A Truism That’s Still At Least Close To Being True
The Press Enterprise reports from California. “A Murrieta-based real estate investment company and a broker that sparked a rash of lawsuits and a criminal investigation have agreed to forefeit their real estate licenses, according to a document filed with the California Department of Real Estate. Stonewood Consulting took as commissions the difference between the contract sales price that was reported to the lenders and the price paid to the sellers, according to the complaint.”
“The department said an audit of 10 properties…showed that Stonewood Consulting collected commissions ranging from $75,000 to $115,000 per house, for a total of $969,158.”
“In civil and federal lawsuits, Stonewood Consulting investors claim they were induced to buy multiple houses with inflated mortgages with the aim of raising funds they thought would be invested for them with a guarantee of big returns.”
“Anna Richter, a Rialto resident and Stonewood Consulting investor, said, ‘I am happy their license will be revoked. However, I am extremely disappointed in the bureaucratic slowness of justice. Someone should be arrested by now.’”
The Bakersfield Californian. “The former Crisp & Cole Real Estate firm is being investigated by state regulators, two former employees say. Both staffers say they have given investigators files related to their work at the Bakersfield company.”
“Jayson Costa, a former employee of Crisp’s defunct lending arm, Tower Lending, also said last week he gave files to an investigator in the last month.”
“‘I think they were looking at transactions that were flips, transactions that were done and then sold right afterwards,’ Costa said. The deals were all legitimate, he added.”
The Fresno Bee. “After a month of freewheeling and fractious negotiations, Donald Trump said Wednesday that he would buy the bankrupt Running Horse golf course and residential community in Fresno for $40 million.”
“For the hundreds of investors now owed money by Running Horse and the civic leaders who backed Trump’s bid, Wednesday’s announcement was an encouraging sign of life for the stalled project, where promises of a Jack Nicklaus-designed golf course and 780 high-priced homes had collapsed.”
“Bankruptcy documents show the property is valued at $20 million to $40 million but burdened with up to $70 million in debt, making it unlikely that many of about 300 creditors will be paid back.”
“Kent Northcross, the head of a seven-member unsecured creditors committee, said he was worried the deal wouldn’t make whole many creditors who have lost money they gave to the project’s original developer.”
“‘The thing that is rather discouraging is, nobody is talking about the poor people who sacrificed their life savings, everything they had’ to invest in Running Horse, he said.”
From ABC 30. “The Atwater Fire Department typically gets triple its average number of calls on the Fourth of July, and this year officials have a new concern. Abandoned houses pose a serious fire danger with dry grass and dead shrubs.”
“Fire Chief Ed Banks and Mayor Joan Faul are especially concerned this year because of the number of abandoned homes with dead, dry lawns. Like many Valley cities, foreclosures in Atwater are on the rise. The people who moved out left bone dry lawns behind, creating a major fire hazard.”
“Mayor Faul made another suggestion at a city council meeting this week. She recommended neighbors mow or water the abandoned lawns and keep hoses ready just in case.”
The Santa Monica Mirror. “It happens every year about the same time: For sale signs pop up all around California like toadstools after a heavy rain.”
“The intense boom of the 1995-2005 decade has plainly petered out. Anyone who buys a California home and expects to make a 20 percent profit in less than one year, the same kind of expectation fostered by the dot-com stock balloon of the late 1990s, is in for a serious disappointment.”
“Yes, there have been small declines in some relatively overbuilt parts of this state. It’s also a familiar part of the California real estate cycle. Booms in California generally last eight to 10 years, followed by leveling-off periods of about four or five years.”
“The bottom line: California is not in a real estate crisis and doesn’t figure to be in one very soon.”
“Realtors in the 1970s and ’80s often told their clients that ‘No one ever lost money on California real estate.’ After the bust of the ’90s, this statement is not longer completely correct. But it’s a truism that’s still at least close to being true.”
The Sacramento Bee. “The dust is just settling from that huge home foreclosure auction last Saturday at Cal Expo, and here comes a bigger one. Dallas auction giant Hudson & Marshall will sell 175 bank-repossessed houses July 22 at Sacramento’s Radisson Hotel. Only six days ago Real Estate Disposition Corp. of Irvine auctioned 107 houses from eight area counties.”
“The Dallas auctioneer will unload 410 bank-owned homes on a five-day July swing that includes Concord, Modesto, Fresno and Monterey County’s Seaside. Many belonged to owners who bought at the height of the housing boom with little money down and fell behind on payments as housing values fell.”
