‘Steam Is Seeping Out’ Of SF Housing Bubble
A pair of reports on the California housing bubble. “Has the north state real estate market tipped in the buyers’ favor? Two new homes in the Land Park subdivision in northwest Redding were discounted $70,000 this week, slashing the list price to $409,900. The reduction so surprised real estate agent Brad Garbutt that he initially thought it was a mistake.”
“‘They have scaled back prices to what they could have gotten nine months ago,’ said Garbutt, a member of the Shasta Association Realtors board. ‘There are probably going to be some starving real estate agents around.’”
“Signs of a buyer’s market are elsewhere, sales are down, about twice as many homes are listed for sale in Shasta County as a year ago and open houses are abundant; three times more are advertised in the newspaper today than in September.”
“Data Quick reported that Shasta County recorded 161 single-family home sales last month, down from 277 in April 2005. The number of homes for sale in Shasta County in recent months has wavered between 1,500 and 1,600, a level not seen since the late 1990s, when the market was mired in a recession and the average home sold for under $130,000.”
“Greg Lloyd, president of the Shasta Association of Realtors, has said a boom in construction (the city of Redding recorded a 15-year high in housing starts in 2005) helped produce a glut of housing. But Lloyd and others say more homes on the market is not a bad thing. It’s created competition. ‘On the flip side, it’s a great opportunity for buyers,’ said Garbutt.”
The San Francisco Chronicle. “In the latest sign that some of the steam is seeping out of the region’s housing market, Bay Area real estate developers are trimming prices, converting residential projects to commercial uses and, in some cases, walking away from certain properties altogether.”
“Developer Opus West last month scrapped plans to build 100 condos on the south side of Mission Creek in the sprawling Mission Bay development in San Francisco. Home builder Shea Homes recently dropped plans to build nearly 100 townhomes and live-work lofts on a 5-acre site in San Jose.”
“Lennar Corp., after beginning negotiations to develop several hundred units on a downtown block in Oakland late last year, decided in early March not to move forward.” “Other builders find they must work harder to sell the homes they have ready. Their incentives range from swanky events to straight-up cash discounts to free cars.”
“‘Much of it depends on how much inventory they have and how quickly they need to move it,’ said Joseph Perkins, president of the Home Builders Association of Northern California, noting that many large, publicly traded builders must meet quarterly sales projections.”
“Doug Krah, president of Standard Pacific’s Northern California division, is hoping to appeal to consumers’ wallets. His firm is offering packages worth as much as $75,000 in the form of discounts, incentives to brokers and upgrades. With those tactics necessary to sell homes in some developments, Krah is hesitant about laying out lofty sums for new land.”
“‘We’re just like the buyer who’s wondering whether this house is going to cost more or less this year,’ he said. ‘If they think it’s going to cost less, they don’t buy. If I think that land is going to cost less next year, I don’t buy.’”
But Lloyd and others say more homes on the market is not a bad thing. It’s created competition. ‘On the flip side, it’s a great opportunity for buyers,’ said Garbutt.”
This isn’t going to be any “great opportunity for buyers” until the falling knife goes TWANGGGG into the basement floor! Keep your powder dry until we see some serious pain! Say, 60-80% worth!
BUY! BUY! BUY! If you don’t buy now the whole economy fails! But don’t buy commodities because that is evil and hurts everyone. Only buy assets that you can borrow against and keep borrowing and buying!
The modern financial/service economy is a joke…
Santa cruz…well said my friend. Witnessing the success of mass conditioning over the last decade re housing sure makes it easier to understand bizarre events in history…like the Nazi regime. Amazing how a species can be blessed with higher thought functions yet rarely use it.
I read once that the herd mentality is a good thing in general. If everyone is standing on a street corner looking up then it is probably a pretty damn good idea to look UP.
Unfortunately, it works just the opposite in macro-economics. When everyone is interested in buying an asset, then it is by definition most expensive.
So, everyone is selling now…what happened to “sell when everyone else is buying and buy when everyone else is selling”? If you’re waiting for 60-80% discounts, I hope you are very young and have the time to wait…
I can wait indefinitely. Plenty of nice homes are available to rent at affordable prices.
