There Is Still A Problem In California
The Santo Cruz Sentinel reports from California. “Wary house-hunters see opportunities now that home prices have dropped dramatically. Buyers will find lots of choices in Watsonville and the San Lorenzo Valley at close to the February’s median selling price of $380,000, but not many in Santa Cruz. Dianne Pereira helped a buyer acquire a bank-owned house in the Seabright area for $380,000. Pereira tracks the foreclosure numbers in the Santa Cruz Record, which reported 52 default notices — more than usual — issued to borrowers in the past week. ‘There are a lot of properties in default,’ she said. ‘Previously it was more in Watsonville, now it’s more mainstream.’”
“Gloria Behman sees a silver lining in falling prices. Her client, a single mother with two children, bought a bank-owned house in Live Oak for $380,000. ‘She was able to buy a house with a fabulous yard for her kids,’ Behman said.”
“On the other hand, it needed fresh paint and new carpet. The house was on the market last June for $449,000; the bank’s asking price was $395,900.Behman’s advice: ‘Don’t pay more than you need to pay — if this property doesn’t work, there will be another.’
“Analyst Schahrzad Berkland of the California Housing Forecast is…cautious, calling the price drop in Watsonville ‘probably a plateau’ instead of hitting bottom. ‘I still see a big bubble,’ she said. ‘A house that a policeman could buy in 1998 is now affordable only to an engineer. So there is still a problem.’”
The Manteca Bulletin. “Dana Fernandez is going from renting a room to owning her own place. The 25-year-old had to watch every dime for awhile and made macaroni and cheese plus Top Ramen a staple but she was able to do something that was completely impossible in the hot Northern San Joaquin Valley housing market of just a few years ago – she was able to buy her own home without help from anyone while working part-time for just under $10 an hour.”
“Her home is a one-bedroom, one-bathroom condo with 700 square feet in Modesto. Fernandez said she had always made owning her own home and property a goal. Fernandez said she realized that the current market was a “chance of a lifetime.”
It helped, of course, that she was able to see the day-to-day real estate activity in Manteca where she works part-time for her real estate agent Linda Aksland and is in the process of becoming a full-time agent. ‘I realized I could afford it if I watched my money,’ she added.”
“Fernandez said she didn’t let what seems to be non-stop 24-hour cable news cycle of economic gloom-and doom scare her. ‘Life is a risk.’ Fernandez said, noting that even in good economic times things could go wrong. ‘If something does happen the worst that I could end up doing is going back to renting.’”
The Washington Post. “The sun is shining less brightly these days in sunny Southern California. The recession hit here earlier and harder than the rest of the country — the statewide unemployment rate topped 10 percent last month — and chances are it will linger here longer. The severe downturn reflects the region’s central role in the Bubble Economy.”
“‘People here used to feel that because of the weather and the lifestyle, we were immune,’ said Robbin Itkin, a lawyer with a suddenly booming corporate workout and bankruptcy practice at the Los Angeles office of Steptoe & Johnson. ‘They don’t think that now. There is a somberness I’ve not seen before.’”
“The shakeout in commercial real estate, which is now in full swing in suburban Orange and Riverside counties, has made its way to the tonier areas of the city. There are numerous ‘For Rent’ signs on Melrose Avenue in West Hollywood and along Montana Avenue in Santa Monica. Lack of financing has stalled the $3 billion, Frank Gehry-designed hotel and residential project on Grand Avenue downtown and a $400 million luxury condo tower in Century City.”
“‘It’s clear to me that we will have a lot of reinventing to do here over the next few years,’ Jim Thomas, a prominent local developer, told me.”
The Mercury News. “California is in for a lengthy downturn, with the jobless rate hitting nearly 12 percent this year and next. The state’s recession will be ‘deeper and longer than we previously thought,’ economists with UCLA’s Anderson Forecast predicted.”
“One key to revival is the sector that started the economic tailspin: housing. Though housing markets ‘have yet to bottom out,’ by this fall, California’s housing industry will be building fewer houses than its growing population requires and ‘will be eating into its housing stock.’ ‘All of the excess that was the housing bubble is now burned off,’ said Jerry Nickelsburg, a UCLA economist, ’so when the rest of the economy is ready to turn around, the housing market will be ready to turn around.’”
The Recordnet. “‘As the recession deepens, the diverse engines of California’s economy find themselves running on fumes,’ he wrote. Growth won’t start in California until the beginning of next year, he said, but the economy will be growing at a more normal pace by the end of 2010. ‘If there is any good news in the picture, it is that the correction in the housing market is almost complete, and the downturn in the retail sector is nearing the end of its run,’ Nickelsburg said.”
The Desert Sun. “Home sales jumped about 70 percent in the Coachella Valley in February over the same period a year ago. to fall drastically — indicates the market is repairing itself, said Greg Berkemer, executive director of the California Desert Association of Realtors.”
“The median price of homes sold was $156,000, down 53.4 percent from $334,900 in February 2008, according to the California Association of Realtors. The median price of an existing, single-family detached home in California in February was $247,590, compared to $253,330 the previous month and $418,260 in February of last year, according to CAR. ‘The California median price has declined by a larger margin than the nationwide price,’ Leslie Appleton-Young, CAR’s chief economist, said in a statement.”
The Bakersfield Californian. “From February 2008 to February 2009, 8,552 properties, mainly single-family homes in the metro Bakersfield area, foreclosed, county records show. Marilou Ward, a Realtor with Remax Golden Empire, has dealt with occupants who have accused her of trying to rip them off. Some renters are surprised to see her because they don’t know the home is in foreclosure. ‘If someone comes to their home, a Realtor trying to negotiate cash for keys, it’s in their best interest to do that immediately. Not to ignore us, blow us off,’ Ward said. ‘The clock’s ticking with the banks and, as the amount of time increases, the dollar amount of the offer will decrease.’”
“To receive money from the bank, occupants must hand over keys and garage door openers. They must leave the place in ‘broom-swept condition,’ Ward said. Personal property and debris have to be removed from the interior and yard. All fixtures — toilets, countertops, ceiling fans — must remain. Landscaping, too. ‘I’ve had people dig up all the trees and plants. They figure they paid for it,’ she said.”
From Bloomberg. “David Rapaport, a professor at the University of California San Diego Medical School, is paying an upfront fee of $3,500 to refinance his mortgage at 5.13 percent. A year ago, his rate was 6.25 percent and there were no fees. ”
“‘I’m happy just to be able to get a refi and reduce my monthly payment,’ said Rapaport, who owns a two-bedroom townhouse in San Diego, where home prices have dropped 32 percent since June 2006. He is saving $264 a month with the new loan meaning it will take about a year to recoup the fees he paid.”
The Los Altos Town Crier. “A handful of new condominiums came on the market for $121,000 and less this month in Los Altos – a rare, and coveted, opportunity offered by the city’s affordable housing program. The condos include five one-bedroom, 790-square-foot units, priced at $106,000, and three two-bedroom, 1,200-square-foot units for $121,000.”
“The BMR units in the $54 million, 2.2-acre development have the same floor plans and finishes as the market-rate units, which are priced at approximately $650,000 for a two-bedroom condo and more than $800,000 for a townhouse. Silverstone President John McMorrow said that buyer incentives and price reductions have helped move properties – 20 of Peninsula Real’s 78 units have sold since they went on the market in September, and owners can move in beginning April 15.”
“Sue Russell, the affordable-housing co-chairwoman for the Los Altos chapter of the League of Women Voters, described the units’ availability as an exciting affordable housing opportunity. ‘This is the largest since Chester Circle, and that was back in the late ’90s. This is a big influx,’ she said.”
The Bay Area Newsgroup. “The Vallejo home from which “D.C. Madam” Deborah Jeane Palfrey ran her infamous escort service likely will sell for nearly a half-million dollars less than its original 2007 asking price. A federal judge recently approved the sale of Palfrey’s two-bedroom Capitol Street historic home, with the money to be put into escrow, since Palfrey’s assets remain frozen as they move through probate. Palfrey hanged herself at age 52.”
“Records show Palfrey’s two-story, 1865 Greco-Italinate-style home was listed in May 2007 for $748,500. Its last listing was $290,940. ‘She originally wanted $1 million for it in 2006, but that was way, way too much,’ local Realtor Corrine Oakes said.”
“Though the home was beautifully restored, even winning a city award for best restored house in 2006, other, larger historic homes were selling for significantly less than what Palfrey wanted, Oakes said. She said she told Palfrey at the time that a price of about $550,000 was more reasonable. ‘She wasn’t very pleased with that,’ Oakes said.”
