[temeculaguy]

Life is a process, a journey, pain and doubt are good because they remind us that we are alive.

I have little advice other than what you are experiencing are blessings as opposed to curses, you need not act on them just acknowledge them.

Mid life crisis gives way to apathy and acceptance, resist both but reasonable at the same time. We share some doubts but are miles apart on others, neither means anything, it’s just the journey, they are all different yet all the same.

Here’s how I dealt with my mid life crisis, perhaps my experience can help. A few months ago I allowed myself to fall in love, tonight I had some friends over over and I uncorked a decade old margeaux, tomorrow I take on a few work related demons. That’s it, no big secret, no huge changes, just run at it with a full head of steam and whatever happens, happens. Don;t worry about changing the world, just worry about your world, and never fret about your children pulling away from you, they are supposed to do that at some point, it is the way of things.

I found my Tao Te Chi that I had misplaced during my move a year and a half ago, go buy one yourself, it helps to feel happy about the disorder of things, even if you are catholic, a little Taosim never hurts.

[temeculaguy]

Life is a process, a journey, pain and doubt are good because they remind us that we are alive.

I have little advice other than what you are experiencing are blessings as opposed to curses, you need not act on them just acknowledge them.

Mid life crisis gives way to apathy and acceptance, resist both but reasonable at the same time. We share some doubts but are miles apart on others, neither means anything, it’s just the journey, they are all different yet all the same.

Here’s how I dealt with my mid life crisis, perhaps my experience can help. A few months ago I allowed myself to fall in love, tonight I had some friends over over and I uncorked a decade old margeaux, tomorrow I take on a few work related demons. That’s it, no big secret, no huge changes, just run at it with a full head of steam and whatever happens, happens. Don;t worry about changing the world, just worry about your world, and never fret about your children pulling away from you, they are supposed to do that at some point, it is the way of things.

I found my Tao Te Chi that I had misplaced during my move a year and a half ago, go buy one yourself, it helps to feel happy about the disorder of things, even if you are catholic, a little Taosim never hurts.

[temeculaguy]

Life is a process, a journey, pain and doubt are good because they remind us that we are alive.

I have little advice other than what you are experiencing are blessings as opposed to curses, you need not act on them just acknowledge them.

Mid life crisis gives way to apathy and acceptance, resist both but reasonable at the same time. We share some doubts but are miles apart on others, neither means anything, it’s just the journey, they are all different yet all the same.

Here’s how I dealt with my mid life crisis, perhaps my experience can help. A few months ago I allowed myself to fall in love, tonight I had some friends over over and I uncorked a decade old margeaux, tomorrow I take on a few work related demons. That’s it, no big secret, no huge changes, just run at it with a full head of steam and whatever happens, happens. Don;t worry about changing the world, just worry about your world, and never fret about your children pulling away from you, they are supposed to do that at some point, it is the way of things.

I found my Tao Te Chi that I had misplaced during my move a year and a half ago, go buy one yourself, it helps to feel happy about the disorder of things, even if you are catholic, a little Taosim never hurts.

[temeculaguy]

Life is a process, a journey, pain and doubt are good because they remind us that we are alive.

I have little advice other than what you are experiencing are blessings as opposed to curses, you need not act on them just acknowledge them.

Mid life crisis gives way to apathy and acceptance, resist both but reasonable at the same time. We share some doubts but are miles apart on others, neither means anything, it’s just the journey, they are all different yet all the same.

Here’s how I dealt with my mid life crisis, perhaps my experience can help. A few months ago I allowed myself to fall in love, tonight I had some friends over over and I uncorked a decade old margeaux, tomorrow I take on a few work related demons. That’s it, no big secret, no huge changes, just run at it with a full head of steam and whatever happens, happens. Don;t worry about changing the world, just worry about your world, and never fret about your children pulling away from you, they are supposed to do that at some point, it is the way of things.

I found my Tao Te Chi that I had misplaced during my move a year and a half ago, go buy one yourself, it helps to feel happy about the disorder of things, even if you are catholic, a little Taosim never hurts.

[temeculaguy]

I tend to disagree a little. Barring a national calamity I think the slow recovery has begun. 18-24 months ago, every fifth lawn was brown and prices were dropping by the day. Prices went below 50% off peak, it was not uncommon to find three or four houses for sale on a street of 10-15 houses. There were national news stories and videos posted of how frequent the repos were and how many pools were becoming green.

