Housing

Will California drag the entire country down? Perhaps as 8 of the top 10 markets for declining home prices are located in California.

Aaron wrote:Will California drag the entire country down? Perhaps as 8 of the top 10 markets for declining home prices are located in California.

Funny thing about that. We live at the edge of LA county (one of the worst markets of the above article), and according to Zillow.com our house jumped up about 20-25% in value a couple of months ago. I suspect that this is just an artifact of Zillow's algorithms for estimating such things, but it puts our house just about even with its pre-crash value. Weird, no?

It doesn't really matter all that much to us, in that we aren't planning on moving any time soon. And, in any case, even before this latest "Zillow bump" in our house's value, we could still probably sell it for about three times the price we paid ten years ago.

bmd wrote:And, in any case, even before this latest "Zillow bump" in our house's value, we could still probably sell it for about three times the price we paid ten years ago.

And there in lies the problem that is driving our economy spiraling down into the current recession. Until your house is only worth about twice what it was 10 years ago, which is where realistic pricing should be, the housing bubble will not have burst.

It's only a problem if people and institutions use the equity to support their lifestyles/profits. We're doing neither, so (as I said earlier) it doesn't really matter to us. As long as my wife doesn't temporarily lose her mind and let me turn our equity into THIS, it's all just imaginary numbers.

It's not the ones who are turning their equity into sailboats or sports cars or something more fun like one of these.

Hell, it's not even the people who do turn the equity into a toy of some sort or antoher.

It's the thousands of dumb asses that purchased way above their means because someone came up with the lame idea that home ownership is somehow a god given right and now they can't pay for them.

And it's not going to get any better until housing prices settle to where they should be, which is doubling, not tripling, every 10 years or so.

Aaron wrote:It's not the ones who are turning their equity into sailboats or sports cars or something more fun like one of these.

It's REALLY hard to get to Santa Cruz Island on one of those. Besides, where do you keep the cold beer?

In any case, the problem is both folks buying houses which are beyond their means, and folks using their equity to leverage themselves into lifestyles beyond their means. Our mortgage payments are currently low enough that if either my wife or I lost our jobs tomorrow we could still afford to stay in our house. If we both became unemployed, our investments (even considering the recent downturn) would allow us to stay right where we are for quite a while. If worse came to worst, we could sell this house, move somewhere with cheaper real estate, and still pocket several $100K. If we had leveraged all our equity, our house payments would be too high to do either of the former options for long, and the last option wouldn't be available.

So you and your wife are in the minority. And if you choose, you can get either a trunk or saddle bags that are cooler lined. But I wouldn't recommend drinking and riding.

Aaron wrote:So you and your wife are in the minority.

Because we chose not to get into too much debt.

Aaron wrote:And if you choose, you can get either a trunk or saddle bags that are cooler lined. But I wouldn't recommend drinking and riding.

It still ain't gonna get us to Forney Cove (PIC), at the west end of Santa Cruz Island.

Nope, but it will take you on some rides with great views.

Aaron wrote:Nope, but it will take you on some fantastic rides with great views.

Your links don't work. Besides I would have to get a lobotomy to want to buy a Harley.

Now THIS, or THIS, well.......

The links were supposed to be a ride along the Pacific coast highway.

And as long as it's two wheels.