Can flippers eat negative cash flow indefinitely? Can I/O option ARM buyers who could barely afford initial monthly payments cope with rising gas prices and a reset to amortize principle at a much higher interest rate than the currently burdensome level? Methinks not, and I have time on my side to wait and see.
IT IS A RENTER’S MARKET, HOMEPOP!
Unfortunately for me, most of the homes bought by the flippers and/or with IO/ARM mortgages are NOT the homes I want to rent or buy. Condos and squeezed together McMansions…I’m not interested in them at any price. There aren’t many nice homes for rent in my area, and the rents are going up.
The asking price for rents is going up. I think it is the last gasp of people trying to cover their costs. And don’t worry the dropping tide will sink all boats.
And “everyone” isn’t selling right now. There are more buyers now than there will be in a year and fewer sellers.
you’re right. the only sustainable jobs we create are pink collar ones. next segment to be outsourced will be the realtors.
http://www.dcbubble.blogspot.com
What constitutes a “pink collar” job? Street hustler? That is indeed a job that is hard to outsource, but I’m not sure how sustainable it is past age 25 or so. Porn actress? Those are being outsourced to Brazil and eastern Europe, last I heard.
hmmm….you seem well versed in the form and practice of today’s porn…guess we should count you as a fan.
What heterosexual male isn’t?? There’s a reason that it’s the only profitable sector on the internet. Though with all the free stuff it’s beyond me why anyone would pay.
What heterosexual male isn’t??
You are projecting. Not all of us are as perverted as you.
No need for perversion, just good sources.
i was in oakland yesterday,and there are square blocks of condo’s going in…at every stage frome hole in the ground to near completion…thosands of units in downtown oakland…i suppose it will provide the low cost housing oakland needs if the builders complete the construction before they go broke
$410k for a house in Redding?? OMFG. Are there any jobs up there that even come close to supporting such price??
You could just stop at “Are there any jobs?”.
yes… methamphetamine drug dealer
But isn’t this a bubble in itself? I mean, if the jobs disappear and everyone becomes a meth dealer who will be the buyers? I think BB should start to worry about the falling underground economy too.
OT Is anyone else thinking about vice funds? I mean if they could go up after 9/11 won’t they also in a severe recession? Just a thought.
Lots of them out in Modesto. Maybe that is why Modesto home prices are so high…
I live in Redding and there are plenty of jobs. Many local truck stops are hiring $6.00 an hour.
I am sort of suspicious about the figure of “161 homes sold last month.” I have been watching several homes on the local MLS and they are still there after six months or longer.
Bay Area is a joke. Even in Los Baños, which is 100 miles away from civilization, prices are insane, north of $400K (last year they were $300K). Last time I was there a few months ago I found many houses for sale, and all were ridiculously overpriced.
The closer you are to San Jose, even more insanity appears - Gilroy $600K, Morgan Hill $700K, and so on. Sometimes I try to make sense of California real estate valuations, but I tell myself to snap out of it and just observe. A million-dollar townhome? We got it right here, newly minted, 5 min from my apartment. It’s just a townhome sitting on a lot not bigger than my cubicle.
I love California, but I hate it too. I don’t know if I can stay in this relationship longer.
Don’t forget that with a town ‘home’ or condo, you get to pay association fees (i.e., rent) on top of the insane mortgage.
I feel ya
I’m in LA, and the insanity here continues. I am seeing reductions, but they’re tiny, and of course “it’s different here” Wonder when we’ll see a story like this one from here. Seems like were on a little bubble fantasy island.. 
At least here in SoCal, you make a good living. You’ll always be a renter unless you’re a multimillionaire, but at least you will not want for anything. If you lose your job, you’ll find another one soon enough, because the local job market is robust. That is a situation that makes at least SOME sense.
But now the 8th tier cities cost 85% of what the major markets (SF, SoCal, SD) cost. Towns like Los Banos, Redding, Arcata — no jobs, NONE. Redding has exactly two gas station attendants, seven fast food workers, and nine realtors (one realtor for each resident, per the California legislature). No banking, manufacturing, accounting, NO NOTHING. I’ve been to these towns. When you get to Redding you pee, stretch your legs, refuel, and buy a stick of beef jerky, then keep driving. Every town in California — half million dollar homes with NO jobs except for the necessary service jobs to support human life (grocery store, gas station, hardware store). And California is FULL of these towns. No one in Fresno can afford to live in Fresno. You cannot commute from Redding to ANYPLACE unless you have a Leerjet, in which case you wouldn’t live in Redding. WTF?
