How are your investments doing? Did you follow my advice a few weeks ago to invest in energy?

I think you are surprised by my familiarity with just about every RBA neighborhood that come up for discussion. I know every street in your neighborhood too. No, I’m not implying I lived on your street…

Madhaus,

I hate to keep responding to your nonsense, but I’m curious about this one. Where did I imply anything about where I live? Do I need to imply anything? Usually I just tell it as it is, which you label as “trolling”. If you don’t enjoy the alternate opinions here, may I suggest that you go to a bubble site where you will always get the applause you are looking for?

You’re the one who is trolling feeding us useless, misleading aggregate data. This complaint has already been raised before by multiple people, yet you continue on with your propaganda. WTF?

You all (yes you Pralay, and you bob, and Crossroads and who else did I leave out?) really should know better than to feed the troll. Haven’t you figured out that every article the troll ever posts always proves the opposite of the claim? It’s part of the game, just like he implies he lives in Palo Alto (but since he seems to know nothing about any particular neighborhood…) or drives a Porsche or whatever. I’m sure he’s chuckling over getting you to “bite” again. Stop it. Now.

|————–|
| DO NOT |
| FEED THE |
| TROLL! |
|————–|

Now I know while designing God forgot to add intelligence on another person. Not so intelligent design then.

Yes, I am going to buy as soon as I can, because the PITI on the house I want is $100 less than the rent on my 1-bedroom apartment in the SFO airport flightpath. It’s not a question of getting my own personal piggy bank – believe it or not, it actually is a question of value. Oakland is a great value right now.

Ben Stein mentioned about a month ago that we should save all the big banks at all cost. I’m not sure if I agree with his line of thinking.

he’s right sometimes. but not always.

he funded a movie about intelligent design – he does not believe in evolution. maybe he believes in faith based real estate economics.

One more ‘Spring Bouce’! The funny thing is that RealEstater did not even bother to refer to the data/report he is pointing.

Let’s look at the CNN/Money report with title “Pending home sales up 6.3%; prices seen falling”. Falling? You got to be kidding! We are talking about S-P-R-I-N-G B-O-U-N-C-E!

Ok, forget title and let’s read the article. First para:

The number of homes under contract to be sold rose unexpectedly in April as buyers went bargain hunting, according to a report released Monday.

Bargain hunting? What? There is no price drop. Where is this f***ing “bargain” coming from?

3rd para:

Despite the increase, April’s reading remains down 13.1% from the same period last year, and off 29% from the index’s peak in April 2005.

13% drop from last year’s April? Does not matter. All that matters is it is higher than last March. That’s called “Spring Bounce”! I simply don’t understand why media has to compare with last years’ April number. Last year is gone – past, history. Hence last year’s data is irrelevant.

Let’s go farther down:

And NAR revised its existing home price outlook for 2008 downward. The group’s June projections see prices falling 6.4% by the end of the year; in May it said 2008 prices would fall by 2.4%.

Unbelievable! Now NAR is getting influenced by media spin and predicting more pessimistic outlook.

Bottomline, it’s all media’s fault.

40% off? so what. Homes in Oakland were 150k or under when I moved here 8 years ago, and were so until more recently. 40% off means there’s probably another 20-30% left to go.I wouldn’t be giddy about buying a house in the part of Oakland you’re referring to because there’s a good reason why that area is having such a reduction in prices. That’s just my advice though. I assume you’re gonna’ buy a house as soon as you can anyway.

Spring Bounce? What we’re really dealing with here is the fact that for the last 2 years, each successive month was the “worst on record”. March was the worst. ever. We’re dealing with a MASSIVE amount of foreclosures, fire sales, massive price reductions in places like Oakland, Manteca, and Stockton. Hell- there were 3 “Bank owned” houses in my neighborhood that were open this weekend, and I live in one of those “good” neighborhoods ( Alameda).

So ya, I wouldn’t be surprised that some people are in fact buying. A huge chunk of those sales are foreclosures or bottom of the barrel scraper homes.

RE shills are reading this the wrong way. It does not mean that suddenly, RE is going to appreciate. The supply is still at a 11.5 month supply. Home prices are still falling rapidly, and less money is available for loans. SO yes- prices are falling, which for those of you who think that any sort of bounce is your savior are delusional. We will see further price reductions, and yes- appreciation will not be happening until that supply is knocked in half, which at the current rate won’t be until late 2009, 2010.

