Irvine Housing Blog

LOL, I crown thee king of straw mans.

Oh, so you don’t want to talk about the speculators and the “FCB"s in your one-third.  I see how it is.

Nice try at changing the subject.  You should go back to a fine Irvine school and learn what a strawman actually is though which requires a misrepresentation of your argument followed by a refute of the misrepresented position.  I never refuted your claim of one-third.  I just said I would be curious as to what it may be composed of.  You are big into overstating people’s incomes on here - I thought for sure you were going to go along with the 25 year olds with 500K theory.

So, getting back on your topic of one-third of buyers have no mortgage.  Is it your position that flippers and cash flow investors are of no significance?  Minor significance?

In other words, I think your one-third is overstated when you consider the context of the buyer.

PR, no response?  Your face must be stinging from that bitch slap.

You certainly had a lot of energy for that astute observation.

High quality response, love the comment about the favela in Brazil.  A couple of your paragraphs are brilliant, but read below.

Technical Support, thanks for posting your astute observations.  I enjoyed reading them and hope to read more of your comments in the future.

So let me get this straight ...

The rest of the USA outside Irvine is a favela.

Really?

That’s some mighty strong Kool-aid you Irvinites are drinking.

SanJoseRenter, I don’t think that’s what TC really meant.

In sum, I believe his argument was that LV’s residential RE is now so cheap that even a lower-middle class family can afford it.

Irvine’s RE market, IMO, is somewhat closely related to Cupertino with its growing Asian population (you’re SanJoseRenter so you should know what I’m talking about).

“You certainly had a lot of energy for that astute observation.”

I am not so sure that was an Astute Observation—Astute Manifesto is more appropriate.

Talking about this bankster or that crook is a bit like rearranging deck jars on the Titanic. Ok? Like my dad taught me, “The man doesn’t make the times; the times make the man.” We have created an environment that encourages bad behavior and then we are shocked and loudly denounce those who behave badly. Come on. That’s just absurd.

Sure, requiring folks to put down at least 20% to purchase a house is one for simple and sensible way to improve a relatively minor problem we have. But there are many far meatier problems we could be discussing.

Let’s say we were to get folks to see that moving back towards creating real communities is even better than merely putting down 20% towards a mortgage or even owning a home free and clear. Living in a home that’s bought and paid is wonderful financially, but what if you don’t have more than a nodding acquaintance with most of your neighbors, couldn’t rely on them to help you out in more than a perfunctory manner in a time of need, and don’t live within walking distance of any of your family or friends?

What if instead of going to an impersonal institution such as a bank to fund a loan of paper money, your neighbors- who were also part of your community- were the ones who had loaned you “real money” (such as gold and silver) for your house?

And what if you chose to live in place because that’s where your actual community is located instead of merely “good schools” or “good jobs”?

Of course chasing a “Leave it to Beaver” lifestyle did enrich real estate agents, car dealers, and other purveyors of the stuff we voraciously buy, yet don’t actually need, to fill up the emptiness left by our loss of community we’ve generally inflicted upon ourselves in modern, urban America as we chase the so-called “American Dream.” A dream that generally seems to be “so close yet so far” much like a glimmering mirage must appear to the hapless traveler who has exhausted his supply of water and is gradually dying of thirst in a barren desert.

Back when the World Wide Web was still pretty new about 15 years ago, I vividly remember reading this article (which I just found with a quick search on Google, a company that didn’t exist at the time) using a dial up modem.

Home from Nowhere
http://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/issues/96sep/kunstler/kunstler.htm

How about discussing stuff like this on the Irvine Housing Blog? After all, no one really just wants to merely live in a house in a nice neighborhood, instead what everyone wants is to live in a real home in a real community.

As human beings we all play games. How about we play a big game instead of a small game? Sheesh, I’m not asking you to take up arms and risk being shot. I’m merely asking for some serious discussion about fundamental problems that we’d be far better off solving with foresight than cleaning up in hindsight.

And if you think things like 9/11 or the bursting of the recent housing bubble are “big problems” I’d urge you to reconsider. I am convinced we are headed for some far greater pain and suffering in this country. We can avoid this pain and suffering, but it will take more than just hoping and dreaming.

And yes, I’ve succumbed to the obsessive-compulsive tendency I warned Irvine Renter against. I need to get married and find a community myself so that, amongst other things, others will help keep me healthy. Here’s definition of advice I’m fond of, “Advice is something that is easy to give but hard to take.”

You are asking too much of the vast majority of bloggers here.  They would need to understand, admit, and accept the problems first.  They are stuck in their own worlds.  When you accept the sad reality, you understand there is not a god damn thing you can do.  What is more you understand any problems that exist here are not that big of a deal.  If you are starving to death or experiencing genocide, that is a real problem.  Our problems in this country are a joke.

Deflect much?
“You are asking too much of the vast majority of bloggers here.”

Step up your game and take some ownership to increase the level of discourse.

Seems believable enough.

But the 20% of salary isn’t dependent on Irvine %. It is dependent on what you currently pay before you move to socal or irvine or wherever.

If you do pay less than 20% in your current location, then it is still worth it to move if your salary goes up by >20% and rent =<100%.

Your net cash after expenses will be higher even if % spent on housing is greater. But seeing as CA is probably one of the highest taxed states, the percentages are probably different (ie, wage increase has to be higher or expense increase has to be lower to make “breakeven” after taxes)

Anyhow, the point is, there is a scenario where the % increase in pay can be much less than % increase in expenses and you can economically justify the move.

You’ve got your numbers/terms backward your increased pay should be much MORE than your increase in expenses to justify a move…from a purely dollar & cents pov.

A move from Minneapolis to Irvine does not need to be solely justified by $.  Weather alone would be worth some additional % of take-home towards housing.

Actually, your example of spending 20% on rent, and then getting a 20% raise and having your rent double is an exact wash. 100k income, 20k rent 80k after rent-> 120k income - 40k rent, 80k after rent.  Take out 1/3 in taxes prior to rent and 67k - 20k = 47k vs. 80k - 40k = 40k, $7k less in up-income 20%, up-rent 100%.

but why would you need to live and work in Irvine?

Exactly, I don’t need to which is why I could not care less about Irvine.

You don’t have kids (though you are an expert on parenting

I do get a kick out of self-aggrandizing members of your community who use their children as a reason for going into huge mortgage debt and buying overpriced houses in order to keep up with the Joneses.  I had to buy the Rolex so that I would have a quality watch to keep time with so I could make sure that I was never late picking up my children from school.

I’m sure they have clubs where you get to dress up like a medieval warrior here and battle on the weekends

But I thought Irvine had all of the rich Asian heritage.  I would not settle for anything less.