California is totally disconnected from reality.
I used to live in Eureka. I moved out in 1988 cuz there were no jobs. Unemployment ran 20%. To my knowledge the only thing that has changed is the handful of good paying logging jobs have gone.
I laughed when Los Banos was mentioned. This little craphole town is literally a pissing stopover when heading from Fresno to the Bay Area. THERE IS NOTHING BUT CAR DEALERSHIPS AND BURGER FLIPPERS there. Where are the high end jobs to support the ubsurd prices. I would rather buy swamp land in lousiana FOR THE SAME PRICE because at least there’s a chance you’ll strike oil. Plus you can supplement your income with alligator boots.
Values have appreciated in Fresno, Modesto and all these other low end areas of CA not because jobs are going there or because they are great places to live, but because there is so much $$ in LA and SF chasing real estate, and if you buy in those areas you are looking at negative cash flow, whereas in Bakersfield or Fresno you can at least break even. The only other choice for investors is to buy out of state, but many want to be closer to their properties.
While we are on the topic of million dollar homes, check this out (excerpt below)…it from a Forbes.com article:
Rise Of The 1 Million Dollar Hovel
“A million dollars was once a measure of immense wealth in the United States. It was a sum attainable by only a few and could buy a hilltop mansion, a city penthouse or a waterfront manor.
Not anymore. Today, million-dollar bungalows or two-bedroom condos are more like it — at least in highly sought-after American locales.
Most Americans still consider $1 million a large sum of money, regardless of what their real estate agents would have them believe — and, well, they should.
The problem is, in the hottest real estate markets, there seems to be an utter disconnect between property value and the buying power of a dollar.”
http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,70825-0.html?tw=wn_culture_3
BayQT~
Doesn’t Los Banos mean The Toilet?
:disconnect between property value and the buying power of a dollar
I have an answer for the disconnect, it’s basically that the asset prices have sublimated the actual devaluation of the dollar. So in reality, we should have see stagflation in the major way since the 2001 recession in all sectors of our economy like food, water, energy, housing, services, cars, everything. Instead, the printing of money has been absorbed by assets such as housing so that it appears that we have a disconnect between housing and the value of the dollar when in reality, the dollar’s been stealthly devalued by the fed to create an asset centric economy.
Yeah, it was “different” in 1990 to 1996 too, when prices dropped 30% to 40%. It’s really astonishing how short most people’s memory seems to be. It was less than ten years ago that it seemed like NOBODY wanted to buy real estate in LA. But yeah, no doubt, it’s different this time.
And it was “different this time” in tech in Silicon Valley during 1999-2000.
That ended up just swell.
Oh, I don’t think it’s different at all. I just wonder why, with everything else we read here and in the national media, people still are buying 1400 Sq Ft 2/1 houses on 6000 sq ft lots for 1.3 million $$. WTF is right! :O
I remember the 90’s recession too and when I try to explain how bad it got then, FBs usually look at me like I’m a Cylon.
I have noticed in the ethnic newspapers, specifically the Korean ones, that prices are being slashed. The downward descent has begun.
Ah, times were different back then. I remember that in 1997, you could buy a studio condo in a good area of Oakland for $40K, and a 1 BR for about $60K. I had a real estate agent friend selling handfuls of these, but I didn’t buy any - I thought these deals were “too small” to waste my time on! Another friend of mine bought a few. He only makes a $100 a month by renting them out, but they are worth a lot more now (if only he’d sell).
As per our conversation the other day…
…Looks like people who are hungry are starting to see things my way…
Coldwell just might be one of the few who survive.
My hat goes off to them for using their brains, and not letting ego get in the way.
http://business.bostonherald.com/businessNews/view.bg?articleid=138872
THIS is news.
They’re afraid of this becoming a “sell at any price” mentality? Well, they have to do something to get buyers interested.
I haven’t heard anyone talk about buying around here in months and months.
