It’s All About The Moment In California
The Desert Sun reports from California. “There’s no dispute, it’s been a buyer’s market in real estate. Buyers with good credit, decent income and the stamina to withstand a rigorous loan approval process — some taking as long as 90 days to clear escrow — are standing pat and getting some of the best real estate deals the Coachella Valley has seen in decades. The median price of sold homes hovering at $180,000. The typical mortgage payment falling to $976, a price less than many first-time buyers pay in rent. The typical mortgage payment has not been below $1,000 since May 1999, according to MDA DataQuick.”
“There have been accounts of new, never-occupied homes with upgrades that are selling for 60 percent less than the original sticker price. And Kelly Collier, a senior escrow officer with Fidelity National Title Co., Indian Wells, said she’s heard some amazing auction stories that include the sale of new, 1,800-square-foot homes near the Salton Sea for $47,000 in cash. ‘The REO sales have been huge,’ said Collier. ‘It’s location, location. But it’s also the ability for someone with lower income to get into their dream home.’”
“While the sales of new construction lagged 52 percent over last year, the median price of the new homes sold dropped 15 percent from one year ago to $281,000. That’s about $100,000 higher than the overall median sales price. ‘The people who are coming into the market are speculators, investors and others who — until now — feel they’ve been frozen out of the market,’ said Sam Schenkl, executive officer of the Palm Springs Regional Association of Realtors.”
“‘It’s only going to be a matter of time before demand evens out and catches up with the supply,’ said Patrick Veling, president of Brea-based Real Data Strategies. ‘Then we’ll see people who missed the bottom of the market, as interest rates climb.’”
The Press Democrat. “Owning a home was out of reach for Casi Christiansen and Aaron Jewett a year ago when the typical Sonoma County house sold for $100,000 more than they could afford. Today the couple has settled into a southwest Santa Rosa home they purchased out of foreclosure from Wells Fargo Bank without breaking their budget.”
“Casi Christiansen, 27, and Aaron Jewett, 26, once feared being shut out of home ownership in the region where they grew up and wanted to raise a family. ‘I figured I was going to be a renter for life,’ Jewett said.”
“After looking at several homes, one looked promising. But seven other buyers had already made offers on the home, which had been on the market just two days. The couple had their first taste of the frenzy for homes around $300,000. ‘You have to prep buyers to be realistic and know what to expect. They’re going to need to move quickly. But there will be more coming up,’ said Toni D’Angelo, their real estate agent.”
“After looking over two dozen more homes, the couple jumped on one that came back on the market at a reduced price. The day it was listed they offered the full asking price: $285,000. But the bank only accepted the offer after completing its own check of the couple’s finances. In the end, the couple had a newer, three-bedroom home needing minimal work at a good price. The previous owner who lost it to foreclosure paid $515,000 three years ago.”
“Such a steep price decline helps make the couple’s mortgage manageable. There are fewer dinners out and weekend ski trips are a luxury now, but the couple isn’t stretching financially. ‘It’s definitely tighter now. But it’s ours,’ Jewett said.”
“Strong sales are needed to reduce the accumulation of foreclosed homes before county home prices bottom out and the housing market can stabilize. That appears to be happening at the lowest-price ranges, said Leslie Appleton-Young, chief economist for the California Association of Realtors. But the housing market in Sonoma County is expected to remain unsettled into next year, she said.”
“‘The severity of the downturn is greater than we imagined,’ Appleton-Young said. ‘It changes the tenor of the market. First-time buyers and investors are on it. They’re recognizing what great bargains there are.’”
The Orange County Register. “Corey Fast waited nearly three years for a chance to buy a condominium inside the Stadium Lofts in Anaheim’s Platinum Triangle. Fast, 30, and his girlfriend Michelle Ewing, 31, of Dana Point, were among more than 75 people who camped out Friday night for ‘The Event’ – a marketing blitz to sell 60 of the 120 condos remaining inside the 390-unit Stadium Lofts complex.”
“A two-bedroom unit that once listed for $514,500 they got for $362,000. ‘I started looking at these three years ago and the prices were just out of my reach,’ Fast said. ‘We almost bought last year. … I’m glad we waited.’”
“Anthony Pulsifer, 27, and his fiancée Shannon Roberts, 25, both of Orange, drew No. 47 Friday. They decided not to stay the night. When they came back this morning about an hour before the doors opened, they were still No. 47. ‘There was a lot of hype and we were disappointed to draw that number,’ said Pulsifer, a sales associate with Xerox and an MBA student at Cal State Fullerton. ‘But we figure we’ll give it a shot and, if not, then it wasn’t meant to be. We figure the good news is if this developer is offering great prices like this, then other developers are soon to follow.’”
“As of noon, the line of campers had been through the sales office and 37 of the 60 units were sold.”
The Sacramento Bee. “As home to the newest University of California campus, Merced hoped to leave behind the high unemployment, rural poverty and other miseries that have plagued the Central Valley for decades. Instead, the recession has hit here as hard as anywhere. Unemployment is at 19.9 percent, the worst in 22 years.”
“UC mania inflated the housing bubble here. Home builders rushed to fill the five-mile gap between central Merced and the campus northeast of town. Speculators poured in. Merced was the state’s hottest market in 2005, and ninth-hottest in the nation, for price appreciation. Median prices more than doubled in three years to a peak of $382,000 in late 2005, right after the first UC students arrived, according to MDA DataQuick.”
“The median now: $105,500. ‘In 30 years, I’d never seen anything like it,’ said Mayor Ellie Wooten, a real estate agent. ‘Common sense tells you that if you have a little house and suddenly it’s worth $350,000, something’s fishy in Denmark.’”
