Irvine Housing Blog

Huh?  I would like to think you are being facetious, but I fear you are serious.  I don’t even know how to respond to points #2 and #3, but point #1 implies that the entire economy is simply an offshoot of the home refi market.  I don’t think so.

There will never be a economic recovery until home prices are back close to peak price. People cannot upgrade, downgrade or relocate, until then (in essence the economy is stuck until home price are back to near peak).

There will certainly be a recovery, once home prices fall to a sensible multiple of incomes, which will free up consumer spending for things other than mortgage payments, and direct investment to productive ends, in lieu of a real estate market based on ever-greater fools with ever more leverage.

Foreclosure are the best way to ensure that there will be yet more foreclosures.

In the medium term this is correct. It is also a good thing, because people who cannot afford their homes should lose them. In the long term, there is a limit to the number of foreclosures: responsible borrowers, together with those who own outright and those who bought property at rental parity, will not suffer foreclosure.

This was all cause by the income decoupling caused by “Owners equivalent rent”.

What?

Rents have never been high enough to justify the purchase prices we have seen in most areas. The prices were based on successive waves of buyers with unlimited access to credit.

Perhaps I misunderstand your point #3.

Why do you and so many other people still believe that the only way to drive our economy is through the same means that created this debacle, which are debt creation and asset inflation?

Our economy is in the tank because we have lived far beyond our means for decades, and could only pay our debt by creating more debt, until we finally hit the wall- more debt than anybody can ever hope to repay in our lifetimes.

We do not need houses back a peak prices affordable only by means of trickbag loans with DTI rations of 5:1.

The only way we will recover economically is to stop throwing what little wealth we have left at obsolete, unsustainable industries, such as housing, sprawl building, and the pathetic domestic auto industry, and instead invest in the industries and resources that will maintain our standard of living and give us a productive economy in the future… things like more power generation (at least 4X what we currently have), more advanced technologies for electricity generation, rapid railroads, and new technologies that help us become more efficient and that countries like China and India are pursuing full bore, just as they are locking up contracts for future supplies of essential and depleting resources, while we keep shoveling our collective wealth at the dead housing industry.

Housing never was supposed to be this country’s principal economic driver. Many of you posting here are much too young to remember when it was manufacturing that drove the economy in this country, and we were the world’s largest CREDITOR nation. Hard to believe, I know.

Financialization, debt accumulation, and asset inflation are the roads to mass poverty. We’ve gone way too far down that road, and need to reverse direction no matter how much pain that means in the near term.

I think you are right partially. And this is what Mr. Bernanke and the other policy makers are trying to engineer: Inflation which will float everything including housing prices. Whether that’s a good thing depends on whether you already own a house, if you have a job, savings…etc.

Historically, inflation is a bad thing and it’s hard to control it without much pain once it leaves the station. The current pain is mainly do to housing run-away inflation.

“Only when the tide goes out do you discover who’s been swimming naked.”—Warren Buffett

With 0% interest rates and 4.25% mortgage rate, recently a lot of my rich friends (but not that rich) start buying REO/short sale as investment property. Along with dollar devaluation and expectation of inflation, the RE prices in Irvine does not have too much rooms to move down, maybe 10% at most.
Since it needs a lot of cash to able outbid other buys for foreclosed or short sell house, maybe you can wait a couple of months, you should able to get better bargain. Also 6 months later, the 30 yr mortgage rates maybe go down to 3.75%.

It’s nearly 2011.  Life is passing you by while you rent.  Good luck.

Buy now, and get priced in FOREVER.

And dont forget DEBT = WEALTH!

If it’s the wife that’s egging you into buying
a home NOW, dump her, and rent/lease your next gf.

What’s the rush, Brock? You can keep renting, and stashing any additional cash under your mattress.

Of if you have some job security and you know you’re going to stay put for a long time, you can find something at or below rental parity even in the beloved city of Irvine.

It’s a buyers market for those with a big down payment, stable jobs, and a plan to stay in the same house for 20+ years.

Unfortunately I don’t have any of that.

We are past a bottom.  I dunno if it was the bottom, but prices are up significantly in almost every market from their absolute lows.

So, we start to play a question and answer game…

1. Are rents in your city higher than typical total monthly costs (monthly payments plus a prorated chunk of the downpayment plus property taxes plus insurance plus maintenance plus HOA fees minus any tax benefits) for the same type/size/location of house?

If the answer is yes, buying now probably makes sense in almost all situations (except in cases where one is sticking around for a very short period or is unable to buy (can’t come up with miminal down payment, have horrible credit, etc.)).  This is the case in many areas in “the sticks” (for example, the Inland Empire).  This is not the case in “prime” areas like Irvine.

2. Are you planning on living in the house until you die, or at least living there for a decade or more?

If the answer is no to both questions, keep renting.  If the answers are no to the first but yes to the second, bargin shop.  Take your time, find the best place, but don’t get into stupid bidding wars.

Not sure that the bill would have had the effect you claim.  If a notarization was “illegal,” it wouldn’t all of a sudden become valid under the language of the statute.  It would require states to recognize only legal notarizations.

Not sure what the unintended effets would be?

I’m not sure why any of this is news to you.

This was easy to see and profit from 1 to 2 years ago.

Back when Irvine homes were selling for $320 per sq ft and rates were over 5.5%.

Now Irivne homes are trending to $360 per sq ft and rates are 4.27%.

It should also be easy to digest what you wrote above,, now that you understand and predict what will happen 1 to 2 years from now.