The Union Tribune. “San Diego’s index of leading economic indicators dropped sharply in May, mostly because of a weak job growth and sluggish residential building.”
“Four of the six categories that make up the index, a snapshot of the local economy, fell significantly last month, said Alan Gin, an economist with the University of San Diego who compiles the data.”
“‘The slump in housing has begun to affect other parts of the economy,’ Gin said. ‘You’ve got big problems in the labor market.’”
“In May, real estate job losses accelerated, and the labor market weakness has begun to spread to other sectors, including professional and technical services, as well as leisure and hospitality. USD’s economic index has now fallen in 13 of the last 14 months.”
The North County Times. “There is now a slim but real chance of the local economy going into recession, Gin said in the interview, describing his more gloomy outlook as a recent development.”
“Gin pointed to the most recent state unemployment report, which found a year-over-year loss of 6,900 jobs in construction in San Diego County.”
“A number of factors have sent the housing market into reverse. Local residential real estate prices roughly doubled in the first half of the decade. But in the last year or so that trend has ground to a halt.”
“The number of existing homes for sale has risen, sating the once apparently insatiable demand. In turn, that has caused new home construction to fall. And turmoil in the subprime market has caused companies such as Accredited Home Lenders of Carmel Mountain Ranch to lay off employees.”
“The index is a composite of six indicators. Two rose in May. Four fell. ‘The four negative components in the month overwhelmed the two positive ones to produce the largest monthly drop in the Index since August of last year,’ Gin wrote.”
The San Bernadino County Sun. “Estimates listed Fontana as the 21st fastest-growing city in 2006 among cities with populations over 100,000.”
“‘That was before the housing downturn and we were seeing lots of home sales going forward,’ said Mayor Mark Nuaimi.”
“Other California cities joining Fontana on that top 25 list include Lancaster, Bakersfield, Visalia, Irvine, Elk Grove and Palmdale.”
“They’re in our way, big time, on the roads and in our neighborhoods. They’ve driven up our real estate prices, too. Frankly, they’re a bit too fond of suburban McMansions that look like they’re on steroids. And what’s with their attitudes?”
“Yep, that’s the prevailing stereotype of Bay Area transplants to the Sacramento area, including the 150,000 who arrived in the first half of the decade. But what do they think about us?”
“Larry Kinser moved to Citrus Heights in 1988 from Stockton…and thinks people from elsewhere in general are gradually changing Sacramento for the better.”
“‘Sacramento isn’t a cow town anymore,’ he says. ‘I know that. But it’s a slow, slow process. I credit the transplants who’ve driven Sacramento’s ultra-cheap mentality down.’”
“Oh, snap. That’s right. He thinks we’re cheap.”
“The reason for the clogged highways, if you ask lots of Bay Area transplants, is our own darned fault: The housing market lured the transplants here, but now they can’t find work. So they commute.”
“‘Developers have built a lot of homes here,’ says Colin Cooper who works in radio and moved to Roseville from San Carlos in 2002, ‘but you need to have the industry to go along with that.’”
“‘People buy homes here and commute to the Bay Area. My brother commuted to Cupertino. I know people who commute to San Mateo, because that’s where the jobs are. The job market isn’t here for them,’ Cooper said.”
“‘I think they were looking at transactions that were flips, transactions that were done and then sold right afterwards,’ Costa said. The deals were all legitimate, he added.”
Uh-huh. I’ll bet they were. I’m sure absolutely none of them were done on the basis of ‘owner-occupant’.
Person 1: “I’ve never been in an accident!”
Person 2: “Yeah, but you’ve caused 25 of them.”
This Costa guy is a joke!
Nothing cheers me like David Crisp schadenfreude. Release the hounds!
“There is now a slim but real chance of the local economy going into recession, ….
OK, is it slim or is it real. These guys talk out of both sides of their mouths with such ease!
?
“Realtors in the 1970s and ’80s often told their clients that ‘No one ever lost money on California real estate.’ After the bust of the ’90s, this statement is not longer completely correct. But it’s a truism that’s still at least close to being true.”
And what’s another name for something that is “close to being true”? Three letters, begins with an “L”.
Y’know, I don’t live in Calif., but the sheer chutzpah exhibited in the Calif. stuff that Ben finds makes for highly entertaining reading. You really can’t make this stuff up.
LOL!
