This is the funniest thing I have read this week. By Far. The author of this blog is a creative genius. In case you are of the lower IQ range, this blog is a parody. The beautiful thing is that this blog has been referenced as serious evidence of no housing bubble. The IQ challenged REALLY REALLY think it’s serious!
It’s alright if you don’t think it’s as funny as I think it is. The blog is an insiders joke for all those who read the housing bubble blogs.
If anyone wants some really HARD numbers to support my presumption that San Deigo real estate is headed for a severe price adjustment, go no further than here. Of course, I can’t claim to know when and how severe the adjustment will be. I do claim that it WILL happen and furthermore I claim that such an observation is obvious. Anyone who thinks their real estate holdings here in San Diego will hold their inflation-adjusted value in the next five years are just kidding themselves.
Today I did some research into comparables near my sisters house in Chula Vista. Housing sales in that area have plumented, and the one house that did sell in 2006 sold for a significant amount less than the sales that happened in mid-2005. I’ll be down there this weekend and I’m going to drive the neighborhood and see if any houses are for sale. It’s not a good idea to be a financial advisor to family, so I’m going to keep my mouth shut. Unless she wants to be trapped in her house untill the next upswing, she had better sell NOW. Based on that one comparable that sold in 2006, she would be lucky to break even on a sale today. She didn’t take family advice when she bought the place, so I can only assume that she wouldn’t take it now.
On a last note, from the data it appears that the cheapest place to live is in Texas. I know a couple that would have moved there had it not been for family concerns here in San Diego. Indeed, from personal converstaions with my friends, family and weather appear to be the dominant reasons for staying in San Diego. I just don’t think that many family members fully appreciate the financial difficulties that young professionals face here in San Diego.
My medium term goal is to get a masters degree while in Colorado. So, what degree do I get? While I would love to get a masters degree in something like philosophy or religious studies, I don’t see myself going through the effort for something that doesn’t return anything tangible in the form of salary. The real decision is between the management track or the technical track.
This article does an analysis of the benefits of a MBA, and it isn’t flattering. I don’t think I will be heading that route. Perhaps a M.E. in Engineering Management instead?
The auto workers are disconnected from the reality of the market place. They are angry that they are getting paid to quit? I wish I was so lucky. The reality is that free market capitalism is putting GM out of business. The competition from its non-union asian competition is driving GM and Ford into the ground. It is interesting to see a company at the mercy of its workers…
I wonder, is the weather really worth this much?
I went and did a search on realtor.com and went looking for $350,000 single family homes. My first search was in Colorado Springs. Without looking too hard, I found this listing. In short, 2500 sq ft, sitting on 5 acres of land, and it just looks like a house I would love to live in.
Then I did the same search in San Diego. I picked this listing because it is near where I live and it’s in a decent neighborhood. 1,000 sq ft, almost no land, and no character. In fact, its butt ugly.
Now, I wouldn’t buy either of these properties right now as $350,000 more than 5x my annual income. Besides, what the hell would I do with a 4 bedroom house? It would cost some serious mulah just to furnish the place. I’d literally forget about certain rooms. Perhaps I could turn one room into an art gallary??? hmmm… Don’t want to even think about the heating bill. Nevertheless, I believe I have made my point. If I were married, which house do you think I would rather raise a family in? I am just astounded that people would pay this much money for the glorified cardbord boxes here in san diego. Don’t even get me started on Los Angeles. I can’t even imagine living in that armpit. Personally, I find it astounding that people would rather move to to the freaking desert in Arizona than the mountains in Colorado.
Another poster at patrick.net posted this:
Come to think of it, I find the Redneck, white-trash, ghetto stereotypes is a little ironic because if you think about it, the whole housing bubble isn’t about big, huge, mansion sized homes, BMW’s, and Caviar. It’s all about people in places like California- people that are educated, smart, well paid, and culturally aware trying desperatly to attain the basic basement level housing that only 15 years ago would be lower middle class housing, and what in the rest of the country still is. In fact, people are struggling to attain the same kind of housing that ” white trash” inhabited less than a decade ago. It has come full circle, and many people don’t even see what they are fighting for- a whole lot of nothing. When I see people who are so proud of their 2 bedroom home in oakland, or some house with no yard perched in berkeley, I can’t help that despite all of this, Most housing in the Bay Area is substandard, ugly, and oudated.
I was surfing the patrick.net blog and I found a comment regarding universities. Some guy mentioned that the UC schools stiff offered a great education for a low price. This is what sucked, he mentioned UC Berkely, UCLA, …. and UC SANTA BARBARA. What about UC San Diego!!!!