“The story is similar throughout the valley. The housing boom and the brief taste of prosperity it brought are history. Valley retailing has been devastated…Out by the municipal airport, Merced’s industrial belt has been hit, too. ‘It’s all tied to the collapse of the real estate market,’ said Frank Quintero, city development manager. ‘People were taking out home equity loans, buying boats, buying things … that’s what was keeping some of our manufacturers (going strong).’”
“Quebecor, a Canadian-owned printing plant and one of Merced’s largest employers, cut staff last year. ‘A lot of people like myself are still pretty much in shock,’ said Oscar Guillen, 55, who lost his job at Quebecor in July. ‘Because of the university … I thought things wouldn’t be that bad.’”
The Modesto Bee. “Superheated construction activity helped drive cities in San Joaquin, Stanislaus and Merced counties to expand their boundaries 45 percent in the past 18 years, according to a Bee review of annexation data. The 22 cities’ populations grew 53 percent, on average, in the same time frame. Progress shifted to shame when the flurry ground to a halt and the three counties suddenly found themselves at the epicenter of the nation’s mortgage default crisis.”
“Assuming leaders are making the link, have they learned any lessons from the building boom and bust? ‘They were all wanting to let it rip,’ said Max Neiman, senior fellow at the Public Policy Institute of California. ‘Understandably so. The opportunity was there (and officials said), ‘Let’s let the housing market go gangbusters.’”
“But demand for housing dollars, not effective planning, drove the valley’s rapid growth over the past couple of decades, several experts say. Now we have acres of single-family homes replacing farmland on cities’ fringes — many neighborhoods pocked by bank-owned homes with ill-kept yards.”
“‘It’s hard to separate out how much of that is due to poor planning or to the general economic decline,’ Neiman said. ‘Those places that have the most dramatic impact were probably overbuilt. That’s the bad planning part. But a number of things were converging. The cliche is ‘the perfect storm.’”
“Some decent growth plans were set aside during the latest building frenzy, noted John Wilbanks, president of Oakdale-based RRM Design Group, suggesting a flaw in even the best-laid plans. ‘They adopt general plans but the first guy who comes in simply files for an amendment and gets (leaders’) support to change the plan based on the market,’ he said. ‘It’s all about the moment.’”
The Daily Bulletin. “Look around you. See any empty office buildings with multiple ‘for lease’ signs posted? They’re going to stay empty for some time. Just like housing, the office market is overbuilt, especially ‘Class A’ space.”
“These days, landlords of classy steel-and-glass offices in the Ontario-Rancho Cucamonga area are struggling to attract tenants. Even after the housing boom went bust in late 2006, dozens of office-space projects in the pipeline had to be completed.”
“Preliminary first-quarter 2009 data shows that 33 percent of all Class A office space in the Inland Empire is vacant, according to Thomas Galvin, research associate at the Ontario office of Colliers International brokerage-research firm. That’s up from about 26 percent in fourth-quarter 2008.”
“Class B office space will probably show a 20 percent vacancy rate for this year’s first quarter, preliminary numbers show, Galvin said. ‘The vacancy rate is still going up,’ he said. ‘As far as a peak, I don’t think we’ve reached that yet’.”
“‘Having empty commercial buildings is not necessarily in anyone’s interest, but it’s not a disaster for anyone but the speculator behind the building,’ added Eric Nilsson…economics professor and director of the Center for Labor Studies at Cal State San Bernardino.”
The San Diego Reader. “All across the United States, and around the world, convention centers are vastly overbuilt. Supply exceeds demand. So municipalities that own the centers resort to price-slashing. A…herd mentality has almost run the global economy into the ground. In recent years, economists and executives genuflected at the altar of a number of myths: that housing prices would always rise and people would always pay their mortgages; that gambling on derivatives distributed risk, rather than increased risk, ad nauseam.”
“Heywood Sanders, who has an idea of how many new centers may be built and old centers expanded by 2014, says, ‘Can [San Diego] build an expanded convention center if they can find the dollars to pay for it? Sure. Does it make any sense? Are they going to get any persistent increase in new business? The answer is very clear: no. The bar for dealing with reality in San Diego has never been set very high.’”
The San Gabriel Valley Tribune. “Realtor James Joseph remembers the good old days. That’s when his team of agents would walk into their Whittier office excited about getting a new listing. The phones rang, a lot. Commissions were huge. They were in line with the bloated price of homes, which often sold within a few days - or hours - after being listed.”
“Unfortunately for the U.S. economy, with the help of easy-money banks those buyers all too easily fudged their way into the American dream. ‘They knew they would sell right away, regardless of price,’ said Joseph, referring to the excitement of his agents.”
“That was only about a year and half ago. Oh, how things have changed. Scores of for sale signs - or worse, foreclosure signs - now stand in weed-ridden front yards in the San Gabriel Valley. Realtors are leaving the business, and the housing industry that supported them - the contractors, the lenders, the builders - have gone down with them. Even Joseph, a veteran of the business, had to lay off staff.”
“Commissions paid to real estate agents and brokers totaled $46.6 billion in 2008, a $12 billion dropoff from 2007, according to ForSaleByOwner. The savvy agents survive. But other aren’t so lucky, Joseph said. Joseph has survived three boom-and-bust cycles since he got into the business in the late 1970s. ‘No question, the sunshine soldiers are gone,’ he said.”
“Economists point to banks as the key to unlocking the economy’s woes. When they loosed up credit, not only housing, but other sectors such as small business will be reborn. But that rebirth will occur under a watchful eye. ‘My guess is you’re just going to go back to the way we were … back to the `80s and `90s,’ said Babette E. Heimbuch, CEO of California Federal Bank. ‘You come in, and you need to have a down payment. You need to have good credit. It will go back to the days before Wall Street started buying (loans) up and selling them.’”
