An Unstable, Irrational And Unsustainable Market
The Inland Valley Daily Bulletin reports from California. “A report released from the U.S. Census Bureau looking at regional migration patterns shows 42,000 new residents moved from Los Angeles County to San Bernardino County between 2007 to 2011. Experts say the major reason for the numbers is that people are attracted to the affordability of housing in the area. The median home price in the San Bernardino County market is about $218,000, according to Inland Empire economist John Husing. The price is about $57,000 cheaper than the median price in Riverside County, $233,000 cheaper than in Los Angeles County, and $412,000 cheaper than in Orange County, according to Husing.”
“‘The historical reason has always been price,’ said Randall Lewis, principal of the Lewis Operating Company, a major developer in the region. ‘People go on the freeway and drive until they can find a house they can afford.’”
The Los Angeles Times. “Despite staggering rates of unemployment, the Inland Empire continued to pull tens of thousands of people from Los Angeles County. The migration occurred even as Riverside and San Bernardino counties lost some 144,000 jobs. ‘People respond to prices,’ said John Husing, chief economist for the Inland Empire Economic Partnership. ‘The difficulty is that people move before the jobs move.’”
The San Jose Mercury News. “Squeezed by astronomical home prices and rents that are almost as unaffordable, a growing number of Bay Area residents are pulling up stakes and trading long commutes for cheaper housing. They’re heading to places like Tracy, Mountain House, Patterson, Hollister and Los Banos. The demand for housing also has helped push up prices on existing homes, according to DataQuick. In the fourth-quarter of 2013, the median sales price in Tracy for a resale single family home was $339,500, up 28 percent from the fourth quarter of 2012; Patterson’s median was up 45 percent to $228,750; Hollister was up 29 percent to $375,000; and Los Banos rose 37.5 percent to $185,000.”
“That compares to San Jose’s fourth-quarter median price of $645,000; Sunnyvale’s $964,000; Milpitas’ $648,000; Oakland’s $435,500; and San Francisco’s $867,000. Shawneequa Badger, a San Jose real estate agent, said she’s changed her business to accommodate clients who want to move to Tracy and Mountain House, which is just over the Altamont Pass. She said half her clients are ‘new transplants into the San Joaquin Valley’ looking for more for their money. ‘I just put couple into a home (in Mountain House) that’s over 2,000 square feet, was built in 2008 and has all brand new appliances, for $349,000.’”
From AAP. “Jobs, income and investment keep soaring in Silicon Valley, but the growth is also driving up housing costs and widening the gap between the rich and poor. ‘The economy is sizzling any way you slice it and it’s about to get hotter, but having said that, we are quick to point out there are perils with our prosperity,’ said Russell Hancock, president of Joint Venture Silicon Valley.”
“The group has released its annual Silicon Valley Index in conjunction with the philanthropic Silicon Valley Community Foundation. The growing divide between rich and poor is driven by an overwhelming demand for housing, according to the report. ‘It’s been tough because we’ve seen the cost of housing skyrocket and we’ve seen our pay plummet,’ said James Gonzales, a 13-year veteran of the San Jose Police Department and a leader of the police union.”
“Public employees lost wages and benefits during the recession, cuts that made it impossible for Gonzales and many of his colleagues to make their mortgage payments. He sold his condominium and now lives in nearby Sunnyvale where he rents. Recent pay increases aren’t enough to get him back into the housing market, he said, and new hires aren’t even looking for homes in San Jose.”
The Bakersfield Californian. “Despite recent softening, Bakersfield’s single-family home market will likely see price increases in the 12 percent to 15 percent range this year as previously foreclosed homeowners look to buy houses again, a leading local observer predicted. Bakersfield appraiser Gary Crabtree made the forecast in a monthly housing update stating that median home sale prices in the city fell 6.1 percent in January to $195,250.”
“The signs of cooling were fairly pronounced in January data, however. The number of home escrows that closed that month was 371, 6.5 percent less than December’s totals. Meanwhile, the inventory of homes for sale in the city grew by 1.6 percent to 945, Crabtree reported. Cash investors who flooded the local market in recent years, sometimes squeezing out would-be homeowners, have already begun exiting the market, Crabtree noted, largely because rental prices have not kept up with local home price appreciation.”
