Housing Prices - Is There Any Hope?

[siliconefreak]

For those of us who have yet to purchase a home, the situation looks bleak in some parts of the country. This story about San Diego is enough to turn a few stomachs:

May 19, 2005: 12:57 PM EDT
By Stephen Gandel, MONEY Magazine

NEW YORK (MONEY Magazine) - Twenty-four-year-old Kelly Pearson says the $580,000 ranch-style house she bought near downtown San Diego last August is a dream come true.

It is nice: 1,450 square feet, four bedrooms, two baths, crown molding, a big kitchen with an island and -- quick! duck! -- a 737 jet descending upon her roof with what feels like 10 feet to spare.

Pearson barely flinches. You see, her half-million-dollar-plus house sits just 1,000 yards from the airport's single runway. She's grown accustomed to the near-constant flybys, even if visitors must resist the urge to dive for cover when a plane thunders down. The low, barreling boom of the FedEx jets, biggest of the bunch, rattles the windows. "Every morning," she says, "10:45 on the dot."

With no savings, and a college loan to repay, Pearson took out a mortgage for 100 percent of the price of the house. Closing costs were paid for by a $10,000 gift from her parents (money first earmarked for her wedding).

More: http://money.cnn.com/2005/05/19/real_estate/re2005_boomtown_0506/

[SouthernDem2004]

1. You have to pay to live in certain areas. Fact o' life.

[BurtWorm]

65. How much do you have to pay?

The housing bubble is all over, including--in fact, especially, in places where it's always been costly to own property. Housing prices are artificially high everywhere, which is making housing developers reluctant to waste their time building affordable housing when they can rake it in building luxury housing.

[Shoeempress]

2. You clearly were not old enough to appreciate the collapse of the

housing bubble in the early '90s. It is bound to happen soon and you will be able to get houses dirt cheap, and yet won't be saddled with unbearable mortgages like many will be.

[UdoKier]

6. Even during that "slump", prices were ridiculous in CA

While my dad was building his custom 3 BR home in a nice new neighborhood with a 1/4 acre lot in El Paso of $70K in 1992, my friend in Encinitas (40 min. north of San Diego) had a house with the same square footage and a tiny yard that was appraised at the time for $400K+.

Now, here in SF you get a 1 BR condo for $400K, if you're lucky.

[Shoeempress]

8. I live in New England, believe me I know. However, foreclosures

do bring down hosing prices.

[UdoKier]

12. I meant to say "tiny yard", not "tiny house"

Another thing that would help with housing prices would be more equitable pay.

As it is now, the rich can buy houses for themselves, plus vacation houses they seldom use, plus rental homes, and drive up the prices for everybody else.

It's a huge factor.

[dcfirefighter]

14. More Equitable Pay

for everyone leaves everyone with more pay to compete for more housing...it just drives the price of land up. Those who have land (and houses) can ask for more.

Since, as of yet, no one can really make more land, higher prices do not encourage producers to produce more, as with commodities and other consumer goods.

The only answer is to tax land value at a higher rate than building value, which takes some wind out of the speculator's sails, and encourages more building (and thus lower prices) in valuable areas. It tends to curb urban sprawl, and increase economic activity.

[Warpy]

15. Part of what is driving those prices is speculation

Even here in flyover country, where prices really haven't gone up that much (median is about 150,000, up from 120,000 ten years ago), one third of all real estate transactions are to "investors."

That translates into a lot of housing being rented out in the hope that a real estate bubble does develop here, unlikely with all the developers slapping up new suburbs all over the place practically overnight.

My guess is that a very good chunk of the California bubble is driven by speculation, not by people being paid enough to afford it. Unless some regulation is passed to distinguish home owners from investors and give the former a break, it's going to continue this way unless the crunch happens.

Paying people enough to afford housing isn't going to fuel more of the bubble, in other words. Continued real estate speculation by fat cats who aren't being sufficiently rewarded by the stock market will.

[ultraist]

16. Investors are helping to drive up prices

Capital gains are down and will go down again. This makes RE investment more enticing. Stocks are expected to drop by at least 15% this year. Doctors, attorneys, and other professionals with good cash flows need to move their money around! I don't expect to see RE speculating to slow this year.