The Merced Sun Star. “When John Barker, 40, was arrested in March for burglary and mortgage fraud in San Joaquin County he called Lonnie Todd at Gangster Bail Bonds. But the Modesto-based bail bondsman, who does about 30 percent of his business in Merced, wouldn’t issue Barker’s $200,000 bond. The co-signer, Barker’s brother, had property for the collateral but there was a catch. Barker’s brother owed $900,000 on a piece of property worth only $700,000.”
“This has increasingly become common in the past year, said Todd. The precipitous drop in home values in the Valley ‘has affected people’s ability to get out of jail.’”
“Todd said the lack of collateral has meant about half of all the people who call him for bail higher than $50,000 can’t get collateral. That is because so many homeowners who would have used their property as collateral to get relatives out of jail are underwater.”
“‘They owe more on their property than it is worth,’ said Tony Suggs, a board member of the California Bail Agent Association. ‘No one has that equity anymore. Most bail agents, when their bonds are pretty large — let’s say $20,000, $50,000 or $100,000 — require collateral and the best collateral is a deed of trust, or property. Property can’t move.’”
I guess it’s just never going to end:
‘One of the things I love about the financial markets —- be it stocks or real estate —- is that two people, looking at the same information, can come up with dramatically different opinions about where things are headed. Several years ago, I was raked over the coals for my opinion about real estate. My belief that the markets would be able to weather the pending storm with only modest losses was roundly criticized by many readers. And, justifiably so. I had no idea that such a coordinated attack on homeownership would be so successful.’
‘Despite the significant decline that we have seen locally in some home prices, there are still those out there that believe homes will become worthless. I’ve learned not to argue with these people. They’ve been right so far and deserve to hold their ground.’
‘My argument for a rebounding market is simply based on what I see and what the numbers tell me. Perhaps the fact that seems so glaring to me about the future of residential real estate is the classic supply/demand scenario.’
‘The California Building Industry Association is forecasting that 50,000 new housing units will be built this year, an all-time low. And things are even bleaker here in San Diego County, especially here in North County. This lack of new housing supplies is already becoming evident.’
‘Bears will quickly cite that prices are down 30 percent or more in some neighborhoods because of foreclosures. No kidding. The median price is skewed down by the sale of distressed properties. Are all home values down that much? No. Is every community devastated by short sales? Absolutely not.’
‘To the people that disagree with me I simply say, by all means, keep renting.’
“coordinated attack”???
What an eff-ing idiot.
To be a little more detailed in my criticism:
“My argument for a rebounding market is simply based on what I see and what the numbers tell me. ”
He seems happy to ignore the numbers like price-to-rent, price-to-income, largest vacant inventory in history, etc, etc, all of which point to continued declines.
Throw in an economy that is in the middle of correcting hard, with the associated job losses, uncertainty about job security, general all-around lack of confidence, and it’s quite clear what the number _should_ tell you.
“Perhaps the fact that seems so glaring to me about the future of residential real estate is the classic supply/demand scenario.”
Can you say “largest vacant inventory in history”? Seems that shoudl factor into a “classic supply/demand” argument.
Sure, a decrease in new inventory is a positive thing in the long-run, but it will take years to work through the existing inventory, especially in light of the demand-destruction that is occuring with the downturn. Large supply and decreasing demand suggests we have a long way to go.
I can’t believe this drivel still gets printed.
And, considering that banks have yet to expose All the
properties they have hidden, even if they salt them out sparingly
it won’t balance out the others coming onto the market
as jobs are lost and interest rates adjust. And the occasional
medical catastrophy.
Someone asked me the other day, why I thought there were
many homes that were not on the mkt, that banks owned, and I said, lets drive around and you tell me which homes look deserted without signs in front. Now go back a month later and tell me if there is a sign yet for sale REO..
Grassy,scrubby lawns,weeds, torn fences, window shades askews, just to name a couple of neon signs.
They are hiding their losses here in metro NY. There’s a house down the block that’s been empty for 3 years. Brand new in 2004. Original owner paid 512k, I think. Maybe it was 412. When we get above 300k, I just can’t remember the price, since I’m a bottom feeder. Speaking of whom, what ever happened to the poster “bottom feeder”? Long time no see. In any case, the next door neighbor parks their car there and cuts the lawn. Maybe to disguise the fact that the house is in forclosure? Maybe they own both? Perhaps just to keep up appearances.I have no idea, but it goes on and on. I saw the house on a foreclosure site for 321k. Actually, I’d buy it for close to that.
“And, considering that banks have yet to expose All the
properties they have hidden,…”
That would be the elephant hiding under the living room rug that I used to enjoy harping on and on about, long before “subprime was contained” and before there “would be no recession in 2007″ and before the Wall Street investment banking sector imploded last fall. And still the myriad vacant bank owned homes sit empty and off the market, waiting now for the Geithner bailout plan to relieve banks of their bad housing gambling debts before Mr Market figures out just how big and bad the overhang of empty houses truly is. This elephant will not be allowed to leave the cover of the living room rug until Joe Sixpack is stuck with the tab for Megabank, Inc’s stint as subprime mortgage lending kingpin.
“When John Barker, 40, was arrested in March for burglary and mortgage fraud in San Joaquin County he called Lonnie Todd at Gangster Bail Bonds.
At least Lonnie, at Gangster Bail Bonds, calls HIS business it like he see’s it
‘To the people that disagree with me I simply say, by all means, keep renting.’
And to people who agree with him I simply say, by all means, buy 10 or more houses, because real estate always goes up, in the long run.
lol
But we’re throwing *less* money away renting than buying.
