Congratulations to my man on his awesome raise and promotion. YOU WIN, BUDDY!! You’re the winner!
My boss is sitting in the cube next to mine fretting about how she can’t buy a house and the real estate market and how this one house is $750,000 and so on. Which is just stupid. I read an article in the paper today about how the bubble is getting ready to burst, which sucks for owners, not so much for renters. Glad we are in the latter category for now. Basically it means that people who in the past couple years have wiped themselves out buying an overpriced SF house are about to see its value plummet, finally.
But then they’ve been saying that for awhile, and housing prices keep getting higher and higher every single month here. Can’t keep climbing forever in a soft economy and with Republicans in charge and a $trillions of debt. Gonna be a big real estate crash. Mark my words. Especially given that record numbers of people are buying these houses using these no down payment interest only loans. Which they are forced to do because really, most people don’t have $100,000 cash just lying around.
Anyway, on to less boring topics. Le Weekend! Husband has to work Saturday and Sunday. BOOOOOO. But I will hopefully bring him comfort by baking something good and making the famous oatmeal. While he’s off toiling in the world of digital publishing, I’ll probably be exercising, organizing the linen closet (whee!), reading, and watching the White Sox beat the Cubs some more.
Last night was the last French Class for this term. It was great. We spent the whole time just conversing in French, which is my favorite part of class anyway — speaking. I’ll miss my teacher. But he is teaching a one-day course on prepositions next Saturday, and lord knows I need help with that. I went ahead and bought those two superior French textbooks. I got them from amazon.fr and they were half as expensive as their American imports. Odd.
After class I decided to stop in at Sephora and get a bunch of samples. I ended up getting shampoo, conditioner, and hair paste (“Dirt”) samples of Jonathan Product, which is that guy from that Bravo show “Blow Out.” I know, I know. But I decided why not give it a shot, and free samples! It all has a very nice fragrance (sort of almond-ish) and I tried out the Dirt on my hair this morning.
I liked it a lot. Who knew? But will I spend $26 on a can of it? Hmm. It would last me over a year I bet…
Gay Pride Parade is also this weekend. I may skip the parade and just wander the Castro instead, possibly running into a few pals.
Housing prices are ridiculous here too (near NYC). Our house value has gone up over $100,000 since we bought it 2 years ago! RIDICULOUS!
Felicitations, cherie. J’ai aucune idee comment faire les accents sur cette ordinature, mais j’amerais juste dire que je suis tres content que tu a pris ce cours du francais.
I don’t actually think we’re going to see a precipitous drop in housing here in the Bay area. It’s a simple, “what the market will bear” phenomenon. As long as there are people who can afford to pay three quarters of a million for a two bedroom, 800-square-foot house in the Berkeley Hills, that’s where housing prices are going to stay. So assuming the economy doesn’t fall apart, it’s not going to change that much. Prices may not continue to climb as they have over the past two or three years, but they aren’t going to drop. Unless, of course, we get a big earthquake. Which could happen.
Friends of mine, who are real estate brokers, pooh-poohed the whole notion that the “zero down, interest only” people are going to be fucked. Certainly, there will be a small percentage of those people whose situations change and are thus unable to continue to pay their mortgages, but even they can cash out any equity they may have in the house with a second mortgage and be okay. The only people who would be screwed under that scenario are people who bought a house that lost value, or stayed flat. And so far, that hasn’t happened.
Still, I’d never consider buying here unless I hit the lottery or something.
yeah, I agree w/ this prediction.. I’ve been researching this (housing prices in SF) a bunch recently.. and I don’t think there will be a price crash with people stuck in negative equity situtations.. right now, houses are still going for $20k – $100k _over_ asking price.. bottom line is.. if you have the money.. it prob makes sense to buy because in 10 years, it will be worth more than you bought it for.. but it prob won’t have the same type of growth seen in the past..
if you have the money.
Yeah but a lot of these people don’t have the money, the banks have it. A friend of mine was going to buy in SF with no down payment, AND she and her boyfriend were going to borrow from their *retirement funds* JUST to cover closing costs! That seems like insanity to me. You end up in debt up to your eyeballs, just praying that even the smallest correction doesn’t occur.
Meanwhile there are still places all over the country where the middle class can still buy a house and actually live to pay for it. Just not here.
yeah… 5-year fixed loans are a good way to end up really screwing yourself over.. if your friend was tight on money, they prob offered them a 5-year fixed loan.. which means they have smaller monthly payments for the first 5-years in which they just pay the intrest on the loan.. and then after the first 5 years they start actually paying for the house.. at which point the monthly payments jump up like 2 – 4 times what they were.. and if you can’t pay that much.. well.. guess what.. you don’t even own shit, because all you were paying for those 5 years was intrest on a loan you can’t afford.. =( Yes. insanity.
Well, no, not exactly. In five years, you’ve built up equity in the house, even if you’ve only been paying interest to date, as the house is worth more than you paid for it.
The very worst that will happen is that the market will flatten. It won’t drop, not here. There’s too great a demand. And if there’s demand, it won’t even flatten, it’ll continue to rise to meet the demand. So, like I said, barring an earthquake or a significant national economic downturn, housing prices will continue to rise here, but maybe not as dramatically as they have in the last couple of years.
There’s a ceiling, but who knows where it is? It exists only when the market reaches a point that people are no longer willing to spend the kind of money they have to spend in order to live here, and frankly, five years ago, no one would have predicted the housing prices we’re seeing today.
If I had the money, I’d definitely buy in Oakland right now, because that’s the only area close to SF that has yet to see significant gentrification, but it’s gonna happen.
just about a yaer ago, i spent about $26 on a serum by Keratase that i LOVE. it makes my hear all smooth and silky and it only takes a little bit. i’ve never regretted that purchase.