Although, some banks are starting to crack down on types of loans they are giving to investors, they want to push them into commercial loans with shorter terms and higher interest rates. This may slow down green investors a bit since they will no longer be able to capitalize on the good interest rates we have now on home owner loans but investors can simply set up REITS to spread out the risk.

[dcfirefighter]

28. and taxing land this way

takes away much of the speculative benefit of real estate - it's not the house that appreciates, it's the land. As buildings get older, they lose value, it's the land that makes real estate an investment.

[siliconefreak]

17. "tax land value at a higher rate than building value"

Are there any states or cities that do this now?

[dcfirefighter]

29. Several in Pennsylvania

but not by much.

Melbourne, Sydney, and a few others in Australia.
Hong Kong.
Most of the Netherlands at one time, maybe still.
Johannesburg, ZA.
Taiwan.
Possibly to happen in Maryland, this year.
Supported by the greens, some (left) libertarians, and in the UK by one of the non-tory parties (can't remember which, it's not a major platform for them).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_tax

[WatchWhatISay]

44. The slump actually happened from the mid 80's to the early 90's

I used to be a real estate agent during that time.

I just about quit working on taking listings. It was too depressing to go tell someone that their house was worth $50,000 less than they owed on it. Especially when they might have lost a job or found another job that paid a lot less. It is sad watching honorable people face the humiliation that they will likely loose their home to foreclosure.

One word of advice - if mortgage rates start to rise, say over 10%, be wary of those who say they'll never be as low again as they are now. Thats what they told people in the mid 80's, and those who believed it took out some really dangerous loans. That is where most of the foreclosures came from. Some of the loans not only adjusted, say monthly (up, up, up) but early payments were artificially low to attract the buyer to sign on, in hopes that their salaries would rise later. In fact payments were so low, they might not have covered interest payments, so not only was no principal paid, it would actually be increasing along with the interest rate. If the buyers had been forced to actually pay the cost of the loan as they used it, of course, they probably wouldnt have taken out the loan in the first place.

On the other hand, at the low point of the slump, you could buy a forclosed condo or small home cheaper than you could buy a (entry level) BMW.

And we just loved those buyers coming in from California who could buy twice the home here that they had in California, with just the equity that they got out of the sale of their home there.

[formernaderite]

47. I bought a house during that period....

sold it since, and downsized. Made a tidy profit. Know alot of people who wished they'd bought during the last bubble instead of waiting. If you can hang on to a property for ten years, you won't lose your money. Real estate is finite, particularly around solvent and stabile urban centers.

[Burma Jones]

61. Here in the DC area, the 90s slump just meant stagnant prices

for most housing, and a small drop in the million dollar plus homes. What this bubble will bring upon bursting is anybody's guess. But, if the Military realignment goes as planned (highly unlikely) Maryland will gain over 10,000 jobs....

[napi21]

3. Sounds like housing $$ in Ca. have been out of control for a long time.

Not even going back very far, I had an opportunity to take a job in Simi Valley. Before I made my decision, I checked on housing, food, utilities etc. I still have no idea how people there afford ANY house at all! Some areas are worse than others, but even the least expensive are insane!

[Arugula Latte]

21. I know. It's madness.

In the S.F. Bay Area, where I grew up, a crappy house in a crappy area is $350,000. A nice house in a decent area is $800,000 at least.

Even with two income-earners making good salaries, HOW do people afford these mortgages, let alone have anything left over for food, clothes, and medical expenses?

Yet, the housing prices keep going up up up.

(My parents bought a house for $40,000 in an East Bay suburb in '70, sold for $450,000 in '99, bought a house for $540,000 that same year, now it's worth well over a million smackeroos....Doubled in less than six years!)

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

49. When I was a little kid in 1959, my dad bought a house for $4,500

in Madison, Wisconsin. It was a small but cozy three-bedroom on 3/4 acre in a nice area. At the time, he was making about $650 a month as a career military officer in the U.S. Air Force. In other words, in one year, he made more money than the house cost to buy. Now, I wonder how many years of the average salary it's taking to cover the cost of the average house. In fact, I think if a man of average salary were to put his entire salary aside and the family were to try to live on the wife's salary, for example, a person perhaps could not save enough in a year's time to just keep up with housing inflation and eventually be able to buy a house outright.

[alittlelark]

55. Here in Silicon Valley it is higher than that.

We bought during the early 90's and did very well. We are debating whether to sell this summer and rent for 1-2 years until we can finish the sale of our company.