“Their exit may present buying opportunities for people who lost their homes to foreclosure during the recession, even as it could hurt the rental market, Crabtree wrote. ‘In 2014, I expect to see the ‘boomerang’ (previously foreclosed homeowner turned tenant) buyer replace the investors, thus supplying demand for a moderate increased in pricing,’ he wrote. ‘However, this will also place a downward pressure on rental prices as the single family rental vacancy (rate) increases with the loss of this market segment.’”
The Salinas Californian. “While December data show home prices in Monterey County blew past 2012 levels, month-to-month figures show a definite slowing, bringing back some degree of normalcy in the real-estate market, according to area Realtors and data released from CoreLogic. Prices in Salinas increased by 26.2 percent in December 2013 compared to December 2012. But on a month-over-month basis, prices were flat, even decreasing by 0.1 percent in December 2013 compared to November 2013. Some degree of braking is a positive trend, because hyperinflation in prices would be unsustainable over time and could lead to another home-price ‘bubble’ similar to the one that burst in 2007-2008, economists and real-estate experts say.”
“‘We simply couldn’t keep going at this rate,’ said Sandy Haney, the CEO of the Monterey County Association of Realtors. In fact, the number of home sales statewide fell for the fifth straight month in December, according to the California Association of Realtors. In a normal market – one which both Haney said we are transitioning back into – a homeowner would build equity in her home and then sell it to move up to a more expensive property she’s been eyeing, Haney said.”
“But when the market collapsed in 2008, so much equity was lost that prospective sellers either don’t have enough equity built back up or they are gun-shy about making the move. ‘There is a lot of caution in the market,’ Haney said. ‘The sellers that have been through the [2008] market and didn’t lose their homes are still uncertain if the time is right to move up.’”
“Exacerbating the inventory problem is the falling number of so-called distressed sales, including short sales and sales of foreclosed homes. After six years, the number of foreclosures is falling dramatically as they continue to work their way through and out of the market. That’s also a reason area Realtors are forecasting a transition period in 2014 – moving from an unstable, irrational and unsustainable market to one that is governed by the basics and fundamentals.”
“The median home price in the San Bernardino County market is about $218,000, according to Inland Empire economist John Husing. The price is about $57,000 cheaper than the median price in Riverside County, $233,000 cheaper than in Los Angeles County, and $412,000 cheaper than in Orange County, according to Husing.”
Sadly, in all of the above cases, you get less than you pay for.
drive until you qualify!!!!!! that may even mean out of the state.
I think that this is why cars designed for and sold in the US market focus on creature comforts as opposed to performance. They are for the most part living rooms on wheels. You need to be comfy for that 3+ hour round trip commute. Cupholders, satellite radio, bluetooth and hands free mobile phone interfaces are pretty much expected now. I’m surprised they don’t have fridges and microwaves ovens built into the dashboard (actually, some cars do A/C the glove box).
The true costs of commuting:
http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/cost-of-commuting-full1.jpg
NEVER FORGET.
Time is the most precious commodity. Basically anything else can be fixed/replaced/purchased. But when you commit to driving an expensive depreciating piece of metal on a stressful, inactive rush hour trip, there is no cure for that waste of time and money.
True, but what if your job doesn’t pay even close enough to buy or rent near the office?
Then it depends on the job. I read one article about a guys who commuted 1.5 hours to a job on a loading dock. That’s what prompted me to advocate the Oil City Plan. Why do you need to be in CA to work on a loading dock? There are loading docks, and grocery stores and car dealerhips and malls, or even community colleges everywhere. May as well work in an area where housing is cheaper. Even if you can only afford a shack, you’d only have to drive 10 minutes to get to one.
Even if you can only afford a shack, you’d only have to drive 10 minutes to get to one
Well, you can get a crappy job in the IE. I’m thinking that it’s people with 50-100K jobs who are commuting. They can’t swing a 700K house in Orange County, so they buy a 300K house in Pomona and commute to the job in Irvine.
Don’t drive north! Median price in Portland, Oregon in 2013 was $264,000. Thanks, Out of Towners!
All nice and good for the folks who enjoy using a fork to breath the poison air in “S. Berdu”
“Despite staggering rates of unemployment, the Inland Empire continued to pull tens of thousands of people from Los Angeles County. … ‘The difficulty is that people move before the jobs move.’”
What are these new unemployed Inland Empire dwellers planning to do for food and housing?
They commute to their jobs in L.A county and thus spend large chunks of their lives stuck in traffic.
