[powayseller]

I sold my house with a Help U Sell agent. They were fabulous, and I sold my house within 2 months. I saved $12,000 in commissions over the ReMax agent that I interviewed.

Both agents had E&O insurance, put me on the MLS, and did all the standard marketing. My husband and I were very happy with the work done by Pam McCormick and Gordon Kane at Help U Sell in Poway. People knowledgeable about real estate understand that a “discount broker” vs. a high fee broker is the difference between buying your Charmin at Ralph’s vs. at Costco: the same product, but the higher volume company offers a lower price. The discount broker works on volume. The only difference in service is that Open Houses are hosted by the seller.

I find the back handed compliments very peculiar as well. For some reason, many overpriced realtors, aka “full service” realtors, are immensely threatened by the discount realtors.

I look at it this way: if the 3% guys are really better, they wouldn’t be so threatened by the 1% guys. The defensiveness and backhanded compliments tell me more about the viability of the 3% guys than anything else. With the Justice Department getting involved, the internet, and the proliferation of 1% competitors, the 3% model is soon going the way of the buggy whip.

[powayseller]

Diego Mamani, Native meant that she is having children for herself and for the gays that cannot have any.

Native, barnaby33 is single, and after seeing his parents’ multiple marriages and divorces (and probably a lot of stepbrothers and stepsisters along the way), who can blame him for his bitterness about marriage and children? Go easy on him; he’s a real nice guy.

[powayseller]

We all hijack threads around here, no problem. This topic is interesting enough that you could start a thread on it. Many people have asked the same question.

[powayseller]

Regarding John Hokkanen’s Post Reported Market Times, he explains his method of getting months of inventory.

He wrote
“What I like about the months of inventory approach is that you can see how different price brackets in different areas are faring. I’ve run the numbers for many areas in North County, and there are some clear breaking points. In most of the coastal areas (Oceanside, Encinitas, Carlsbad, etc.), the inventory for any bracket under $1M is under 10 months, usually around 7-8. Above $1M, things begin to soften (e.g., Encinitas goes to 16 months of inventory above $1.25M), but, for the most part, things are delayed but not in a crisis situation.

HOWEVER, if you compare the months of inventory to the inland markets, things change pretty dramatically. For San Marcos and Escondido, the over $1.25M price bracket yields around THREE YEARS of inventory. That number is GROWING because the sales rate has, since March, declined for the most part. ” – John Hokkanen

John, could you post more months of inventory by zip code, and also, for neighborhoods within zip codes if there happens to be a difference for certain tracts?

[powayseller]

bmarum – this is how we should be evaluating home valuations: as a multiple of rents. Leamer says in the article “San Diego’s current P/E is nearly 30, compared with a 1989 high of 23.4.” This model makes homes 21% overvalued. But with many homes already down 10-15%, I wonder how accurate this model can be for forecasting. If true, the San Elijo Hills homes have pretty much bottomed out already.

The problem may have to do with Leamer’s time of data gathering. The table shows the P/E ratio of San Diego was 29.7 in 2001, and the latest figure is “nearly 30”. It is difficult to believe that during the period of the highest runup, the years 2001 – 2005, the ratio went from 29.7 to 30. Something is definitely wrong there.

The P/E is the median home price/annual rent for 2BR apt

Using the other article you posted, this would give us, based on June 2006 data for San Diego County
$ 585,000 /$1442*12 = 33.8

Using today’s numbers, the home price/apt rent model would bring homes down 30%. (33.8 x .7 = 23.66)

For greater accuracy at estimating SFH prices, I would look at the historic rate of SFH rentals, not apartment rentals in my equation. I read on this forum that 4plexowner looked for properties priced a 8-12 times annual rent. We are much higher than that now. Anyone care to do that analysis? Many of us are renters. It should be easy to do.

[powayseller]

Daniel, great post. I am just now reading it all.

Every asset bubble in history reverted to its mean. The mean would be the continuation of the pre-spike trendline. Let’s look at the NASDAQ, since you brought up that example.
The investors that I follow (Bill Fleckenstein, Barry Ritholtz at The Big Picture, Mr. Yamamoto, Zeal) say that stock market is still overvalued. The NASDAQ bubble certainly corrected. Look at this chart. It rose steadily for many years to reached a value of around 2000 in mid-1998, shot up to a high of 5046 on 3/9/2000, and then reverted back to its pre-spike value in mid-2001, and hasn’t budged since. It last closed at 2085. While I only lost $2K in tech stocks, I heard people telling me they lost hundreds of thousands, or even half of their retirement money. They have not earned it back.

[powayseller]

Suggestion: lower it 5-10% below the most recent comp, and pray.

[powayseller]

I was also wondering why they picked the pound over the Swiss franc or Canadian dollar. England has a voracious consumer society too. I personally don’t have that same confidence in the pound.

I certainly didn’t mean to imply that the Bank of Italy knows what they are doing. History is full of poor choices made by governments.

But we should all be asking ourselves: if we are 100% in US dollars, what is our reason? Anyone who is holding only US dollars should have a list of reasons at the very least. I personally am investigating my options to diversify. Look at it this way: if you lived in Canada or France, you wouldn’t hold any dollar either. By owning only dollars and no Canadian dollars, are you doing this because you think that Canadian dollars are not as valued, or are you merely succumbing to convenience?

These are the reasons to hold dollars:
convenience, dollar will keep its value, foreigners will want to keep funding our trade and budget deficit, foreigners will keep buying our US Treasuries at the current rate, our economy will turn around and interest rates will stay high to entice foreigners to buy our debt. Any other reasons? How reasonable are these reasons anyway?