The bubble WILL burst... the question is - when?

[Selatius]

4. Why did she buy that house with no savings and college debt???

[amazona]

19. because if she doesn't buy now she'll never be able to

People who are waiting for prices to fall in San Diego county have been waiting for a very long time. The fact is, location is all in real estate buying, and the price ain't gonna fall in that area because of the desirability of the location and the willingness of the wealthy to pay whatever price they must to be near a sunny California beach. Yeah, she's struggling now, but in 20 years she can probably sell the house at a huge profit -- perhaps as much as she could ever expect to earn in a lifetime of working. The "responsible" citizen paying rent will still be paying rent and will never be a property owner. You have to be willing to take on risk for great reward and that's exactly what she is doing. No one is guaranteed a win, but she has a better chance than the people who refuse to get into the game.

The conservation movement is a breeding ground of communists
and other subversives. We intend to clean them out,
even if it means rounding up every birdwatcher in the country.
--John Mitchell, US Attorney General 1969-72

[jobendorfer]

41. exactly

I'm a native San Diegan. Fled in '84 because I couldn't see how
I was going to buy a $120k - $150k house on my $5/hr after-tax
McJob, knowing it would be a $200k+ house by the time I managed
to maneuver through SDSU and get a real job somewhere.

The scary thing is watching those jets land at Lindbergh.
Holy Moly! I used to go to outdoor plays in Balboa Park.
The actors would dramatically pause as the jets thundered
down on final approach, and I'd swear you could wack the
tires with your theater program as they went by.

J.

[Quixote1818]

43. It's better to buy if you can even if you have some debt in my opinion

If you don't buy you are just flushing money down the drain. If housing goes up 5% over 5 years she is living almost rent free. As long as you think you can sell quickly if you get in a bind owning a home is the way to go.

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

5. In western NJ...

Things seem to have stalled a bit, according to a realtor friend.

It's likely fuel prices, the cost of commuting. It's hurting people out here. A little farther west, in Monroe County PA, there was an article in the paper about how foreclosures had all but swamped the sheriff's department.

It's not a bed of roses out there, no matter how they try to spin things.

[amazona]

20. well in eastern New Jersey

The prices are still crazy, crazy, or at least it looks that way to a humble Southern visitor. Apparently houses on the beach are being sold for a million bucks as tear-downs. Damn.

The conservation movement is a breeding ground of communists
and other subversives. We intend to clean them out,
even if it means rounding up every birdwatcher in the country.
--John Mitchell, US Attorney General 1969-72

[chicagiana]

51. When will the companies learn ...

...

When will the companies learn to move their operation to the midwest. Little cities like Indianapolis, South Bend, Cleveland, etc... can use the business and housing prices are affordable.

Oh yeah, the WATER is affordable too ;-)


I live in Northwest Indiana. The region used to be driven by steel. That has changed. It is becoming yet another Chicago Subarb. Most of the new housing in Porter Co (one county over) is being bought up by people who have previously lived in Chicago and work there.

[ArmchairActivist]

7. check this blog:

www.thehousingbubble.blogspot.com

Lots of interesting commentary and housing bubble related news. Actual rich, money-oriented people post there sometimes, which is interesting in an alien-artifact sort of way.

-AA

[edhopper]

9. The housing market is a bubble

similar to the tech bubble of the 90s. There is big collapse due soon.

[siliconefreak]

10. I sure hope so

Here's the forecast for the next year from one source:

http://money.cnn.com/2005/05/12/real_estate/re2005_100markets_0506/index.htm

[ultraist]

11. Don't hold your breath, there is not a national bubble that will pop

From your CNN link:

The 100 Major Markets

While currently hot real estate markets may cool, don't look for many outright losers just yet.
May 16, 2005: 11:58 AM EDT

NEW YORK (MONEY Magazine) - Home prices across the country will keep rising over the next year. While many hot markets on both coasts could see a dramatic slowdown in their growth rates, the forecasters at housing research firm Case Shiller Weiss aren't predicting outright losers anywhere. Nationally, home values climbed 14 percent last year, or nearly double the 8 percent of 2003, when the bubble talk began in earnest.

Prices are up 20 percent or more in some coastal cities, putting homes out of reach for many. In Los Angeles, for example, just 5 percent of homes sell at prices affordable to a median-income local family.