What’s even more amazing is lots of people who work in L.A county buy houses located in the desert. The only way their commute works out for them is for them to work some sort of off shift - the night shift, for example.
People are smart.
One desert dweller I know spends his hours while stuck in traffic listening to books. He can’t read while he is driving so he listens instead. After a time he becomes sort of a well read individual.
Different folks, different strokes.
Audiobooks are, out of necessity, watered down.
And most interesting content is not available in an audiobook format, which tends to favor “self help”, “easy reading”, and “mass market fiction” titles. For the actual good books avail on audiobooks, see my first comment above.
Logic should tell a potential buyer, a potential commuter, to test drive his potential route to work during the days and times he plans to become a commuter but apparantly this not something that he spends a lot of time thinking about. Instead he looks to buy in these outlying areas on the week ends, when has has his days off. The problem is the week ends are when most everyone else have their days off and hence the highways and freeways are relatively clear compared to what they are on the week days. So he tells himself “Hey, this isn’t so bad” and then signs the dotted lines. After the ink is dry and he gets settled in to his new place he then get to join up with everyone else on the freeway clog.
People are smart.
how would the kids in school be treated by there peers if they had to say attend the same school as kids in malibu ?
‘Toward the end of 2012, Mark Alston, a real estate broker in Los Angeles, began noticing something strange. Home prices were starting to rise, and fast—about 20 percent annually. Normally, higher home prices would signal increased demand from homebuyers and indicate that the economy was rebounding. But the home ownership rate was still dropping. Somehow, the real estate market was out of whack.’
‘Then there were the buyers themselves. “I went two years without selling to a black family, and that wasn’t for lack of trying,” recalls Alston, whose business is concentrated in inner-city neighborhoods where the majority of residents are African American and Latino. Now all his buyers were businessmen in suits. And weirder yet, they were all paying in cash.’
“You can’t compete with a company that’s betting on speculative future value when they’re playing with cash,” says Alston.’
The only way their commute works out for them is for them to work some sort of off shift - the night shift, for example.
Actually, a lot of folks living in LA, Orange and San Diego County do the same thing to avoid the gridlock during rush hour. I knew plenty of folks who started work at 4-5 AM and they weren’t commuting from Saint Bernie.
I knew plenty of folks who started work at 4-5 AM ??
Yep…Thats how many do it around here…They flex their hours…
I know lots of people who do that too (and I do myself when I visit) not because of traffic but rather because the east coast (and eastern time zone) rules the business world.
That too. But I knew plenty of non biz types who would start work during the wee hours of the morning.
I recall one time I had to catch an early flight (I think it was 5AM) out of LAX. We drove up from San Diego and it was interesting to drive past business parks. You could see from the freeway that even at 3 AM that the small firms there were open for business. At the time I lived about 3 blocks from the office and it was an eye opener for me.
As you note (here and also above), you have to have a certain kind of position for this. If you’re in management (or want to be), you can’t routinely work a 4am-noon or 6am-2pm shift. Sure, in theory, you could flex your hours, but in all but rare cases it would be a career killer.
That said, for some people, “moving up” the ladder isn’t that interesting. Nor should it be. But then again, people smart enough to call bullsh*t on the rat-race commuter lifestyle wouldn’t be buying a house 1+ hrs from work and commuting like crazy to serve his/her overlords in the first place.
A lot of the early birds were blue collar types: machinists, tool and die makers, sheet metal workers, etc.
But then again, people smart enough to call bullsh*t on the rat-race commuter lifestyle wouldn’t be buying a house 1+ hrs from work and commuting like crazy to serve his/her overlords in the first place.
A lot of these folks were locals, born and bred in SoCal. They wouldn’t think of leaving due to family ties. But they just can’t afford a 700K dump in Fountain Valley or Santa Ana (forget about Irvine or Mission Viejo). So they set up shop in the Inland Empire. Problem is that there aren’t too many good paying jobs in the IE, so they climb into the clown car every morning. Not everyone can telecomute and work from home.
I knew a few fatsos who did exactly that. Instead of working off their blubber they sit their big “cabeese” in a car seat for 3 hours or more per day and sit at their desks another 9 hours. No workouts.
Their hearts grow weary and diabetes kicks in.
The real smart ones don’t buy houses but rent. They move to their job so their commutes are less than ten miles and allows time to work off the blubber. The bonus is the savings in wear and tear on the car and savings on gas.
