[spdrun]

I made an offer 10% below asking price on a condo, against my broker’s advice. Got a call back 2 months later that no one else had performed, I was next in line, would I like it? (Still in the SS process, but getting close to approval.)

[spdrun]

I was thinking more like 10% in the real world. I guess water really is the 1000-lb gorilla in the room, at least as far as Phoenix goes.

If there’s no HOA, would I actually give a aerial wank how the tenant kept the lawn?

[spdrun]

What exactly is the advantage of a new house, as opposed to an older one in an established neighborhood? Apart from the “lookit me, meeeeeesa want” factor, of course?

As a New Yorker, I’m USED to 50-100+ year old stuff; some of it is even more desirable than new construction.

[spdrun]

Re: Poenis, AZ:
There were houses in Deer Valley selling for $80k that would be usable with $20k of renovations. They’d rent for $1300/mo, minus $200 for taxes, minus $100 for insurance, tenant pays utilities. That’s 12% pro forma cap.

[spdrun]

^^^

This makes me orgasmically glad that I didn’t buy in Phoenix, if 12% paper cap rates are turning into 6% in reality. Yeah, schadenfreunde, but so be it. It’s really a pestilential, mosquito-ridden (yep, they’re drawn to the moisture from swimming pools and irrigation), dusty, shitehole in the desert. There now, I said it.

Hoping at least one offer in SD that’s been “stewing” comes through this week, BTW.

[spdrun]

Difference being that cash talks now, whereas BS talked back then.

[spdrun]

I went to public school through high school — I’ve always had a hatred of authority, guess that I was born a mild sociopath.

Some people act their dislike of authority out by collecting guns, marching around in a “militia” or whatnot. Me, I realize that true power comes from a some bucks in the bank more than from the barrel of a gun, so I use that means for self-defence.

[spdrun]

Me, I don’t have a lust or love for money. I have a lust/love for not being a 9-5’er, having the ability to travel at will, and being able to tell anyone whom I work with to “go f**k yourself with a sharp tool, and same goes for your crummy family” without severe financial repercussions. Note that I actually love most of the people whom I work with, but I only love them because I’m not DEPENDENT on them. Lack of freedom would breed mortal rage in me.

Money is just a means of enjoying life — if I end up driving an old, paid-off car in order to have more in the bank for things that are REALLY enjoyable, then so be it. Fortunately, I live in a city where (while it has a large wealth gap), it’s perfectly acceptable to arrive on a date on foot or on the subway.

If I were forced to live the life of the average American peon (2 weeks of vacay, more debt than assets, 8-6, 2.5 hr commute), I’d probably be in jail for breaking someone’s nose in.

[spdrun]

Perhaps we should be giving bloods and crips gold medals instead of jail time — might save on those cop and firefighter pensions if they never make it to retirement age 🙂

[spdrun]

NK is a piss-ante little dictatorship looking to blackmail/threaten others into giving it handouts. Iran, I suspect that the leadership is much saner than our media leads us to believe it is. Syria is a mess, but it doesn’t have to be OUR mess.

[spdrun]

Are we talking about the North Koreans playing child’s games here? They’re stupid, but not that stupid.

[spdrun]

All I can say is that I’d rather cut off my sack with a rusty Cossack dagger than be subjected to HOA board rules in a detached house (different story for a condo in an apartment building, of course).

[spdrun]

Low inflation? Fuel was $1.50/gal in 2003. Now it’s $3.50+/gal. Look at food prices. Inflation is plenty high — it’s just “hidden” by the goniffs at the Fed.

One of the few saving graces of the current situation IS low housing cost.

[spdrun]

Put it this way — the value of the home where I grew up has increased by about a factor of 2.5 since the 90s, with average incomes in the area maybe doubling. My mom bought it in early 90s and paid it off on one income. This was always considered a “good” town in NJ, so gentrification doesn’t really play into it. Note that value was probably closer to 3.5x the 90s value at the height of the bubble.

Re-inflating the bubble, at least in “my” part of NJ, would do more harm than good unless incomes jump dramatically. (Don’t see that happening in the near term.)

[spdrun]

SK in CV –
Agreed that we’re not seeing bad inflation now. But they’re trying to re-inflate things that should NOT be re-inflated, namely the housing bubble. Yeppers. Good idea. Let’s put housing in acceptable areas out of reach of the 20 and early 30 somethings once again. Remember when it was NORMAL for people to buy homes in their late 20s, often on one income?

Basically, they’re trying to keep middle-class people on the treadmill indefinitely, rather than letting living costs drop to levels where a comfortable life WITHOUT over-exertion is possible.

Also, they’re assuming that systems behave linearly. Keep pumping, pumping, pumping and they may get a sudden response (aka bad inflation) within a very short time. Think of a mechanical system that’s stuck. You keep applying more and more force till it un-sticks, and you can end up with a very exaggerated response in the other direction. Any engineer can see and understand that.

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