Despite the fact that UCSD is ranked #7 among public universities in comparison to UCSB’s #14 ranking, I have seen few people outside the academic world who recognize the quality of education offered by UCSD.
So, my UCSD education may not be such a resume booster after all. So this begs the question, why did I go there again? Can someone tell me why I suffered throught that damn compiler construction class when I could have slept through the computer science classes at San Diego State? Ah, the injustice of it all!
So, if my education is only valued in academia, perhaps I should just go back to get my graduate degree?
Wait, perhaps it really is foolish to work hard? I mean, how much education do those loan officers have who made 200-300 thousand dollars a year the last few years? Ok, so that was just a retorical question. Hard work still counts, and it always will. There will always be the few who get ahead without breaking a sweat, the mistake is to think that everyone can get ahead without breaking a sweat.
*** warning - subject diversion ***
So, now I am thinking about the difference between two different minority groups here in the US of A - Asians and Africans. The economic and social differences between these two groups are staggering. I think the reasons are plain to see. The asian sub-culture is superior to the african’s sub-culture. Asian families in general encourage hard work and education, while the african sub-culture lacks a solid family structure of any sort and glorifies the easy way out to your problems. Do you know how many black people I know at work that are engineers? One. You know how many black engineers I saw at UCSD? I don’t remember exactly, but I think I could have counted them with my fingers. But, what about economic barriers? My answer is that there are none for the poor. In california the amount of free money you get increases the less money your parents make. If anything, I’d say that there are more economic barriers for the white middle class. They don’t get shit for educational assistance. You think that white middle class parents still pay for their kids education? Some do, but a whole lot don’t. The way I see it, the biggest barrier to the advancement of the black people is the black people themselves. To put things in perspective, I love the black culture in general. I would pay real money to hear a rap song about that compiler class… damn! How about a song about how you got raped prison style by
The February numbers are out on housing as reported by Ben Jones down at the housing bubble blog.
In short, sales are down, prices are down, and inventory is up. Music to my ears.
It’s been three months since I started writing about the housing market, so it’s about time for an update.
Housing Inventories
Housing inventories are rising in almost all the major markets, some more than others. San Diego inventory steadily rising and is somewhere around the low 17000’s. The historic high is in the 19000’s. Phoenix is REALLY stinking bad. There are tons of new houses in the works, and a lot of unsold inventory on the market to boot. last time I checked the inventory was around 38000. I am thinking that the San Diego inventory level needs to go a bit higher for it to start having a decent impact in the prices. In the absence of motivated sellers, you need a long time on market to drive prices down. We’re not there yet.
Outlook On Prices
Prices have dropped some since October 2005, but have since leveled out again. Nevertheless, in the coming months we will start to see the year over year appreciation number head into the low single digit negative territory. I’m thinking the prices will stay where they are at now give or take 5 percent, until people start going broke and defaulting on their payments. There are going to be 2 trillion dollars in Adjustable Rate Mortgages resetting this year, but most of those loans are with people with plenty of room to re-finance into another loan product. No reason to panic this year just yet. I maintain my position that 2007 will be a bad year because the level of adjusting mortgages will more than double. I’m thinking that the end of this year we will be nosing into a deep recession. I’m not expecting severe price movement on houses until 2007. We are seeing a battle between stubborn sellers and market reality. Housing affordability continues to drop due to rising interest rates while the time-on-market also in going up. The resistance to downward price movement is quite impressive.
The interesting thing with San Diego is that first time homebuyers are nearly extinct in this market. From what I can figure, the only buyers are the ‘greater fool investors,’ and previous homeowners moving around. How long can this go on without first time buyers feeding the low end of the market? Perhaps the market doesn’t need the first time buyer segment? I’m moving out of the area, am I the only one? Will we see a gradual exodus of young, skilled, college educated workers? I’ll be keeping my eyes on these factors in the coming months.
I went to high school in the ghetto. One of the years I attended, the city ranked #1 in car thefts per capita in the nation. Still, it was fun.
Last month I purchased my first pair of corderoy pants since my high school days. I’m very happy with them. They are outstandingly comfortable and it reminds me of the times when you weren’t cool until you had at least one pair.
Last month, I also purchased a pair of jeans that were too big and too long. As I was walking around in them yesterday, I remembered them high school days. I still like wearing jeans so large that your ass just disappears, and sagging them, and stepping on the ends every other step. For a moment I stepped back into that ‘im-a-badass’ swagger. It was fun. I’ll be wearing those jeans more often now.
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