plant, so we can have clean beaches.

[powayseller]

sdr, why don’t you compete with Bob by providing information to us that we find valuable and disucss, instead of constantly trying to belittle him. Once again, you are showing yourself to be a LITTLEMAN.

For those new to this forum, I promised Bob I would no longer quote his valuable newsletter, because sdrealtor is obsessed with slamming Bob for no reason. As you saw above. Bob has never responded to any of this, other than to tell me that this type of comment is a byproduct of forums which allow posters to hide behind their pseudonames.

[powayseller]

Someone told me that if you refinance with the same lender who gave you the purchase loan, that you are also safe under the non-recourse laws. Is that true?

[powayseller]

I think my landlord falls into category 1.

I spoke with a friend from North Dakota, and he said Californians are buying up lake properties at the Canada border, and the prices have multiplied in the last few years. He thinks it’s a great time to develop more lake front property. I told him to be careful, although I have no idea how long Californians will be flush with cash and able to bid up properties in the rest of the nation. As CA prices come down, they just won’t have the equity to go on those spending sprees.

[powayseller]

Thanks. You need to enter the street abbreviation as the County has it.

LANE must be entered LN. The abbreviations are listed in a drop-down menu on the tax assessor link I gave last week. There you only get to see the taxes due and paid for the street.

[powayseller]

We had the best well in the area, because every single property drilled a new well in the first two years we were there. After 4 years of droughts, our water level dropped 80 feet and we drilled ours deeper and added a chlorinator for $8K. Many others spent $40K on theirs. The water gods were smiling on us and I’m grateful. We put in a 10K gallon water tank and outside water filter, so we had better water than the City can provide. Tasty clean water. The chlorinator kills iron bacteria, a nuisance as it makes the pipes sludgy. Not a health hazard. Out there, you need your own water treatment system.

If you buy a property with a well, pay a lab to get the water tested, and a driller to test the water depth and flow rate. Our buyers didn’t and trusted me. They were lucky. They could have been easily led down a costly path. Several neighbors had water trucked in, at $1/gallon. Yikes. Think about how much water you use, and it was easily $700/month for water. Some drilled in several locations before hitting water, at $10K – $20K/attempt.

If you build, factor in the cost for a fire truck turnout ($25K) that your builder won’t tell you about necessarily. Mine didn’t, and the money we had put aside for the solar energy system went instead to the driveway. Many costs to being in the boonies…

Insurance: ZC Sterling did not cancel us or raise our rates after the fire. Farmers, etc. charged people $2500/year for $800K home, before the fire. I paid almost half that. My buyers found insurance, but not ZC Sterling. Many pulled out of that area. I don’t know who they are using.

Which home were you considering? Did you look at my house on Rio Maria Road?

[powayseller]

I’m less than 2 years… Didn’t I say that?

[powayseller]

MIne was sold less than 2 years ago. It should show up.

[powayseller]

I put in my address, and got “No results returned”. I tried CAPS, with and without street number. zillow.com has sales history. If all else fails, ask a realtor.

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