The sting of renting is gone. I have spent less on rent in the last five years than the equity lost by anyone I know who bought during that time. Heck, its the rare person who only lost 2X what my rent cost me, for most is 5X to 10X.
Oh… after taxes, their total expenses were much higher than mine to.
BTW, I prefered being called a fence sitter. Can they not come up with a better comeback? Right now, break even (assuming 4% appreciation after the bottom) is looking to be in 2020 to 2025 between buy/rent. Hmmm… this is better as buying actually makes sense long term, but not in a reasonable timeline!
Got Popcorn?
Neil
We’re not even spending on rent what we would be throwing away on the throwaways of ownership every month (tax, interest, HOA, insurance, maintenance), let alone any declining equity.
How many houses does this Chamberlin own himself? Does anyone know the details or has one of those San Diego blogs done a piece about his own interests?
Well said. We’ll just keep throwing our money away on rent and taxes that pay for their 10 houses. Oh wait…hmmm.
I don’t think I can stand this person.
Come on Ben, you are throwing gas on the fire with this beauty! lol
“There have been accounts of new, never-occupied homes with upgrades that are selling for 60 percent less than the original sticker price. And Kelly Collier, a senior escrow officer with Fidelity National Title Co., Indian Wells, said she’s heard some amazing auction stories that include the sale of new, 1,800-square-foot homes near the Salton Sea for $47,000 in cash. ‘The REO sales have been huge,’ said Collier. ‘It’s location, location. But it’s also the ability for someone with lower income to get into their dream home.’”
The thing is is that these homes are really worth less than zero. That’s right. They are worth less than the taxes and maintanance required to keep them at their present status.
The only way Salton Sea and location should be in a sentence together is if the word “bad” is also there.
This guy is delusional. Piggington’s points out that the price per square foot in San Diego is down about 50% in aggregate from the peak in 2005, so it’s more than the 30% suggested above.
And no one is saying housing will become worthless. Just less than it is now, seeing as how default notices for San Diego are back up to all-time highs, and foreclosures will inevitably follow.
BTW, Piggington figures that San Diego prices are somewhat rational now–around in the midrange of historical averages for price-to-income. That’s right, after the catastrophic price drops prices are now about in the midrange of historical averages. But we’re also in the midst of a stiff recession whose bottom is not in sight yet, and it will probably overcorrect on the down side, especially given the huge backlog of defaults and foreclosures.
‘Median prices more than doubled in three years to a peak of $382,000 in late 2005, right after the first UC students arrived…The median now: $105,500. ‘In 30 years, I’d never seen anything like it,’ said Mayor Ellie Wooten, a real estate agent. ‘Common sense tells you that if you have a little house and suddenly it’s worth $350,000, something’s fishy in Denmark.’
I was telling the gang out in Vegas that one of the hallmark days for me on this blog was one afternoon in 2005. I found this little Merced Sun Star article about cars driven out from the Bay area, with 3 or 4 people buying multiple houses each on any given weekend. At the time, all the talk was about the campus, and this was preconstruction.
Now maybe I’m not remembering exactly who the Mayor was at the time, but it sure seems like it was a UHS, and I don’t recall anything but tales of a gold rush in Merced at the time.
Ben,
I happen to think however this is one of the most “uplifting” threads I’ve seen in a long time. Leslie Appleton-Young admitted she was way off the mark, young couples are able to afford homes and clowns that need to stay in jail, can’t make MEW Bail!
Overall, I find a lot of the news here very encouraging. The euphoria is clearly gone and sobriety is setting in. Even at 19.9% unemployment there, 80.1% of the people must have jobs? People seem to have been able to make the connection between MEW extraction and it’s keeping their local economy afloat. That was a major hurdle right there.
It is encouraging but I think it’ll take a couple more years of the douchebags out there getting their heads handed to them before any kind of reality sinks in. People are still so delusional thinking the market’s gonna “come back” like a magical fairy.
ROTTEN. Something is rotten in Denmark. See, stuff like that is just annoying.
I guess you just need to be in the right frame of mind as you read through it, but hearing a number of unrelated realtors all drawing comparisons to the 90’s, 80’s and even 70’s along w/ an 1,800 s/f home sold for $47,000 and, sorry, I just find that encouraging?
In 2005 Merced had a median of 382k, now it’s 105, if that’s not positive, I don’t know what is? There’s just an overall acceptance that ‘this’ is the new reality.
Actually, I believe Big V was referring to the person who said “There’s something fishy in Denmark.” I had the same reaction: if you’re going to quote somebody as well-known as Shakespeare, try to get it right.
Actually, the precise quote is:
“Something is rotten in the state of Denmark”
‘My guess is you’re just going to go back to the way we were … back to the `80s and `90s,’ said Babette E. Heimbuch, CEO of California Federal Bank. ‘You come in, and you need to have a down payment. You need to have good credit. It will go back to the days before Wall Street started buying (loans) up and selling them.’”
Babette left off the most important criteria: You’ve got to have the INCOME and be able to document it. Plus cash reserves after you make the down payment, and little / no other debt (e.g. CC or car payment or student loans).
Why the MSM refuses to connect the dots is beyond me, or perhaps the thought is just to terrifying to print. Houses will once more be in line with local incomes, which means prices are headed much, much lower.
Slim checking in from Tucson.
Remember how I opined on the downsides of homeownership this past Friday? How I was convinced that, in my first six months of living at the Arizona Slim Ranch, this place was trying to kill me?
Well, it seems as though my house has put a contract out on me again.