The Orange County Register. “In July 2005, while predicting a 15% gain in Orange County home prices, real estate prognosticator Gary Watts put about $77,000 down and bought a $765,000 rental home in Rancho Santa Margarita. At first, he was pleased with the deal. A year later, the home’s value had jumped at least 8% to around $825,000 or more.”
“Today, however, Watts has defaulted on the home’s loan. ‘I can make the payments. That’s not the issue. It’s a business decision,’ Watts said. ‘I tried to work with the lender. The lender didn’t help. They said, go ahead, do a short sale. It’s strictly business.’”
Gary Watts is a FB! A dose of sweet Schadenfreude for a rainy, dreary day here.
Actually we need the rain.
I wonder how many other properties he “owns.”
“prognosticator Gary Watts put about $77,000 down and bought a $765,000 rental home in Rancho Santa Margarita”.
How in the world can you make any money on a rental with that kind of price tag?
“I can make the payments. That’s not the issue”
Well then DO tell Mr. 15% is in the BAG! See guys? This is why I go chipping my teeth all day every day. Here is a guy ( and not just your rank and file scumbag realtor ) but none other than the Regional Director for one of THE most affluent and RE Rich areas of the country re-negging on one of his OWN “deals”.
Today Geithner will be talking about “regulatory reform” and I understand Credit Default Swaps top his agenda. Hey Tim! That’s at the END of the food chain! How about starting at the beginning? When you can’t trust the word of one of the most influential realtwhores in the nation to uphold their obligations, what’s the chances we’ll get the rest of them to?
“How in the world can you make any money on a rental with that kind of price tag?”
What do you mean??? If you can rent it out for $8K/month, it cash-flows just fine!
I have been putting this same question to a few realtwhores in my area and they have yet to answer… I ask how can one get positive cash flow out of a house which costs $700k - $900k (the houses I’m interested in)? Prices need to come down to the point where positive cash flow can be realized for a housing purchase.
I just renewed my lease for another 2 years and my landlord sincerely thanked me for renewing. Maybe we will end up with the house when our lease is up? He has a lot of properties and told me we did the right thing since prices are going to continue to go down for the foreseeable future (I know he has a vested interested in saying this, but it’s the truth). He was a true real estate bull when I first met him last year. Oh how times have changed!!
Yeah, ton of people lining up for an 8K/mo rental. Buying anything over ~200K with the intention of renting is insane in most areas of the country. 2K a month takes a renter with ~80-90K salary. 8K a month? LOL!
Sorry if this has been posted, I just ran into it…
“The O.C.”
“The Real Disparate Housewives of The O.C.”
The husband is a Mercedes salesman, 40 year mortgage, bought in 2005… refi in 2007
“Real Housewife takes O.C. house off market”:
OC register February 26th, 2009
The comments section are “rich”! Enjoy!
# yvette Says:
March 5th, 2009 at 11:04 am
Check county records…Jeana and Matt’s homes in Coto and Trabuco Canyon are both in default. The only house they are current on is the cheaper one in Irvine. SO PATHETIC
# yvette Says:
March 5th, 2009 at 11:07 am
Lauri and George’s home in SJC is also in default….hahha
# yvette Says:
March 5th, 2009 at 11:08 am
Lauri’s little townhouse in Ladera is default too! Wow….these RHOC really know how to rack up the bills…and not pay, expecting someone to bail them out. NEWSFLASH– Obama can’t save OC
NEWSFLASH– Obama can’t save OC
Why would he WANT to?
Indeed… he should let OC save itself. Or eat itself, which is more likely.
It would be the 2nd time OC files for BK.
These shows are a major handicap to any person who either catches one or two bits or is glued to the tube. It is like living here in the desert, especially during high snowbird season. Every car at an intersection is either a Rolls,Bentley,Rover,MBZ,BMW,Hummer,Porsche, or otherwise new new car. When you see an older clunker, it is on the side roads. People working really really hard for a living.
Generalizing a bit, but seriously, the intersections are a real eye opener on a daily, minute by minute basis.
It’s thinning out, Desert. I can tell the difference already. The Housewives shows are like a train wreck - I just can’t help but watch. And have you noticed, none of them are really housewives - they either have careers or household help or both.
Yep, you are right, Aretheycrazy. Some are moving on out.
It is because, a.money is running out, and b. it has been really darn warm in the midwest lately. Grin.
That’s the main reason I watch the show, to see when the cracks start showing.
I feel for the average person who got in over their heads, but I’ll cheer when these snobs get their comeuppance.
It’s 20. You really should read the article. You’re missing sweet little gems like this:
“He spent $20,000 more in repairs after a destructive tenant trashed the place. Then, the value seemed to drop by $100,000 overnight after owners of two nearby properties let their homes deteriorate, then let them go back to the bank, he said.”
I’ve never trashed a house personally, but I still think that the only explanation for this phenomenon is that the LL was playing hardball with his tenants. LLs never consider the little fact that their ex-tenants will be gone with no known address, whereas the tenant will always know where to find the LL’s property.
I got to disagree with you. Some folks are “professional tenants”. Their mission in life is to live in your rental house for free and they get damned angry when they have to leave about 6 to 8 months later. Just last week 10 news ran a story about a lovely couple who were running this scam in Point Loma. The couple trashed the house before left and smeared excrement on the walls. There were about 8 landlord victims. Oh and the *cough, choke* lady of the house was the lunch lady at an OB elementary school. Eeeeeeew
Yeah, that’s perfect for OB. You probably didn’t get the whole story, though.
No, Big V, I got the whole story. They didn’t pay their rent and then they smeared cr@p on the walls of every house they lived in. What kind of excuse is there for that? That just plain nasty.
Two Lunchladies, One wall?
I see what you did there, VaBeyatch.
Anyone who wants to be a LL should watch the movie
“Pacific Heights.”
I wouldn’t relish having to get assertive trying to recover back-rent, or for that matter–getting late-night phone calls–cause “little Kaitlin flushed the kitten down the toilet.”
No thanks
DOC
It would be the 2nd time OC files for BK.
These shows are a major handicap to any person who either catches one or two bits or is glued to the tube. It is like living here in the desert, especially during high snowbird season. Every car at an intersection is either a Rolls,Bentley,Rover,MBZ,BMW,Hummer,Porsche, or otherwise new new car. When you see an older clunker, it is on the side roads. People working really really hard for a living.
Generalizing a bit, but seriously, the intersections are a real eye opener on a daily, minute by minute basis.
Testing?
Gary Watts?
Oh, the humanity!
I have to say, for today, I’m back to schadenfreude.
There are very few people I want to see any pain. I’d like to see a recovery. But the cheif talking heads of the NAR/CAR deserve a bit of payback. How many people are now bankrupt after following Gary Watts’ advice? 2,000? 20,000? 100,000?
From the article:
In 2006, Watts forecast a 15% price jump. Instead, sales dropped 28% and prices rose a meager 2.4%.
In 2007, Watts predicted that local house prices would increase 7%. Following the subprime mortgage meltdown, and prices ended the year down 10%.
In 2008, he thought gains of 3-5% were conceivable for houses. By year’s end, the whole economy had tanked, and Watts had issued an apology. Home prices fell 30%.
And yet they *still* print his advice! Grrr… He’s consistently off by double digits! They should switch to Thornberg: An Optimistic bear who called this right.
Got Popcorn?
Neil
It looks like he also owns a single story home in the Madrid Del Lago tract across Marguerite from Lake Mission Viejo. He paid $700,000 7/30/2004 and then a year later financed it up to around $850,000 in loans. That house isn’t upside down is it???? Looks like another lender may take it in the shorts for being stupid.
Thornberg’s DA MAN in my book! Always stated good solid assertions with supportive facts and numbers…no sugar-coated B.S. or spin during the runup and beyond.
I imaging he was not and still isn’t well-liked by the RE/Finance biz crowd for not panderously cheerleading like his jackass peers.
DOC
Regardless of how I feel, I learned a long time ago that wishing ill of anyone is just bad karma. I find I’m totally fascinated with all the scams from Madoff to the NY art dealer today. So many scam artists seem to suffer the arrogance of ignorance and seeing them fall is like vicarious revenge. I have no part of it, did not wish them ill, but find their demise delicious.
Just like a juicy novel.
Sorry for the double post,
But I missed:
“That (home) had the biggest decline and the largest negative,” Watts said. “All the other properties, I’m maintaining.”
Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?!?
All the other properties
If you default on one investment property it should call due the other loans! Rat bast*$#.
1099 Gary. If there is any justice…
Got Popcorn?