Don't panic just yet, though. Any pop is unlikely to be nearly as severe as what can happen in the stock market. Local markets can drop 10 to 20 percent, but that's about as bad as it usually gets.

And a crash is merely a paper loss as long as you don't need to move. Meanwhile, you get a roof over your head and, with a little luck, nice neighbors and good public schools too.

[chicagiana]

52. If not soon ...

When the baby boomers start dying off there will be a HUGE collapse.

[VOX]

13. CA home prices will remain high even if there's a market downturn...

Particularly in the coastal towns and cities. Most of the higher-paying jobs are located there, and the demand for housing almost always exceeds the supply.

And with freeway commutes being as hellish as they are, everyone wants to live closer to work, which also translates into paying more for a home.

Other than some brief down-episodes, California real estate has been climbing in value for the last 50 years.

What will be interesting in the near future is the potential fallout when all those recent interest-only mortgages start kicking into principal. Will those buyers who hocked everything to get into a house be able to keep it? :shrug:

[Jack_Dawson]

30. Do you live in P. Springs?

:shrug:

Like your pic.

[AlienGirl]

18. Generation X will rent forever

As will Gen Y and the Millenials. Our society is rapidly becoming one where the division is between the "owners" and the "owned."

Tucker

[Stinky The Clown]

22. Both Bubbles and Busts are But Blips

Look at the overall trend over the years.

Up ..... up ..... up ...... up.

And the worst bubbles are a lot less severe than a bad few months in the stock market.

[grasswire]

24. yeah but....

....peak oil is the new unknowable factor. We haven't had this kind of a factor previously. Sure, in the '70s there were gas lines, but this is a whole new ball game. Plenty of experts predict death of the larger cities and serious harm to suburbs.

No one knows, of course, what or when exactly although within ten years is a reasonable guess for some kind of effect. I sure wouldn't want to bet against it causing some trouble.

[Stinky The Clown]

26. Actually, I can make a case that peak oil helps city real estate

Housing close to work. Maybe even walking distance. Surely in reach of mass transit (which, likley will be there even after gas gets outrageous).

Also, I think any housing generally at the mean or below will be fine. People can always move down. Much harder to seel high end McMansions when the economy goes to shit.

[enid602]

27. bust

True, but most of the areas which are seeing tremendous appreciation are also those where government/defense spending have been the greatest. The spending orgy can't go on forever. Philadelphia is certainly urban, has good transit and currently has over 600 listings on realtor.com UNDER %50K!

[chicagiana]

53. Economics is masturbation ...

... they hardly ever pay any homage to WEALTH DISTRIBUTION.

The last time we got this out of whack, we had the great depression.

The massive growth of the middle class is what has propelled this nation to world dominance and prosperity. Why does everyone neglect to see what will happen when the "ownership" class owns so much that most investment becomes a losing bet.

What happens is that credit STOPS and everything COLLAPSES.

Eight more years of Republican rule and we'll have another great depression!!!!

[BamaGirl]

23. Good grief

What kind of work do you have to do to afford that!? My husband is cop. I don't know what the SD pd pays, but I'm pretty damned sure it ain't that much!

The housing market has gone nuts. We can't even afford to buy something on our own street anymore. Thank God we bought on the Clinton economy. ;)

[shrike]

25. Have these people never heard of misfortune?

Are they THAT well-paid? Are they immune to the problems that beset the rest of us?

One serious illness, one job loss, one business setback and the whole house of cards falls down. I've seen it happen. They, apparently, have not.

[haele]

34. Prop 13 will also hit many of these new owners hard...

People with homes already are finding out there's a nasty tax suprise when they sell their old house to upgrade. When the "bubble" bursts and all these new, more expensive properties lose value, the property taxes don't go down without a major re-assessment procedure. So not only are many of these new homeowners stuck with the flaky adjustable rate mortgages and many of these new "interest only" loans are going to find themselves without any help at all when the mortgage keeps going up but the house isn't worth half of what it was used to.

No, we aren't going to see the standard "beginner family residence" going for under $100K down here in San Diego county, but I'm pretty sure we will see most of the properties lose half their value over the next 5 - 7 years, especially if jobs, wages and worker bennies(particularly overtime and health) tank.
Just my opinion based on the experiances of the late 1980's, early 1990's around here.