As of last night, I’ve gotten three, “So are you going to buy a house soon?” grillings from my friends. All three of them still think the Bay Area is only going up in price. They submit that condo prices may go down, but that home prices will only continue to appreciate. I get my jabs in about higher inventory, etc but it doesn’t seem to register with them. As I mentioned in a previous thread, a friend of a friend is trying to flip condos in SF. Seems many people are still believin’ in the RE gospel.
By my estimates Santa Clara County inventory is up 25%+ YOY. Seeing price reductions here and there, mostly on condos.
Perhaps people in the South Bay are even more financially self-delusional than those up here.
Then again, I’ve not spent a lot of time with the “housing only goes up” crowd in the past year or so…
Some acquaintances/friends/co-workers bought condos last summer in SF, but since then, I have not overheard much of anything.
lunar - if you check out:
http://marinrealestatebubble.blogspot.com/
… you’ll see where marinite has blogged about Google’s new app that allows for checking out trends by searches (I believe). The Bay Area, especially Santa Clara, are well represented in terms of their possible “concern” about a housing bubble.
sf jack -
Thanks for the link, most interesting. I must say the three friends I am speaking of are all really “emotional” about their houses. I always wonder why they ask me every few months whether or not I’m ready to buy. There may be some fear at work, hence their questioning of my position.
Another Poster put up this link to UCLA Anderson Forecast Chris Thornberg’s presentation at UCSD in Feb 2006.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2640239019877885520&q=housing+bubble
It is long (1hr) but makes the case pretty tightly.
For all the OC readers at about 40 minutes in.
He says that OC is different.
OC is going to get hammered due to all the subprime lenders HQ’d here.
If you listen to the end, for no real reason he say that housing won’t crash, it will just soft land.
Yes, but then he says the two best illustrations of what “might” happen are the Japan and Texas busts. These were two of the worst RE deflations ever.
Yea I was suprised he wasn’t more bearish.
I don’t see this ended with a soft landing like he predicted.
He’s using the “this is what happened last time” argument a little too much… in part, I think, because the jobs picture is pretty strong (according to him). But he does acknowledge that housing related jobs will have an impact.
I think he also doesn’t want to be “blamed”, in a sense, should the housing situation really get rough in California.
Keep in mind that this presentation was back in Feb, before the inventory rise started to go parabolic and the forclosures took off.
Too many death threats from Suzanne?
more signal?
FTSE 100 suffers its worst day for two years
By Michael Hunter
Published: May 12 2006 09:04 | Last updated: May 12 2006 17:05
The FTSE 100 endured its worst day for two years as energy and resources stocks saw a sharp sell-off.
The index slumped 129.9 points, or 2.2 per cent, to 5,912.1, on what was its worse one-day performance since May 2004.
“Starving real estate agents” ??? Oh, really. They’re taking 6% of $400,000.00 instead of $470,000.00. Hmm. Let’s see here. That’s a commission of $24,000.00 instead of $28,200.00. Wow. They’re losing 15% of their commission - while the homeowner loses 15% of their house. Agent makes a little less money while, homeowner loses $70,000.00. Boo-hoo for the agent.
Well, the homeowner can either take 70K less or not sell at all . . .
Well, let’s give them one sale a year instead of one a month, see how far 24,000 gets them, especially servicing the debt on their own properties they can’t dump…
The commission might have slipped only a few percent but the number of deals is plumeting and now that the rush to buy is done, people are finding they can buy a house without using a realtor. Plus with the number of deals falling, that 6% is going to come under pressure, especially when the seller is under water on the deal. It was fine to give the realtor 6% when you were thinking of a 20% gain for the next 10 years. Funny how that has changed.
It’s the decreasing volume of transactions that’s hurting realtors, not the current price drops.
And remember, the realtor splits that 6% with the buyers agent, then splits her remaining 3% with her agency–Ends up with 1.5%. Doesn’t give them much inititave to keep the house price at 470 instetad of actually selling it at 400,000.
The Freakenomics guy did a big work up of this theory. Agents who own their homes routinely get more for them because it actually matters to them, not the wittless homeowner.
That analysis is questionable. The key appears to be that the agents were willing to keep houses on the market longer in order to get a higher price. Many sellers are anxious or just plain amateur. The Freakenomics book is full of questionable points, and this is one of the weakest. Great to have a big seller bring up these issues, though. That gives me hope.
‘There are probably going to be some starving real estate agents around.’”
