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Home Values Are Rising by $800 a Day in San Jose

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Re: Home Values Are Rising by $800 a Day in San Jose

#221

Post by mulmen »

52-6F-62 wrote: post #176
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seattle in the early/mid 90s had a grittier grungier feel. Before that, I remember when the Alaskan ferry docks were still downtown (today they are in Bellevue), it was much more of a lumber jack/plaid/fishing boat feel back then (early 80s and late 70s). Of course, my dad and mom’s impression of Seattle was quite different from mine own, as well. Change is just constant I guess.

The Seattle of Harry and the Hendersons! I visited with my girlfriend in 2015 and stayed in the suburbs where her girlfriend's guy was working for MS. The burbs seemed pretty peaceful and green (older suburb—but I don't know the city). Maybe they were in Redmond proper. It was a beautiful area, and I could definitely live with that. It's too bad it's pricing people out like that. We were there only too briefly so we…

Contrary to popular opinion I actually enjoy living in Seattle so I’m not interested in moving anywhere. The only Canadian cities that appeal to me are cities like Seattle so a move wouldn’t make much sense.

If I left Seattle (and the US) it would be for something completely different like Taipei.

I’m also a bit too patriotic to move out of the US while I can still build a life here.

Re: Home Values Are Rising by $800 a Day in San Jose

#222

Post by acchow »

zxcmx wrote: post #149
acchow wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have evidence of this?

You will find it hard to unearth genuine evidence to either support or disprove this hypothesis. Got anything against? Usually you will find the data you might want is "not collected". It is not in anyone's interest to figure out how much bubbles are propped up by foreign money.

> Got anything against?

I live in San Francisco. No one I know has any belief about any units being unoccupied. All the Chinese people I meet here are working.

It is unlike the anecdotes I hear from friends living in Vancouver.

Re: Home Values Are Rising by $800 a Day in San Jose

#223

Post by ghaff »

Bartweiss wrote: post #201
jrs95 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe Colorado should implement some of what Hunter S. Thompson had in his platform for Sheriff of Aspen: 1. Rip up all city streets with jackhammers and sod the streets at once.... All public movement would be by foot and a fleet of bicycles, maintained by the city police force. 2. Change the name 'Aspen', by public referendum, to 'Fat City'. This would prevent greedheads, land-rapers and other human jackals from ca…

I don't think Thompson and Ed Abbey ever met, but they'd have hit it off quite well. (Or killed each other, I suppose.) Points 1, 2, and 4 remind me of nothing so much as Abbey's stance on protecting the national parks: avoiding regulation via personal responsibility and barriers on idle, disinteresting consumption. As I remember, his plan for the Grand Canyon was to put the last parking lot 5+ miles from the Canyon,…

Denali has also mostly prohibited private cars including for people staying deep in the park. (Unlike the Zion canyon where you can still drive to the lodge.) The park service has introduced shuttle buses in a number of places. It seems to be their general trend to at least stop building additional parking to meet increases in demand.

Re: Home Values Are Rising by $800 a Day in San Jose

#224

Post by rubicon33 »

rpearl wrote: post #60
rubicon33 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're in it for the long haul, then it was a very wise decision. The bay area, specifically San Francisco, is one of the best real estate purchases anyone can make. It's geographically constrained and has historically shown to gain value over the past 100 years CONSISTENTLY. There will be some small bumps in the road here or there, but when you look back in 20, or 30 years, I can almost guarantee you're going to…

The fact that real estate is so fundamentally an investment here (in the US/in the western world) is a deep underlying part of the problem. I agree - this person made the right decision, from their point of view, and it will be a good return on investment. But I'm definitely sort of existentially disappointed in the sort of social system that makes housing an investment like this.

You and me both brother.

Want to get REALLY depressed? Consider this FACT:

Foreign investors (rich people) can purchase homes in the US (San Francisco), and have no requirement to live in them, or use them. They can be purchased as purely speculative investments and it happens ALL THE TIME.

I spoke with a real estate agent at a major SF firm, and asked them point blank - WHO can afford these insane home prices? He generated a nice little chart for me of the buyers by career. Software Engineers was number 4.

#1 - Foreign Investors (mainly Chinese) #2 - Trust funds #3 - I forget (this was 4 years ago) #4 - Software Engineer

How / why it's legal for foreign investors to hold onto homes that people could be living in is beyond me. It destroys communities, and seriously hurts everyone.

Re: Home Values Are Rising by $800 a Day in San Jose

#225

Post by stevenwoo »

acchow wrote: post #145
aphextron wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I know folks like to point at the big techcos in the area being flush with cash as evidence this can continue a long time. And in a vacuum, wage growth in tech could continue to keep pace, perhaps. But that is 300k in appreciation a year. It's not even about people on tech salaries at this point. Those people are being priced out of the market, too. It's an issue of foreign investment mainly from China either specul…

Have evidence of this?

