[TheBreeze]

Interesting data. I’ve noticed that my automatic emails from ZipRealty have almost come to a halt. I think the last new listing I got was sometime last week.

How do you interpret this lack of supply? Do you think that many of the sellers over the last year or so were opportunistic sellers as opposed to distressed sellers? Do you think that the 100% financing option ARM buyers were able to refinance into loans they could afford and thus don’t have to sell? Supposedly, a lot of option ARMS were due to reset over the past year or so, but the supply (at least here in San Diego) doesn’t seem to reflect that.

This is anecdotal, but I watched the asking price on one short sale (3-bedroom condo; not a conversion) in UTC decrease from $560,000 to $465,000 in the space of about one month last fall. When I called my real estate agent to ask about it, she said there were two or three parties submitting bids. I didn’t pursue the property any further, but lo-and-behold if the seller didn’t raise the asking price back up to $500,000 just a few days ago. I haven’t talked to my real estate agent about this place lately, but I’m assuming the current asking price is right around where the current highest offer is.

Obviously there is still demand out there at the right price. The question is, will the supply that comes on the market this spring overwhelm that demand? Right now it doesn’t look like it.

[TheBreeze]

I think there have been some studies done that say once you have enough assets that you can live on 3% to 4% of that, then you don’t need to work anymore. I’m sure $100,000 per year would be plenty for me, so I would need between $2.5 million and $3.3 million to never have to work again. You can read more about this stuff here:

http://www.retireearlyhomepage.com/restud1.html

[TheBreeze]

Don’t feel guilty, Daisy. No one knows for sure what is going to happen with housing prices. It seems like a good bet that they are going to keep going down, but something unforeseen could intervene to drive prices up again. For example, the government could step in and bail FBs out or start providing low interest rate loans to first-time buyers or something like that.

No one ever knows for sure what is going to happen, you can only try to gather and process as much information as possible in an effort to guage the probabilities.

[TheBreeze]

Is MLN coming back from the dead?

http://forum.brokeroutpost.com/loans/forum/2/84586.htm

Maybe the easy money will be around for a while longer yet.

[TheBreeze]

kev374,

Don’t forget all the fraud that has propped up prices.

[TheBreeze]

Did your deal go through, Daisy?

[TheBreeze]

Chance, you are right on the money. I’ve got six years of schoolin’ post high school, and my buddy who didn’t even graduate high school makes almost as much as I do. He’s in a union. That’s six years of lost salary for me that I’ll never be able to make up. Not to mention the student loan debt. Of course, the smartest kids don’t looks for jobs at all, they start their own businesses.

On the plus side for college though, there was a lot more tail at my school than there is in my buddies union. In fact, I’m sure I had more fun during my six years of college than my buddy had during his six years on the job. It’s tough to put a dollar value on the overall college experience.

[TheBreeze]

I think we’re about to see the subprime market tigten up considerably. No more 100% financing. No more financing closing costs. No more stated income crap. We should see the housing market soften significantly this spring with all the easy money gone. Good riddance.

By the way, who was that seller on here the other day who was waiting for their buyer to see if they could get 100% financing? I wonder if that deal closed? If that FB wasn’t able to get 100% financing this month, I doubt they will be able to get it at all.

[TheBreeze]

Raybyrnes, you sound like every other misguided buyer out there. Run a spreadsheet with a 4% depreciation every year for the next five years and see if your tax deduction saves you. I’ll think you’ll find that it doesn’t. However, it sounds like you make your financial decisions based mainly on emotion, so no amount of logical reasoning is likely to sway you. Good luck in your journey to FBdom.

[TheBreeze]

The best case result from the invasion would be to help Iraq become a beachhead of liberalism in the Arab world, something that could be a source of Muslim pride without being a threat to us. That was the President’s goal, and it’s a laudable one.

I thought President Chimpy went to war to rid Iraq of WMDs? Or was that just a lie? It’s pretty convenient how Bush keeps changes goals, strategies, tactics, and whatnot.

Iran would still have its nuclear program, and that would push Saddam to restart his own.

Under Clinton, none of these countries had nucular weapons. It was only when Bush unleashed this misguided war that Iran and North Korea put their nuclear programs into overdrive. I know you would love to blame Clinton for this nuclear proliferation, but the fact is that Bush’s hard line policies actually drove it.

You want to focus on al Qaeda? They’re in Iraq.

Was Al Qaeda in Iraq before we went in there? So you think it’s a good thing that Bush’s policies have helped Al Qaeda spread from Afghanistan to Iraq?

If you think fighting us in Iraq pays off for them in recruitment and training opportunities, what do you think beating us in Iraq would do for them? If we stay there, al Qaeda gets to choose between sacrificing lots of their people in attacks on the best military in the world or burning through their goodwill in the region by killing Muslim civilians.

Actually, most of our soldiers are killed by IEDs. Our soldiers rarely even see “the enemy.”

We leave, and they can train for attacks on American civilians in peace.

Just like your boy, you sure do have a black and white view of the world. Why do we have to stop fighting terrorists if we leave Iraq? The way I see it, if we leave Iraq we can get back to fighting actual terrorists as opposed to mediating a civil war.

[TheBreeze]

SD Realtor, what do you think would be the driver for rental rates to go up? Personally, I don’t see anything that will push up rental rates in the near future. My feeling from watching the rental market and the real estate market is that the most that the average family/person can afford in San Diego for housing is $2000-$2500/month or thereabouts. That is, the average income in San Diego can only support that level of housing payment each month.

The reason house prices have increased so much is due to all of these exotic mortgage products that allow people to take on bigger and bigger mortgages while still making monthly payments that the borrower can afford. These mortgage products allowed a whole new class of buyer to enter the market who otherwise would have been priced out. The extra demand pushed up the prices of real estate, but it wasn’t organic demand. Rather, it was a sort of “manufactured” demand that occurred when lower income folks were granted $600,000 mortgages that only required $2,000 monthly paymnets.

So I don’t really see anything that is going to drive up rents. As long as average income in San Diego remains relatively stagnant like it has been, people will only be able to afford $2000-$2500 monthly payments. Once a rental reaches that monthly price, it will begin to top out, with only exceptional properties renting for more than that. However, I could see places that rent for less than $2000 per month climbing to that price, but there seems to be a roadblock once that monthly rental price is reached, and that roadblock is the average income in San Diego.

[TheBreeze]

Gates, I agree that Bush has many, many, many, many, many documented screwups. And yet … there are those that still support him. Why is that?

Oh yeah, another quote for you: “Nobody died when Clinton lied.”

[TheBreeze]

Wow! That is huge. You know that if massive fraud has occurred in Temecula, that it has occurred in other areas as well. I think the real estate market is going to unravel quickly this year.

[TheBreeze]

Here’s another relevant quote:

“You can fool some of the people all the time, and those are the ones you want to concentrate on.” ~George Bush

It looks like Bush knows his base pretty well. 😉

[TheBreeze]

I’m keeping my fingers crossed that next week’s strategy announcement by him lays out a clear path to victory and exit.

You are keeping your fingers crossed for a winning strategy announcement from a dude who’s only military experience involves getting high and patrolling the Gulf Coast during the Vietnam War? Good luck with that.

Victory in Iraq is not possible. The Sunnis and Shias are only interested in killing each other and care not one whit about democracy. We went into Iraq under the President’s false pretenses and now we need to get out as soon as possible.

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