Now it looks pretty normal, maybe one house for sale on most streets, a few brown lawns, but not many. My own tract was featured on a news story with video of the brown lawns two years ago, now there isn’t a single one. It’s not all roses, it hasn’t retuned to 2005, but it’s not 2008 anymore.
I just looked at a house onlne that listed today in my tract which is the same model as mine, it’s 100k more than i paid 15 months ago, and I’ll bet it’s in escrow within a week.

Here’s some stats, In 2008, in 92592, there were more than 500 active (non pending, non shorts) at any one time, you had to zoom in on redfin to get them to appear. Today there is 165, if you include shorts it’s 278. The total pending is 475. There are almost twice as many houses pending as for sale, this was not the case last year. The condos i was looking at as an investment have gone up and rarely are available for sale other than shorts. I’d say the 100k ones I was looking at are 120k, and the 140k ones are 160k or a little more. It’s not crazy, but it’s been steady and inventory has dwindled. Not sure about the bidding because I haven’t bid lately, I kinda feel I missed the boat on buying the rental and need an interest rate shock to get back to late 08/early 09 pricing. I was buying my primary home at the time and didn’t feel I had the time to handle both transactions, but those prices may never come back, they were likely the overcorrection up here.

Houses on land or the high end ranches are in a different boat, they seem to be about a year behind, some deals I’ve seen lately are better than they were a year ago, not sure what the activity is because i hate land.

The real problem is moving forward, we had so many repos that actually went through in the last 24 months that there just isn’t enough left to have tsuinami even if one comes in s.d. A lot of the bubble bought houses have already been churned through, I’d say more than half of the 2005/2006 stock has turned over at half off, so we are almost out of ammo. We are entering a busy season with about a month’s worth of inventory and the vacant unlisteds, while they exist are about 1/10th of what they were. The only disclaimer to this is that I only look at one zip code, your results may vary and scardey is shopping in murrieta, but for the most part, temecula and murrieta go hand in hand, everything else outside of those two towns is a completely different story and always has been.

[temeculaguy]

I tend to disagree a little. Barring a national calamity I think the slow recovery has begun. 18-24 months ago, every fifth lawn was brown and prices were dropping by the day. Prices went below 50% off peak, it was not uncommon to find three or four houses for sale on a street of 10-15 houses. There were national news stories and videos posted of how frequent the repos were and how many pools were becoming green.

Now it looks pretty normal, maybe one house for sale on most streets, a few brown lawns, but not many. My own tract was featured on a news story with video of the brown lawns two years ago, now there isn’t a single one. It’s not all roses, it hasn’t retuned to 2005, but it’s not 2008 anymore.
I just looked at a house onlne that listed today in my tract which is the same model as mine, it’s 100k more than i paid 15 months ago, and I’ll bet it’s in escrow within a week.

Here’s some stats, In 2008, in 92592, there were more than 500 active (non pending, non shorts) at any one time, you had to zoom in on redfin to get them to appear. Today there is 165, if you include shorts it’s 278. The total pending is 475. There are almost twice as many houses pending as for sale, this was not the case last year. The condos i was looking at as an investment have gone up and rarely are available for sale other than shorts. I’d say the 100k ones I was looking at are 120k, and the 140k ones are 160k or a little more. It’s not crazy, but it’s been steady and inventory has dwindled. Not sure about the bidding because I haven’t bid lately, I kinda feel I missed the boat on buying the rental and need an interest rate shock to get back to late 08/early 09 pricing. I was buying my primary home at the time and didn’t feel I had the time to handle both transactions, but those prices may never come back, they were likely the overcorrection up here.

Houses on land or the high end ranches are in a different boat, they seem to be about a year behind, some deals I’ve seen lately are better than they were a year ago, not sure what the activity is because i hate land.

The real problem is moving forward, we had so many repos that actually went through in the last 24 months that there just isn’t enough left to have tsuinami even if one comes in s.d. A lot of the bubble bought houses have already been churned through, I’d say more than half of the 2005/2006 stock has turned over at half off, so we are almost out of ammo. We are entering a busy season with about a month’s worth of inventory and the vacant unlisteds, while they exist are about 1/10th of what they were. The only disclaimer to this is that I only look at one zip code, your results may vary and scardey is shopping in murrieta, but for the most part, temecula and murrieta go hand in hand, everything else outside of those two towns is a completely different story and always has been.

[temeculaguy]

I tend to disagree a little. Barring a national calamity I think the slow recovery has begun. 18-24 months ago, every fifth lawn was brown and prices were dropping by the day. Prices went below 50% off peak, it was not uncommon to find three or four houses for sale on a street of 10-15 houses. There were national news stories and videos posted of how frequent the repos were and how many pools were becoming green.

