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There was plenty of evidence out there that things were going to start going sour--if one examined the data with a scintilla of objectivity. The luck part for me was that I was ready to "cash out" right at that moment. Which I did.
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Lived in Wyoming for several great years. I hated to leave there, but I could see that I was going to be working in Colorado for an extended period, so I sold out up there. I was convinced that the area I was in was set for a tumble in real estate, too. It did--after I left.
Fascinating. That's essentially what my spouse and I did, too, but hey, we're just chumps out to ruin Colorado for the natives (whatever that means), right? Seems to me that we have a lot in common, since you did essentially the same thing my peers and I did, but apparently our $#%& stinks and yours doesn't.
Fascinating. That's essentially what my spouse and I did, too, but hey, we're just chumps out to ruin Colorado for the natives (whatever that means), right? Seems to me that we have a lot in common, since you did essentially the same thing my peers and I did, but apparently our $#%& stinks and yours doesn't.
Except for that HALF-CENTURY I lived in Colorado before I went to Wyoming for a few years. (By the way, my house in Wyoming was about 25 miles from the Colorado/Wyoming state line, too . . . )
Good thing my ex-wife doesn't post here on this board--she is more rabid than me, I think. She traced her Colorado lineage back to somewhere around 1870. My family was considered "newcomers" to her.
Except for that HALF-CENTURY I lived in Colorado before I went to Wyoming for a few years. (By the way, my house in Wyoming was about 25 miles from the Colorado/Wyoming state line, too . . . )
All right you two, this isn't the Colorado Native über alles thread. If it were, some American Indian would probably be in here telling all of us to get our little pink butts out 'cause we're ruining the buffalo hunting with our subdivisions and interstate highways.
I can see it from both sides. Someone who grew up in CO isn't going to appreciate having the insane effects of the left coast property mania transported into his backyard. The people doing that are going to be naturally associated with causing an asset inflation that exceeds local means to keep up.
OTOH, if you're someone that came up in the middle of the CA mania, and then finally figured out that something was very wrong and you got out in time with a windfall, well, you gotta go somewhere to escape the insanity. But if you got to that somewhere in CO and moved your family of four plus his/hers Hummers into a 5,000 square foot McMansion with 200amp main service to run the multiple plasma TVs and hot tubs, don't be surprised when the locals look at you like Martian invaders from War of the Worlds coming to take over the planet.
All right you two, this isn't the Colorado Native über alles thread. If it were, some American Indian would probably be in here telling all of us to get our little pink butts out 'cause we're ruining the buffalo hunting with our subdivisions and interstate highways.
OTOH, if you're someone that came up in the middle of the CA mania, and then finally figured out that something was very wrong and you got out in time with a windfall, well, you gotta go somewhere to escape the insanity. But if you got to that somewhere in CO and moved your family of four plus his/hers Hummers into a 5,000 square foot McMansion with 200amp main service to run the multiple plasma TVs and hot tubs, don't be surprised when the locals look at you like Martian invaders from War of the Worlds coming to take over the planet.
Bob, with all due respect, where the heck did you get the idea that west coasters are like that? Of the dozens of former Californians I've met since moving here, none of them fit that description, not even the one who doesn't have to work anymore. Believe it or not, Californians did not set out to destroy the Colorado housing market. The vast majority of us were simply in the right place at the right time and have used our good fortune to obtain a much more financially-secure life than we had on the west coast.
Seriously, I give up. There is no countering the deeply-ingrained & grievously-misconceived biases that both you and Jazzlover have apparently adopted about non-native Coloradoans, particularly those who hail from California. I'm tired of being maligned. I've been called a chump, a real estate john (as in prostitution), & an equity locust, and I don't have the energy to defend myself and my fellow transplants anymore. Enjoy having the last word.
Last edited by formercalifornian; 05-13-2008 at 12:31 AM..
I can't speak for Bob & Jazz, but I know this about myself. Whenever I find myself putting someone down or engaging in name calling, it's just my ego feeling threatened, and I think that most people can see right thru me.
When I'm on the receiving end of the name calling, I recognize it as the problem of the name caller. What someone else thinks of me is none of my business!
BTW, I'm glad that you found a better life in Colorado. I applaud your good fortune at being in the right place at the right time with regard to California real estate. I experienced a bit of that myself, having my Virginia Beach home triple in value. It took 15 years for that to happen. Not exactly get rich quick, but not too shabby either. I was also lucky with the timing of the sale, which took place about 6 months on the downside of the peak. I probably could have gotten an additional $10,000 if I'd have sold 6 months earlier..but who knows. I haven't lost any sleep over it. As it worked out, I got a full price offer after just 2 days on the market. My timing had nothing to do with the anticipation of a real estate bubble. Such a thought never entered my mind. It was pure luck that I was ready to move at that time. Two years later, prices in Virginia Beach have dropped only slightly if at all, BUT, the 2 day full price offers are a thing of the past. I was lucky, lucky, lucky! It had little to do with my knowledge about this, that, and the other thing.
In my experience, life is alot like sports. Rarely does the best team win. A good team with some lucky breaks usually ( but not always ) ends up beating a much better team in the playoffs. My hat is off to you for being on the receiving end of a lucky break. I hope you have many more.
BTW..I'm not one of the MacMansioners, nor do I advocate that kind of lifestyle. I bought a 28 yr old, 1950 sf home.
Last edited by CosmicWizard; 05-13-2008 at 08:41 AM..