That statement sure put a smile on my face and a spring in my step. But let’s get serious and change that ’some’ to ‘hordes’. Gee, with out of work RE agents and construction types there shouldn’t be a summer gas shortage as most won’t be able to take that vacation.
Speaking of, I can’t wait to pick up a nice bmw at a discount once the market becomes flooded with luxury cars!
it’s started already. i was able to pick up a 2003 330XI for $1K below blue book TRADE-IN price.
Almost all the realtors I know in the bay area are also flippers. During the boom only the big boys could even get listings, the little guys only option was to flip, now they are holding the bag.
Let’s just say that “starving real estate agents” is the least of our worries. Never understood why you need one.
Wasn’t there a proof by a game theorist or somebody, that neither the seller’s nor buyer’s agent work for the interests of their respective clients? I think I saw it on Freakonomics.
I have not now, nor will I ever, understand why a buyer would want to pay a broker based on % of total sale. It incentivizes the broker to behave EXACTLY opposite to the buyer’s interest.
Seller commission makes a little more sense, but the seller should be wary because the broker can drop the cost and make up the loss by volume.
It’s a wacked out structure, if you ask me.
I believe it was Freakonomics.
Realtors only care about volume, not prices. Do they care if you sell for $400k or $420k? The broker makes another $1,200 on the extra $20k, and that they share. Split with the buyer’s broker? $600. Split with the house? Do they make an extra $400?
Pales in comparison to the $8,000 they make on the first $400,000. Better to just get the deal done and move on to the next deal.
The study in Freakonomics showed that on average realtors sold their own homes for more on average than their clients’ homes. Crazy huh? When they get 100% of the marginal $20k, they fight like hell to get it.
I hate to say it, but the vast number of brokers on the market will help prices come down. They will simply change tactics, instead of trying to convince a buyer that it is a good price and that the value will go up, they will be convincing the seller that they need to drop their price to move the house.
No sales, no food on the table.
I think the only way to get a good deal in such an ineffective brokerage system as RE, you need a good friend who is a realtor. I know from experience, that tight friends find quite good deals, and then some more.
If you don’t have an RE insider though, and still want to use an agent, be prepared, buy a jar of Vaseline, and at least don’t pretend like you are getting a good deal. It’s like on a car lot - at least have the right mindset when you get screwed, and enjoy the ride.
Always protect yourself with brokers, but as much as they get bashed here, they help get deals done with such an emotional purchase.
At the end of the day, whether you buy or not, they will help drive prices down. They will need to in order to make the market. If they fail to make a market, they fail to make a living. Once people become less cavalier about ridiculous borrowing, psychology will change, and the if only way the brokers can make a market is to convince the sellers that they need to sell for less, you better believe that they’ll do it, or die trying.
“Developer Opus West last month scrapped plans to build 100 condos on the south side of Mission Creek in the sprawling Mission Bay development in San Francisco. Home builder Shea Homes recently dropped plans to build nearly 100 townhomes and live-work lofts on a 5-acre site in San Jose.”
“Lennar Corp., after beginning negotiations to develop several hundred units on a downtown block in Oakland late last year, decided in early March not to move forward.”
============
The builders HAVE the permits, they HAVE the land. and yet won’t build.
We hear time and time again that there is no more land to build on in the Bay Area, which is why prices are so high. We hear about all these “restrictions”. And yet it is the developers themselves who are willingly walking away from building at this point.
To me, it just goes to show you… much of this “there is no more land to build on” argument is garbage.
No more land is the biggest load of crap. Ever been to Hong Kong? Not much land there either, but they find places to build. Any shortage, which I don’t buy anyway, is due to development restrictions.
I moved to SF from Sydney 6 years ago and I always wondered why there was next to no construction. It is only now in the SOMA area that I see anything approaching the pace of construction I am used to in Australian cities.
They use the no more land here in Nevada (I believe “land is scarce” is the exact quote) WTF? Ever been to Nevada?
Water prices and availability are the problem in NV, not land.
Its finally here - YOY price declines in Menlo Park -10%, and LA -9.3%.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB114739417308250855.html?mod=homes_right_column_after_ad_hs
I still hate the “median price” as a measure, but since I’d like to buy in Menlo Park eventually, I’ll take what I can get.