Neil
It’s in the bag!
His scalp, that is…
most folks on the bb want everyone to walk
Watts is walking
I’m for road work./debtors prison
“Her home is a one-bedroom, one-bathroom condo with 700 square feet in Modesto. Fernandez said she had always made owning her own home and “property” a goal. Fernandez said she realized that the current market was a “chance of a lifetime.”
Sorry Dana, The only “property” you ‘own’ in your condo is from the walls inward. Being an aspiring realtwhore I would have thought you may know that.
Cheap condos depreciate quickly and become horrible slums in a few years. She was doing so well. I can’t understand why she through her entire life savings away like that. She could had the possibility of getting a decent SFH in 18 months for the same price or less, but her need to say she owned something over took her sanity. This was written as a feel good story, but it made me cry.
I was so impressed with this story. A person working part time making less than $10/hour is getting in on the game. All she has to do is scrimp and save and put all of her meagre resources into paying for a condo. We should all be inspired by this. I’ve been fighting back tears…..
Wait a friggin minute. Do you think this could be an attempt to lure marginal first time buyers into the market by the REIC? An attempt to prop up the lower end of the market with people that can barely afford rent? An attempt to get the commissions rolling again?
Someone making $10 an hour can buy a house in California??? No way. Just no way.
And that is precisely why I’m not buying anything yet. It’s like 2003 all over again with multiple offers and the idiots who have no business buying bidding properties up. I refuse to compete with morons like this.
It’s a condo, not a house. And I’ll bet it’s way overpriced even so.
How many condos in that development?
How many condos were bought 3+ yrs ago?
Which ones were foreclosed on, which are ready
to go under?
Now how much is her HOA -home owners association fees, and of course that will go up when the other condos get foreclosed on and the banks won’t pay HOA.s
Someone making $10 an hour can buy a house in California??? No way. Just no way.
It would be difficult to impossible even to pay rent in most parts of California on that wage, unless you had several roommates (as in, you actually had more than one paying tenant per bedroom).
Indeed!
Think of how wonderful it is that all that work went wasted, all those savings flushed down the drain of a sleazy, overpriced condo - it is magnificent! The “new” American Dream - to live in debt without freedom or hope, in a stucco prison by your own choice! Excellent!
Yeah, if you try real, real hard, then (if you’re extraordinary at the very least) you too may be able to sacrifice your entire life for the chance to strap a small condo to your back.
Um, nah, I think I’m good.
“Wait a friggin minute. Do you think this could be an attempt to lure marginal first time buyers into the market by the REIC?”
Not just the REIC my friend…don’t forget the advertizing megabucks the MSM wants to get rolling into their coffers again. Have you already forgotten what the insane ad-blitz on TV and the newspapers was like during the bubble? These schmucks will be appy to print any spin, jive and hype that’ll get any sidelined Mr. and Mrs. Daddy Nascar to jump in the game. Too bad they won’t bother to check the water in the hot tub is at a rolling boil.
DOC
She was renting a room in a house for $400. She didn’t necessarily made a bad move. People on her are always saying you should buy when its cheaper than renting. She is only paying $582 including taxes and HOA. At least she bought something she could afford and she bought it with her own money.
But in that area, she could rent a room in a house for $250, nowadays. You can rent an entire house in many parts of the central valley for $500 and then rent out the rooms yourself, so you have a bit of control.
She’s still paying more than she can afford for the income she makes and she’s got a huge millstone around her neck if she loses her job and has to move to get another one.
You guys are crazy sometimes. You are telling me that this woman should rent a room in a house for $250, rather than live in her own place for $582??
I guess she could just buy a used sleeping bag from Salvation Army and sleep under a park bench at her college for free.
I wager $$ that no one on this blog would give up their own place and rent a room from a stranger just to save $300 much less advise their daughter to do this.
You are telling me that this woman should rent a room in a house for $250, rather than live in her own place for $582??
$10 per hour is $20k per year or $1666 per month. So she’s paying 35% of her gross income just for the mortgage and HOA. Property taxes and insurance will probably push it to 40% at least.
That assumes she works 40 hours per week, whereas the article says she works part-time, worse yet as an assistant to her real estate agent.
But as she says, the worst that can happen is that she’ll end up renting again like all the other FB’s. The amazing thing is that she was able to find a lender in today’s market. This story sounds like something out of 2006, not 2009.
“You guys are crazy sometimes. You are telling me that this woman should rent a room in a house for $250, rather than live in her own place for $582??”
Point taken. But…Does this $582 include taxes, insurance and upkeep? Yes, upkeep? Sounds like she “shoe-horned” herself into this deal. A heater/AC repair alone can run in the thousands. S**t like this happens, and with mind-numbing regularity.
She may indeed be fine, but then again, her statement “I can always go back to renting” says volumes about her preparedness and long-term thinking IMO.
DOC
Huh? My mom rented out every room in our house to pay the bills as a single parent. I slept in the living room when I came back from the $25,000/year technical college she made sure we had enough money for.
So, sure, I think renting a room’s a great idea if you can’t afford something better — or renting out your extra rooms if you can’t pay the bills and don’t yet have the work skills to earn more money.
‘If something does happen the worst that I could end up doing is going back to renting.’
Nice. She’s already at peace with the idea of defaulting — and saddling someone else with the consequences of her risk-taking. I’d bet someone at the RE office offered her that bit of contingency planning.
I’m sure she got all kinds of unbiased advice working in a real estate office.
And she only works part time. Sheesh.
Folks, read this whole article. You’ll just be shaking your head all the way through.
She is also in college. I made it through college with several part-time jobs. Part-time means less than 40 hours a week so you don’t qualify for any benefits(including un-employment insurance in Texas). I think Walmart has only 1 or 2 full-time employees at each store.
In Florida (and I assume nationally), WalMart offers health insurance to its part-time employees, but the part you have to pay takes a big chunk out of your paycheck. I knew a guy who was doing that, though, because he “needed” Wellbutrin or one of those other psychoactive pills.
(He lost his job after a mental breakdown and now he works part-time for the university. He stopped seeing the psychiatrists (pill-pushers) and after “hitting bottom” has actually taught himself some useful life skills, like cooking. Still a major loser, though. Would rather spend hours playing online games than doing anything productive. Really sad because he is a talented digital graphic artist. Could have easily found work, freelance and otherwise, during the 2004-2007 boom but actually once changed online profiles to AVOID a client!)
“A house a that policeman could buy in 1998 is now only affordable to an engineer. So there’s still a problem”
Well… now there’s a metric we don’t talk about enough? And these cops don’t exactly come cheap either? Back in my day, cops lived in the very neighborhoods they patrolled and it wasn’t a ticket ‘out’. But we get your point lady, well said.
“A house a that policeman could buy in 1998 is now only affordable to an engineer. So there’s still a problem”
And homes an engineer could afford in 1998 could only be bought by a bond trader, Realtor ™, or mortgage broker. Oh wait a second…
Got Popcorn?
Neil
I thought this person’s comment in the article really hit home.
There are a lot of RE boosters out there proclaiming the new “affordability”–but you only have to have a memory of ten years or so to know that we’re still a long ways from true affordability in most places outside of the far exurbs where few people really want to live. I mean, if you really want to commute to L.A. from the Inland Empire, knock yourself out, but the prices in the L.A. metro proper, just from the postings here, still seem absurdly high.
Here in Washington D.C., prices have just barely begun to drop inside the Beltway. And no indication of price stabilization or increases yet. We’ve got a long way to go, still.
Bingo. Anywhere along the immediate coast the asking prices are still high. Drive inland (Pomona, San Berdoo, Temecula etc..) and the prices are noticeably getting better.
At some point, equilibrium is going to have to take over. Else the substition principle kicks in that states “I’ll commute 50 miles each way for a $150/sf home rather than sweat out a $500+/sf mortgage in Carlsbad, Mar Vista, Santa Monica, HB…..
Prices have already gone down in “bad” areas like Lawndale, Long Beach, Hawthorne, Inglewood. Still high but not as glaring.
Carson, Wilmington and the ilk.
Culver City marginal neeihborhoods are priced currently 425 - 470 for 2+1 sfr’s.
The high water mark for these places (near the 405) were 600k.
I was going to post that very same quote.
She’s confused. Nowadays a cop makes MORE than most engineers. The salaries of engineers has been depressed by all of the H1B visa guys, whereas cops are members of very aggressive labor unions.
The humble stucco house I owned in San Jose was originally intended - back in 1959 when it was built - as housing for, say, auto assemblers at the Fremont plants. I was a high-paid attorney and it was all I could afford by the time the last few decades rolled around.
