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San Francisco Home Prices Fell for the First Time in Four Years in March

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Re: San Francisco Home Prices Fell for the First Time in Four Years in March

#161

Post by lisper »

gigawhat wrote: post #146

Weirdly, I own a house and think I'd be better off if prices fell-- fell a lot. I bought a few years ago and would be happy if prices uniformly dropped to those levels. Why? I want a 50% bigger/nicer house in the same area. But bigger/nicer houses have increased in price proportionally to mine. So the gap in absolute dollars between what I have and what I want has expanded quite a bit. My income has increased, but no…

It's even worse than that. If your house has appreciated more than $250k (or $500k if you're married) then you have to pay capital gains tax on the rest. And this is a fixed amount regardless of how long you've owned your home, so the longer you stay, and the more your house appreciates, the greater the penalty when you ultimately sell.

Re: San Francisco Home Prices Fell for the First Time in Four Years in March

#162

Post by andersen1488 »

kspaans wrote: post #139
ChuckMcM wrote: post #115

Reaffirming once again that if "nobody can afford to buy them" the actual prices start coming down. A more interesting thing for me however was that owner occupied (which is to say the person buying the house lives there) has not been growing[1]. Instead third parties are buying the houses as investments and renting them. That is a really risky strategy in a place like SF with rent controls as the floor can fall out…

Remember that rent control only applies to buildings built before 1978, so it's not _all_ rent controlled.

It's scary to think that in 20-30 years nearly the entire available housing stock will not be covered by rent control. My landlord wanted to raise my rent 40% in one year here in Oakland until I pointed out the laws. Eventually the entire middle class will just be landless peasants again, allowed to live wherever the rich say that they can.

Re: San Francisco Home Prices Fell for the First Time in Four Years in March

#163

Post by [deleted] »

lisper wrote: post #161
gigawhat wrote: post #146

Weirdly, I own a house and think I'd be better off if prices fell-- fell a lot. I bought a few years ago and would be happy if prices uniformly dropped to those levels. Why? I want a 50% bigger/nicer house in the same area. But bigger/nicer houses have increased in price proportionally to mine. So the gap in absolute dollars between what I have and what I want has expanded quite a bit. My income has increased, but no…

It's even worse than that. If your house has appreciated more than $250k (or $500k if you're married) then you have to pay capital gains tax on the rest. And this is a fixed amount regardless of how long you've owned your home, so the longer you stay, and the more your house appreciates, the greater the penalty when you ultimately sell.

[deleted]

Re: San Francisco Home Prices Fell for the First Time in Four Years in March

#164

Post by geggam »

mywittyname wrote: post #142
pascal1usa wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's theft. People don't explicitly agree to it. It's forced on you. And most taxes don't go towards the advancement of society. Advancement comes from the people and businesses.

This applies to most every law. You never agreed to 99.99% of the laws you're required to follow everyday.

No one follows you around to ensure you follow them.

Rest assured most people dont follow the laws they do know 100% of the time and better yet... No one knows 100% of the laws they are required to follow.

Re: San Francisco Home Prices Fell for the First Time in Four Years in March

#165

Post by zippergz »

eanzenberg wrote: post #137
tortilla wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A bit off topic, but how was your experience with Redfin? I'm thinking of using them.

Took a quick look and their price estimations are dubious at best. In the complex I live in, comparing 2 condos of exact layout and sq footage, same view, sold 4 weeks apart, one on the 2nd floor the other on the 4th: the 2nd floor unit's price 'grew' $20k while the 4th floor unit 'grew' $500. Great job on 2 orders of magnitude error.

The price estimation is not their primary purpose (unlike Zillow, who use their "Zestimate" as a main selling point).

Re: San Francisco Home Prices Fell for the First Time in Four Years in March

#166

Post by kolbe »

stuxnet79 wrote: post #79
adventured wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty incredible bubble price increases, given the growth rate of the Canadian economy. How can that end any other way but in a massive crash? "The average price of a Canadian home hit $508,567 in March, a jump of 15.7 per cent compared to the same month a year earlier." vs "IMF downgrades forecast for Canada's economy in 2016 and 2017" "Canada's GDP will expand by 1.5 per cent this year and by 1.9 per cent next yea…

> Pretty incredible bubble price increases, given the growth rate of the Canadian economy. How can that end any other way but in a massive crash? I don't know sometimes. People have been saying that it's going to crash for the past 7-8 years but the prices just keep going up and up. Right now a lot of people are trying to snap up property before the prices reach impossible heights.

Human psychology is great, isn't it? "X is a worse deal than before---I must buy it now."

Re: San Francisco Home Prices Fell for the First Time in Four Years in March

#167

Post by kspaans »

lisper wrote: post #161
gigawhat wrote: post #146

Weirdly, I own a house and think I'd be better off if prices fell-- fell a lot. I bought a few years ago and would be happy if prices uniformly dropped to those levels. Why? I want a 50% bigger/nicer house in the same area. But bigger/nicer houses have increased in price proportionally to mine. So the gap in absolute dollars between what I have and what I want has expanded quite a bit. My income has increased, but no…

It's even worse than that. If your house has appreciated more than $250k (or $500k if you're married) then you have to pay capital gains tax on the rest. And this is a fixed amount regardless of how long you've owned your home, so the longer you stay, and the more your house appreciates, the greater the penalty when you ultimately sell.

"Penalty", yeah because people have put in sooo much hard work to make their house values go up. (Sure, some people will spend money on renovations, and there could be tax credits for that. But I don't think that sitting on an asset and letting it appreciate should be a free lunch.)

Re: San Francisco Home Prices Fell for the First Time in Four Years in March

#168

Post by nibs »

Mikeb85 wrote: post #151
heynk wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting thought - this NYT article suggests that many wealthy Chinese children are moving to and living in Vancouver. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/13/world/americas/canada-vanc...

The University of BC has an alternate name: University of Beautiful Cars. http://universityofbeautifulcars.tumblr.com You probably don't need me to tell you who owns them...

University of Toronto Mississauga is the same, with respect to overly nice student vehicles.

Re: San Francisco Home Prices Fell for the First Time in Four Years in March

#169

Post by geggam »

From the article you can see its a local equalization in process

While San Francisco had the highest median sale price in the nation at $1,042,500, that number actually fell 1.8% year over year, and declined by 0.7% month over month, an unusual change from February to March. * In neighboring San Jose, prices rose 3% to $860,000 and Oakland rose 5.4% to $590,000

Re: San Francisco Home Prices Fell for the First Time in Four Years in March

#170

Post by heywire »

scurvy wrote: post #93
Domenic_S wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Diversification can include real estate. Besides, it's the leverage. You can buy $625,500 of house with 2.5% down + a monthly payment with a ~4% vig. Nowhere else can you get that kind of money at that kind of rate with ~$16k down. Then if you're smart you invest other money other places to diversify. You can live in house, unlike Vanguard funds. But you should have both.

Where can you buy with 2.5% down? Those days are long gone. Skin in the game and all that.

Not 2.5%, but close, FHA still allows 3.5% down.. but then you're talking MIP and such
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