Now it looks pretty normal, maybe one house for sale on most streets, a few brown lawns, but not many. My own tract was featured on a news story with video of the brown lawns two years ago, now there isn’t a single one. It’s not all roses, it hasn’t retuned to 2005, but it’s not 2008 anymore.
I just looked at a house onlne that listed today in my tract which is the same model as mine, it’s 100k more than i paid 15 months ago, and I’ll bet it’s in escrow within a week.

Here’s some stats, In 2008, in 92592, there were more than 500 active (non pending, non shorts) at any one time, you had to zoom in on redfin to get them to appear. Today there is 165, if you include shorts it’s 278. The total pending is 475. There are almost twice as many houses pending as for sale, this was not the case last year. The condos i was looking at as an investment have gone up and rarely are available for sale other than shorts. I’d say the 100k ones I was looking at are 120k, and the 140k ones are 160k or a little more. It’s not crazy, but it’s been steady and inventory has dwindled. Not sure about the bidding because I haven’t bid lately, I kinda feel I missed the boat on buying the rental and need an interest rate shock to get back to late 08/early 09 pricing. I was buying my primary home at the time and didn’t feel I had the time to handle both transactions, but those prices may never come back, they were likely the overcorrection up here.

Houses on land or the high end ranches are in a different boat, they seem to be about a year behind, some deals I’ve seen lately are better than they were a year ago, not sure what the activity is because i hate land.

The real problem is moving forward, we had so many repos that actually went through in the last 24 months that there just isn’t enough left to have tsuinami even if one comes in s.d. A lot of the bubble bought houses have already been churned through, I’d say more than half of the 2005/2006 stock has turned over at half off, so we are almost out of ammo. We are entering a busy season with about a month’s worth of inventory and the vacant unlisteds, while they exist are about 1/10th of what they were. The only disclaimer to this is that I only look at one zip code, your results may vary and scardey is shopping in murrieta, but for the most part, temecula and murrieta go hand in hand, everything else outside of those two towns is a completely different story and always has been.

[temeculaguy]

I tend to disagree a little. Barring a national calamity I think the slow recovery has begun. 18-24 months ago, every fifth lawn was brown and prices were dropping by the day. Prices went below 50% off peak, it was not uncommon to find three or four houses for sale on a street of 10-15 houses. There were national news stories and videos posted of how frequent the repos were and how many pools were becoming green.

Now it looks pretty normal, maybe one house for sale on most streets, a few brown lawns, but not many. My own tract was featured on a news story with video of the brown lawns two years ago, now there isn’t a single one. It’s not all roses, it hasn’t retuned to 2005, but it’s not 2008 anymore.
I just looked at a house onlne that listed today in my tract which is the same model as mine, it’s 100k more than i paid 15 months ago, and I’ll bet it’s in escrow within a week.

Here’s some stats, In 2008, in 92592, there were more than 500 active (non pending, non shorts) at any one time, you had to zoom in on redfin to get them to appear. Today there is 165, if you include shorts it’s 278. The total pending is 475. There are almost twice as many houses pending as for sale, this was not the case last year. The condos i was looking at as an investment have gone up and rarely are available for sale other than shorts. I’d say the 100k ones I was looking at are 120k, and the 140k ones are 160k or a little more. It’s not crazy, but it’s been steady and inventory has dwindled. Not sure about the bidding because I haven’t bid lately, I kinda feel I missed the boat on buying the rental and need an interest rate shock to get back to late 08/early 09 pricing. I was buying my primary home at the time and didn’t feel I had the time to handle both transactions, but those prices may never come back, they were likely the overcorrection up here.

Houses on land or the high end ranches are in a different boat, they seem to be about a year behind, some deals I’ve seen lately are better than they were a year ago, not sure what the activity is because i hate land.

The real problem is moving forward, we had so many repos that actually went through in the last 24 months that there just isn’t enough left to have tsuinami even if one comes in s.d. A lot of the bubble bought houses have already been churned through, I’d say more than half of the 2005/2006 stock has turned over at half off, so we are almost out of ammo. We are entering a busy season with about a month’s worth of inventory and the vacant unlisteds, while they exist are about 1/10th of what they were. The only disclaimer to this is that I only look at one zip code, your results may vary and scardey is shopping in murrieta, but for the most part, temecula and murrieta go hand in hand, everything else outside of those two towns is a completely different story and always has been.