But people won’t do this. Because “people are smart” - they listen to the Amy Hoax types and think it’s better to be a slave to a mortgage and put on blubber.
The “Bill in LA Guide to Wealth”® includes a chapter on the insanity of commuting more than 10 miles to and from work and growing a belly just so you can label yourself a home owner.
The solution is to move to your job and rent.
1. Renting is far less expensive than owning. Check.
2. You have time to work off calories and prevent bad health. Check.
3. You don’t have to worry about the price of gas. Check.
4. You can easily break a lease and move to your next job that pays more while the “smart” homeowners would surely hesitate. Check.
Renting is the key to wealth and freedom.
Excellent title for a book Bill.
“Bill in LA Guide to Wealth”®
——–Bill Owns——–
“The group has released its annual Silicon Valley Index in conjunction with the philanthropic Silicon Valley Community Foundation. The growing divide between rich and poor is driven by an overwhelming demand for housing, according to the report. ‘It’s been tough because we’ve seen the cost of housing skyrocket and we’ve seen our pay plummet,’ said James Gonzales, a 13-year veteran of the San Jose Police Department and a leader of the police union.”
Since there is no crime in tony Silicon Valley, why do they even need cops?
Someone needs to ticket all those leadfooted techies.
and we’ve seen our pay plummet,’ said James Gonzales, a 13-year veteran of the San Jose Police Department and a leader of the police union
Pay plummet? That must be code for “no overtime pay”, no $70/hr for waving cars into stadium parking lots and other grueling work like that.
ps worker pay has gone up almost 2x inflation vs private secotr
“…normalcy in the real-estate market, according to area Realtors and data released from CoreLogic.”
Is normalcy a neologism manufactured by CoreLogic’s propaganda machine?
Whore-Logic and Realt-Whore…….. Two great liars that lie great together.
normalcy means flat market these days.
‘California’s $2 million-and-up home market is sailing past its prebubble highs, even as the rest of the market continues to play catch up. In other words, while the state’s housing market is still on the road to recovery, the number of $2 million-and-up home sales is back to normal.’
“That’s also a reason area Realtors are forecasting a transition period in 2014 – moving from an unstable, irrational and unsustainable market to one that is governed by the basics and fundamentals.”
Is that a subtle suggestion that another crash is already underway?
bubbles allow for great wealth extraction and a great excuse to print lots of money to try and find another bottom to build the next bubble off of.
They’re heading towards a brick wall at 100mph and their brakes and steering have failed. But they’re looking forward to a transition period just before impact where the brakes repair themselves and the steering wheel reattaches.
Welcome back Bink…
The way this bubble has come back I could only hope to imitate it.
The way this is playing out suggests some of us may soon have to either look forward to passing on the HBB posting tradition to our children or to posting from the Great Beyond.
‘People respond to prices,’
It’s the price, always.
You pay too much, you lose too much.
you make money on the buy side, always.
Correct $hitHousePoet. Buy now, lose later. Buy later.
buy low and sell high debt donkey.
You’re catching on Poet. Stick around here a while longer. We’ll school you into a pro in a hurry.
Realtors are forecasting a transition period in 2014 – moving from an unstable, irrational and unsustainable market to one that is governed by the basics and fundamentals.”
Thankfully we have
high school dropouts and bartendersStealtors developing economic forecasts.Data from Salinas sounds right.People are bidding up property on multi-bids.What was purchased for $500K in 2011-12 is now going for $750K. Does not bode well for those who just want to live, work and retire in the area.
On the other hand commercial RE larger than 20,000 sq.ft. is being dumped and smaller RE for small distribution companies is being taken over with 5yr initial plus a 5yr option.
That’s interesting considering overall Housing Demand in Salinas is down every year for the last 5 years.
http://www.zillow.com/local-info/CA-Salinas-home-value/r_54288/#metric=mt%3D30%26dt%3D1%26tp%3D5%26rt%3D8%26r%3D54288%252C35767%252C113865%252C27215%26el%3D0
You don’t have a clue! You don’t live here and only cherry pick the info you want to believe or want others to believe. As for me, I love it here, and the less people the better.
Donkey,
You’re beef is with Zillow. Take it up with them.
Zillow is the worse source, that is why this so called Housing Analyst uses it.
Example… how can two identical houses with basically the same up grades be priced $150k apart?
Donkey,
No matter what the source of the truth is, it’s like kryptonite to you.