“In 2005, investors accounted for 28 percent of the housing market, up from 23 percent in 2004, according to the National Association of Realtors. But the game of buying a home - or two or three or 17 - holding it for a bit, and then flipping it for a handsome profit has pretty much played itself out.
“Get out as fast as possible,” says Mark Zandi, chief economist with Moody’s Economy.com. “The market is moving away from the investor, and even when it stabilizes, I don’t think it’s going to come back anytime soon.”
So don’t repeat the mistake that tech investors made during the dot-com bubble. As stocks spiraled downward, they held on, thinking that the market would bounce back quickly. Just accept that you’re going to lose money on that Miami deal.
“Take your lumps,” says Jon Duncan, a Tacoma financial planner. “If you’re feeding this thing cash flow, it won’t take long to make this a very bad investment.”"
on CNN article
It’s all based on the same logic that if prices always go up than owning one is better than owning nothing and owning 10 is better than owning just one. That’s why some realtors and RE investors in Santa Barbara I personally know own 20 to 50 homes each.
OT… Some great charts on this website.
Housing Bubble Bellwether Index looks pretty ominous.
Interesting to see how much ARM’s dipped and how little 30 year mortgages have changed over the last 5 years.
And to rap it up a nice parabolic inventory of unsold homes chart.
https://www.investech.com/
“Bay Area is a joke. Even in Los Baños, which is 100 miles away from civilization, prices are insane, north of $400K (last year they were $300K).”
From a post above. Also need to point out that this town literally smells like bullshit about 1 mile before you get into the town. Tons of cow farms, and other animals. Also same for other towns like Tracy, Modesto, Stockton, Ripon, Wasco, etc. There is no way to avoid the smell even with the windows closed. And heaven help you if you actually stop at a gas station, fastfood place etc, especially on a hot day. It is enough to make one sick. So symbolic of the whole Bay area. Happy that I have left, but still need to come back regularly for business purposes. Ciao
If high-tech in Albuquerque grows a bit more, I might move too. Good luck.
Wow. I thought you were kidding about a place called Los Banos. It means “the bathrooms” in Spanish. Sounds like an accurate description.
if you look at the chart on that one link, you see a true picture of the market with the median prices of new homes and condos. lots of building and speculation there. then there is resale condos and finally, resale homes.
LA still not showing much inventory, but I did an MLS search of Los Feliz, Silver Lake-Echo Park, and East Hollywood Hills and found of 80 listings, only 3 were marked “Looking for Backup.” And at least half those listings (if not more), I’ve seen remaining active for at least since February.
Anyone else tracking LA markets? Does anyone detect any shift in pricing?
I look in 90048,46,04,35,64,04 and the like. see some measly reductions, more inventory, stuff seems to be sitting longer, but it’s still stupidly overpriced. I was looking last fall, got approved for 1 mil (80/10/10, 7yr I/O), looked at what was available, looked at the PITI, and decided that bying would be uh… insane. I would like a house, but spending most of my savings and 3/4 of my take home pay per month seems, uh… stupid. I make a decent 6 figure income, and I don’t understand how people do it… waiting and saving…
I check Zip pretty frequently, and I’ve seen a bunch of SFR and Condos on the West Side come on board at lower prices from the crap I’ve seen in the last 6 months. My gut is telling me that those (if they sell) will be reduced somewhat, which will lead to slightly lower comps. But still waiting for some decent corrections. SFRs in Compton still at $500K . . . (shaking my head in disbelief).
SFRs in Compton still at $500K . . . (shaking my head in disbelief).
Wow, so person living in the hood in CA has a house that is priced higher than some doctors’ homes in the MIdwest. Really crazy. These people should cash out and move to another state.
I think this is truly happening . . . you can look back at all the posts re: UHAUL costs from California to anywhere else in the US costing so much more than the other way around.
Motorcityjim. There really is a Los Banos. I had been chuckling since going into some of the eateries in Albuquerque and they using the word “Banos” to mean restroom. I also had been thinking how appropriate that this stinking town was really meant “The Bathroom, or the Toilet”. Thanks for the confirmation.