[temeculaguy]

I tend to disagree a little. Barring a national calamity I think the slow recovery has begun. 18-24 months ago, every fifth lawn was brown and prices were dropping by the day. Prices went below 50% off peak, it was not uncommon to find three or four houses for sale on a street of 10-15 houses. There were national news stories and videos posted of how frequent the repos were and how many pools were becoming green.

Now it looks pretty normal, maybe one house for sale on most streets, a few brown lawns, but not many. My own tract was featured on a news story with video of the brown lawns two years ago, now there isn’t a single one. It’s not all roses, it hasn’t retuned to 2005, but it’s not 2008 anymore.
I just looked at a house onlne that listed today in my tract which is the same model as mine, it’s 100k more than i paid 15 months ago, and I’ll bet it’s in escrow within a week.

Here’s some stats, In 2008, in 92592, there were more than 500 active (non pending, non shorts) at any one time, you had to zoom in on redfin to get them to appear. Today there is 165, if you include shorts it’s 278. The total pending is 475. There are almost twice as many houses pending as for sale, this was not the case last year. The condos i was looking at as an investment have gone up and rarely are available for sale other than shorts. I’d say the 100k ones I was looking at are 120k, and the 140k ones are 160k or a little more. It’s not crazy, but it’s been steady and inventory has dwindled. Not sure about the bidding because I haven’t bid lately, I kinda feel I missed the boat on buying the rental and need an interest rate shock to get back to late 08/early 09 pricing. I was buying my primary home at the time and didn’t feel I had the time to handle both transactions, but those prices may never come back, they were likely the overcorrection up here.

Houses on land or the high end ranches are in a different boat, they seem to be about a year behind, some deals I’ve seen lately are better than they were a year ago, not sure what the activity is because i hate land.

The real problem is moving forward, we had so many repos that actually went through in the last 24 months that there just isn’t enough left to have tsuinami even if one comes in s.d. A lot of the bubble bought houses have already been churned through, I’d say more than half of the 2005/2006 stock has turned over at half off, so we are almost out of ammo. We are entering a busy season with about a month’s worth of inventory and the vacant unlisteds, while they exist are about 1/10th of what they were. The only disclaimer to this is that I only look at one zip code, your results may vary and scardey is shopping in murrieta, but for the most part, temecula and murrieta go hand in hand, everything else outside of those two towns is a completely different story and always has been.

[temeculaguy]

No advice can be given in a vaccuum, the other factors in play need to be considered. As Rich pointed out, currency debasement and interest rates should be considered when deciding on a strategy. For the last few years, rate of return for cash has been extremely low, if CD’s were paying 10%, you would be better off with that investment than paying off a 5% mortgage. But that is not what is happening today, so Les is making a sound move today. For the rest of us, for those of us with more mortgage than cash, we need to wait and see.

In the 1970’s, here in So Cal, you could buy a nice house for 30k, by the 1980’s, that 30k would buy you a nice car. During that span, there were periods of 10% return for pedestrian investments. If we enter a similar time period, which we might, you need to change your strategy.

Many people have investments other than retirement accounts while maintaining a mortgage. Each day my investments rise in value, while my mortgage debt decreases. There will come a day, when these two numbers cross paths, when the liquid value of my investments equal my mortgage debt (not including retirement accounts). Will I sell my investments and pay off my mortgage, the answer is “I don’t know.” It all depends on what is going on when that day comes.

I personally think that currency debasement, high inflation and high interest rates are likely in the coming decade, so I keep my options and my eyes open. But if that day was today, I’d do what Les is doing, unfortunately that day for me is not today, so I will keep my eye on the ball until that day comes.

[temeculaguy]

No advice can be given in a vaccuum, the other factors in play need to be considered. As Rich pointed out, currency debasement and interest rates should be considered when deciding on a strategy. For the last few years, rate of return for cash has been extremely low, if CD’s were paying 10%, you would be better off with that investment than paying off a 5% mortgage. But that is not what is happening today, so Les is making a sound move today. For the rest of us, for those of us with more mortgage than cash, we need to wait and see.

In the 1970’s, here in So Cal, you could buy a nice house for 30k, by the 1980’s, that 30k would buy you a nice car. During that span, there were periods of 10% return for pedestrian investments. If we enter a similar time period, which we might, you need to change your strategy.

