[Rich Toscano]

Been a busy bee, and at this point was just going to wait for the Oct numbers to do an update. What housing drop?

[Rich Toscano]

[quote=Rich Toscano]This guy installed my AC and he did a great job:

John Hurn
HURN Mechanical
P: 619.312.1924
E: [email protected][/quote]

(copied from another thread)

[Rich Toscano]

Xbox, I agree with everything you said. In specific, you are totally right about there being 1314 fewer jobs in SD… I didn’t bring up the “1 week’s worth of jobs” to imply that the layoffs didn’t have a negative effect at all — they do for sure. I was just trying to put it in quantitative perspective that it’s not a giant impact overall. Ie, losing 1 week’s worth of jobs might reduce the number of new jobs created in 2015 by about 2%. As you noted, they are particularly high paying jobs so the hit is higher than that in wage terms, but you see what I mean…

Anyhoo. As to your last thing… I don’t disagree at all that the housing market could turn down at some point. Maybe soon. I don’t know. As I mentioned in another thread, I think all these little indicators I chart are good for 2 things:

– The valuation indicators (home prices compared to rent and income) give a good ballpark, I think, of your potential inflation-adjusted appreciation — or lack thereof — over a longer term timeframe (let’s say 5-10 years).
– Months of inventory gives you a good idea of price pressures immediately ahead (let’s say a month or two)

Unfortunately, the area in between (3 months through 5 years or whatever) requires a lot more speculation, guessing, and economic predictions. That’s not to say it’s not fun or interesting to do, but I have a lot less confidence in speculations/guesses/economic forecasts (my own, and everyone else’s) than I do in the two quantitative measures mentioned above.

So… could housing turn down soon? Well, there’s no indication that this is happening, but yeah — it sure could. Homes are overpriced and when something is overpriced, it’s a lot more vulnerable to exogenous events. So I wouldn’t be surprised, but I also wouldn’t be surprised if it went the other way. Just about the only thing I’m confident in predicting is that people who are banking on a lot of appreciation over the next 5-10 years are likely to be disappointed (or possibly worse).

Anyway, I think I just misunderstood your original assertion, as I am in agreement with you on all counts. Order is restored to the universe!

[Rich Toscano]

Lizards???

[Rich Toscano]

Xbox, I find myself in agreement with you on most things, but I see this one a bit differently.

So far in 2015, San Diego has added 4,800 jobs per month on average. So even if 4k people get laid off from qcom, that’s less than 1 month’s job growth. And that assumes that none of these people will find other jobs in San Diego, which is of course not the case. Given the general state of the tech industry as I see it (which is: techies are in high demand), I would be surprised if even half of the people had to move out of town. Let’s say 40% have to leave — now we are down to about 1 week’s worth of San Diego job growth to replace those folks.

So I just don’t see this as being a big issue for San Diego housing as a whole. It’s a big city.

That said, I could see there being an impact in the surrounding areas that are popular among QCOMers. If enough people need to move, there could be a bit of a mini-glut in that area for a while. But I would view that more as an opportunity for people who are looking to buy in those areas — not as a game changer for the overall housing market.

Do you think I’m missing something?

[Rich Toscano]

This is where I take my car:

Home

A bit of a haul from Poway, but they know their Miatas as far as I can tell…

[Rich Toscano]

Well I would add one nuance: the recession may have been the immediate cause, but it’s important to bear in mind that housing was very expensive at the start of that time. So the recession kicked off the decline in this case, but it’s very possible that a decline would have happened anyway (though maybe it would have been shallower or slower… no way of knowing really).

That said, housing is as expensive now as it was then (albeit against a currently much more favorable rate climate for now)… so I don’t know how much comfort that should give you.

Re this:

“won’t a under-supply market typically lead to higher price until supply balances out demand?”

Yes, it will tend to, but all we know is that it is currently undersupplied. That could change in the months ahead. So the market is currently at a level that is pressuring prices upward, but it won’t necessarily be that way X months hence. As one example, if we were to have a 2013 style spike in rates, that’s something that could immediately put a damper on demand. (Not predicting that per se, just giving an example). That’s why I say the timing thing is pretty unreliable.

