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“I feel bad about that” should be, “I feel badly about that.”

Wrong. And that’s one of my pet peeves. People saying “I feel badly.”

If you feel badly, that means you aren’t very good at feeling. If you feel bad, that means that the feelings that you have are bad feelings. Not badly feelings.

You wouldn’t say, “I feel downtroddenly,” or “I feel exhilaratedly.” And you certainly wouldn’t say, “this sandpaper feels roughly.”

You can say, “I feel well,” but you’re using well the adjective (meaning “in good health”) not well the adverb (meaning commendably). You could say “I feel well,” using well the adverb, but then you’d mean “I am good at feeling.”

Anyway, as I was unable to explain it further than that (and was a bit curious as to how to explain it exactly), I gooled the phrase “I feel badly,” and came up with this link which will explain it further (on the off chance that anyone actually gives a damn).

But, hey, don’t feel bad, lots of people get that wrong. And don’t feel badly, either, because then you’ll miss out on life’s great ups and downs. (Or you won’t be able to tell sandpaper from a rose petal.)

But if you really did vote for Bush, you should feel very bad about that. If you did vote for him, and you don’t feel bad, then you probably do feel (and think) badly.

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How about to and too.

Also:
it’s = it is
its = belonging to it.

About time that got cleared up.

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And it’s jewelry, not jewlery.

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“Not much cash out, just a lot of equity lines right now (they are free to my clients) to hedge against property value drops in the coming years.”

How are equity lines a hedge against property value drops?

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PD, that’s an interesting answer. I pretty much agree with your first two, but my guess would be that if there’s a depression, prices will drop by more than 60%. I’m not sure what the technical definition of a depression is (or if there is one), but if my impression of what one is is correct, then you’ll not only have severe to extreme job losses, you’ll probably have deflation also. I could easily see the median SD home price drop to 150k, maybe even lower, in a depression.

That said, I think the odds of a depression happening are extremely remote (less than one in five hundred).

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Trough: 2010-11
Drop from peak in nominal prices: 25-35% (40-50% real)

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I’ve been following Robert Campbell’s ideas for a while, and I agree with CJ that they are pretty solid.

Also, in everything I’ve read of his, in both seminars I went to, in his book, and in the few times I’ve talked to him, I’ve never heard or read anything like “get rich quick.”

As I’ve mentioned before, I did a great deal of research before deciding not to get back into the market. Robert Campbell’s methods/ideas were among the many I looked at, and among the most solid, in my opinion.

As far as his “His comparative advantage and greatest skill resides in being able to convince people that anybody can “get rich quick” with his system,” I was actually somewhat more impressed with his ideas than I was with his presentation. (Just a personal preference. His high-energy style appeals to me less than, say, the professor’s more easy-going, down-to-earth style.) The point being that I disagree with your statement; I think his ideas and methods are his comparative advantage, not his salesmanship.

I must admit, though, that I have noticed his frequent grammar and spelling errors, and that does sometimes give me pause.

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I think he’s talking about real estate nationally. And if he thinks it’ll drop at least that much nationally (and he probably does, or he wouldn’t have decided on that type of spin), then it’ll probably drop a lot more in San Diego.

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Sales have stalled partly because “the sellers are not bringing prices down fast enough,” Mr. Lereah said. “They’ve been very stubborn.”

Gee, Dave, can you think of any reason why they might be stubbornly refusing to drop prices at all, let alone “fast enough?”

Do you think maybe it’s because you’ve told them eight billion times in the last couple years that they won’t have to? That prices won’t go down?

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I tried the fancy link thing under the words “hopes prices will drop,” but it didn’t show up. I’ve got it figured out now.

here’s the article

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I totally concur with surveyor’s recommendations. Those are very solid ideas.

Also, when trying to guess the future of the market, keep this in mind:

The same force that drove it into the stratosphere will drive it into the basement: market psychology.

The only reason prices are as high as they are is that people thought that prices would keep going up and that buying a house, the biggest house you could make the payments on (even if you could only afford the payments temporarily), was the easiest way to make lots of money. It didn’t matter what you paid for it, just buy it at any price; it would be more next year. Now, the psychology has started to shift. It’s shifting even faster than a lot of gloom-and-doomers thought it would shift. Human beings in general follow the herd. This negativity on the part of buyers will increase as more people get caught up in the herd, and before long the negative feelings will be as dominant as the positive feelings were on the way up. Then most people won’t want to buy a house at all, for fear of paying more for it than it will be worth next year. Demand plummets, and with it, prices.

Anyway, that’s how I see it.

Good luck.

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Josh,

Thank you very much for the input and the clarification.
I disagree with some of your assumptions, but I think I understand your logic now.

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“powayseller’s first obligation is to her family. She didn’t push her home directly onto the buyer.”

That’s got nothing to do with anything. She claims to not be able to do something that would be her gain at another’s loss, yet she did just that.

“I’m not defending unethical behavior. I’m just saying that CVf you really think about it, everything in life could be considered a scam. If you don’t see that then you’ve not been examining life.”

If you think that I said or implied that I don’t think that life is full of moral/ethical contradictions, then you’ve not been examining my posts.

“If you really think about it, everything in life could be considered a scam.” is a long, long way from, “life is full of moral/ethical contradictions,”

Just because I disagree with the former doesn’t mean I disagree with the latter.

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“Areas worse off in terms of general desirability have to “compete harder” to attract buyers.”

I’m not sure I follow. Less desireable areas have lower prices. There are always going to be people on all areas of the income spectrum. Some of those people have income lower than they need to buy real estate. No matter how low prices go, there are people who can’t afford a house. So as the cheapest areas become cheaper, they’re opening up home ownership to new people on the income scale. Why do they have to compete any harder than they did before?

“If they can afford Del Mar, CV probably isn’t really an option at that point. Then the competition is between a much smaller group of sellers for a particular buyer.”

I’m missing the logic leads to that statement. What does buyer preference have to do with the number of sellers? If San Ysidro buyers move up to National City, and those buyers move up to Chula Vista, and those to Ramona, then Scripps Ranch, then CV, then Del Mar, why does CV (or any other area) have a smaller group of sellers per buyer? Haven’t the buyers that moved from Scripps Ranch to CV relaced the buyers that moved from CV to DM?

It’s entirely possible that you’re stating your theory clearly and I’m just not getting it. If you could clarify, I’d appreciate it. Also, if anyone else wants to take a stab at explaining their theories as to why some areas fall less than others, that’d be good, also.

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“In defense of powayseller, selling one’s own property is different than selling properties for a living.”

That may be true in general, but for the purposes of this discussion, it’s the same thing. To illustrate why, I’ll use PS’ own words:
“I would feel like each deal someone is losing money for my gain. I could never do it.”

Sure, the subject she’s talking about is being a realtor, but that sentiment is the crux of her argument. And, if she felt like she couldn’t do a deal where someone is losing money for her gain, then how does she justify selling her house? Did she tell the buyer, “in a few years, this house will be worth half what you paid for it,” or did she not? Sure, it’s not her job to tell them that. But she claims some moral aversion to someone losing money for her gain. So she should have told them that whether it was her job to or not. Or she shouldn’t claim to have such compunctions.

Why do I care? I don’t. What I really wanted to address was this:

“If you really think about it, everything in life could be considered a scam.”

If you really think that, and you use it to defend unethical behavior, then you should probably consider taking an ethics class or otherwise educating yourself.

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