Anyway, “still at least close to being true”, doesn’t that sound like something a 10 year old would say?
“still at least close to being true”
this is like being slightly pregnant…
Imagine living here. All you hear is morons talking about how much “equity” they’ve made since purchasing their property. Nobody seems to take into account that equity means nothing unless you plan on living off credit. The only thing that counts is the price you sell for.
Or how about this…
Homeowners that know they’re screwed but are still trying to paint a rosy picture about the housing market. This is sucking unfortunate idiots into throwing their financial future down the drain. All so sellers can get out themselves before they get screwed.
Don’t believe me? Check out the 700k 2bdrm condos with $600+hoa’s described as the perfect place to live for first time home buyers.
Just freaking stupid
I was on Gothard the other day in HB towards the beach brand new condos are up and sold signs are in the windows, I was wondering if this was a sales ply to create interest or were there that many stupid people? I have to think it is the latter, this place is too stupid.
What a hangover coming.
Same thing in N. Portland.
Apparently all the new buyers go to bed at 8PM because when I go past there at night all the lights are out.
‘Apparently all the new buyers go to bed at 8PM because when I go past there at night all the lights are out. ‘
- They are closing escrow on the home they just sold. Soon, they will move in.
Here’s an even better example…
I like in PB San Diego and pay roughly $1300 in rent for a 2 bdrm apt 2-3 blocks from the beach.
In block down from me a new condo complex is going up and advertising 2bdrm condos for 600k.
So I can sit and wait and pay less than half the price someone that buys is paying to live 1 block away. Or I can commit financial suicide and buy an overpriced condo and pay around $3500 per month in mortgage not including hoa.
It doesn’t make sense.
no kidding. if the sheeple actually looked at this differential, they wouldn’t buy either - unless they were lobotomized
I was wondering if this was a sales ply to create interest or were there that many stupid people?
It definitely is! I see this all over my Town. I feel for the saps that are falling for that one. Funny how all of a sudden the “sold” signs in the windows are becoming the norm in these sub divisions. I haven’t priced in over 6 months or so but I’m fairly sure that these homes have not taken a haircut enough yet to make them affordable. Oh how I wish there were a law preventing this. I’ll bet new car dealers couldn’t get away with this pratice.
I live in San Diego and there is a newly-finished condo complex which sports big red “SOLD” signs on three windows.
However, if you look very carefully (being a bubble-watcher you would look VERY carefully), you will notice as I did that all of the signs belong to the same unit - the unit is two-story and on the corner, so there is a “SOLD” sign on the top window on the right, one on the bottom window to the left, and one around the corner - still the same unit.
This goes along with the “only two left!” sign on the condo complex nearby that only has four units.
As Mark Twain (is said to have) said, “Of course truth is stranger than fiction. Fiction has to make sense.”
IAT
I’m California born and raised. I saw the real estate “booms” of 78-79, 86-90 and this one which started in 1996 and busted in the spring of 2007. Those three “booms” were caused by forces external to real estate. The 86-90 boom was caused by the Reagan defense buildup which dumped hundreds of billions of dollars into Cali via defense contractors. In 1990 the buildup ended and the housing bust of 91-96 began.
In 1996 the Dot-Com craze began and hundreds of billions of dollars were dumped into Cali via dot-com and tech companies. In 2001 the dot-com fraud ended and real estate began to crash. However, in 2001 the Fed began to lower interest rates and banks began to remove safety features on home loans qualifications. In 2007 the subprime/loose lending standards timebomb blew up.
Cali real estate booms for the last 30 years have been caused by hype, fraud and excessive government defense spending. This time I don’t see anything on the horizon that’s going to pump up the California economy.
You got that right. No tooth fairy coming now, no tax cuts, no big government spending as the scam has been discovered and exposed for all to see. Funny thing about reality, some can’t see it until it is right in front of them. For many who wore sunglasses it is to late.
no big government spending
And just what would the state use to bail out with anyways? Have you seen what they are paying
prison guardsoops “correctional officers”? smirkWhy are you dissing correctional officers?
In 2001 real estate began to crash..? I don’t remember that part…
it certainly started to in Silly.con valley
In 2001 the entire economy was collapsing. 9/11 provided the excuse to ramp government spending and lower interest rates.
Right. In the past, it seems all the impetus came from business investment. This time it came directly from the Fed. What’s left??
‘This time I don’t see anything on the horizon that’s going to pump up the California economy.’