The way I look at it is:

– months of inventory predicts price changes in the immediate future (couple months out, maybe)
– valuations predict long-term potential price appreciation (or lack thereof)

…and everything in between is a guess.

There’s probably more nuance to it than that, but I think it’s a pretty good summary.

[Rich Toscano]

[quote=nct]I wasn’t here at that time. Did GD cause the San Diego’s housing market crash in earlier 90s?[/quote]

No, it did not… there was a regional recession of which GD was just one part. That’s not happening at this time and while it could happen in the future, Qualcomm layoffs alone won’t be the cause.

Short term timing is always an uncertain thing. Very uncertain in my view. Fwiw right now the market is pretty undersupplied, making this a good time to sell, all things equal. Of course, that’s not to say it won’t be better next spring… it could, but it could also get worse. I don’t see it as being very predictable.

Maybe some helpful stuff in these articles:

August 2015 Housing Data Rodeo

Shambling Towards Affordability, Mid-Year 2015

[Rich Toscano]

One more good background piece on shadowstats: https://mikeashton.wordpress.com/2014/05/20/hot-button-issue-rant-warning/

(from Mike Ashton, a dude who really has expertise on the CPI and inflation in general)

[Rich Toscano]

[quote=XBoxBoy][quote=Leorocky]Shadowstats is not a reputable source.[/quote]
I often wonder how much faith to put in Shadowstats. [/quote]

Roughy 0 faith, would be my suggestion.

I discussed it a bit in this thread, noting among other things that he pretty much just adds a fixed number to BLS CPI each month:

http://piggington.com/interesting_site

That is fairly useless, but worse yet the plug number he adds appears to be way off. Here’s more from Doug Short showing some real-world numbers to demonstrate that the shadowstats numbers can’t possibly be right:

http://www.advisorperspectives.com/dshort/updates/Regression-to-Trend-Aternate-CPI.php

[Rich Toscano]

Thanks xbox and others for the info.

I keep trying it (tried multiple browsers) and it keeps working for me. Nothing’s changed with it for years, on my side, so I can only assume things are awry on the Google side. Thus, for now anyway, I will employ my oft-used strategy of “do nothing and hope it fixes itself.”

BTW, to amuse myself on one of my tests I searched for the word ovipositor and actually got a hit, in a comment by one “urbanrealtor”:

[quote=urbanrealtor]The sheer wrongness of your position makes my ovipositor quiver.[/quote]

[Rich Toscano]

[quote=urbanrealtor][quote=Rich Toscano]It’s working now for me… is anyone still having problems? Thanks for the heads up.[/quote]
Not working for me.
I tried searching “fallbrook” and no results.
Same with my own username.

Fun fact:
90% of my searches on Google are for my own name.[/quote]

The other 10% of your searches: “synthetic ovipositor”

I will try to figure out what is going on this weekend… thanks.

[Rich Toscano]

It’s working now for me… is anyone still having problems? Thanks for the heads up.

[Rich Toscano]

It may be different in Temecula, but here in SD it’s a seller’s market… less than 2 months of active inventory:

[Rich Toscano]

[quote=The-Shoveler]I am not saying that home prices are not silly right now but I will say they are not and have not been building near enough homes.
[/quote]

Inventory is indeed low, but that’s a function of how many people want to sell and how many want to buy at any given time, not necessarily of how much new building is taking place, or of overall housing supply. For example, inventory was very low during the bubble, despite lots of new construction/rapid expansion of housing supply, and then it was very high in the bust despite zero new construction.

It may be true that new building isn’t keeping up with population growth (I don’t know one way or the other, offhand), but current level of inventory for sale isn’t really a good indicator of that, is my point. To determine this you’d have to look at population growth compared to housing supply… SANDAG probably has that info. Might be interesting to look into.

PS my take on whether prices are “silly” -> http://piggington.com/shambling_towards_affordability_midyear_2015

Summary: yeah, they seem kind of silly, but it’s hard to get an exact read on that, and they were a lot sillier during the bubble.

[Author]

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