Haele

[HughBeaumont]

63. More like "In hock up to their eyeballs".

She doesn't know that she'll turn a profit, nor does she realize the pitfalls of home ownership. Doing shit like that is a neck I'm not willing to risk.

Sorry, but there's only so much people are going to want to pay for a home that's really not worth all that much in real dollars. It won't be another "tulip-mania", but the end to this madness may come sooner than people think.

[PartyPooper]

31. I want to eat my house.

I've owned real estate in Ca. for nearly 30 years. I've bought and sold during that time. Right now, it is unbelievable. When I think of the appreciation of my current home (13 years), I've been making several hundred dollars a day for the past several years just in appreciation.

I just want to eat it for the rest of my life. Sigh, there won't be social security, so what else can I do? :think:

:wow:

:eyes:

[Ron Green]

35. You could come to Oregon.

Cash out of your place, buy a house here with an ocean view, and live off the difference for the rest of your life.

[Jack_Dawson]

36. How much is a beachfront house in OR?

:shrug:

[Ron Green]

37. Beachfront is expensive, 500K and up, but ocean view with a quick walk

to the beach can be had for well under 200K. The nice thing about Oregon beaches is that they are all publicly owned, so no one can keep you off a beach with a "private property" sign.

Another issue is that, if you're right on the oceanfront, you spend lots of time and/or money replacing all the stuff on your house that corrodes or blows away.

I can walk to the beach in 5 min. from my house, I see whales from my bedroom window, and we have a 3-story house on almost an acre for $250 thousand.

[Jack_Dawson]

38. Is that what you paid...

or what it is worth?

[Ron Green]

46. That's what we've got in it, including some improvements. I hope it'll be

worth much more when it's time to sell.

[sandnsea]

56. Where are you?

It probably already is. I live in a 3 br in Florence, worth $240,000. Yours has to be worth more than that.

[Ron Green]

58. I'm between Waldport and Newport.

We just bought this place a year and a half ago, and we have put about 30,000 into it since then, but I think it's worth 60 or 70 K more than what we've got in it now. We bought it for quite a bit less than appraised value.

[sandnsea]

59. Well hi neighbor!

Hang on to your hat, if your property isn't worth $500,000 now, it will be within 5 years. I think this area will explode with baby boomers over the next ten years.

[Ron Green]

60. That's what we're hoping. We'd like to move to the Valley in a few years,

when we start to get old enough to want better medical care nearby. :-) I hope that by then our house will be worth a bunch, but that prices in Corvallis won't be out of reach!

[Clarkie1]

32. If I were her I just would have rented a nice quiet ocean condo

with a view for that money.

[Digit]

33. I don't see anything desirable in the top areas!

New York=target for terrorism
DC=target for terrorism
Las Vegas=water woes, getting serious
LA, San Diego=terrorism targets, major earthquake a'coming
Florida=can't get homeowner's insurance anymore, and more hurricanes coming.

Too many speculators make me nervous. When they decide to sell, and others do the same at the same time can spell disaster.

I never was a gambler, but if I were, I would be gambling on the Raleigh area. Our prices are still relatively reasonable, we have all the anchor universities, plus great medical care. We are close to the beach and close to the mountains.
In addition, from what I can determine, we have some of the best incentives to go solar with our tax advantage programs.
Shhhhh, don't tell anyone.

[enid602]

39. prices in southeast kept low by high foreclosure rates

I perform quality control on field review appraisals of foreclosed homes, and most of the foreclosures which cross my desk are located in NC, SC, TN and GA.

[Quixote1818]

40. You can always buy in Mexico

They say housing is about to take off in Mexico near the border and along the coast. Could be a very good investment. It's a lot safer now than it use to be. Many Americans are starting to retire their now.

http://www.rockypointforsale.com/index.html

[ultraist]

42. Greenspan's recent comments on the housing bubble

http://www.rismedia.com/index.php/article/articleview/10418/1/1/

Alan Greenspan Predicts Slower Growth to National Housing Prices

By Randi F. Marshall
Newsday, Melville, N.Y.

RISMEDIA, May 23 -- (KRT) -- The nation's housing market contains "a lot of local bubbles" with "unsustainable" price gains, but significant price declines are unlikely, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said Friday.

Even if housing prices do fall, the drop won't hit most homeowners hard because of the huge amount of equity already in their homes, Greenspan told more than 1,000 onlookers at a meeting of the New York Economic Club. "There are a number of things which I think suggest, at minimum, that there's a little froth in this market," Greenspan said, to laughs from those thinking that might be an understatement.