We are going to make all illegals into citizens and that will free up the ‘undesirable job workers’ to take the higher paying jobs. San Diego will recover first and it will spread to the entire state.
“We are going to make all illegals into citizens”
Fortunately, this is DOA as of yesterday.
The Fed intervention and credit expansion/money printing operation that kicked in to support housing prices in CA after the Dot-Com bubble and stock market melt down was truly astonishing. I watched this nightmare unfold in Silicon Valley in person circa 2000 – 2003 timeframe. The local economy in Santa Clara had tank, and we had the worse job loss since the great depression.
Yet magically, housing prices surged in the Bay Area thanks to Fed-sanctioned free-wheeling lending practices, a largely innumerate population incapable of understanding the loans they were getting into, and a government engineered devaluation of the dollar. I agree that today there is no silver bullet or real estate media-hype that can rescue the bubble heads sitting on toxic IO and negative AM loans.
I went around my Burlingame, CA neighborhood last week, and saw one house that had been priced at $1.25 million 2 months ago, reduce now to $1.15 million, and in speaking with the realtor at the open house – was told that the owners would be happy with $950K – “so just make an offer, and see what happens…” was his advice.
My response – this place is hardly worth $600K, so when they are ready to talk about a realistic price, give me a ring. Here’s my card.
“Booms in California generally last eight to 10 years, followed by leveling-off periods of about four or five years.”
leveling-off? I threw my popcorn across the room when I read that.
Oooh. Party foul. Don’t blaspheme the popcorn.
it landed in my popcorn popper!
That’s Double Jeopardy. You can’t do that to popcorn.
If it landed on the popcorn popper in the image of the “Virgin Mary”, then you would be on to something!
It is a phenomena that is called fantasia, basically if you look at the map of the OC you will see located dead center is Disney land. What happens there is they built a fake mountain with fake snow called the Matterhorn and if you look close there is dishes tucked into the fake snow, these are all facing in all directions. These dishes shoot out what Disney engineers call “Fantasy Waves” piped directly from Fantasy Land next door. These beams shoot out and make the people in OC all live in a delusional state of Fantasy, and also subliminal messages like “Annual Pass” and also “There is no more new land, We don’t have enough houses” is another popular message. That is the truth if you don’t believe me climb to the top of the Matterhorn and check it out, there is also a small cave where the “RE Yeti” lives now, this is occupied by Gary Watts. All true I swear!
That “annual pass” subliminal message seems to have worked on me. At $124, the cheapest one is cheaper than two visits, and I’ve already gotten more than my money’s worth. It’s got a lot of blackouts, but the blacked-out dates are days when the place is insanely crowded and I wouldn’t be caught dead within ten miles of the place.
The “We don’t have enough houses” subliminal message, on the other hand, doesn’t seem to be penetrating my skull. Needs some adjusting, I guess.
Your skull? Or the subliminal message?
It’s not Disney it’s Dismal land.
Didn’t values also go down in the 80s?
In NorCal the peak did not come until around 1988 or 1989, so it was not until around 1995 or 1996 that the combination of inflation and prices stagnating or gently falling brought down prices enough to make the difference. The timing was different for SoCal which had severe economic damage from base closings and the termination of some military programs.
“‘The thing that is rather discouraging is, nobody is talking about the poor people who sacrificed their life savings, everything they had’ to invest in Running Horse, he said.”
Are there really people in this country who have never heard the saying “Don’t put all your eggs in one basket”?
In case any HBBers’ know any, here’s a couple more they need to hear:
“Don’t run with scissors”
“Don’t eat yellow snow”
Ummmm Yellooowww snow …. Marge how did god make snow taste so good?
the Calstrs guy was just on CNBC and was very bearish on the mortgage market. he’s worried in october. he’s concerned about al-a.
no CDOs for calstrs
http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232?video=402971479&play=1
Maybe Anna and her fellow investors should be investigated as well for what appears to be willingly participating in fraudulent RE transactions. What is going on in this country? Does everyone think it is ok to defraud the lender for cash back?
In civil and federal lawsuits, Stonewood Consulting investors claim they were induced to buy multiple houses with inflated mortgages with the aim of raising funds they thought would be invested for them with a guarantee of big returns.”
“Anna Richter, a Rialto resident and Stonewood Consulting investor, said, ‘I am happy their license will be revoked. However, I am extremely disappointed in the bureaucratic slowness of justice. Someone should be arrested by now.’”