Bob, with all due respect, where the heck did you get the idea that west coasters are like that? Of the dozens of former Californians I've met since moving here, none of them fit that description, not even the one who doesn't have to work anymore. Believe it or not, Californians did not set out to destroy the Colorado housing market. The vast majority of us were simply in the right place at the right time and have used our good fortune to obtain a much more financially-secure life than we had on the west coast.
Seriously, I give up. There is no countering the deeply-ingrained & grievously-misconceived biases that both you and Jazzlover have apparently adopted about non-native Coloradoans, particularly those who hail from California. I'm tired of being maligned. I've been called a chump, a real estate john (as in prostitution), & an equity locust, and I don't have the energy to defend myself and my fellow transplants anymore. Enjoy having the last word.
Well, first, I'm not a native Coloradoan myself. In fact...I'm not even a Coloradoan at all for a few more weeks. But I'm about to transplant a lifetime of wealth accumulation into the state and live "like noone else" myself. Inconspicuously, I hope. If you've ever read the book The Millionaire Next Door, that's my model...if you haven't, I recommend it right after Dave Ramsey's books. But I know a couple transplants that live in humungous McMansions in the Kings Deere subdivision in northern COS (sorry Charles, not referring to you) that are poster kids for conspicuous transplanted California housing bubble wealth. Of course it might really be conspicuous extracted MEW debt by now, judging by all the new BMWs, boats and RVs.
I lived in SoCal for 5 years, and experienced the nuttiness there firsthand, although nothing like the wave of complete insanity that swept through there in the mid 2000s. Of course a Coloradoan moving into California pays big property taxes on the bubblicious value of his California Crackerbox, while the old-money native Californians are hiding behind their Prop 13 tax shield. Maybe that's the answer...native Coloradoans lock themselves into low tax rates and stick the rest of the bill to those im'grant ter'rists.
You're saying Californians aren't "like that." I'm saying there are a lot more of them "like that" than just the one you personally know. Especially if you grew up and live somewhere like Vail. You say Californians did not set out to destroy the Colorado housing market. I'm saying that I know that and agree, but bubble equity transplanters still did a lot of damage to the affordability of housing in the CO market whether they intended it or not, and the natives can't be expected to like that.
Add to that the terrific damage done by bubbleland speculators who used their illusory equity wealth to backstop leveraged speculative house-flipping in Colorado even while they lived out of state, and it's hard to expect the natives not to have hard feelings.
Think of it like winning the lottery in Sodom and Gomorrah, and then having the good sense to escape. Maybe it's best the people in the new neighborhood not know all the details of where your big wampum come from...
Since the title of this thread is "Real Estate Market / Inflation / Recession / Depression," let me put this whole native/transplant thing in perspective. Since the first European settlers came into Colorado, the people of this state have had an uneasy and sometimes quite unfriendly relationship with out-of-state wealth pouring into the state. Colorado's silver mining boom started with a few independent miners scratching out some minerals from Colorado's reluctant earth. It was called "hardscrabble" mining because it was a tough existence. So, those miners gladly welcomed, at first, the influx of Eastern wealth and capital into the mining industry. In pretty short order, though, those "capitalists" became "carpetbaggers"--hiring miners at pittance wages to work under deplorable conditions. Nearly all of the profits of the enterprise were exported from the state. That led to the rise of the union movement in the state and lot of bitter labor strife ensued. (Now, I'm not a huge fan of big labor these days, but it's easy to see how the labor movement got started when you look at the abuses of that era in Colorado and elsewhere.) In the end, the mine owners overplayed their hand in the silver markets, and those excesses--in part--were responsible for the repeal of the Sherman Silver Purchase Act in 1893, which sent Colorado into a decades-long depression.
At the same time, enterprising Colorado entrepreneurs were responsible for the beginnings of Colorado's then extensive rail transportation system. Like the mines, though, the state's railroads shortly came under the control of Eastern capitalists, and then began a decades-long "public-be-damned" attitude toward Colorado's transportation needs by those out-of-state interests.
From those two escapades alone emerged a long-time distrust of out-of-state interests by native Coloradans. Modern day Coloradans have seen plenty of that same type of shenanigans, too. Time and again, locally-started companies and enterprises have fallen into the hands of out-of-state interests, only to see those interests ignore Colorado's interests. It's happened so many times in my life that I couldn't even count them.
The last straw for a lot of we native Coloradans has now come in the form of out-of-state money pouring into the real estate markets, inflating values and living costs for people who have spent their whole lives here--with those natives often making many of the attendant financial sacrifices to do so. So, for many old-line Coloradans, it's just the latest in a long line of abuses they have had to endure from outside interests.
It is true that some Coloradans have benefited from this--some greatly, maybe everybody a little bit--but it has come at high, some would say unpayable price: the desecration of unspoiled vistas, the destruction of innumerable farms and ranches, the loss of solitude and open spaces, the unraveling of the "small-town" social fabric--worst of all, an increasing worship of material wealth and its trappings with no regard to the incomparable beauty of Colorado and no regard for what havoc that self-centered hedonism is actually wreaking on the natural beauty of the place.
Maybe all the people and wealth pouring into Colorado, especially in the last 20 years or so, has been a good thing economically, but it has exacted a huge price on the quality of life here for those of us who think that Colorado was every bit as beautiful without all of that "stuff." I really can't blame the folks, from wherever they came, who can't understand that. How could they understand something that they never knew?
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