I am *not* giving investment advice, just asking people to question their cash holdings, and encouraging you all to have a good reason for each investment you hold. You ought to be able to write on a piece of paper at least 3 good reasons for each stock or cash position you hold.

I had a fun time recently looking through my folders, and finding my list of 3 reasons for each of my stock purchases in 1999. For example, I chose UPS because of rising business due to the internet growing, their share price was temporarily depressed due to a one-time tax charge (got this by studying their financial statements)and would go up the next year, and so on. I chose Lands’ End because of their best catalog marketing strategy, high quality of clothing, booming corporate clothing line, etc. They were later bought out by Sears. Both were winners. OTOH, I bought Lucent and Sanmina SCI because my friends had made a lot of money in it and both had just gone through huge price drops; I thought they were a good buy at those low prices. I had not studied either one, and had no good reason for owning either one. I lost most of my money on both. Thank goodness I knew they were gambles and only lost $2K on the internet stocks.

So, have a list of 3 reasons for each position that you hold. These reasons should pass the spouse test. If you can’t convince your spouse with that list, the list isn’t solid enough. This list-idea is from Peter Lynch.

[powayseller]

The website says that the mortgage broker is in cahoots with this. He has 15 attempts at adjusting the income in the computer, and keeps moving it up until the borrower qualifies. With a higher interest rate, and the fact that it takes only 10-15 minutes to gather your paperwork or a letter from your CPA to certifiy your business income, the obvious reason to go no-doc is to cheat.

Borrowers and lenders justified this, thinking that when the intro period expires, they will refinance at another teaser rate, or turn around and sell at a much higher price. With higher interest rates, dropping prices, and high debt loads, that dream has turned to a nightmare.

The lenders are paid commission and sold the loan to the MBS market. They have no skin in the game. Borrowers were living on false hopes of indefinite appreciation.

I wish we had some lenders on this forum. But check out the other site, housingbubblecasualty.com, and you will learn a lot about loose lending standards.

[powayseller]

Bugs, I also hope this power won’t be abused. ZipRealty should ask for the poster’s name and address, but they don’t. I gave a nice post about my neighbor’s house, but I could just as easily have trashed it.

[powayseller]

Hey you all, don’t fight about me. I know that people like to read my posts ONLY because I have the time to put into researching this stuff. Any of you could do this if you wanted to. The only thing that makes me different from the “average” person who watches TV every night is that I question almost everything and I will rock the boat if needed. I will not shy away from a confrontation or conflict (except in personal relationships, where harmony is #1).

So please don’t give me any credit for any wisdom. Everything I post here, I found somewhere else. My assets are only my curiosity and bull-dog personality. And honestly, my bulldog nature makes this site a little more fun and spicy.

I appreciate the personal feedback too, and have tried to stay a little more “gray” on my statements. But I hope I will never shy away from saying what needs to be said.

I am here to learn from others too. I only know what I read, and what my realtor friends tell me. I don’t have work experience like so many of you. Oh, and I forgot to mention theplayers as one of my favorite posters.

[powayseller]

Novice, I speak what I see. Estrogen give me soft skin, testosterone strength. I love all of me. Thank you for reading my posts.

[powayseller]

Our vastu house had siding, and was a ranch style. It looked like a regular house. I don’t like the ones in the photos either – they are real weird looking I think.

Vastu refers to the layout and other features I described, but you can make the outside look like Tuscan, Mediterranean, log cabin, ranch style, stucco, anything you want.

Straw bales are great – my best friends in Phoenix built one back in 1991. The walls were so thick! Wonderful. Again, you can use straw bales to make a vastu house too.

[powayseller]

That is going to be a problem for home values in Carmel Valley then. No single stories at all? I thought that was a nice area over there?

[powayseller]

From a lender, wiseguy:
We are starting to see plenty of people who’s ARMs are adjusting from a couple of years ago and cannot refi because of HELOCS and seconds that they took out. When there was huge appreciation it didn’t matter. Now appreciation has slowed and they are in a bad position.

SoCalMtgGuy writes:
“My biggest office that had over 100 loan officers just closed their doors last month. Most of these econoMISSEDs are tied to the industry, so they don’t have the integrity to tell the truth. Either that, or they are so far removed from the ‘ground level’ of what is really going on in most broker shops to see HOW people working fast food can buy 400k starter homes. Stated income loans have been abused to such an extent that the repurcussions will be felt for years.

If the banks had to hold these loans then this NEVER would have happened to this extent. When I was doing loans, our company would take a loan to the investor to see if they would buy the loan BEFORE we would approve it. This wasn’t done on all loans, just the ‘ugly’ ones. If the investor said OK, then the loan was made. Sometimes they would ask for other conditions, other times they flat turned it down.

I have had communication with several bond traders. What they told me is that there is so much money sloshing around out there, that people/funds/companies need a place to park it. They know there will be defaults, but the rate of return on the MBS is still way better than they can get in other places of the world.

I say yes…right now. but what happens if/when the massive defaults hit??? Same thing with the junk bonds is going to happen here.

Junk bonds became ‘hot’ items. Then the ‘junk’ that was backing the bond deteriorated to such a point that the whole thing crumbled. Same thing with mortgages. The quality of the borrower and loan deteriorated as the markets got ‘hotter’…and again, there will be hell to pay.

Just like people that were buying ‘bonds’ on crazy amusement parks in the middle of the desert…there are people buying mortgages on people who have little to no chance of ever being able to afford their mortgage when the paymnet adjusts.”

[Author]

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