“be priced $150k apart?”
Oh that’s easy! One party “needs” more money than the other and isn’t going to just give it away.
^^ I’ve been to Monterrey, Pebble Beach, along the Camino Real in that area as well… Very nice. Would be a great place to retire.
You are confusing sales transactions with housing demand. There is demand for houses, just very little inventory for completed transactions to be consummated.
The graph you selected shows the number of transactions each year is still growing, just at a lower rate of growth in the last year.
Your pontification does not stand. You are confusing slower rate of growing transactions with “dropping demand”, but then you seemed to be confused about a many things.
Since 2012, prices in Salinas are up from $222,000 to $300,000. 99.5% of the houses have sold for list price or more. Sales volume is up 5% over last year.
Sheesh, you just can’t be more wrong about Salinas! HA! There is no “Analysis” from “Housing Analyst”.
With 25 million excess, empty and defaulted houses, you’re right… there is an inventory problem.
Why do all of you continue to Banter with this empty scull ?? Just ignore the dude…
Yes, scdave, good point.
HA is laugh, just like his “analysis” about $25 million excess houses. Whee, pick some number out of the air, call it good and name yourself an “analyst”.
None of you have the fortitude to ignore the truth.
More ridiculous drabble. Do you read what you write? You mean the opposite, I believe.
You especially lack fortitude. It might have something to do with those melting ice cubes you got burned on.
isn’t salinas mainly a farming community? I drive thru there once in awhile and all I see is a lot of farms and some retail stores.
I just dont see what people in that are are doing to make the
big bucks.
I went down to cannery row and a lot of the stores in the outlet mall are closed.
You are right about farming as well as stores vacating in Monterey and Carmel. High priced retail has returned to Carmel since the crash in 2008.
A lot of people in Salinas work in SJ, the prisons to the south, or the service industry. Jobs in law enforcement, fire, teaching pay quite well. A lot of pass me down money in the area, a lot of money by people who bought rental units 20 or more years ago. A decent two bedroom apt in a good area is going to cost you north of $1700/month.
Quality of life is very good.
Interesting. Salinas has the same median family income as my little part of bilgewater NY. Yet the price of houses is 5x, and we have a housing bubble here!
BTW, if quality of life is good, why do you have to live in a special “good area”?
isn’t salinas mainly a farming community?
I’ve been there too. I’m guessing that it’s a bedroom community for people who can’t afford to live in Monterey/Santa Cruz or in Silly Valley up north. But paying 750K to live in Salinas? The place is an armpit.
Irvine, CA Housing Prices Slide 4%; Inventory Skyrockets 115%
http://www.movoto.com/irvine-ca/market-trends/
‘Taking condos and detached homes together, the median price of a Marin home soared 20 percent, from $660,000 in 2012 to $795,000, and the 3,452 homes sold represented the highest volume since 2005, the peak of the boom, said Marin County Assessor Richard Benson.’
‘For much of 2013, “You could list basically anything and it would sell, unless it was grotesquely overpriced,” said Jane Kaplan, a Coldwell Banker agent.’
“The surge came not to a stop, but a slowdown. In September and October we still had good buyer interest, but the frenzy backed off,” said Jim Fronk of Decker Bullock Sotheby’s International Luxury Real Estate in Mill Valley. “Now there is very good and manageable interest by buyers.”
“It’s definitely not going down, it’s going up, but not at the same rate,” Patti Cohn of Pacific Union said of prices.’
Golly, I hope you’re right Patti. Because if you aren’t, there’s going to be a lot of foreclosures in Marin. Maybe even some who were your clients. Better stock up on boxes just in case.
Marin county is one of the last places to experience foreclosures in the 2007 housing downturn.
In the late 1970’s, the county voters approved an “open space green belt” zoning law that removed 1000’s of acres of land suitable for building homes. The unintended consequence was so little growth in inventory coupled with growing demand, housing shot up on value. All the tree huggers who voted for the law are now priced out of the market and have to go live in Santa Rosa.
I don’t see the fundamental imbalance changing without a county wide vote to remove land from perpetual open space status. Unlikely.
But Marin did have many foreclosures. Maybe they weren’t a rich as they thought. Maybe they walked away. Couldn’t possibly happen again, right?
‘You could list basically anything and it would sell’
‘In the late 1970’s’
Why did it take 30 years for this to all happen?