This time a year ago I bet she was bragging about the money she’d make on her sweet real estate deal and already counting her desired profits. People only consider it fraud when they lose money.
Exactly
She should be careful what she wishes for. She’s ’someone’ too…
“Gin pointed to the most recent state unemployment report, which found a year-over-year loss of 6,900 jobs in construction in San Diego County.”
I am in the construction industry here in the beach area of So Cal and the real hit to the trades is more like 3 to 4 times higher than is reported. These reports are not capturing all of the illegals in the construction industry. Nor do they report the residual employment created from the real pool of housing related employment.
Just wrote Ben a check, cheapest addiction I ever had.
And, even with a rate-of-return of 0% - a check to Ben is a better investment than many/most of the properties we discuss here daily!
Me too.
This blog is
informative
entertaining
hilarious
” I know people who commute to San Mateo, because that’s where the jobs are. The job market isn’t here for them,’ Cooper said.””
Commute to San Mateo from Sacramento??!??
The Real Estate Mania is strong with this one, Luke…
Niiice - collapsing real estate values, and an unbeliavable commute.
I don’t believe it. They gotta be sleeping weeknights in SMateo..or sumpthin..
Okay I’m ignorant (but you probably already knew that), but it’s cheaper to live in Sacramento than in San Mateo?
Sactos a lot cheaper for housing - but I can’t imagine the commute - think 100 miles, heavy congested traffic every inch of the way.
Think commuting Centralia to Everett, with even worse traffic.
Uhh, that’s a bit of a stretch. More like commuting from Olympia to Everett.
Please forgive me, as I thought it was Sacramento to San Francisco. Sac to San Mateo? Forget that! That IS like commuting from Centralia to Everett. Not doable. Not even a little bit.
Not sure there would be much difference between commuting Sac-SF versus Sac-San Mateo. Both would be more hellish than I can imagine. Yes, Sacramento is maybe half as cheap as San Francisco or San Mateo, but for the same monthly cost as buying in Sacramento, you could easily rent in SF or San Mateo and save yourself, um, probably 5 hours per day commute time.
i’d have to say generally yes, Sacramento is cheaper. At least there are no doubt more opportunities to find less expensive stuff in Sac.
San Mateo is a medium sized town on the SF penninsula, about 30 miles away from SF.. whereas Sac is a large, spread out metropolis 100 miles away with pockets of very high as well as low price areas.
imo the two have not enough in common with which to compare prices.
People from Alt A Bay moved into Sac because we had affordable homes compared to where their jobs were. Now that our prices have gone screaming up, those days are over though there are still people making the commute and bleeding gas money and car repairs the whole way.
Out of curiosity (and morbid fascination), what’s the rush hour commute time between sacramento and San Francisco?
its 90 miles, according to predict a trip, http://traffic.511.org/traffic_map.asp?drivingtimes=1; the travel time for the final 46 miles during AM commute is 56 minutes, so the average morning commute is only 100 minutes, although some days can be much worse.
Dad in Stockton (1hr south of Sac) said today his fishing buddy - who is also a realtwhore has a son who bought in 2005 and just sold as he’s moving to Reno. Bought in the 700’s, sold in the 500’s. That’s gotta leave a mark.
Maybe he can move to Reno and buy in the $500’s and then sell in the $200’s. Anybody buying in Reno needs a lobotomy.
Ok, which one of you guys were buying up the ten-year note today? lol
I suspect Bill in Phoenix.
LOL. I buy through Treasury Direct. The auctions are held every two months. The last auction was June 15. The next auction is August 15. So no buy for me today. For every $1000 Ten year note I buy, I also buy $6,000 in T-bills.
Today I ordered a certain amount of dollars worth of Series I savings bonds through Treasury Direct.
“Oh, snap. That’s right. He thinks we’re cheap.”
Hmmm, I wonder if people’s perception of Sacramento residents could have anything to do with the fact that local reporters write “Oh, snap.” in articles?
Have they started using “Hella” yet?
For example, “Prices are hella unaffordable.” That one seriously needs to be retired.
I believe in the movie ‘Christmas Story’ Ralphie’s old man was in front of the house admiring his ‘Major Award’. When he told his neighbor what it was, his neighbor said ‘Damn Hell.’
I doubt that anyone over thirty has ever said “hella.”
While housing is tanking what about commercial real estate, I am noticing lots of empty office complexes near the “booming” subdivisions. Is it because there is a glut of commercial real estate too? I see whole buildings that are empty that once housed some mortgage company or other, so it would seem that as goes housing so goes commercial too.