I was doing some plumbing repair work in my shower this past Saturday. In order to do this, I had to shut off the house water. And, when I did that, I noticed that the water line to the house was leaking.
Oh, shhhhhhhhh…
It’s one of those 1950s vintage galvanized water lines, and we know what they do when they’ve gone beyond their useful life. (Galvi’s only rated for 30 years of service.)
Plumber’s coming over to look at things this afternoon. Methinks I’m in for a water line replacement experience.
Looking on the bright side, I see an opportunity to get the plumbing ready for that water harvesting cistern I’m planning on adding.
that water harvesting cistern I’m planning on adding.
Please let us know how that goes. I am interested in these “alternative” type things.
Almost time here to install new swamp cooler filters, some oil squirts. Then the garden hose. Blowing through October.
Make sure to get several bids…only from people with good reputations, of course.
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2009/03/22/colorado_law_has_dibs_on_snowmelt_and_rainwater_runoff/
Slim,
Rule 101 of mikey’s Do-It-Yourself Basic Home Maintenance and Advanced Neurosurgery Manual.
“If it WORKS, leave it ALONE !”…(no matter how bad it looks or functions)
I did a galvanized water line replacement for my house in San Jose back around 1996.
My sewer was constantly getting backed up and it turned out to be tree roots from a lawn tree breaking into the old cast iron sewer pipe. Amazingly enough my homeowner’s policy covered replacement since it was the fault of the tree - they sent a fiberoptic video camera down to determine the cause of the fault.
When they dug up the sewer line for replacement, I found out that the rusty old galvanized water line was buried right next to it. I guess developers dig one ditch out to the street and bury both in it. I asked the contractor how much he’d add to the bill if he replaced the water line too, and he said $300.
So for the price of my deductable (IIRC $100) and $300 extra I got new code-compliant water and sewer lines out to the street.
Food for thought if you are considering a new water line.
I guess I should put emphasis on the point that you should consider replacing both, since both rust out at about the same time. Homeowner’s policys were changed soon after my experience and no longer cover such things.
–
Why Californians Are Doomed, Here On Earth and Thereafter
As some of you already know, Pluto’s status as a planet is at best questionable (it is more like the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter than a planet; it is neither) the California politicians didn’t care what the scientists thought and wanted to assert themselves to repair any psychological damage that the revelation might cause on softie Californicators:
California Assembly Bill HR 36 (bipartisan proposed legislation): “Where as recent astronomical discoveries, including Pluto’s oblong orbit…, have led astronomers to question the planetary status of Pluto; and where as the mean spirited International Astronomical Union decided on August 24th [the same day as the bill was dated] to disrespect Pluto by stripping it of its planetary status and reclassify it as lowly dwarf planet; and where as Pluto was discovered in 1930 by an American, Clyde Tambaugh, in Lowell Observatory, Arizona, and this discovery resulted in millions of Californians being taught that Pluto was the ninth planet in the solar system; and where as Pluto named after the Roman god of the underworld and affectionately sharing the name of California’s most famous animated the dog [Disney character] has special meaning to California history and culture; and where as downgrading Pluto’s status will cause psychological harm to some Californians who question their place in the universe and worry about the instability of universal constants…”
No, the bill didn’t pass but our tax dollars were hard at work. You get the point. When a born-and-bred California Baby Doomer dies in the future and gets to the gate of St Peter he, or she, would not have to wait in line. There is an express lane to Misery Land (mirroring Disney land) in Hell for him, or her, where the consequences of fantasy and bubble-headed beliefs are repeated daily.
Jas
“California history and culture; and where as downgrading Pluto’s status will cause psychological harm to some Californians”
“Psychological harm”
LOL! To late!
Salton Sea = Pluto
Mike Brow, whose research team discovered Eris, gives a great talk called (approximately), “How I killed Pluto and Why it Had it Coming.” I’ve seen him do it twice - once at the National Air and Space Museum and once at the Carnegie Institute. Great talk. Fabulous slides.
Mike Brown.
http://www.visitcalifornia.com/widget/VideoPlayer.aspx?WIDTH=400&HEIGHT=300&ID=12546
Oh Jas, don’t be such a hater. Don’t you like us Californians? You like us, don’t you?
Jas is one of those Californicators, unless he has moved out of the state.
So nice to see you. Don’t be a stranger now.
California Assembly Bill HR 36 brought to you by the same clowns who every single year CANNOT pass a budget. HR 36 sounds like something you’d read in The Onion or sdheadliner.com
One of the major problems for passing a decent CA state budget is that we voters have passed so many Proposition measures that mandate huge bond debt and specific slice & dicing of tax revenue, usually on lizard brain issues: prisons (fear); education (think of the children) and new freeways (me want to drive everywhere, all the time). I’m a liberal, but I always vote against these measure when I see that there’s no reasonable provision to paying for them. The analysis of the fiscal impact of each proposition included within the CA voting pamphlet is quite cut & dried but it appears that few people read it. And the state legislature has abdicated their responsibility by forcing difficult budget decisions be made through this mad dog Proposition process.
Amen, Salad!
I have a friend who refers to this as “The Scrooge Party.”
As in, “Nice, but WE’RE BROKE!”
I have voted Scrooge Party line for some time now, wish it worked.
“The median now: $105,500. ‘In 30 years, I’d never seen anything like it,’ said Mayor Ellie Wooten, a real estate agent. ‘Common sense tells you that if you have a little house and suddenly it’s worth $350,000, something’s fishy in Denmark.’”
Is that a real cliche’?
Sadly enough I do have to ask, because I am not very handy with cliches myself as perhaps some of you have noticed. For example, I used to proclaim: ‘Can’t get turnips from a stone’ and ‘Burning the hatchet at both ends’ and ‘Peel your eyes’ and so forth.