DennisN,
Interesting wrinkle? I’m trying not to take things out of context but she did say “1998″. It’s been ‘my’ position that cops have been over paid for longer, but much of their gains have been more recent. Especially w/ their generous ret. package which assures a larger % of their income can be adjudicated to house payments.
Perhaps she drew the wrong comparison, should she have said Mortgage Broker circa 2005?
Sounds like inflation and globalization are working.
The next generation will have to live 3 families per stucco house in San Jose and won’t be able to afford any of those cars that were once made in Fremont but are now made in some 3rd world hole.
Actually that Fremont plant is doing just fine, thank you very much, making Toyota Matrix, Corolla, and Tacoma trucks and Pontiac Vibes. High quality, I might add. Now Ford’s Milpitas assembly plant, that’s long gone.
“She’s confused. Nowadays a cop makes MORE than most engineers.”
yea thats right if its cops in CA
How many engineers die on the job or have to deal with some of the most dangerous thugs in the world (L.A. gangs, for instance) on a daily basis? I’d much rather be an engineer than a cop, even if it paid half. There’s just no comparison.
Sorry guys, this whole “everyone else is not worthy of $XXX,XXX income, but **I** am” is stupid. It seems every single job category is somehow beneath everyone here, and this tearing each other apart is EXACTLY what the PTB want. While we’re arguing about cops vs. engineers, the multi-billionaires are making off with **all of our** money. Open your eyes.
We’re all in this together, and the sooner we realize that, the better. We need to fight to bring our collective wages in line with living expenses, and we need to protect our jobs (yep, I said it). For as long as Wall Street traders and the financial pigs are making billions of dollars, there is no reason for the rest of us to be commpeting with third-world wage earners.
+1 million, CA renter.
So true… MotU loaded up corps with debt, destroying their ability to invest in new capital facilities, meaning the new ones would be built in Taiwan and so on. Plus they squeezed employees, paying less and less. All productivity gains captured by mgmt. In truth, engineers’ pay is worse than it looks because of what they must pay to keep up their license and skills.
Cops’ life is dangerous, many die on the job, theoretically that lower expectancy should mean the pension isn’t as expensive as it looks … also should be in better health while employed, translating to better health later (but not necessarily, because shift work increases cancer risks! 3-week shift rotations should be stopped asap, b/c it’s a guaranteed higher cost to all down the line … plus it sucks for the employee and generates no dividend to the public, other than a crankier cop). But yes, they’ve been much more highly compensated lately. Despite that, my local PD has trouble hiring cops! Firefighters obviously overpaid, though, because thousands sign up for only a few slots, and not ALL of them fail to meet physical requirements. ^_^
The banksters have sucked us dry and left an empty husk … get everyone is distracted with sideshows like bonuses. It’s the debt, stupid.
An Engineering Salary ain’t what it use to be. In fact, between outsourcing and H1-B’s, Engineers are lucky to have jobs.
“ain’t” is levity. All the Depression news is depressing.
Today is black thursday at IBM. Those guys getting axed today are not going to be pumping up the consumer based economy, much less buying a new house.
I read on Google News last night,that IBM is looking for some government $ to help them out. What chutzpah!
Hence the hazard of bailouts. Everyone wants in on the action.
And simultaneously they’re trying to buy Sun?
*scratches non-fluffy head*
Haven’t you heard? According to almost all those who benefit from an excess supply, there’s a shortage of engineers and scientists.
Engineering is probably the ultimate blue-collar occupation.
Yes but if we could only improve education in America our economy would thrive. They should shut down all the science and engineering colleges and just offer financial manipulation degrees.
Please.
If engineering jobs are so difficult to come by, the why so many HB-1 visas in the first place? Who is employing all these engineers from abroad?
Why so many statements about a shortage of engineering students at universities nationwide?
The problem is that engineering jobs don’t pay well for the effort expended. It’s a 5 year degree of hard courses.
The shortage is in engineers that will work for 50K a year and be thought of as disposable.
Same as RN nursing. They import nurses from other countries, depressing the salary of the RN.
In Montgomery county, Maryland, the average selling price of a house a year or so ago was about 10x the salary of the police, firemen, etc. and was still totally unaffordable to engineers as well. But who cares because in “New Amerika” we’re all rich by flipping houses and just living in the “magical money zone” near DC, where money falls from the sky and all the unicorns cr@p candy!
Just think, if my parents had kept their Rockville house and rented in Mass, renting the old house out, then sold in 05 or 06, they would be rich now! lol. They sold in 97 and actually broke even despite realwhore fee, which out to have been a giant red flag that things were getting bubbly. (Old, homely house. Circa WWII.)
Policeman are the new rich. In a couple of years they will still be drawing 90% of their salary the Engineers will have nothing but an empty 401k and a bankrupt company pensions.
True. Just wait until people realize that their taxes are paying for public sector retirees to live a 20th century lifestyle that they’ll never achieve in their 21st century lives. Think a Dennis Hopper commercial is going to make anyone smile then?
Yes, if I recall, they were trying to toss Schwarzneggar for not giving them more. And they traditionally bite the hand that feeds them, too. /snark off
So how is screwing people out of their pensions at retirement age a good thing for anybody? How exactly is that going to benefit society?
Do you think they’re really going to get that pension money? I don’t.
Big V,
I’m hoping *not. If the economy is bad enough states can’t cover the overly generous promises they’ve made, we needn’t worry about those still active on the force quitting?
I mean if we do have “mass defections” there will be plenty of able-bodied people at the ready to fill their shoes for a fraction of the pay and worry about cushy retirement bennies later.
They’ll raise a stink but in the end, they’ll get what we give ‘em and not a penny more.
Take a look at Vallejo, CA. The city is broke, how will the police collect their retirement benefits. There are plenty more cities and towns like this.
Now that IS true and I’d forgotten about that. I suppose the only reason though they can continue to pay the benefits is b/c there were Porkulus $’s on the way.
What will it be like when town after town is pretty much in the same condition? Are we just going to -keep- introducing stimulus packages to eternity? These guys should consider themselves lucky their ret. checks aren’t bouncing.
The anger at AIG etc. will continuously be re-directed until everyone on the dole gets their turn in the barrel.
Isn’t Vallejo the place where they pay their policeman $130k a year? Have they stopped paying those salaries or pensions yet?
The cities/state will continue to pay those pensions.
If anything, they will take the “sell out the younger generation” approach and just reduce pay and benefits for new hires.
A policeman and an engineer make about the same money these days. Actually a policeman makes more since he can retire in 20 years. At 45 years old start a second career while still pulling in $40-50K or so a year from his pension plus lifetime health benefits.
Engineers are generally bright, under paid, over worked, and under appreciated by most. No whimp gets an Engineering degree.
I respect Cops and Fire Personnel, but they are just way over paid these days.
Engineers don’t put their lives on the line every day they go to work. Cops and fire fighters deserve every penny they make.
I’m going to have to disagree here? There -was- a time when you could well say that, but from where “I” stand?
If a fireman sees my house ABLAZE… just keep on driving, I can’t afford you! Since no one in my house smokes and I was a firefighter in the military, I got it handled, thanks but no thanks.
If a cop sees me down on the ground being assualted by gang bangers, keep on driving but it’d be nice if you’d ring the funeral home? Seriously, most of us have a HELL of a lot greater liklihood of dying cold, broke, hungry and over-taxed than we -ever- do of “needing” their services.
Let. Me. Burn.
Most dangerous occupations according to Money magazine:
Occupation Fatalities per 100,000
Timber cutters 117.8
Fishers 71.1
Pilots and navigators 69.8
Structural metal workers 58.2
Drivers-sales workers 37.9
Roofers 37
Electrical power installers 32.5
Farm occupations 28
Construction laborers 27.7
Truck drivers 25
Police/Fireman strangely absent.
Does that mean a soldier gets paid more than the general?
Looking the applicant count for firefighters/cops Vs Engineering degree applications in Colleges it is clear that firefighters/cops are overpaid.
Clearly you do not know about the recruiting efforts for fire/police in California.
During the boom years, they had a very difficult time trying to hire qualified applicants for fire and police departments. They even had to resort to hiring police recruits with criminal records because they weren’t getting enough applicants from qualified people without records.
While I have nothing but respect for engineers and other scientists, they could not do their jobs if not for the people who work in civil service jobs. Public safety is easy to take for granted when we’re accustomed to having highly qualified personnel show up within minutes of our placing a 911 call. Try letting the quality slide, and see what that gets you (hint: look at Mexico and other developing nations).