The Fed chairman argued that while there isn't a national housing bubble, many regional high-priced pockets exist. "It's pretty clear that it's an unsustainable, underlying pattern," he said. In the metropolitan area, including Nassau, Suffolk and Queens counties, prices rose 16 percent in April, compared with April 2004, according to the Long Island Board of Realtors. The median closing price regionwide is $415,000.

Greenspan pointed to second home sales that are, in part, fueling "accelerated speculation." Sellers, he noted, don't have the same "inhibitions" about second homes, because they don't have to move and therefore they buy something else at the higher price levels. Interest-only mortgages and hybrid adjustable-rate loans also are driving the market, Greenspan said. "People are reaching to be able to pay the prices to move into a home," he said. Prices will, Greenspan predicted, "soon simmer down." But he also said there's "a very considerable unlikelihood" of a significant decline in home prices. Any decline that does occur may only hurt those who buy right before it happens, avoiding the large numbers of bankruptcies others have predicted. Greenspan's comments on the housing market came during Friday's question-and-answer session, after a speech focused on world energy prices that suggested energy demand and usage would likely decline if prices keep rising.

[Carolab]

48. A little more realistic report about Greenspan's actions

Housing, hedge funds spur bubble worries;

Some experts fear low interest rates may have pumped too much cash into global markets

Chronicle Staff Writer

Tom Abate

Alan Greenspan is walking a tightrope.

The Federal Reserve chairman is gradually raising interest rates from historically low levels, hoping to snuff out inflation without causing a recession.

He isn't the only central banker in the midst of this high-wire act. Many international finance experts say the Fed's counterparts in other industrialized nations have kept interest rates low for some time, injecting excess liquidity -- or too much money -- into global markets.

But if Greenspan and other central bankers cut off the flow of money too abruptly, they risk starting the financial equivalent of a prairie fire -- a destructive and potentially catastrophic collapse of the markets that have flourished thanks to low interest rates.

In today's world, the most notable such markets are housing and hedge funds -- those secretive and lightly regulated investment vehicles that have become enormously popular in recent years with big institutions and the rich.

Historically, easy money, if left unchecked, has ignited an upward spiral of wages and prices. There is some evidence of this classic inflation in the United States on the price front, if not the wage front.

More: http://www.reis.com/subscriptions/national_news_new.cfm?nnews=1&id=282334731&L_URL=http%3A%2F%2Fwww6%2Elexisnexis%2Ecom%2Fpublisher%2FEndUser%3FAction%3DUserDisplayFullDocument%26orgId%3D537%26docId%3Dl%3A282334731%26topicId%3D4303

[Nikia]

45. Here $580,000 is a mansion

There are only a few houses of that value that are sold around here and they all look like something that someone really rich would live in. That goes way beyond the typical 2500-3000 square foot subdivision yuppie house which goes for half that.
The house that woman got would go for maybe $120,000 at most if it were in town (certainly not near an airport or other bad location). There are older homes in move in condition which are sold under $80,000.
Housing prices are not out of control everywhere.

[Mizmoon]

50. What's the job market like?

Here's what I've seen.

In one city/suburb, you can get a beautiful house for $120,000, but forget about finding a job. And if you do find one, and lose it, you'll have a very hard time replacing it.

In the second city/suburb, the "starter home" that needs work is $400,000 BUT a college educated professional can snag a $70,000 per year job pretty easily, and a $100,000+ one if they try really hard.

It's a catch-22.

[Carolab]

54. Here's what I see: Republicans.

"Most housing price-busts clustered around 1980-82 and 1989-92," the report noted.

As Dean has said: "You can't trust a Republican with your money."

[EFerrari]

57. We're about to pay $375K for a condo with no yard, 500 sq ft.

,on a good day, because my husband needs to live in the city.

Myself, I'd rather go hug a tree somewhere. It's insane.

[progressivebydesign]

62. It's all LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION...

.. if you want to live on either coast, you're gonna pay. It's much more economical to move anywhere away from the water. End of story. It has always been such..

[theboss]

64. My home went up another 10 percent....this month

Every month, I check the local sales reports for my development. In just one year, I could probably sell for 40 percent more than I bought.

Of course, I couldn't afford to buy anything new.