If this is just a mangled cliche then I will go ahead and forgive this Wooten woman for being a real estate agent, simply as a gesture of solidarity for other cliche-handicapped individuals. Also, I like her name: ‘Wooten’.
She’s from Merced, which should explain the mangled cliché.
But please don’t beat up on the hillbillies; those mouth-breathers struggle.
Some rotting things smell fishy….
Is bankrupty anyting like bankruptcy?
CNBC:
GM’s New CEO: Bankrupty May Be Best Option for Automaker
General Motors’s new chief executive told CNBC that filing for bankrupty may be the best option for the struggling automaker.
It is so much worse than a mangled cliche. She is misquoting Shakespeare.
Caesar: Et tu, Brute? Then fall, Caesar! [Dies.]
Cinna: Liberty! Freedom! Tyranny is dead!
It is so much worse than a mangled cliche. She is misquoting Shakespeare.
Well, polly, that’s what I wondered initially. I thought, ‘doesn’t she mean, ’something rotten in the state of Denmark’…?’ From that one play with the morose Scandinavian idjit who enjoyed playing with skulls in graveyards and being mean to his girlfriend? Oh, yeah, that Hamlet guy. Man, talk about needing some Wellbutrin and intensive therapy!
But THEN I thought, maybe a new cliche has entered the language when I wasn’t looking. And I thought ‘Well, fish rot prety quick, right?’ So maybe that’s it.
Oly, have some compassion for us morose Scandinavians. It’s those six months of darkness, you know. Does make for some spectacular gallows humor, though. Albeit sometimes inadvertent.
“It is so much worse than a mangled cliche. She is misquoting Shakespeare.”
Ha ha ha ….Sheesh polly, you’d NEVER want to hear my sins
Olly, you and I noticed the same thing. See above. ROTTEN. ROTTEN IN DENMARK. “Fishy”, t.
Then get thee to a nunnery, Olly.
Not CA, but close.
My 21 y/o daughter who lives outside Reno tells me they were trying to buy a house, but got turned down for the loan. She can’t figure out why.
Let’s see. Husband has high-500 FICO, but her’s is off the charts to the downside because she skipped on an apartment lease and has several thousand in past medical expenses she refuses to pay.
She hasn’t worked in 2 years. He’s worked 3 jobs in 2 years since getting booted from the Army for psych issues. $35K a year income, but $17K of that is 70% dissability from VA that could be taken away at his annual revue in a couple months. He makes $10 an hour as a janitor/maintenance guy at Wal-Mart.
They were trying to buy a house for $80K that was over $200K at peak. Were going to maximize the $8K tax credit.
I think she was hoping I’d help them buy a house. My advice was to get her butt into school.
Her conclusion….Life is tough.
Yeah, no %$#*! Remember back in high school when you didn’t want to do homework, and it was just boring and useless…. Remember how I told you it only gets worse from here?
Odd how when they are teens, you know nothing, but 4 years out on their own…. suddenly you may have known something afterall.
Still, I don’t think she quite has the motivation to get back in school yet…..
Wait ’til she has to try for a really decent job. As in, something that doesn’t have the names “Wal” and “Mart” in it. Then education — and it could be in some salable skill taught at the community college — will mean a lot.
Darrell:
Good to see ya back here.
My daughter, a late arrival who was born when I was 42, is going into the sixth grade. Everyone tells me to “tie down the hatches” for the teen-age rebellion years. I think I can handle it.
Best wishes for your daughter as she navigates life.
You’ll handle it just fine. But I have tons of empathy for parents these days. Between the media’s objectification of children and adolescents, the advertising and consumerism, peer pressure, explosion of drug culture (legal and illegal), school bullying, internet and cell phone cameras, etc., it’s a job that gets tougher and tougher as time goes by. Both my parents were older than average in starting a family. My pop bore the scars of the Depression and my mom had childhood memories of it, so both were very skilled at the “We can’t afford it” argument. This is the silver lining to the economic downturn, I think.
Palmy…
Appreciate the props.
And I hear you on the Depression training. My mom, a toddler during that time, says she can remember people gathering coal on a Pennsylvania railroad line bend where it would fall off the cars. “To heat with,” she recalls. And to this day, she won’t use paper towels in her kitchen, preferring ones that can be laundered.
True Palmy…young parents have my empathy too !
milkcrate,
My niece who is 18 and my nephew who is 21 did just fine through the teen age years. My sister and brother-in-law kept a loose leash on them. What helped was knowing who their friends were and getting to know their friends parents.
Hi milkcrate,
Not to worry. My daughter (now 19 and in Smith College with a full scholarship) was born when I was 39. She is our only child and has changed our lives in the most positive way possible. She is smart, loving, thoughtful, kind, generous, funny, ambitious beautiful …….. She never went though teen angst and has been my spark of heaven on earth. I hope you have the same experience and joy I have had from and with this wonderful person. We have been blessed and continue to be. I just spent a week with her over Spring break and haven’t had a better time; she cried when I had to leave which told me she enjoyed my company too. The most wonderful experience I have had in my entire life has been growing up with this remarkable young woman. Your children change you, open you, let you see the true world, and give meaning to life. Enjoy yourself.
Darrel:
I have a little question for you. Why do you not pay the PAST medical expenses of your 21-year-old kids?
Just a little question from one of us liberals to one of you conservatives. From me to you.
Kisses,
Big V
Big V,
I think you ‘might’ have that backwards? A conservative would probably believe in “tough love” and hope the child learned something from it in the process. A liberal would get all mushy and write the check.
Or do “I” have it all wrong? Either way, I agree w/ palmetto, it absolutely can NOT be easy to raise kids in this environment.
