[powayseller]

This time is different. The type of loans, the record debt, overbuilding, are going to make this real estate collapse the worst in our country’s history.

An excerpt from the Frontline story
The nightmare I have,” says pension expert Brooks Hamilton, “is the vision of people … outliving their retirement income and being down to Social Security.” And the shock waves may reverberate through the entire economy. “What holds up our economy,” says Hamilton, “is consumer spending. When retirees are 20 percent of the population and run out of money, then ‘poof,’ there goes the economy.”

The change is already happening, as retirees find they are having to go back to work to make ends meet. Pat O’Neill, a retired United Airlines mechanic, is now driving a truck after his pension and benefits were cut. Winson Crabb and Gil Thibeau, two National Semiconductor retirees with widely different financial results from their company’s 401(k) plan, are both still working in retirement.

“What is the meaning of retirement if the only way you can live is to work?” asks Notre Dame professor Teresa Ghilarducci “The answer is there is no meaning to retirement anymore. We are now shifting from lifetime pensions to lifetime work. It’s the end of retirement.”
END QUOTE

I know some of you will appreciate my post, others say I’m extremist, doom and gloom and all that.

My point is to help people. Watch the video. Are you ready, or will you be like one of those little old ladies and men who can never afford to quit working and are worried abotu paying the rent? Is consumption today more important than that lifetime security?

[powayseller]

You are free to disagree. I value your ideas.

I am terrified of holding real estate. Sometimes I worry I will have a nightmare, where I am owner of a house in San Diego, and the prices keep falling and I can’t find a buyer. This scares the heck out of me.

Right now, I cannot picture when the tide will turn, and I will want to own real estate again. I think it will be a long long time, and when I finally do, it will be a time of regular rising appreciation, like we had in the past.

Houses will no longer be a cash machine. That was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, getting rich flipping homes. I doubt that kind of liquidity bubble will ever be allowed to happen again. We’re going to see much tigher lending standards and other government intervention to prevent another collapse of middle American dreams and fortunes.

[powayseller]

You guys, please please answer the questions.

I think you guys skim my threads because you don’t want to really understand what I have to say.

I cannot learn your views until you answer the questions I asked in the previous 2 posts.

bgates, lie? Huh?

[powayseller]

No oil leaks on the 911. The most important thing before buying a used car, is to go to a GOOD mechanic, someone who is not fooled by a visual inspection, who knows how to locate if a car ever had any bodywork, water damage, was driven hard, etc. Scott over at Poway Import Car Specialists is such a guy.

[powayseller]

rdivo, you didn’t answer the question. If Bush is in Iraq to go after the 9/11 source of terrorists, then he should instead be in Saudi Arabia because that’s where the terrorists came from. So this just shows it’s not about the 9/11 terrorists. It’s also not about freeing women from rape, as PD asserts, because we are not sending our military to Africa.

So what is the real reason that Bushie boy sent the military to Iraq? And what happens if they refuse to go? Are they allowed to think for themselves? Will they be court martialled for refusing to fight in an offensive war?

Again, I see the point for defense, but our military is highly OFFENSE. I am concerned that this is bad karma, this offensive military approach.

[powayseller]

Houses are a risky retirement bet for at least 20 years. Assuming home values drop by 35% over the next 6 years, and then rise with inflation for 10 years, you haven’t made anything. It may take 20 years to get back to today’s values.

For those prices to be reached again without having a housing bubble, wages would have to double or triple by then also. If prices come back to today’s values without higher wages, we have another asset bubble. The median priced home should be 3.5 times the median wage. At that ratio, you can put down 20% and get a 30 year fixed loan with a mortgage that takes less than 28% of your income.

If housing prices and wages double, everything will cost more. We are going back to the days when you 1) buy a house you can afford, pay off the principal, and live in a free and clear home, or 2) are in a house whose mortgage you cannot afford after retirement so you must sell and downsize.

Anyone counting on the equity in their homes in 10 years is taking a huge risk. At that time, home values are likely just picking up again, and at the historic rate of 3-4% annual appreciation, it will take many years to get back to today’s lofty prices.

As the UCLA Anderson Forecast explains (and this does hold up to scrutiny), the rate of return on a house is 0%, after factoring in inflation. It gives you a place to live. Historically, housing rises with inflation, and equity is earned by PAYING OFF THE PRINCIPAL. People have to STOP thinking of housing as a cash machine.

Let’s all get the idea of housing as a cash machine out of our heads. This was a one-in-a-lifetime event, unless the Fed creates another real estate bubble.

[powayseller]

zk makes a good point. Weren’t many of the 9/11 hijackers from Saudi Arabia? Then we should be invading Saudi Arabia, not Iraq.

As far as reasons given to attack Iraq to free women from opression, I think you will find women oppressed and raped in Africa too, but our military is not invading over there. Perhaps the lack of oil leads to our indifference in Africa.