I’m seeing lots of vacant commercial space as well. And I might add that a lot of it is brand new. There is some serious overbuilding in commercial real estate transpiring right now. I suppose it’s the same logic with these guys. They thought the mortgage, realty, and title companies, along with the seemingly infinite number of specialty home stores would continue to post record gains and multiply like rabbits. Uh-oh.
I’m seeing empty storefronts and restaurants. A furniture store, a book store and a mattress place, all closed.
I’m seeing the same thing in Tucson. Restaurant in the shopping center near here just closed. It never had that many customers to begin with, and I couldn’t imagine what was keeping it going.
Now that the bill to give handouts and citizenship to illegal aliens died, it looks as though America is on the road to downsizing. Fewer young people to replace the boomers. A big part of the extra space and houses will be vacant and perhaps (if we’re lucky) razed, leveled, and turned into parks.
I see tons of vacant commercial space inside the Santa Monica Place Mall, but apparently that’s just because the greedy bastard owners want to tear it down to build condos
Mauhew, 40, says:
> In part, Sacramento has turned into a bedroom community for the Bay Area.
Please excuse my ignorance, but is it possible to commute to the Bay Area without a car, e.g. with light rail?
No, it’s not. High-speed rail has been discussed for years, but the closest BART gets is Livermore.
Excremento is a helluvalong drive from Silicon Valley. Especially on a daily basis.
No, the rail system is all within the Bay Area (BART, Caltrain).
Oh, almost forgot: Cable Car….. you just have to stand in line for two hours to ride it one mile.
It’s run by the NPS instead of Muni, so what do you expect?
Muni runs the F-line … despite its touristy intentions, you can actually board that line for transportation (it makes stops between subway stops, kinda useful, actually).
The only piece of transportation infrastructure owned and maintained by the Park Service which can be used for actual transportation is in DC. They tried their best to dump it, but congresscritters will be congresscritters; they kept their perk.
Yes, if you live in the right place. There is the ACE (Altamont Commuter Express) which runs out the Stockton (SJ->Stockton IIRC) and the Amtrack line from SJ to Sacramento.
I suspect that both take quite a while (but at least you can sleep or read), and at least a while ago, ACE was at capacity.
Also, BART does go out to some boonies (Pittsburgh/Baypoint), and Caltrain goes down to Gilroy.
so that explains a gilroy run up! i thought it was just good for garlic
nearest thing to mass transit would be Amtrak? Takes you from Sac to Emeryville (near Oakland, East Bay) and from there you’d take BART across the bay to SF and down 101 bout 15 more miles to the SF Airport .. then maybe catch a Caltrans bus connection to SMateo?
man.. it hurts to just think about it.
I’ve done the Sac to Emery to SF run for a conference. 2 hours each way.
wow.. 2 hours is excellent.
SF-Sac, 99 miles, is about 2 hours by car.
Although Amtrak gets some bad raps I have been thinking about a longish trip.. maybe Emeryville through the Sierras and the Rockies.. supposed to be beautiful ride any time of year.
oops.. i assumed you meant by Amtrak, but the mode of transportation wasn’t specified…
2 hours.. amtrak.. now i’m wondering.
tell ya this though.. Amtrak from Modesto to Vegas is 8 hours, same as by car, and now cheaper than paying for gasoline.
Bakersfield to Vegas is by bus (tracks exist but govt stuff can’t use them.. gotta save the desert tortoise).
Once I had to go to the Bay area to a wedding in Lafayette and to visit with a sister in San Francisco. I never took BART and I wanted to see how I could do without a car. So I flew from Tucson to San Jose, took a shuttle bus to the San Jose light rail, took the train a couple miles to a bus stop to get the special shuttle bus to Fremont, and from there took BART to Walnut Creek to my friend’s place.
The total cost (this was in 1997 or 1998) was $8 or $9. But it took perhaps 4 hours to get from San Jose to Walnut Creek:(. The most amount of time, of course, was waiting for the next form of transportation. It certainly was interesting and educational.
After the wedding, a guest took me to the Walnut Creek BART station and I took the train under the bay to San Francisco to meet my sister and her boyfriend. I felt like a Bay Area resident for the weekend.
At least I am beginning to start to believe maybe, just MAYBE we will see some enforcement and pain behind all this mortgage biz douchbaggery that we have been subjected to.