The spring bounce proves nothing other then that when prices fall, people will buy, and that early on, there’s a large number of hand-wringing knife catchers.It doesn’t mean that the good ole days are back. sorry.

Check out this article by one of the experts on Yahoo Finance:

http://finance.yahoo.com/expert/article/yourlife/86643

It basically agrees with everything I’ve been saying here. Check out these quotes:

1. appreciation even after the recent correction, has been dramatic. By my rough measurement, the gains since 1990 here in Southern California have been by at least a factor of three. That is, homes that were selling for roughly $400,000 in 1990 would be selling for about $1,200,000.

2. In addition, the owners got the benefits of imputed rent, tax deductions, and no tax at all on the imputed rent, which is really a benefit.

3. Residential real estate can not be counted out as a smart investment or maybe even as the smartest one you’ll make.

4. Even if you buy at the peak, if you wait long enough, you will generally make out well.

5. in today’s low interest rate world, the interest rate on the mortgage is almost surely higher than the interest on your savings, so that you will in effect earn higher interest by paying off your indebtedness than by keeping it in a savings account or money market or a CD.

This particular house already is off 40% from where it was in ‘05, and it has already seen at least 4 bids. It’s a tossup whether I’ll even get it at its current price.

Here’s the April (monthly) DQ/San Francisco stats. Some up, some down.

Community Zip Sales % Chg Median Price % Chg High Price $/SqFt % Chg
San Francisco 94102 16 -36.0% $585,000 6.6% $861,500 n/a n/a
San Francisco 94103 24 300.0% $682,500 1.1% $1,660,500 n/a n/a
San Francisco 94105 60 361.5% $660,500 -26.6% $3,300,000 n/a n/a
San Francisco 94107 48 -2.0% $675,000 -10.0% $1,974,000 $670 -10.9%
San Francisco 94108 3 -40.0% $479,558 -33.9% $1,400,000 n/a n/a
San Francisco 94109 33 26.9% $785,000 -4.3% $2,400,000 n/a n/a I lived here long ago, it’s a mix of Western Addition and some Pacific Heights
San Francisco 94110 30 11.1% $800,000 -11.8% $1,725,000 $693 7.0%
San Francisco 94111 7 40.0% $665,000 -24.0% $1,190,000 n/a n/a
San Francisco 94112 45 -29.7% $610,000 -12.9% $925,000 $513 3.7%
San Francisco 94114 36 125.0% $1,100,000 -15.4% $5,625,000 $945 -8.1%
San Francisco 94115 18 -41.9% $895,000 16.8% $4,200,000 $840 -1.9% This is Presidio Heights/Laurel
San Francisco 94116 29 7.4% $752,000 -6.0% $1,995,000 $560 -18.5%
San Francisco 94117 15 -59.5% $875,000 16.6% $2,800,000 $2,280 173.0%
San Francisco 94118 27 92.9% $1,375,000 11.3% $9,500,000 $898 3.4%
San Francisco 94121 19 5.6% $1,039,000 15.5% $1,584,500 $613 3.1% I think this one’s north of downtown
San Francisco 94122 30 25.0% $828,000 3.6% $2,350,000 $629 0.2%
San Francisco 94123 26 18.2% $1,485,000 -5.4% $5,050,000 $1,150 -25.5% This is Marina, a zip I would have expected to stay in the RBA
San Francisco 94124 12 -45.5% $486,750 -28.8% $1,200,000 $436 -7.2%
San Francisco 94127 14 -26.3% $1,220,500 -3.9% $2,200,000 $756 1.0%
San Francisco 94131 27 -22.9% $952,250 -1.6% $2,200,000 $771 -20.6%
San Francisco 94132 15 36.4% $673,500 1.7% $1,320,000 $530 -2.2%
San Francisco 94133 6 -40.0% $700,000 -23.9% $1,000,000 n/a n/a
San Francisco 94134 18 -50.0% $540,000 -0.6% $630,000 $406 -19.1%

Run that by me again about San Francisco real estate being bulletproof?

Well, you guys can talk about the BA’s economy being bulletproof, but I remember 2000-2002 and it wasn’t pretty.