Big V
Why should he pay for his married daughter’s medical bills?
maybe you should buy the house and have them rent it from you with the option to buy! I have waited a long time to buy but now i am buying a 77k home in phoenix, as long as the inspection is ok! anyhow, its a cash deal! i had a friend want to rent it from me after i showed him the house. he is renting less than a block away and has bad credit but has always worked 2 jobs. so, i may just do that and look to buy a second house toward the end of the year. i’ll make over 10% return on my money so i don’t understand people who think it will fall forever. It won’t and i don’t care if i get in at the bottom because no one know when the bottom will come and if the house you really like will be there. i almost bought a condo in 2000 for the same amount. this house is at 1995 prices! don’t any of you think there is the possibility we are over correcting due to the credit crunch. i’m a true contrarian so i’m going in now while the outlook is so dire!
You sound like a financial genius. Good luck to you.
Jay, if you buy the house, rent it to a stranger. Renting to a friend will end the friendship.
I’d love to be a fly on the wall at your house during the holidays! lol
Most deadbets cannot be cured. I sincerely hope yours can. Perhaps more excessively detailed explanations will suffice. Give it your best try and don’t extend any financial backing. Ouch!
Hang in there, Darrell. She’ll appreciate you when she’s older. And thank goodness they didn’t get approved to buy that house.
Busted for mortgage fraud and his relatives can’t get the bail money because they are under water?
That made my day. Poetic justice lives. Wonder who did the mortgage for the brother?
–
The latest rate of price decline in the 5 CA metros, as per Radar Logic, is 3-6% monthly rate.
Tomorrow’s Case-Shiller would show the largest YoY decline close to 19% annual rate for Composite-20 (19.5% for Composite-10) and 25-35% annual rate for the three CA metros covered. SD was the leader of the bubble, on the up and down, in terms of time, and is now declining at a lower annual rate than LA and SF.
Jas
Thank you for the heads up on the data.
It should be… scary.
Its interesting that SD is starting to decline slower. The cannary might just survive the coal mine (with a case of black lung).
But we have entered what is the best seasonal time for sellers (not this report’s data, but now).
Got Popcorn?
Neil
3-6% monthly….
just wanted to see what is was like to type that.
Is there anyone from Palo Alto reading this blog right now? I’d like to know. How many of you guys live in Palo Alto?
Not Palo Alto, but Mountain View - does that win me any prizes?
I only want to know about PA.
Los Altos. Close enough?
OK, let’s do Los Altos. Do you like it there? Why?
Just to make sure that I’m specific enough:
How important is it for you to live in that one particular little spot?
Did you catch the House Hunters episode last night? People looking to buy in Los Altos and Palo Alto. Million dollar homes. Of course the justification for buy those POS was because of location, location, location.
The schools are good.
I live in PA. I rent a place for 1950/mo.
*****“‘It’s only going to be a matter of time before demand evens out and catches up with the supply,’ said Patrick Veling, president of Brea-based Real Data Strategies. ‘Then we’ll see people who missed the bottom of the market, as interest rates climb.’”*****
Yeah, ‘cuz everwun knoes housing prices goes up evin more when rates goes up, duh…
What a moe-ron. Oh, and that ‘matter of time’ of which you speak, will that be before or after the Trillions of $$ of Alt-A and Option ARMs reset? Hmm?
Rob
http://www.cnbc.com/id/29553760
“The January index, the most recent month for which data are available, indicates a median-income family, earning $59,800 could afford a home costing $283,400 in January with a 20 percent down payment, assuming 25 percent of gross income is devoted to principal-and-interest costs. A year ago, the same family could afford a home costing $263,300.”
You’ve got to be kidding me. 60K FAMILY income with a loan amount of ~220K? That’s way beyond standard affordability, I’d never even consider that. That’s ~2K/mo in housing expenses with a take home of ~4K/mo. Come on, that’s WAY too high. The loan itself (with a 5% IR) will be 1200/mo; add in taxes, insurance, and some allowance for maintenance and you’re way over what a normal person would consider affordable at 60K/yr. Someone in that bracket should not consider a home >150K, forget about 280K, it’s just totally ridiculous.
Also, I’m totally neglecting the big hurdle here; how many families making 60K a year have 50-60K in their bank accounts for a 20% down payment? How about 30K (for 10%)? About none (present company excluded) is the right answer.
I’m shocked at how many of those I know who are jumping in to buy can only come up with 10% down! These are people who sat out the bubble and should have been able to save $10k to $20k per year. (Not the $60k salaries you were quoting, obviously).
Oh wait… that pesky stock market…
Got Popcorn?
Neil
So, are we going to have a house price crash in New York or what? What do you think, Neil? I’m tired of waiting. The realtors and the sellers are obviously in cahoots as of right now. Do you think it will happen or is there is just too much money floating around still in this financial mecca for prices to go down like in California? What is your considered opinion?
Especially when the house likely has more downside
OK, you all. It is coming up, so here is your reminder. Please join me at El Burro at 3100 Newpark Mall at 6:30 PM this Friday, April 3rd. Now none of you guys have an excuse to complain about a lack of Bay Area moaning and groaning over all the housing freaks that are still crawling around.
See you guys,
Big V
Can I come? I’m near the Chesapeake Bay.
I’ve been following the North Orange County, CA RE listings on Ziprealty for months now and I’ve noticed that listings under 400K mysteriously DISAPPEARED almost overnight. Where before there were perhaps dozens now only one or two remain actively listed.
Hmmm, I smell some weird market manipulation going on. Anyone know about this or even noticed?
