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Bay area housing market

unirr said:
:rofl wth.... It cracks me up that you even think that ...
I wonder whats going through your mind that causes you to ponder on such things ... dat life.. dat mindset
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Dupe accounts have been exposed many times. It's a regular part of barf sink life
 
kevin 714 said:
Dupe accounts have been exposed many times. It's a regular part of barf sink life
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I guess I just can't place myself in the mindset of someone who does such a thing. Interesting nonetheless to understand someone who does :wtf
 
tgrrdr said:
In January 2008 I bought a nice house in a decent neighborhood in Pleasant Hill. I knew prices were going down but thought I paid a fair price (~10% less than original asking price). A few years later my assessed value was 2/3 my purchase price. As of an appraisal earlier this year it was back over the purchase price. My only problem was I couldn't refi my 2nd to get rid of my high interest rate (HARP took care of 1st) - just started the process and hope to cut the rate on my 2nd loan in half :teeth.

Buy a house now that you can "afford" and want to live in for a while and don't worry about what the market does. Think of your house as a place to live and not an investment and you'll be happier.
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Thank you, your advice is spot on.

Blankpage said:
It fun to give opinions but there are people whose job it is to figure out the answers to these very questions you ask. Even their answers are little more than a guess.
Buy a house if you can afford it and your job is secure. I'd probably be more comfortable buying after a pullback in prices. Who knows how long you'd be waiting for that.
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Thanks.
 
jt2 said:
A sign, but NOT a leading indicator. If you want that, watch delinquency rates, existing home sales and inventory levels, etc.

Existing sales have slowed a bit, but inventory is still very low. A sign to watch, but not a concern... yet.
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Where is this data available?
 
Horse said:
I'm moving back to bay area, every house I see for sale says "Great deal for an investor." Yeah right! lol

Foreign and domestic investors have swooped in after the 2007 crash and run up prices higher than the previous bubble. Same exact thing happened to the stock market. Stock market hit new highs in record time after the last 2007 crash. When things are going up, investors pile in.

While credit is extremely cheap right now, with crazy fed 0% interest rate. Guess what will happen when rates start to go up? A crash like you haven't seen before in your lifetime. Guess what happens when prices start to fall. Investors get out...


Right now its a perfect storm for the bay area. NASDAQ near record highs. Tech and Biotech flush with investor capital, trying to make any crazy idea work. Lot of tech and biotech unicorn companies out there with little hope of ever turning a real profit.

The markets are on the verge of crashing. When interest rates go up, this house of cards will come crashing down, if not before then.

What we are seeing is a bubble like we haven't seen in a hundred years. Interest rates have been steadily declining since 1981. Do you think that it is a coincidence that housing prices have been on the rise since the 80's?


Here are signs that this huge bubble is close to bursting. Nothing has changed since 2007, the consumer still has too much debt. Companies are struggling, and are starting to announce mass lay offs again. The stock market is struggling and on the verge of another bubble crash, even bigger than the 2007 crash. As fundamentals haven't changed since 2007, yet the market is higher than it was last time.

This time the government cant step in and pour in TRILLONS to save us from the coming crash. Neither can the fed lower interest rates to spur the economy, as it is already at zero.

Gas and oil inventories are at all time highs, showing people aren't driving as much, even with these low gas prices... Showing the economy is slowing.

Unicorn bay area tech/biotech companies are paying crazy incomes to their employees, and crazy mortgages/rents for their campuses/buildings. Yet these companies have no or little profits. How long can that last?

People are getting pissed at high drug prices, as biotech companies have been raising them enormous percentages to generate more income for their stock holders. Expect some legislation as raising drug prices in the name of research getting out of hand.

People are starting to realize they are wasting too much life on tech nonsense, and are growing tired of things such as facebook. A movement is growing to disconnect from internet, expect a coming tech backlash.

Computing is becoming more mobile. PC hardware and software companies struggling. Even bay area companies such as Apple that have gone mobile early are facing stronger competition, as competitors products have caught up and are cheaper. Which is why Apple is going to try and branch out making electric cars. As just making phones it can become the next Nokia.

Google has separated all the companies it bought from itself, putting them under the umbrella of Alphabet. Guess what is going to happen to all these no profit making companies formally owned by Google? They and their employees will get the axe. Yet Google stock will do fine thanks to advertisement revenue.

So we have the two major bay area industries about to take a huge hit. Tech and biotech. Expect mass layoffs in coming years. Rents will plummet/normalize as tech/biotech people lose their jobs and are forced to move away. Real estate investors will try and cash out early, so they can buy back at bottom. Crashes always come hard and fast when "investors" are involved.

