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its different in every situation .... around here i can get some cheap real estate if im willing to have a 25 minute commute but in town here where theres a shortage of housing it costs more... half the houses get rented toncollege students and the other half are newer more expensive... i pay 515 to rent but it would easily cost 900 to own something factoring in taxes insurance utilities.... not including sudden ownership related expenses and upkeep. if i married though i would not want to rent forever...
i dont see huge increases in home prices from here... already have a stock and bond bubble going on...
Property was dear to the founders... many ventured to into the unknown, crossed the ocean never to see family and friends again for the chance to "Own"
I come from a long line of family dairy farmers on one side and the land is "Everything" and was instilled as far back as I can remember the I needed to work, save money so I could buy a house...
Being right out of college in my early 20's and owning my own home was one of the greatest feelings ever... never mind it was a shack scheduled for a condemnation on a 25 x 100 lot built in 1911 in East Oakland CA... it was mine and I paid cash and still own it today.
What would the founders have said about things like zoning, NIMBYism, minimum lot sizes, no/low/smart growth policies?
I found my dream shack online in the Bay Area in 1996, it was listed at only $122,222.
In the '90s I found a zombie house that was targeted for condemnation; the owner would sell it on contract and the buyer would be given time (like six months) to bring up to code....buyer would default, property would revert to seller, who would sell to a different buyer...
I tried but the seller was rigid on price and terms, so I gave up, eventually he ran out of buyers and the house came tumbling down.
What would the founders have said about things like zoning, NIMBYism, minimum lot sizes, no/low/smart growth policies?
Don't know how many plan to rent forever... all I can say is I doubt I could go back after owning...
I found my dream shack online in the Bay Area in 1996, it was listed at only $122,222.
In the '90s I found a zombie house that was targeted for condemnation; the owner would sell it on contract and the buyer would be given time (like six months) to bring up to code....buyer would default, property would revert to seller, who would sell to a different buyer...
I tried but the seller was rigid on price and terms, so I gave up, eventually he ran out of buyers and the house came tumbling down.
Some day I will have to see where I put the pictures of my first home... I know several had gag reflexes when they first saw it...
I was the cheapest home on the MLS at the time... contractor special listed at 30k and I walked away... and it was occupied by a squatter.
Realtor kept calling with the condemnation hearing coming up... she asked for an offer and I said not interested... she then asked if I would I pay 25k, 20k then 15k? I told her know... pressing me... I said I would not even consider it unless it was somewhere between 11 and 12k... she said fine... and added ALL CASH AS-IS and wrote the offer... and took my deposit check of $100.
The next day she called to congratulate me
It was the beginning of a great relationship... she would call whenever she had a "Special" home with problems which meant not eligible for any type of lender financing...
For me there is no looking back... I had my lifesaving's on the line and my days for renting were over...
Isn't it just awesome to have a Constitution and a body of law of the property owners, by the property owners, and for the property owners?
It IS awesome. And what our founding fathers so mightily fought for. They came from a place that kept them from acquiring and keeping property. So protecting that property that they worked so hard for was very important to them.
It is also important to me. And I'll fight just as hard to maintain a system that keeps those that have NOT worked for what I have acquired from taking it from me. Whether it's the actual property or the value that the property holds, I will never let the lazy, entitled and poorly prepared decide, after I have my property, that they somehow should have it.
For the equity markets - yes, I do indeed figure expected return based on 120-year stats when available, otherwise the longest I can find.
And no, I don't mind specifying the 120 year time frame in future discussions, although I won't go into detail in this post as to why I believe this is a better metric than the last 10/20/30 yrs, despite the fact that barring a technological singularity I'm unlikely to live that long. You may disagree with me, but please be civil.
Finally, the total return on housing is positively auto-correlated up to periods around 5 years*, and negatively autocorrelated for longer periods (again looking at Case-Shiller for the last 120 years). For stocks, the cross-over between positive and negative auto-correlation is less than one year. This means that over a 10-year holding period, the effective beta for housing relative to stocks is much larger than for a 1-year period. For non-flippers, the one year period is too short to be relevant. Thus, housing as an investment doesn't look as rosy once you account for its 10-year beta rather than one-year beta.
*For stocks, total return has two components - dividends and capital appreciation. For real estate, there is also capital appreciation and "dividends". The "dividend" of a house is the market rental value minus the non-purchase costs of ownership (taxes, insurance, maintenance, repairs, renovation, HOA fees, any utilities that would be included in rent, etc.)
So for the equity market what names have you ever invested in that are trading below their 120 year average value?
What would the founders have said about things like zoning, NIMBYism, minimum lot sizes, no/low/smart growth policies?
I found my dream shack online in the Bay Area in 1996, it was listed at only $122,222.
In the '90s I found a zombie house that was targeted for condemnation; the owner would sell it on contract and the buyer would be given time (like six months) to bring up to code....buyer would default, property would revert to seller, who would sell to a different buyer...
I tried but the seller was rigid on price and terms, so I gave up, eventually he ran out of buyers and the house came tumbling down.
You really gave me a laugh this morning. You can barely afford a room in a ramshackle house, but somehow you could have scraped together the money for these mystical "deals".
I'd also add that in regards to your inquiry about investing in education or employment, the analogy is much less perfect since you cannot liquidate either of them or make a large lump sum investment - at best the initial investment is spread out over a few years. Furthermore, it's much murkier to determine the amount of the initial investment, since it includes not just tuition or training fees, but also foregone income (unless it is a paid internship with comparable pay and benefits to currently available job alternatives).
To be fair, if you invest in real estate by doing a lot of work yourself and putting in "sweat equity", your initial investment also must include the foregone income associated with working on the house instead of doing the same job for someone else and getting paid for it.
We are talking about spending money vs historic valuations. If it's not "perfect" that's fine and that's life.
Yea... that's what was said.
You go out of your way to not "get it"
As another renter, I don't "get it" either, and frankly quite insulted to be called "dumb". Maybe we just have different priorities. All I know is I pay less than $800 a month to live on the beach in a town where summer rentals on the beach average $5,000-$10,000 per week. When it snows, a plow comes by and clears our lot, and the maintenance guy comes and shovels the stairs. When my dishwasher breaks, I call the landlord and have another one within 2 days. When my heat goes out, I call the plumber who comes and fixes it, yet I never see a bill. I don't pay property taxes. My cheap rent combined with no taxes means I can save a couple thousand a month toward my future. If that's "dumb", I guess I am, and am quite happy anyway.
So for the equity market what names have you ever invested in that are trading below their 120 year average value?
Another question associated with this do you feel you are better off estimating expected returns off of a 120 average or say 10-20 year? I would make a fairly large wager equity returns over the next coupe of decades will be well under the 100+ year average
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