There are some recent articles about California in general: https://www.sfgate.com/business/article/Chinese-investment-i... and inexpensive areas in California being bought up for mafia marijuana grow houses (which seems incredible in that it's much cheaper in the midwest to buy homes but here we are) http://www.sacbee.com/news/business/article207938184.html

Re: Home Values Are Rising by $800 a Day in San Jose

#226

Post by nshelly »

refurb wrote: post #186
usaar333 wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rents are flat the last three years. Values are up by over 30%. That difference feels speculative..

Looking at the Case-Shiller index for SF, I would agree it looks speculative.[1] SF home prices went from an indexed 219 in Mar 2006, down to 120 in May 2009. That's a 45% decrease over two years. Right now the index is at 259 and that's inflation adjusted. [1] https://alfred.stlouisfed.org/series?seid=SFXRSA

I believe the Case-Shiller index is "seasonally-adjusted", not "inflation-adjusted"[1]. What makes you think it's adjusted for inflation?

[1] https://www.advisorperspectives.com/dshort/updates/2018/03/2...

Re: Home Values Are Rising by $800 a Day in San Jose

#227

Post by [deleted] »

taurath wrote: post #41

I have a pretty large group of generally geek-oriented friends across most of the western US, and tracking their migration patterns has been fascinating - we're basically all 1980's-born millennials. In the 2000's was when we met, those who had grown up there and those who were moving were in the same age group. Only about 40% were college educated or in tech/programming oriented roles. Of those, a small amount has r…

[deleted]

Re: Home Values Are Rising by $800 a Day in San Jose

#228

Post by nshelly »

halbritt wrote: post #42
pxeboot wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree, it seems crazy to buy now. But will we actually see a crash, or just a period of stagnation?

It's pretty straightforward to look at prices throughout the course of the real-bubble and speculate about that fact. A few places along the peninsula had stagnant or slowly rising property values, like Palo Alto. Values in SF either held or declined very little. Places like Oakland lost a little value and Hayward, maybe one of the least desirable areas around the bay regained all of its lost value in just a few year…

Yup, in general investing an equivalent money in stocks is better than leveraging your income to buy an illiquid, non-diversified asset like a single-family home.

From Jan 1987 to Jan 2018, prices in San Francisco MSA have gone up 5.0% a year, ((258.81-46.95)/46.95)^(1/(2018-1987)). The equivalent amount invested in the stocks over that time period would have yielded 10.3% a year[1], with dividends reinvested.

Unless you are planning to use it as an investment property and reinvest rents (net of property tax, maintenance) in other properties, it still doesn't appear clear that buying a home vs renting and investing heavily in the market is a better bet, not to mention other intangibles like upkeep and longer commutes.

[1] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/SFXRSA

[2] https://dqydj.com/sp-500-return-calculator/

Re: Home Values Are Rising by $800 a Day in San Jose

#229

Post by tehlike »

talmand wrote: post #207
tehlike wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing with subprime mortgages is, noone saw it coming. How do you know some other forces are at play in todays market? Forces that may not be true in the blink of an eye? Not saying it is gonna burst, and i see the factors, but theyw ere there in 2008 too.

I lived in Vegas at the time. I saw it for the obvious problem that it was. I told everyone in the area that the bust was going to happen, but everyone was blinded by the money they were making. The shock people had was both amusing and disturbing at the same time. Funny somewhat related story; just as the downslide started in that market we made an offer on a house 50k below asking. The owner, an investor, laughed a…

I hear the same sentiment from realtors these days. Everyone drank the bay area real estate doesnt ever drop koolaid, in the long run, it might be true, in the short run, they probably have no clue, just busy selling their business.

I hear "low inventory, high demand" all the time, and while it is true, the part that most people ignore is, it is still possible that older buyers still have a ton of profit, while recent buyers can be under water

Re: Home Values Are Rising by $800 a Day in San Jose

#230

Post by mclehman »

acchow wrote: post #222
zxcmx wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You will find it hard to unearth genuine evidence to either support or disprove this hypothesis. Got anything against? Usually you will find the data you might want is "not collected". It is not in anyone's interest to figure out how much bubbles are propped up by foreign money.

> Got anything against? I live in San Francisco. No one I know has any belief about any units being unoccupied. All the Chinese people I meet here are working. It is unlike the anecdotes I hear from friends living in Vancouver.

> All the Chinese people I meet here are working.

To be fair, you wouldn't see Chinese individuals "unoccupying" units.

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