I could go into more about having to hire people who are likely to stay for the long-haul, instead of people who are only there when the economy is tanking, but that’s another rant.
This all seems like a stupid fight comparing the worthiness of professions and their pay. As long as the folks in power can divide and conquer the public and keep us at each other’s throats, they can continue to rape and pillage at will. Everyone hates lawyers, too, until they need one.
Needed and got.
When I woke up at 2am and the house was burning down around me, so thankful that police and firemen were everywhere. Ironically they just happened to be driving by. How lucky was that? I am here to tell ya.
When people get seriously ill on some flights I have been on, thankful that police/firemen/Medics rushed onboard.
But that part about pilots being 69. on the list of most dangerous…yikes. I thought flying was safer than driving…
What happened to that?
Engineers are generally bright…debatable. If they were that bright they would figure out a way to not be under paid, over worked and under appreciated.
It’s a myopic sort of brightness that allows them to solve hard technical problems but doesn’t necessarily translate to common sense. I’m an engineer who didn’t buy into the Silicon Valley housing bubble, but among my co-workers I am in the minority. Several of them refuse to recognize even now that house prices are falling fast. Unfortunately, self-delusion and intelligence aren’t mutually exclusive.
Spot on, and let me tell you, I was a science major and later went to engineering school. Science majors generally were bright in multiple areas, often talented musicians, very broad knowledge. Engineers were pretty dull (until they started drinking), eager MSM kool-aid drinkers, spent more than they earned, and insensitive to the consequences of their actions or what impact what they did might have on the environment/economy/anything.
Note well: science majors were fleeing like rats from a sinking ship, catching on quickly that there were no job prospects in their field. Some switched disciplines, so they could stay in science, which they loved, but still eat. Engineers, however, seemed blithely unconcerned that they were entering a career which would require constant infusions of their own money and time to maintain. Instead, they spent as if their future salary would all be realized. When they get laid off they will literally be the last to see it coming.
Oh, one more thing: the young mathematicians and scientists I have known were very bright, just as bright, if not brighter than their professors (some of the profs ran a good research shop but weren’t actually all that brilliant phys-wise). OTOH, the oldest engineering profs were MUCH sharper than the younger engineering profs or the students. In fact, the students had a bustling business selling old exams and answer keys so they could pass the old fossil profs’ gate-keeping exams. NEVER saw that in science dept, no matter how hard the tests. I’m sure there was some cheating in BIO, because of all the dumb pre-meds, but never saw that where it was just science majors. We were there because we wanted to learn the material ourselves.
Hm, live in the place they patrol? That wasn’t true where I grew up … most of the patrolmen lived outside of my town because RE was too expensive there. (We had very good schools at the time, higher relative taxes to pay for it and houses bid up b/c of the schools–many were unwilling to pay like that for schools so they lived elsewhere, lower taxes, ghetto-ass schools.) I’m sure there was OT abuse in my town, but it wasn’t as bad as some places (*cough* Boston). Okay, by “town” I mean city, about 60K residents. Anyway … were teachers and cops being priced out an unsual phenom, not seen elsewhere?
How does Ed Leamer still have a job!? He missed the biggest recession since forever and people still seek out his opinion?
Look at his academic publication record for the answer.
These guys don’t get graded for being right. It is more about keeping the conversation going.
He was one of the first people to call it a bubble/suggest prices were too high, back in 2002-2003.
Interestingly enough, he changed his tune right about the time the collective herd started looking for answers. IMHO, it would be interesting to find out exactly why he changed his mind about the bubble right about when it peaked (all of a sudden, there’s no bubble!). There’s got to be an untold story there, IMHO.
Watts, the chief prognosticator for the Orange County Association of Realtors, once was one of local real estate’s biggest boosters.
There is a GOD!!! and he makes losers.
Hey Stanley!
I keep wondering what’s the point of Geithner trying to assert regulatory reform when we can’t even get the biggest realtwhore in SoCal to honor his obligations? Here he is pulling his hair out over reigning in CDS’s when:
1. Industry Insider Makes Speculative Purchase
2. Only 10% Down on Inv. Property Purchase?
3. Bloated Appraisal
4. Alt. A Loan
5. MBS Securitization
6. Investor DEFAULT
7. Credit Default Swap?
It’s like at the END of the process! How about getting a leash on all the industry insiders and their sculpting the process every step of the way -leading- to CDS? Ya’ think?
Har!
Losers are God’s creatures too.
Well, for the longest time, Watts was -anything- BUT a loser! He was the freakin’ toast of the town. I just can’t believe this, it’s like a stockbroker -refusing- to cover a margin call in the account he has at his own employer firm and thinking nothing’s going to come of it?
Worse, he HAS the money to cover the call, but didn’t fell “it was in his best interest”!
Watts needs to be fired, 1099′d, prosecuted for fraud and JT’d ( in no particular order )
Friends have dated and married them. Losers, that is.
engineers can be a “little dense”. Unless Italian, or Irish with quick wits or drunk.
$765K is too much money even for Barney Frank.
I’m not sure what you mean. You mean as a campaign contribution?
How mucha month for a 765k house?
On daily drive to work, I pass signs that still advertise “New homes from $700K; only a few units remain.” I guess with the conforming loan limit at $730K, these are within reach to those financed through the zombie GSEs?
GSE financing or no, the days of zero money down are over, so I want to know what sort of knifecatcher is plunking down $70k+ for the downpayment on these houses. Given the actual year-over-year drop in home sale of 30-40% in February, the answer apparently is “no one.”
Who wants to pay $500 + per month for PMI? The only people who could qualify for the loan based on income make too much for it to be deductible. I had one fool broker tell me PMI is deductible for someone with a $200k family income. What a LIAR! The true number is $100k.. They are still up to their old tricks!
$500/month PMI ain’t bad - ?
Considering the quality of modern homes (toxic drywall from China, anyone), the sign saying that “only a few units remain” could mean that the rest have simply gone to ruin! It is still unknown if the modern McCrud shack will outlast a 30 year mortgage!
“One key to revival is the sector that started the economic tailspin: housing. Though housing markets ‘have yet to bottom out,’ by this fall, California’s housing industry will be building fewer houses than its growing population requires and ‘will be eating into its housing stock.’ ‘All of the excess that was the housing bubble is now burned off,’ said Jerry Nickelsburg, a UCLA economist, ’so when the rest of the economy is ready to turn around, the housing market will be ready to turn around.’”
Even as the UCLA economics forecasting team vies for the title of gloomiest coalition of dismal scientists, there is still a lingering whiff of denial in their prognostications. For instance, they say the housing market will bottom out by this fall (2009), yet also predict that double-digit unemployment will continue into 2012. Is there a single precedent in economic history of a housing market bottoming out before the local labor market recovers? I have my serious doubts, but I am interested in any examples that folks can cite.
“One key to revival is the sector that started the economic tailspin: housing. Though housing markets ‘have yet to bottom out,’ by this fall, California’s housing industry will be building fewer houses than its growing population requires and ‘will be eating into its housing stock.’ ‘All of the excess that was the housing bubble is now burned off,’ said Jerry Nickelsburg, a UCLA economist, ’so when the rest of the economy is ready to turn around, the housing market will be ready to turn around.’”
All of the excess that was the housing bubble is not yet burned off, not even close in some areas. You still have lots of wishing prices well above market prices. Isn’t the population of California actually declining slightly or very close to neither increasing nor decreasing? Building hasn’t stopped completely. There’s still quite a substantial surplus of housing, especially in some of the more overbuilt inland areas.
“Even as the UCLA economics forecasting team vies for the title of gloomiest coalition of dismal scientists, there is still a lingering whiff of denial in their prognostications. For instance, they say the housing market will bottom out by this fall (2009), yet also predict that double-digit unemployment will continue into 2012. Is there a single precedent in economic history of a housing market bottoming out before the local labor market recovers? I have my serious doubts, but I am interested in any examples that folks can cite.”
Their unemployment forecast looks flawed, at least in the near term. A graph of unemployment for California shows unemployment has increased sharply, gone nearly parabolic, in the past few months. The UCLA forecast shows unemployment flattening out significantly in the near term as it slowly drifts upward toward the forecast 12 percent peak. The UCSB forecast showing unemployment in California peaking around 15 percent meshes better with current trends.
Outside, perhaps, of a situation where there was a shortage of housing, why would housing recover ahead of the labor market? I suspect the UCLA forecast is not only inconsistent, but will prove no closer to being correct than most of their forecasts the past couple of years in the post Thornberg era.