Hi Max, Albuquerque is a great place. Intel has a large presence in Rio Rancho (suburb of ABQ and nice place), Los Alamos Lab (sister lab of Livermore, and Berkeley, Sandia, and many surrounding such to support the area). Also a lot of work to support the space program and port in some of the smaller towns outside of Albuquerque. IMHO, kills the Bay area (or LA) in every way, shape, and form (except for Disneyland and the ocean). The mountains make up for that.
ABQ is on my shortlist of possible relocation places. I have been told that there are no professional jobs there but from what you say, that’s no longer true. And it’s affordable, and NM is beautiful.
Any additional news about potential flooding out of the Sierras and the broken levees running from Sac down to the San Joaquin Valley. 200% of normal snowfall up there, and the rivers already full. Arnold already declaring a state of emergency. What about all of the McMansions built in the flood plains? Would be quite entertaining to hear of the floods getting them before the emergency repairs. These same areas flooded about 5 yrs ago, i.e. Yuba City and Marysville were completely underwater. Now, greatly built up from then. Merced levees already broke last month?
Lake Isabella dam is leaking, it is an earthen dam and much of Bakersfield is in the flood plain.
This was just “discovered” a week or so ago. They are draining the lake as fast as possible, which is leading to other problems…such as the highway near the river getting washed out.
Got any links?
I enjoy Kernville quite a bit.
This summer is going to be so entertaining in the news for this flooding. Thanks for the posting of Lake Isabella. After this CA runup in prices made me look like a bubble fool since 2002, it is somewhat satisfying to see that I was correct in the long run. But I will have some sympathy for the non-flippers that are going to suffer. Wishing for the flippers to lose everything for ruining what was a nice place to be (meaning CA and not Bakersfield itself).
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Flaskman
Posts: 1003
Joined: 05/01/2002
I’m still running the Kern, and since it’s warmed up a bit the river is flowing! The big news down here is that the Lake Isabella damn has a leak, it’s an earthen damn so that is not a good thing. The Army Corp. of Engineers wants to keep the pressure off the damn so they will not be filling up the lake this year. Well, guess what…there is a lot of water going to be coming down that thar river in the next few months….SO, outflow must match inflow (from all sources). So, what that means is that the Lower Kern will be RIPPING this year! They usually keep the max at around 3000-3500 cfs, that’s a nice manageable flow that keeps both the boaters and the farmers happy, above that and the whole dynamic changes. Last year, flows on the upper maxed out at about 8200 cfs in May. This year the max will probably be pushed back by all the late weather and snowfall, so I look for a larger max later in the year, maybe in June, it just depends on the weather…it could reach 10,000 cfs! So to match inflow with outflow, that means 10,000 on the lower…I would say “WOOHOO!!”…but that is just way too big and super scary. I can’t even imagine what some of those sections will look like at 10 grand. All the lines will be different and landmark rocks will now be huge, keeper-holes…OMG. The first day of the lower is usually a nice peaceful class II-III run, but at 5 grand or higher it becomes class V for sure. There are so many sharp corners with huge trees on the banks that turn into huge tree-strainers…they absolutely must be avoided. It’s gonna be interesting this year…look for the death toll to surge higher again with that sort of water, people just can’t stay out of it.
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Thank you ski patrol for all you do for us.
Edited: 05/05/2006 at 06:03 PM by Flaskman
Which boating website did that come from?
The Lower Kern is a great late season run. I did a couple of searches and the volumes that they are already sending down are washing the road out in places.
I would expect the fatalities to surge this year on the Kern from both competent and incompetent river users.
Gene, went to Bakersfield last weekend and drove up the Kern Canyon to see the water coming down. I’ve never seen the water level that high since the dam was built.
“‘We’re just like the buyer who’s wondering whether this house is going to cost more or less this year,’ he said. ‘If they think it’s going to cost less, they don’t buy. If I think that land is going to cost less next year, I don’t buy.’”
This comment nicely exemplifies how the psychology of deflation is factoring into builders’ land purchase decisions. The next shoe to drop will be a crash in the price of land, with attendant effects on HB land inventory valuations.
Deflation psychology has likely also taken hold in the pool of would-be buyers, which explains why nothing is selling anymore at last year’s bubble prices.
I just typed in Lake Isabella and flood on Google and it pulled that email site. Kalaidescope - come on down to ABQ - wonderful place. Ciao.