Many people have investments other than retirement accounts while maintaining a mortgage. Each day my investments rise in value, while my mortgage debt decreases. There will come a day, when these two numbers cross paths, when the liquid value of my investments equal my mortgage debt (not including retirement accounts). Will I sell my investments and pay off my mortgage, the answer is “I don’t know.” It all depends on what is going on when that day comes.

I personally think that currency debasement, high inflation and high interest rates are likely in the coming decade, so I keep my options and my eyes open. But if that day was today, I’d do what Les is doing, unfortunately that day for me is not today, so I will keep my eye on the ball until that day comes.

[temeculaguy]

No advice can be given in a vaccuum, the other factors in play need to be considered. As Rich pointed out, currency debasement and interest rates should be considered when deciding on a strategy. For the last few years, rate of return for cash has been extremely low, if CD’s were paying 10%, you would be better off with that investment than paying off a 5% mortgage. But that is not what is happening today, so Les is making a sound move today. For the rest of us, for those of us with more mortgage than cash, we need to wait and see.

In the 1970’s, here in So Cal, you could buy a nice house for 30k, by the 1980’s, that 30k would buy you a nice car. During that span, there were periods of 10% return for pedestrian investments. If we enter a similar time period, which we might, you need to change your strategy.

Many people have investments other than retirement accounts while maintaining a mortgage. Each day my investments rise in value, while my mortgage debt decreases. There will come a day, when these two numbers cross paths, when the liquid value of my investments equal my mortgage debt (not including retirement accounts). Will I sell my investments and pay off my mortgage, the answer is “I don’t know.” It all depends on what is going on when that day comes.

I personally think that currency debasement, high inflation and high interest rates are likely in the coming decade, so I keep my options and my eyes open. But if that day was today, I’d do what Les is doing, unfortunately that day for me is not today, so I will keep my eye on the ball until that day comes.

[temeculaguy]

No advice can be given in a vaccuum, the other factors in play need to be considered. As Rich pointed out, currency debasement and interest rates should be considered when deciding on a strategy. For the last few years, rate of return for cash has been extremely low, if CD’s were paying 10%, you would be better off with that investment than paying off a 5% mortgage. But that is not what is happening today, so Les is making a sound move today. For the rest of us, for those of us with more mortgage than cash, we need to wait and see.

In the 1970’s, here in So Cal, you could buy a nice house for 30k, by the 1980’s, that 30k would buy you a nice car. During that span, there were periods of 10% return for pedestrian investments. If we enter a similar time period, which we might, you need to change your strategy.

Many people have investments other than retirement accounts while maintaining a mortgage. Each day my investments rise in value, while my mortgage debt decreases. There will come a day, when these two numbers cross paths, when the liquid value of my investments equal my mortgage debt (not including retirement accounts). Will I sell my investments and pay off my mortgage, the answer is “I don’t know.” It all depends on what is going on when that day comes.

I personally think that currency debasement, high inflation and high interest rates are likely in the coming decade, so I keep my options and my eyes open. But if that day was today, I’d do what Les is doing, unfortunately that day for me is not today, so I will keep my eye on the ball until that day comes.

[temeculaguy]

No advice can be given in a vaccuum, the other factors in play need to be considered. As Rich pointed out, currency debasement and interest rates should be considered when deciding on a strategy. For the last few years, rate of return for cash has been extremely low, if CD’s were paying 10%, you would be better off with that investment than paying off a 5% mortgage. But that is not what is happening today, so Les is making a sound move today. For the rest of us, for those of us with more mortgage than cash, we need to wait and see.

In the 1970’s, here in So Cal, you could buy a nice house for 30k, by the 1980’s, that 30k would buy you a nice car. During that span, there were periods of 10% return for pedestrian investments. If we enter a similar time period, which we might, you need to change your strategy.

Many people have investments other than retirement accounts while maintaining a mortgage. Each day my investments rise in value, while my mortgage debt decreases. There will come a day, when these two numbers cross paths, when the liquid value of my investments equal my mortgage debt (not including retirement accounts). Will I sell my investments and pay off my mortgage, the answer is “I don’t know.” It all depends on what is going on when that day comes.

I personally think that currency debasement, high inflation and high interest rates are likely in the coming decade, so I keep my options and my eyes open. But if that day was today, I’d do what Les is doing, unfortunately that day for me is not today, so I will keep my eye on the ball until that day comes.

[temeculaguy]

Les, it’s a good thing, ignore the rhetoric of the armchair watercooler financial advisors telling you to have a mortgage, half of all houses are without a mortgage. A wise man once told me “would you rather give three dollars to the bank or one to the government?”

[Author]

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