491–500 of 543 posts
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Uh, no, 1% isn’t not a low tax rate when’s starter single family home in the Bay Area is $1M.
Californian valuations are fixed in their increases by prop 13, so over time your property taxes will go down, restive to inflation at least.
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If you look at SF market history, you see mostly rapid growth with short term declines from peaks which are quickly erased. Is there risk? Sure, but its hard to find a 5-10 year period where you lose even if you hit the bottom of one of the drops, which are usually only a year or two from the peak.
10 years to recover from 2006 peak, not adjusting for inflation. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/SFXRSA
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I often remark that SF and the valley are a flawed democratic institution: it has a very high immigrant population that would vote against the majority of things that get voted. Immigrants are generally tough on crime, Yimby, anti-tax, etc.
Really? I’m an immigrant and I wish taxes were higher so we could get healthcare and more help for the homeless
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My grandparents bought their house on the SJC - Los Gatos border for $30k in 1968. It sold in 2019 for $1.4M. That's what piggyback second mortgages are for. There are also subsidized loans for first-time buyers in the US called FHA loans that allow 3.5% to 10% down payments.
> $30k in 1968. It sold in 2019 for $1.4M. and the same $30k invested in the S&P 500 in 1968 would have earned you 186x - or $5,580,000 (using http://www.moneychimp.com/features/market_cagr.htm as a guide to calculate returns). And yet, nobody bats an eye that this amazing returns of stocks, and continues to complain that housing prices are too high today, when it was "cheap" in the past. But was it really cheap in t…
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> $30k in 1968. It sold in 2019 for $1.4M. and the same $30k invested in the S&P 500 in 1968 would have earned you 186x - or $5,580,000 (using http://www.moneychimp.com/features/market_cagr.htm as a guide to calculate returns). And yet, nobody bats an eye that this amazing returns of stocks, and continues to complain that housing prices are too high today, when it was "cheap" in the past. But was it really cheap in t…
But I don’t need stocks in order to survive. I do need shelter though. As long as housing is seen as an investment it’s not going to be affordable.
Buying and owning property will always be an investment. If this investment is worth it (aka, it has outsized returns), then it can not be affordable.
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> $30k in 1968. It sold in 2019 for $1.4M. and the same $30k invested in the S&P 500 in 1968 would have earned you 186x - or $5,580,000 (using http://www.moneychimp.com/features/market_cagr.htm as a guide to calculate returns). And yet, nobody bats an eye that this amazing returns of stocks, and continues to complain that housing prices are too high today, when it was "cheap" in the past. But was it really cheap in t…
But you can't live inside stocks. House is not just investment.
I guess my grandparents could've squatted in the Santa Cruz mountains for a while and kept saving to buy stocks. ;-)
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I had thought we were safe out here, a good hour and fifteen minutes from DC in traffic. But remote working has overturned those expectations.
Anecdotally: my house in Oak Park has barely appreciated at all since 2005, but my brother in Bolingbrook --- an hour outside of Chicago --- is making a mint on his house. What's the property tax situation like where you live, versus the inner-ring counties?
Although, parallel to your observation with your brother: my parents’ house in the traditional “rich” Northern VA neighborhood barely appreciated from 2000 to 2018, but prices for houses in areas that were more affordable to begin with have exploded.
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This can only happen if the upper middle class people move away from somewhere else. There has to be some limit to how far away they'll commute to get access to suburban houses, right?
This makes the question of how much covid-era remote work will remain remote (particularly for the highest-paid employees) particularly urgent.
i was born and raised in california. i left a year ago for the midwest. the situation in california is depressing. and im not talking about human poop or homeless people. im talking about jobs, culture and general lifestyle. california is filled with lots of very ugly urban wasteland. its filled with lots and lots of very disadvantaged people, hordes upon hordes of people who might not be homeless but are involved in…
Seems to me like you’re simply describing the average person.
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Fire season is more like hell on earth than paradise, unfortunately.
The primary reason we have a fire season at all is that we don't let people build housing in California's existing cities and towns, and so instead they sprawl out into fire-prone areas requiring long-distance power lines. https://www.nrs.fs.fed.us/news/release/wui-interface-intermi...
That said, power lines do have a tendency to spark fires in remote areas on the windiest days, which is not ideal. But eliminating power lines still wouldn't eliminate brush fires.