[powayseller]

qcomer and davelj – my hat’s off to you guys for knowing how to carry a debate and explain your point of view without any personal slants. Thank you.

[powayseller]

You can check the history of a car with Carfax, and make sure there is no salvage title and that it is indeed a CA car. I wouldn’t want a non-CA car, due to the retrofit for emissions and stuff.

I also buy only used. My husband bought a 911 Porsche Carerra, just a few years old, that sells for $80K new, and he paid $30K cash. We ran the carfax report, and asked our mechanic to check it out. Hide your eyes if you don’t want to read my referral: Poway Import Car Specialist.

Buying a new car is a luxury that should be used only by those who can afford to pay cash. If you need a loan, you can’t afford a new car. Never. Ever. Under no conditions.

Hey, is that extreme enough?

Think of me as the counter-voice to all those people who try to convince you that a new car is safer and better, that real estate can only go up, that commodities are the next sure thing. Isn’t it refreshing to hear with certainty that the other extreme is also possible? Make your own choice. I am passionate about my beliefs. No apologies from me. I am proud of my lunacy, and I am so certain of my vision. I just know it deep inside, and everyday I read more and more articles which validate my positions.

[powayseller]

Let me put it bluntly sdr. You’re arrogant, short on insight, skim threads and insult people.

Your obession with me is annoying. Your preference to insult me instead of debating issues is tiring. You call me a hijacker, and ignore that PD and LookOutBelow also answered kiki’s deeper question, and said nothing about the short sale. Again, you are obesessing with me. Why didn’t you call them hijackers? I think I know why. You don’t operate on logic, but off-the-cuff on raw emotion and rage.

I am so threatening to you, because I represent the collapse of the real estate industry and the prospect of your income loss. My views are scaring the hell out of you.

When you first came to this forum, I congratulated you on your family oriented nature. I was shocked at your raw handling of Boston_OCRenter’s success story. He has not come back. Once I posted Sell Now, you started after me. That post is what got to you, what really threatened you and perhaps others.

Please, let’s agree to leave each other alone. I don’t like you at all, and I will stay far away from you. I appreciate if you could do the same.

[powayseller]

Carlsbadliving – These are great finds. Kudos to you!

[powayseller]

U.S. Treasury two-year notes suffered their biggest decline since July, sending yields to the highest in more than five and a half years, as May consumer prices increased more than forecast.

Is this because foreigners are diversifying out of dollars, and the yen carry trade is ending? Or is it due to the numerous odd causes listed by bloomberg? You decide.

Schahrzad Berkland

[powayseller]

I am anxiously awaiting your forecast for SD housing, sdr.

By the way, I have fun with my topics. I come on strong, but usually end with “Did I miss anything”? I’m always looking for a good debate.

If you think that writing 4 contracts with 24 hour windows, and submitting one at a time (thread skimmers missed that they are submitted ONE at a time until expiration) is a bad idea, say so. Why is it a bad idea?

If someone who worked in 3 continents and turned around businesses doesn’t qualify as a mentor, who does? What credentials should a mentor have kiki?

I’m extremist? What about David Lereah? When Lereah said last year that real estate never goes down, wasn’t he extremist?

As far as snooping into another realtor’s sales, that priviledge belongs to anyone using his real name. Hiding behind a pseudonym while exposing others is called being a coward.

One more thing: does anyone have any advice on how to shake off an obsessed realtor in a chat room?

Schahrzad Berkland

[powayseller]

Since when is the Fed targeting asset bubbles? They ignored housing for years! They could easily have instituted lending standards. They let the stock market bubble go on also in 2000. They are not talking down gold, as they would if they wanted to pop it. I am not convinced.

Analysts don’t know so much after all. I subscribed to Bill Fleckenstein, and he said the Fed will pause in June, because they really want to be done. I totally disagree with him. I think they will raise, because the inflation is still there, and they want to appear tough. Bill is highly regarded, but not always right.

Both Zeal and Sprott believe that China’s burgeoning economy will make commodities prices rise so much, that we can all get rich dabbling in copper and lead. I disagree with that also, because their premise is weak.

Time will tell who is right. The point is: analysts are often wrong, or they would all be billionaires by now. Zeal’s owner, Adam Hamilton, is not a billioanire to my knowledge, neither is Fleck or the Sprott group. Neither am I. But I realize they don’t know any more than I do!

[powayseller]

sdr, No hijacking. I responded to kiki’s basic question, which LookOutBelow also addressed (but you didn’t call him a hijacker). I suggest you lose your obsession for me. It’s getting really annoying.

kiki wrote:
“But as many first time buyers I get impatient as I want to own as relative high income I want to have some tax saving and secure a low interest rate.

Unfortunately it looks that is going to take a while. Foreclosure was one of the big drivers I thought will help get the prices down fast, but I read on another thread that once a house is foreclosed then it may take months before the houses are being placed for sale. :=(”

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