I’ve noticed. Houses in my town are NOT allowed to list for below 299k. It must be collusion by the MLS monopoly. Whaddaya think, they’re stupid?
It is headlines like this that confirm (daily) that this country is loaded with morons.
“Shootings, murder-suicide raise broader question: Is violence linked to recession?”
If you don’t know the answer to this whopper you shouldn’t be allowed to vote, drive, operate certain equipment, etc.
Amazing. But then look at the country! The shape of the nation is directly linked to the people that live and run it.
Morons.
Gasoline, Petroleum and the plastics made from it are the single largest cause of cancer in the world. This is a known fact, verified by thousands of studies which the oil industry counters by paying pundits to say: “Well, we just are not sure yet”. Now we are sure. The TPH array in petroleum and petroleum products exists as microscopic particles which leach off of plastic materials, (ie: the plastic in water and baby bottles) and float in the air as vapor, (ie: the fumes around gas stations). These particles are absorbed into the body and broken down to a cellular level and then to a DNA level. As the DNA replicates, a constant process, these TPH materials cause the replication process to make mistakes and create genetic mutations. TPH is a very particular array of items so the “mistakes” that it causes occur as the same thing over and over. We call this repeating mistake: “cancer”. Other materials in our environment cause other kinds of genetic mutations that do not manifest as onerous, or extremely negative, or obvious things. TPH manifests cancer.
The TPH chemical array has killed more Americans than every terrorist since the beginning of time.
The petrochemical bisphenol-a, or BPA, causes precancerous tumors and urinary tract problems and made babies reach puberty early.
Every gas pump has a label on it that oil and gas causes cancer and a host of lethal medical problems.
Archeologicial digs show that ancient peoples living near tar pits got cancer.
When there is an oil spill, you are not allowed on the beach because most agencies classify oil as toxic.
A study of childhook leukemia in England mapped every child with the diserase and found they all occurred in a circle, in the center of which was a gas station.
Living near a petrol station could quadruple the risk of childhood leukaemia, research suggested today.
The study in France found a link between cases of acute leukaemia among youngsters and how close they lived to a fuel station or a repair garage.
Research has already shown an association between adults’ occupational exposure to benzene, a hydrocarbon derived from petrol, and leukaemia.
The latest study is published in the journal Occupational and Environmental Medicine. The French Institute of Health and Medical Research based their findings on 280 cases of childhood leukaemia and a comparison group of 285 children.
They were drawn from four hospitals in Nancy, Lille, Lyon and Paris, with almost two-thirds of the children with leukaemia aged between two and six.
The team found no clear link between the mother’s occupation during pregnancy or traffic levels around where they lived and the risk of child leukaemia.
They also saw no link between leukaemia and living near manufacturers using materials such as aluminium or plastic.
But a child whose home was near a garage was four times more likely to develop leukaemia than a child whose home was not.
The risk appeared to be even greater for acute nonlymphoblastic leukaemia, which was seven times more common among children living close to a petrol station or garage. The longer a child had lived there, the higher their risk of leukaemia appeared to be.
There are 6,600 cases of leukaemia a year in Britain. Although it is the most common form of childhood cancer, it affects three times as many adults as children.
The authors admit the findings could be due to chance. “But the strength of the association and the duration of the trend are arguments for a causal association.”
Alberta’s oil sands are one of the world’s biggest deposits of oil, but the cost of extracting that oil may be the health of the people living around them. High levels of toxic chemicals and carcinogens have been found in the water, soil, and fish downstream of the oil sands. The local health authority of Fort Chipewyan, Alberta comissioned the study in response to locals’ claims that the oil extraction projects upstream were damaging the health of citizens. Petrochemicals and their byproducts, such as dioxin, are known to cause an array of serious health problems, including cancers and endocrine disruption.Total petroleum hydrocarbons (TPH) is a term used to describe a large family of several hundred chemical compounds that originally come from crude oil. Crude oil is used to make petroleum products, which can contaminate the environment. Because there are so many different chemicals in crude oil and in other petroleum products, it is not practical to measure each one separately. However, it is useful to measure the total amount of TPH at a site.TPH is a mixture of chemicals, but they are all made mainly from hydrogen and carbon, called hydrocarbons. Scientists divide TPH into groups of petroleum hydrocarbons that act alike in soil or water. These groups are called petroleum hydrocarbon fractions. Each fraction contains many individual chemicals.
Some chemicals that may be found in TPH are hexane, jet fuels, mineral oils, benzene, toluene, xylenes, naphthalene, and fluorene, as well as other petroleum products and gasoline components. However, it is likely that samples of TPH will contain only some, or a mixture, of these chemicals. The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) has determined that one TPH compound (benzene) is carcinogenic to humans. IARC has determined that other TPH compounds (benzo[a]pyrene and gasoline) are carcinogenic to humans.
Benzene causes leukemia. Benzene as a cause of leukemia had documented since 1928 (1 p. 7-9). In 1948, the American Petroleum Institute officially reported a link between this solvent used in many of their industries used and cases of leukemia in their workers. Their findings concluded that the only safe level of benzene exposure is no exposure at all (2).
The largest breast cancer incidents are in Marin County, California which is tied to the air, water and ecosphere of the Chevron Oil refinery right next door. New studies of microparticulation and transprocess nano components show that TPH materials can travel opposite of tides and wind via secondary carriers.
There are hundreds of thousands of pages of detailed technical scientific papers that prove this, produced by thousands of research teams at hundreds of universities and research centers around the world. The old EPA knew this and buried it, the new EPA has not dug it out yet.
The oil industries spend tens of millions of dollars on fake pundits and disinformation to make sure the above information is never known by the public. Cure Cancer: Stop oil. It is a national security need in more ways than one.