Posted on 06/01/2005 8:12:05 AM PDT by manny613
"Who can afford to buy a house in this place?" my wife asked, when I read her the average prices of homes in various northern California communities.
"We certainly can't," I said. Our home has more than doubled in value since we bought it 11 years ago. We couldn't live here if we had to pay today's prices. This is not unusual on the peninsula stretching from San Francisco to Silicon Valley.
(Excerpt) Read more at jewishworldreview.com ...
Well, to blame land use laws for high home prices in California cities is just wrong , pure and simple.
Where's all this unused land? I live in a zip code with a median sale price of over $800,000 and I can assure you it's not because of land use laws.
This is called a bubble, folks, when prices increase this fast they don't have to have a fundamental reason. And blaming it on whatever little pet hobby-horse doesn't help.
And, with so many losing so much money "on paper,"...we'll scream for mercy, the Mainstrem Press will inform us!
A sweet, little ol' blonde, who has found God and forgiven her philandering husband--will be the no-brainer choice to get us over the greed of the 00's.
A lot of the financing for these high-priced properties is done with interest-only mortgages with a balloon payoff in five years. That is an indication of a bubble market that will crash.
How can you guys possibly afford to buy these homes? Are jobs paying that much in that area?
Yes, she will. We'll forget all our current troubles, because she'll cause us so many more.
Indian and Chinese families mostly buy them.
They tend to have both parents earning $100K each/yr so they can afford these houses. . .
Rents are also high, though nowhere near as bubble-like as purchase prices. Rents are certainly the result of land-use regulations. Here in SF the hardest sort of building to get approval for (well, maybe other than a shooting range) is multi-unit residential.
I definitely don't know but in my area it means that I am "stuck " I can't buy another house since all other houses are as high or higher
Median income in San Mateo is over $ 60K I believe.
$900,000 home = $ 12,000 annual property tax, $ 30,000 in interest after tax (assuming no down-payment). With two incomes in a highish range, say 70-80K each, or effectively @ $100,000 take-home, it is certainly possible.
But this situation is very unstable.
That wasn't a nice thing to say about Madam/Mrs. PresidenT!! She cares, you'll see.
Sorry, about no barf alert, but fix goin fix this house up and sell it. Load up Ff-150 with my sweetie's stuff and kitties, and jump on some property and let ft worth come my way.
Money talks; nobody walks :o)
You can't afford a million dollar house on 200k a year.
In CA you are stuck for another reason. Even if you effectively trade your house for another at a similar price you will be hit with the new property tax assessment.
Your old house is valued at your purchase price, slightly increased. Your new house will be valued at current price, and the property tax due will multiply.
Sure you can. You can certainly keep up with the interest. What do you mean by "afford" anyway ?
You can't. I live in El Cerrito(next door to Berkeley) and work in SF and it is very hard to make ends meet here. My girlfriend and I make over 100 K together and we are not even in the ballpark. We rent right now and I think that that is the way to go at this time instead of being caught up in the interest only mortgage trap.
Well, yeah, my idea of afford is not living to make a mortgage payment.
Well, you shouldn't try to afford a million dollar house on 200K a year, but today's mortgage lenders are more than happy to encourage you to do so. ;)
Oh, she cares, all right. For the cameras...;>)
Off to the gulag for the likes of me and anyone else who will criticize her.
Good luck with the house!
Yeah, I know. It'd be one thing if a million bucks was buying them a palatial spread equipped with horse stables and roman showers...But they are just getting, houses. Regular, old houses.
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