“The Vallejo home from which “D.C. Madam” Deborah Jeane Palfrey ran her infamous escort service likely will sell for nearly a half-million dollars less than its original 2007 asking price.”
That is one sweet example of what some Californians do to afford the high cost of housing.
“The state’s recession will be ‘deeper and longer than we previously thought,’ economists with UCLA’s Anderson Forecast predicted.”
Translation: “Now that the writing is on the wall, we are cautiously breaking away from our sponsors’ wishes, and painting a picture of the economy that won’t make us look like complete idiots again next year.”
“Gloria Behman sees a silver lining in falling prices. Her client, a single mother with two children, bought a bank-owned house in Live Oak for $380,000. ‘She was able to buy a house with a fabulous yard for her kids,’ Behman said.”
“On the other hand, it needed fresh paint and new carpet. The house was on the market last June for $449,000; the bank’s asking price was $395,900.Behman’s advice: ‘Don’t pay more than you need to pay — if this property doesn’t work, there will be another.’
Like a thread here yesterday, this crap just makes me fume. Does the single mom make over 100K?? No mention of course.
Behman says “don’t pay more than you need to pay” then has her client pay 96 percent of the asking price?? AND it STILL needs carpet and paint?? AND she probably thinks she did the single mom a favor??
That’s insane.
Does the single mom make over 100K?? No mention of course.
“The Vallejo home from which “D.C. Madam” Deborah Jeane Palfrey ran her infamous escort service likely will sell for nearly a half-million dollars less than its original 2007 asking price.”
I think the answer is sometimes…
Only married women can earn 6 figures now?
“Her client, a single mother with two children, bought a bank-owned house in Live Oak for $380,000. ‘She was able to buy a house with a fabulous yard for her kids,’ Behman said.””
100K my a**. This lady better have a salary more in the 150-200K range to afford this kind of home. Single, 2 kids, with a 380K house? And in a very expensive area? If she makes 100K, I can just about promise you, this is a foreclosure in the making. 100K would be 4X income, then add in being single, and 2 kids? Not a chance in holy he** I would make that loan, no way, no how.
Anyone want to take odds on this lady making >150K/yr?
“100K my a**. This lady better have a salary more in the 150-200K range to afford this kind of home.”
$380K is about $2100 a month mortgage at 5% with 0 down. You’re saying one needs to make at least $12,500 gross to afford $2100 a month for housing? Come on.
That’s not including property taxes, HOA, or insurance, which more or less double the payment. Her house payment is closer to $4k a month.
Where do you live that HOA and property tax on a $385K house is $2K a month?
Yes, today’s single women can have it all. They can work their 70 hours a week to make $150k and raise 2.5 happy and well adjusted kids. Just like the FEMINISTS told us. Who needs men?
Yep. Sure.
Like having a husband guarantees she won’t have a demanding job and children to raise?
Maybe the dad has custody. What do we know?
You’re an idiot.
Sorry for calling rocks an idiot. I won’t do it again. But he might want to consider being a bit less, erm, retro.
I can’t believe it’s 2009 and I’ve been following this blog for I don’t know how many years, maybe since ‘02 or ‘03, and we’re still looking to these crummy areas (Manteca, Bakersfield) to prove that the housing bubble has burst, yet west LA is still so incredibly overpriced. A three bedroom little house in Beverlywood is still $1M, minimum. And you still have to pay private school tuition.
Many of us who needed a house back in the beginning of this decade, might not need one anymore by the time we can afford one, in this area anyway.
If you’ve been following it since ‘02 or ‘03 you must be Ben’s ex-girlfriend.
I LOL’d!
I’m not sure what you are expecting. Beach living will always have a premium, and even though the economy is bad for many, it is not bad for all. Plus, there will always be people who graviate to that area for the opportunities it could possibly provide, ie the chance to movie stargaze. I personally know a few who are proud their baby was born in the 90210 zip code. Yeah, it’s stupid, and they are too, but they have a benefactor who doesn’t care.
There are plenty of houses around my parent’s trailer house summer home near a lake in the middle of BFE that are still priced at $500k and up, with the average (trailer) house price being closer to $30-40k. Why? There are a few people around that can afford it.
A housing crash doesn’t mean every house will be affordable to everyone. If you are so hung up on living in Beverlywood or Hollywood, then accept it.
Beach living will always have a premium
Not always. The lots in Bolivar are now actually cheaper since hurricane Ike cleared most of the houses. In fact, some lots are now too close to the ocean to build on and are essentially worthless.
The_Overdog,
What’s ridiculous is why was IE bloating up in price to begin with?! And why bring it up now? Believe it or not there’s a blog that deals -specifically- with the West LA Bubble and there are more tear jerkers on that thing than you can shake a stick at.
True, some beach areas probably ‘are’ still a million ( problem is someone borrowed TWO against it! ) Toast.
I’ve seen Ike’s destruction of the Texas coast and remember the uptick in the wind as it hit the shores.
Fine. I’ll add a caveat that beach living outside of a hurricane zone (which LA is) will always carry a severe premium, but I still believe that the next batch of large houses and condos on the Texas coast will make the caveat i added as confusing as English-language spelling rules, at least until the next major hurricane.
You’re right, l’AIG. West LA is invincible. No one can touch it.
“Losers are God’s creatures, too.”
You obviously haven’t strolled down Montana Ave. lately!!!
Yep, heard lots of RE lease signs up on Montana. WOW.
Overpriced.
Many of us who needed a house back in the beginning of this decade, might not need one anymore by the time we can afford one, in this area anyway.
I guess maybe you didn’t “need” one after all.
That young woman’s ability to save and live within her means is truly impressive. She sounds really bright and ambitious…but it worries me that she is planning to go into real estate. In this market?!?! Is she nuts? Is she aware that the drop-out rate for realtors entering the field is around 80% and that most of those who stay in make less than 20K a year the first few years? (Hey, these are NAR figures. And that was DURING the bubble!!) I bet her broker-boss never let her in on that…But I guess with her itty bitty mortgage of $580 or whatever she isn’t too worried.
I’d say that $20K a year is a little skewed.
The are countless “realtors” who do it more for a hobby than a job. I know a couple of these who are married to friends of mine. They sell a house or two a year to their friends/relatives, make $10K in comission and can pretend they have a career. When you add them in then yeah the average income is nothing.
God, I’d give ‘anything’ to have NAR revert back to having retired gym teachers peddling real estate!
At least you’ll know they won’t “Pull a Watt’s”! (TM) from this day forth!
“A handful of new condominiums came on the market for $121,000 and less this month in Los Altos – a rare, and coveted, opportunity offered by the city’s affordable housing program. The condos include five one-bedroom, 790-square-foot units, priced at $106,000, and three two-bedroom, 1,200-square-foot units for $121,000.”
“Sue Russell, the affordable-housing co-chairwoman for the Los Altos chapter of the League of Women Voters, described the units’ availability as an exciting affordable housing opportunity.”
One bedroom condos for 100 grand….exciting opportunity……HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!
Outrageous.
In Los Altos, I’d take TEN at that price.
No kidding. If it were unrestricted, you could probably rent it out for $2k/month.
Even adding 50% to cover the currency difference between the US$ and the Oz$, people would be queued around the block here to buy at those prices.
I’ve got a flier for a condo project in RB, 165K for 1 bed, 544 sqft, 288K for 2 bed, 964 sqft. The flier also says “Own for Less than Rent”. They’re still overpriced by a factor of two or so based on rents.
In the fine print, down payment is referred to as “borrower investment”.
villataviana dot com
In the fine print, down payment is referred to as “borrower investment”.
——————–
Makes you sick, doesn’t it?
Here’s part of an email that I received from an RE who sells in Santa Cruz and SJ. Game is still going strong.
that Nobody Knows About….(robert aldana)
You should know that at this moment there are some amazing deals on homes right now. You can buy a single family home in San Jose for $250,000 or less. Townhouse or condos? Take your pick.
But what if you could combine amazing prices with an amazing loan? I have one for you. Better then anything you have seen or heard, I want to introduce you to a loan program that features:
30 year fixed rate loan at 4.75%
All ONE loan
No downpayment
No closing costs
No points
No mortgage insurance
No pre-payment penalty
No credit score needed
No kidding
Of course, there are some restrictions. Some are as follows:
Must be owner occupied
Cannot be currently a homeowner
Cannot have negative credit within the past 12 months
Cannot have a foreclosure within 36 months
You can buy a condo, townhouse, single family home or up to 4 units (fourplex). You can own a home for less than what you would pay for rent.