Did you know these days you can own real estate without owning real estate? Investment money in REIT's (real estate investment trusts) are at all time highs. REIT's buy up properties to hold and rent for its investors. The amount of foreign and domestic money in REIT's is staggering.

Something to think about. Your 401k's are probably loaded with REIT's. Jacking up real estate prices, maybe keeping you from affording a house. Ironic. :laughing

Just like all investments, when they start to go down, people cash out. You will see a mass exodus from real estate when it crashes. With no one to step in and bail out the losers this time. Lucky for the USA, foreign investors especially the Chinese are now holding a lot of these properties, instead of Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac.

The Chinese made a great fortune in their stock markets, but that stock market is crashing down now. Don't expect them to hold onto USA properties as they plummet. Its going to fall hard and fast at first, then decline further as interest rates go up, and credit gets harder to come by. Who knows where the bottom will be, but I predict much lower than the last time.

Then throw in a natural disaster such as a big earthquake or persistent drought and things could get worse quicker.

But all that being said, no place else I would rather be. Housing here will always be more expensive than the rest of the country, and its worth it.
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Even if I got nothing out of this thread, I can get credit for bringing Horse back.
 
BMW said:
This is really good advice. Also never sell land.
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Not so fast...Land has the same (if not more) restraints over housing. Zoning changes and development costs alter things for land over and over. However, yeah...land is great. The problem with land; it's non-rev producing. All those years someone has to hold land they have to pay property tax with no income offset. It sucks, actually.

We just did a fairly large land sale of packaged lots in WC. The irony was, as a builder we sold lots to another builder because we couldn't see that the spec we had to build on the lots would make any more money than just selling the lots outright. It's crazy that that is what's going on in the market, but pretty much, building costs are so high that there isn't any money in development for most projects. Couple that with the high land basis prices from those who didn't give their land back to lenders from the mass turnover in 2000's and you've got a reason for Bay area prices to stay up for a bit.

BTW, there are PLENTY of other places in the country where values are doing much better than the bay area on a percentage increase basis.

I think we're seeing massive inflation that is largely unrecorded in manufactured goods. This is true in the stock market as well as the collectibles/ rare antiquities/ automobile markets.
 
2legs2wheels said:
Where is this data available?
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If you want it from the horse's mouth: Small "h"!

http://www.census.gov/topics/housing.html
https://www.conference-board.org/data/bcicountry.cfm?cid=1

Or, just read the WSJ and try to develop a feel for the tone of the reporting overall.

If you are unclear on what to watch for really want a good reading of the tea leaves, subscribe to the Kiplinger Letter. They offer a concise, well summarized and accurate picture, IMO.


Yakoo752 said:
That could be seasonal demand
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Could be, though the jobs report is a bit troubling. My wife is in staffing and though they're still going gangbusters, the new order rate has slowed a bit.

All together, not a huge concern, just an indication for having the antennae up.
 
Holeshot said:
I think we're seeing massive inflation that is largely unrecorded in manufactured goods. This is true in the stock market as well as the collectibles/ rare antiquities/ automobile markets.
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Money is chasing any asset class that might yield an inflation-positive return. I wouldn't think we would be seeing much inflation in most manufactured goods right now, because commodities are depressed. It seems like we are generally entering an era where everyone can afford a 50 inch flat screen, but god help you if you actually want to go to disneyland in the summer (disneyland just announced a move to surge pricing.)
 
Well one thing's for sure: Fuck Disney World in the summer!
 
HappyHighwayman said:
That's my point as well...people always say "bubble bubble bubble".//10-15 years go by and the bubble finally hit and they're all "look how right I was" yet somehow they still don't own a home.
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Certainly I am guessing.

I own a home. Not in the bay area. My income would not support a purchase of one there, even after the crash in 2008.
 
HappyHighwayman said:
That's my point as well...people always say "bubble bubble bubble".//10-15 years go by and the bubble finally hit and they're all "look how right I was" yet somehow they still don't own a home.
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How do those two correlate at all?
Hard to buy a home if your income is falling faster further (100%, instantly) than home prices (20% over 6 months)
 
SFSV650 said:
How do those two correlate at all?
Hard to buy a home if your income is falling faster further (100%, instantly) than home prices (20% over 6 months)
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I'm saying eventually you will be right if you keep repeating it over and over over long enough a time frame....but they won't admit they were wrong for the 90% of the time they were wrong.
 
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