” oh, snap ” ?!?
Oh, brother !! I live in Citrus Heights & I’ve NEVER heard anyone say that stupid phrase. Sounds like some immature club-hoppin midtown dumbass tryin too hard for a quote.
(Red Foreman for President / Hank Hill for V.P. - 2008 )
This college freshman from South Florida I met last year uses it a lot, but in a deadpan voice … after I met him I heard Jon Stewart use it a few times.
It’s sort of droll, ironic, at least on the East Coast.
But it’s no disaster when prices remain fairly stable while wages and salaries gradually catch up with prices that have risen sharply for about 10 years.
So how long do you think it will take for everyone’s salary to go up 150%?
at least 8-12 years!
Food for thought, how many “accidental fires” will happen next week? Anyone think that FB’s might be buying loads of fireworks to light right next to the house? hmmmm.
It’s dry season here in Arizona. And I’ll bet that more than a few accidental fires will be well, not so accidental.
One cigarette in a trash can and it is done, can’t get all bent out of shape about a smoking accident.
Just today, a 9000 SF McMansion in my neck of the woods “mysteriously” went up in smoke. Owner was from Florida. It was his second home. Fire officials report that the cause of the blaze is unknown.
they should think long and hard about it… premeditated.. a murder rap…
“Yo! Lifer! so how’d you get in here?” - Bubba
“Man, I was framed! They were going to lower my FICO.” - J6pak
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/metro/20070629-9999-1m29b2briefs.html
“Penalties to rise Monday on unpaid property taxes
SAN DIEGO: Property owners who have yet to pay their property taxes face increased penalties if they don’t do so by Monday.
County Treasurer-Tax Collector Dan McAllister said about 47,700 owners have yet to pay despite several warnings after missing the April 10 deadline. They incurred a 10 percent penalty, and starting Monday, the penalty increases by 1.5 percent per month.”
47 THOUSAND people have been hit with a 10% penalty in S.D. county!? 1.5% more a month!? Damn, baby.
There are:
# 968,067 property parcels
# 159,213 businesses
# 69,941 boats
# 22,593 mobile homes
# 5,021 aircraft
paying property tax in San Diego, so we’re only talking 0.0477/1.22848=3.9%. Still, if 40,000 home-owners are in trouble, that’s about 2x the present for-sale inventory.
2x for the moment, don’t think that good ole Phoenix got the copyright on 60k+ houses on the market at one time. I think we will show them lizards in the desert that California can be just a fiscally retarded.
Is it ethical (or legal) to try and sell your house without notifying the tenants? Is it also unethical or illegal to ask other people not to tell the tenants you’re trying to sell it?
http://inlandempire.craigslist.org/rfs/362039709.html
I try to keep my morality to myself, but lets take a look.
i see pix of a vacant house.. do not disturb!
$340,000 .. 2005.. motivated seller (well i guess so!)
Headline: “tenant paying $1300 per month” .. supposedly for a complete year.
But perhaps rent is more like $800.. or was zero for a period, or is zero now.
Ethical is one thing, my landlord was super-slick and convinced me to help him sell the place (I was young, I needed the money!). Legal is– do the tenants have a lease? If they are month-to-month, then that’s what they are. If there is a lease, the tenants will sue and win if the place is sold from under them. If the owner has defaulted, the tenants can still sue but they don’t have a place to live.
That’s the downside of renting– you’re renting from someone that doesn’t actually own the property!
wow I would never commute more than 15 minutes each way for a job. Better yet, be self employed like I am. Why not rent in the bay area instead of buying in Sacremento which is now overpriced?
Recent bouts of mostly tech hiring are causing housing markets to heat up as Silicon Valley engorges itself with Venture Capitalist money.
Well, I’ve never been self-employed… but I’ve had a walk-to-work salary job (when I swore I’d never commute more than 5 minutes), and I now work a 25-min commute. Not any noticeable difference in terms of QoL.
That is way different from commuting Sacto to San Rafael however. These people are completely insane, but it’s clearly not by plan. It is simply evidence to the fact that home-ownership is the basis for an immobile workforce. It’s a huge downside for each individual that maintains this ritual, and it becomes a worse downside for the efficiency of the economy when it’s a systemic problem.
The Santa Monica article was like a RE sermon/revival meeting. CA definitely not in a RE crisis. Only a few pockets of trouble in CA, Inland Empire prices down 0.8%. Nothing else to see here, just move along.