This program is the real deal. It is sponsored by a non-profit organization and funds are available for up to ten billion dollars at this moment. But funds can also dry up if enough people take advantage of this financing, although I am being told that more funds will be available should the current ones be exhausted.
What I am doing is holding a 1.5 hour workshop to explain in detail how the program works and the process of getting pre-approved.
That sure stinks to high heaven.
The spelling does, too. Call me old-fashioned, but I am not doing 6-figure business with someone who can’t be bothered to spellcheck (or spell properly) his marketing materials.
And you know you can trust him because he said “no kidding” at the end of his list.
+1 LOL!
Interesting to read about Watsonville and area. Only housing being sold is in areas that most would not want to live in. Here in Salinas most of the affordable housing sold is in East Salinas.
Commercial property in Monterey and Carmel is tanking. One RE said that she got out of RE (commmercial) after 10 yrs because she had to feed her family. High end shops are seeing very few sales.
Salinasron,
I haven’t been out that way in a long time. What ever happened to all the property that was once Ft Ord and planned for developement ?
Fort Ord = California State University, Monterey Bay.
There were supposed to be 4 separate housing complexes with 700-1000 homes each. The bubble burst prior to construction, but you can take a drive around the area and see the prepped lots and empty roads behind the construction fences. It looks great!
Hmm….sounds like a good time for me to make a trip down to the aquarium.
All fixtures — toilets, countertops, ceiling fans — must remain. Landscaping, too. ‘I’ve had people dig up all the trees and plants. They figure they paid for it,’ she said.”
This part rather fascinates me. I started a small local heirloom seed/plant exhange, and I sometimes volunteer for native plant salvage and replant projects and I much more often rescue plants on my own that are gonna get squished or plowed over or whatever, as I go along and happen to see them. There’s a rose in my yard growing from a cutting taken from a rose that came to Utarr over a hundred years ago along with a new bride from Sweden, that I grew in Utarr, and then dug up and brought along with me here (spreading cuttings along the way, of course), so I COMPLETELY understand getting excited about digging up plants and running away with them, but I mean—you have to PUT the plants somewhere, and fairly quickly, or they dry out and die.
And a tree?! These people getting evicted, where are they going, to go live in a park?
Heirloom seeds??
Seeds from heirloom varieties, I mean.
Although, speaking of heirloom seeds, 2 years ago at an estate sale down the road I got a big antique glass jar full of wheat—I wanted the jar, it was 50 cents—and the nice granny told me it was wheat from her fathers farm as a boy growing up in Montana, so about 80 years old wheat, so then I became interested in it and planted some in a corner of a garden box and half of it grew, which was pleasing.
Pretty. Wheat is pretty. I had a plan to thresh it and make something all special and reminiscency sort of thing, but I couldn’t get the wheat out. Good thing we’s in modern times, as I cannot imagine how olden-tyme people got all those little kernels out without going crazy and killing someone. I gave up on eating it and instead used some of it to make a wreath for my head for a harvest celebration.
“This part rather fascinates me. I started a small local heirloom seed/plant exhange, and I sometimes volunteer for native plant salvage and replant projects and I much more often rescue plants on my own that are gonna get squished or plowed over or whatever, as I go along and happen to see them.”
As Olygal EXPLAINS her heirloom “Fern Garden” to 47 non-amused DEA agents armed to the teeth and accompanied with choppers, drug sniffing dogs, an armored car and one very agitated SWAT Team
Well, you know how I got so grumpy the other day? I ain’t really that scairt of having my fluffy head end up in a fridge in Grant’s Pass*. However, I couldn’t POSSIBLY bear to lose all my lovely ‘botanical specimens’….;)
*Well, okay, just a little. But there’d probably be really good steaks in there, too, and that would make my head happy.
We only tease you because we care Olygal.
Good steaks..are important !
Ribeyes at my place at six……
Well! I can’t drive that fast! I only got your offer now, lessee, at 7:13 Pacific time. Oh, no! You’s already eating them! Without me!!
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
*takes a deep breath for the next scream of pain*
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO….!
I can see it now at the reading of the will:
Lawyer: And now for Olympiagal I leave my Full Heart Batavian Endive seeds.
Olympiagal: Yippee!!!
Yes, there could in fact be a ‘yippee’, but I’m not going to carry on with your thought, because it seems to ME that I detect some mockery here.
Hruumpph! *flounces out of room*
You won’t go very far Olygal. We just have to say your name 3 times and you re-appear like Beatlejuce
It’s soooooo true. Except my hair is cuter. And I don’t exude bugs. Much.
That realtor is bluffing. The “owners” could say, produce the note. That would buy them quite a bit of time.
Common here in Phoenix to find cactus for sale on craigs list right before the house goes back to the bank. My boss went on a buying spree a few months back. Big heavy barrel type cactus.
The saguaro needs a special rig to move it because if it falls on you you won’t be happy.
but yea they will sell anything for a little cash I guess.
I was in Phoenix last week. Maybe I just don’t understand the varieties of cacti, maybe some are rare, but my impression of the area is that someone in Phoenix would be as likely to spend $ on a cactus as an eskimo would to buy snow.
Well, people were paying big bucks for established palms in Florida (which are quite easy to move and replant, although keeping them alive after that can be trickier). News story from South Florida last month that the palm price has collapsed with new building … kind of a shame. Too bad they don’t load ‘em on a flat and sell them here. Well, actually they were dumping hundreds of crepe myrtles for $3 a pop last year, but who needs more crepe myrtles? (Not even native, yeesh.) But, hey, bring on the palms (and the hollies and the cycads). I would pick up a few. My LL doesn’t mind if we plant a few things on the property. Heh heh.
BIG problem around the desert area, where they are implanting chips into cacti. As soon as they are planted, someone spirits them off into the night to resell.
Or something.
Ergo, Lojack for plants.
I’m by no means a green thumb. But I have a potted cactus that has been thriving for the last 2 years on my apartment balcony. Has recent new growth. I water it every 3 or 4 weeks. It’s like a miniature barrel cactus but not quite. Some of that stuff is fascinating.
Price on big condo in Manhattan reduced one-third.
http://ny.therealdeal.com/articles/apthorp-drops-prices-by-one-third-largest-overall-condo-reduction-since-the-fall
Not sure this counts as a real one-third reduction, however, given that the original price might have been a fantasy.
“Sales of the high-priced units were slow. By October of 2008, four months after the attorney general approved the offering plan, not a single apartment was in contract.”
From the original post:
From Bloomberg. “David Rapaport, a professor at the University of California San Diego Medical School, is paying an upfront fee of $3,500 to refinance his mortgage at 5.13 percent. A year ago, his rate was 6.25 percent and there were no fees. ”
“‘I’m happy just to be able to get a refi and reduce my monthly payment,’ said Rapaport, who owns a two-bedroom townhouse in San Diego, where home prices have dropped 32 percent since June 2006. He is saving $264 a month with the new loan meaning it will take about a year to recoup the fees he paid.”
From Slim:
My willingness to pay $3k upfront to do, IMHO, what amounts to a bit of paper shuffling, is pretty small. So, fellow HBB-ers, I ask you: What exactly is that three grand paying for?
Some goes to pay for a new appraisal.
IIRC, an appraisal costs a few hundred bucks. Where’s the rest of the money going?
OT Slim:
Didn’t know if you saw this, but the Treasurer of the Ann Arbor Amateur Hockey Ass’n. just got busted for embezzling nearly a million bucks from their organization.
A million bucks. From a hockey club. And it went unnoticed for years apparently. Sheesh.
You got me. I think they are jacking up the prices because many people can’t do the math. The appraisal Countrywide offered my girlfriend on our house was over $6000 upfront, including the extra 6 months of property taxes and homeowners insurance. The refi fee itself was probably $3k, just like in this case.
Mine would have been a $100 reduction in payment. I politely told the GF to file that one in the trashbin.
I’m guessing at least a portion of the fee is an interest rate buydown. Although I think that would have to be disclosed in the Truth in Lending statement.
They DO still require those, don’t they?
Here in Australia, some of that might also be a break fee if the 6.25% was fixed for a period. (I don’t know whether this occurs in the US.)
I’m not a fan of interest-rate buydowns unless a borrower is (barring accidents/illness) very sure of their medium-term future. Far better IMHO to use the money to pay down any high-interest debt you may have.
title insurance and title search, filing papers with the county
25 year old making $10 an hour buying a condo…el stupido.
Depends on the price. If the condo was less than $50,000, probably a good deal.
But she can’t afford $50K. Say 25 hrs/ week and she’s only at $13K meaning she can only afford at most, a $39K mortgage.