It’s very interesting that almost every bubble issue is taking place, and posters find a way to rationalize these prices. I’ll say it again, not having gotten a reasonable answer last week: how can it be that these central valley towns have prices higher than a city like Dallas Texas, which is at all time highs and is in a bubble too?
Only when it crashes will these rationalizations be seen for what they are; after the fact, excuse-making of a mania. What best describes what we are seeing right now, is reckless speculation in housing.
how can it be that these central valley towns have prices higher than a city like Dallas Texas, which is at all time highs and is in a bubble too ??
With a one word answer my guess is; “Jobs”
My nephew commutes every day from Brentwood to San Jose…They moved from Silicon Valley to Brentwood about 7 years ago…Cut their housing cost by 2/3 got twice the house and still make the same amount of money…
And Dallas doesn’t have any jobs?
http://www.nahb.org/fileUpload_details.aspx?contentID=55104
If you find the NAHB credible, here’s a Excel link that shows more building permits for both single and multi-family are being applied for in Dallas and Houston each than most of California for the past two years.
According to the sheet, just a few more multi-family permits were requested for LA (2X the population of Dallas) than for Dallas or Houston. Only the NYC metro area has more(~3-4X the population of Dallas or Houston) multifamily. No other metro is particularly close for single family.
I’d also assume most of the Dallas and Houston units are on-average cheaper because they are greenfield, and the land sales are profitable at lower prices-per-acre due to the agricultural exemption.
So that’s my guess why you see less of a bubble in TX.
The median salary in San Jose is 50% higher than the median in Dallas.
…and yes Ben, Marin had foreclosures in 2007-2010. They will have them again in the future. However, the fundamental cause of the foreclosures in that period were caused by unqualified buyers obtaining sub-prime financing on houses they never dreamed they could purchase. So the jumped into the market and walked away just as easily and quickly.
I do not believe the housing market has experienced “easy credit” since the tightening after the bubble collapsed. Buyers who purchased in the aftermath were qualified to make the loan payments.
I have friends who purchased $1,000,000 homes that dropped 30% in value and are worth less than their loan amount today. They have never considered walking away. It was their home and they could afford it. The fact is was a terrible “investment” had no bearing on their choices.
There are very few unqualified buyers getting loans approved today. Fundamental difference from 7 years ago.
I think appreciation has slowed to a crawl. It will take a while for incomes and markets to find a balance. Yet there is nothing similar about this market and the imbalances of 2006-2007.
And the median sale price in San Jose is 173% higher than the median in Dallas.
*think*
http://www.zillow.com/local-info/TX-Dallas-home-value/r_38128/#metric=mt%3D19%26dt%3D1%26tp%3D5%26rt%3D8%26r%3D38128%252C274772%252C273698%252C275473%26el%3D0
http://www.zillow.com/local-info/CA-San-Jose-home-value/r_33839/#metric=mt%3D19%26dt%3D1%26tp%3D5%26rt%3D8%26r%3D33839%252C273565%252C276652%252C273480%26el%3D0
‘The median salary in San Jose is 50% higher than the median in Dallas’
I’m not comparing these two. I’m asking why Dallas prices are lower than the Central Valley.
“Why did it take 30 years for this to all happen?”
It didn’t. I grew up in Sonoma County (just north). I had relatives that lived (and still live) in Marin County. Marin was an expensive place to live my entire life.
‘Marin was an expensive place to live my entire life’
Was it 800-1000k all your life?
Relative to neighboring cities (that had the same effective climate and proximity to job centers), it was more expensive.
Hmm, here’s a PDF that shows what I was asking about. Were you born around 1997?
http://www.randideutsch.com/images/stats/2011-1231/Marin_Historical_12.31.2011.pdf
Because if you can remember the 70’s, it didn’t look too expensive. The house my parents bought in 1964 was about the same.
According to the CPI inflation calculator, $30k in 1965 was about $220k in today’s dollars which is more than the median home price across the US today.
The 1975 price of $64k is $278k today, and there were 100 million fewer people in the US then.
jeeeeziz….. that table of prices on the right looks like a scam operation. It makes no sense.
‘$30k in 1965 was about $220k in today’s dollars’
And the houses would be 49 years older. I’d bet a lot of these Marin houses are somewhere around that old.
‘there were 100 million fewer people in the US then’
How many houses have been built since then? Just cut to the chase and tell us there’s a shortage of land.