You go, Schahrzad.
Yep, one of our HBB posters from a while back.
How the f__ck do you know? Illegals are going home, people are leaving for jobs, people are moving to cheaper areas to make their savings last longer, and old people die every day. There is nothing but optimism from these guys. Have you all ever noticed that the most unhappy people are those who insist on undying optimism, and therefore are invariably dissilusioned?
My punishment for this dude is that he has to eat okra for a week.
Why would you want to punish the okra?
Has the population of California ever decreased?
I think unless we enact some sort of border control, the population will continue to increase due to immigration in all of the border states.
What jobs are they going to get ? We’re still going through fairly large downsizing in the job market and the $14/hr jobs that are replacing the $30/hr jobs don’t cut it.
well, for immigration, we have to look to religious organizations that bring in lots of folks via the ol religious persecution angle, and other such stuff.
The US gov processes over 60,000 per mo. x 12 = 720,000 yr.
and so on.
I know my husband and I would gladly leave if we could, but we have 2 good jobs here… I’d love to move back East.
EastBayRenter,
I hear you. When we’re in the thick of trying to survive, you really don’t have a lot of time for reflection. The older I get, the more I appreciate where I came from. I’d love to spend summers in Chicago ( I know, sounds weird )
I think there’s a market for the legions of us that moved out west to spend some time “back east” as we get a little older? I’m thinking… some version of timeshare ( for lack of a better word ) Only much more sensible.
DinOR just misses Palmerio’s 95th St Fettichi Alfredo.
It’s GONE DinOR, all gone, mikey ate it all last month
EastBayRenter
Is family back east, or are you craving a major change? We’ve considered the east too. One of the original colonies.
Both my husband and I grew up in Ohio and my husband has family in PA. We really thought we were going to end up in VA, but it didn’t turn out that way (we don’t have fancy Ivy league educations or know someone). The Bay area bugs us, but what are we to do. We have some close friends and a good church. This is why I am not CRAZY about turning over even $500k to one of these greedy B@stards! I don’t love it here - it’s barely tolerable! Plus the drivers are HORRIFIC!!
EastBayRenter,
One of the most successful guys I know lives in Huntington Beach, CA. Yet he goes back to Chicago -every- summer so he can be w/ friends and go to Wrigley Field etc.
People always ask him, “Are you crazy..?! Why would you want to miss the best part of SoCal’s summer?”
He figures just about -any- day there will be nicer than it is in Chicago so what’s the big deal? He doesn’t need the summer traffic and the hootchie girls anyway. Yet I don’t think you need to be bigtime successful to enjoy some of the benefits? I’ve got all KINDS of reverse snow-birding ideas!
EastBayRenter
We live in Thousand Oaks, about 40 south of Santa Barbara. The job market is hammered here. The illegals have invaded these suburbs, traffic into L A is a parking lot, and I want out. I am craving a simpler life. I like the mass transit concept of the east coast, and would like to believe people in the east have better values. My husband is from Kansas (pre-college), and I grew up in So. Ca (but I’m grounded).
I am sick of paying the Sunshine Tax. We are planning to pay cash for our final home, so we are carefully weighing our options.
From Yahoo….
Financial experts say recession ends by year’s end
Financial experts predict economic turnaround by year’s end
David Pitt, AP Personal Finance Writer
Tuesday March 24, 2009, 5:48 pm EDT
A group of financial wizards looked into their crystal ball Tuesday and saw some good news.
Next up..next up for MSM Court Jester Position
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Financial-experts-say-apf-14734171.html
“The sun is shining less brightly these days in sunny Southern California.”
Got on a board a west bound seven forty seven
Didn’t think before deciding what to do
All that talk of opportunities, TV breaks and movies
Rang true, sure rang true.
Seems it never rain in Southern California
Seems I’ve often heard that kind of talk before
It never rains in California
But girl, don’t they warn ya
It pours man it pours.
Out of work, I’m out of my head
Out of self respect I’m out of bread
I’m under loved I’m under fed
I wanna go home
It never rains in California
But girl don’t they warn ya, it pours, man it pours.
Will you tell the folks back home I nearly made it
Had offers but don’t know which one to take
Please don’t tell them how you found me
Don’t tell them how you found me give me a break
Give me a break
Seems it never rains in Southern California
Seems I’ve often heard that kind of talk before
It never rains in California
But girl, don’t they warn ya
It pours man it pours
That’s for the HBB bumper music interlude.
My SIL came out here to get into the entertainment biz (back room, not acting), and slept in her car, until she made it. That takes guts and determination.
Yes, absolutely right. Guts and determination.
I have a friend who could do this (she is a sword technician), but was too freaked about the idea of leaving a familiar area. She’s working but is definitely underemployed and probably spends too much on ‘recreational’ activities that light her fire whereas work does not. What a waste.
not a gator
Your friend is not alone. It’s hard to watch potential rot away, isn’t it.
My SIL isn’t my flavor, but I can appreciate her moving to a strange place alone,showering at the YMCA, and sleeping in her vehicle. I’ve got mock-cy (sp?), but not that much.
Anyone know how to find out how many NODs are out there in 92130? I can’t wait for that place to crash/burn… Which it will. When that goes, we’ll know we’re close to the end.
Try ForeclosureRadar dot com - you can put in a zip code at the bottom of the screen and see all the NODs etc., for that zip code. There are 20 properties per screen. Some are listed twice if they have a 2nd on the home.
Have fun.
So, my coworker finally bought herself a car. She tells the salesperson how much she wants to pay, and the guy says “There’s no way we can do that”. She was telling me about this last week, and I laughed my ass off. I was like “He’ll call you back.”
Well, the financing fell through for other schmuck who was going to pay more, so the coworker got the car with an alarm and a warranty for her original price.
Isn’t that fun?
I love happy stories!
But it would be even happier if your coworker had made the salesman grovel a bit, along with the warranty and alarm.
Just curious, was it new or used?
My wife and I are looking for one now. Had to deal with a slimy sales manager at one locale this past weekend…I won’t get into that conversation.
I’m thinking of waiting until July-October timeframe when the new models start rolling out. New tike (gonna be a girl) comes along in August so we’ll have to deal with our current situation until then but it might be worth it.
Congrats on the coming baby, bluprint!
Thanks. We just found out the gender a few days ago. The girl thing…I think its gonna be cool. Hacker chicks are a lot cooler than hacker dudes.
I’m gonna have to get more guns tho. Line the walls with them. And security cameras. And I’m already thinking about how to maintain a real-time gps feed…
But for now I just need a vehicle.
Here’s hoping that the girl turns out to be another Annie Oakley.
Congrats. Photos posted plz …after it happens!
We just had a baby in September ‘08. We have a 2-door civic and a 2-door beetle. 2-door cars are actually better for the backward-facing carseats with the “base” that attaches to the car - it’s easier to slide in the baby and basket with the seat slid forward.
We’re about to transition to the rear-facing permanent one - that might mean a new car for us too.
…Where have all the flowers gone?
Long time passing
Where have all the flowers gone?
Long time ago
Where have all the flowers gone?
Girls have picked them every one(Realtywhores from CAR ?)
When will they ever learn?
When will they ever learn?
My parents grew to hate that song. When ever I hear it, I remember knowing more than the universe at 15.
US workers on jobless benefits hit record….
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The number of workers collecting state unemployment benefits rose to a record 5.56 million earlier this month, while new claims rose to 652,000 in the week ended March 21, the Labor Department said on Thursday.
Analysts polled by Reuters had expected continued claims to total about 5.48 million during the week ended March 14, the most recent data available. The number of new claims for the week of March 21 had been forecast at 650,000.
http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSTRE52P39R20090326
Dearest Fellow Grinners,
The good news is the Treasury has outsourced the future of monetary policy to Goldman Sucks and JP Gorgan, and their grotesque hand puppet, the Federal Reserve. Their boy at the Treasury, Tiny Timmy, has a “new” plan that turns out to be the same as Hanky’s “old” plan.
http://www.depression2.tv/d2/
‘If something does happen the worst that I could end up doing is going back to renting.’”
Oh and you mean foreclose? Um yea, problem’s not over.
“Today, however, Watts has defaulted on the home’s loan. ‘I can make the payments. That’s not the issue. It’s a business decision,’ Watts said. ‘I tried to work with the lender. The lender didn’t help. They said, go ahead, do a short sale. It’s strictly business.’”
This statement gives every Orange County FB “permission” to default. If Watts can “make the payments” but is choosing not to, sounds like a rush of jingle mail to me.