Compare those to Sonoma County.
And the houses would be 49 years older. I’d bet a lot of these Marin houses are somewhere around that old.
========================
So what?
You asked, don’t cast aspersions at me if you don’t like the data.
IMO this is where this blog gets wrapped around the axle - as if the prices of property in tiny rich enclaves is representative of anything other than that a small subset of wealthy have a lot of money and use it to keep the rest out. And a willful denial of network effects that go along with money.
The assumption here seems to be that one day something is going to cause them to see the light and all the sudden real Americans will move in next door and we’ll all sing songs like in Whoville or something and mortgages will disappear, and that all the sudden city planners will allow some pure form of supply and demand to determine the best use of the remaining open land, and the hard working plumber will buy next to the banking executive who was an honest guy back when Grandpappy owned the land, but now in 2013 there’s some kind of secret cabal…
Who the f* cares if people in Marin want to pay $1m for homes? It’s when they have to pay that much in Riverside and Topeka KS and other average middle class places that it matters. By your own dumbass platitude there is plenty of land between the two, so there should be exactly nothing tying the prices of the two together.
That’s where my interest in the housing bubble starts and stops. If dumbasses in NYC, DC, and SF and San Diego want to pay out the nose, who cares, but don’t inflict it on those of us who don’t. And I agree it has nothing to do with jobs.
‘By your own dumbass platitude there is plenty of land between the two’
Oh, did I hurt your feelings, HBB_Rocks?
‘Who the f* cares if people in Marin want to pay $1m for homes?’
Nobody does. The question was why pay more to live in BF central valley than a booming place like Dallas. I know that’s hard for the mentally impaired, but read it slowly and maybe you can comprehend.
“I’ll say it again, not having gotten a reasonable answer last week: how can it be that these central valley towns have prices higher than a city like Dallas Texas, which is at all time highs and is in a bubble too?”
I drive tourists for a living and I assure you that climate is a huge factor. And proximity to both ocean and skiing. General beauty close by. Dallas offers none of these things imo. As far as weather, you’re paying out the nose for heating in the winter and cooling in the summer, which has to be factored in to what you can afford. Sure, the central valley can get hot in the summer, but it’s nothing like Dallas heat. Also, the temperature extremes of the midwest, going from cold in winter to hot in summer wreak havoc on a home with the expansion and contraction, unless it’s all brick, which is more expensive. The reasons I listed are not enough to justify the price difference today and I’m sure they will come more in line. But there are excellent reasons to live in the central valley, as long as you’re north of Stockton. Gotta draw the line somewhere.
” climate is a huge factor…”
Cool in the south, heat in the north, do both in between. In a modern house the cost is so low as to have no influence on house prices.
‘there are excellent reasons to live in the central valley, as long as you’re north of Stockton’
Jeebus.
” In a modern house the cost is so low as to have no influence on house prices.”
Not locally in the midwest, but spending 300/month for heating/cooling in the midwest for either vs. 75 in central Ca is something I would consider if I had to make that choice. As for it having no influence on house prices, I have no evidence one way or the other, but I always assumed that it did, just because it’s a good sized added monthly expense.
“Jeebus.”
That’s what I say when I pass through. Not sure what you are saying though. I draw the line at Stockton because that’s where the air is fully foul most of the year, downright unhealthy and geography will make it stay that way for the foreseeable future. 50 miles north makes all the difference in the world.
So there’s the mid-west and the a$$hole of the earth better known as California.
Thanks for the US geography lesson.
Marin is not a central valley town it’s where all the CEOs live who have businesses in sf
As for Texas, they have very stiff property taxes whereas we have prop 13 that and the fact that you’d have to live in Texas and la and sf Tahoe yosemite and big bear aren’t just a couple hours drive away
Oxnard, CA Housing Prices Crumble 42%
http://www.movoto.com/oxnard-ca/market-trends/
Home sweet home
HEEHAW!
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-1×7vNuOhGmU/UoGhzmGiEgI/AAAAAAAC8Iw/e24ML1mTapU/s1600/contactsImage_donkey.jpg
“Home sales on rise, but prices falling across South Jersey”
http://www.pressofatlanticcity.com/news/breaking/home-sales-on-the-rise-but-prices-still-falling-across/article_3a5f6d86-8b61-11e3-9ffb-001a4bcf887a.html
And there’s more of that to come. Just think how far the west coast has to fall to create some housing demand.