I've read that credit card debt is at the highest. That might account for all the higher prices.
I wonder about the term “overpriced.” If it sells for close to the asking price, is it ”overpriced?”
We just had a Blue Angels Air Show show here, the first in 20 years, and the tickets averaged something like $40, up to $125. People here were outraged and complained on social media that the tickets were “overpriced,” yet the show sold out. I hear the same when it comes to concert tickets, the price of F-150 trucks (the standard Montana vehicle) yet they sure seem to sell lots of them.
Local real estate asking prices have gone down just a little. But over the past three years, there's been almost a bidding war for available homes, and properties nearly always sold for well above the asking price.
But trucks? My gosh. If you need a ranch or construction vehicle, so be it. I spent the last week over on the east side of the Sierra where gas prices have been higher than nearly anywhere else in the contiguous US as long as I can remember. I feel the pinch putting 50 bucks worth into my little Toyota Tundra 4WD, which was plenty big for my own little ranch when I still had it; but then someone on the adjacent pump would drop 150 bucks for half a tank in their big Dodge Ram or Ford, and most of those sure as heck weren't all ranchers or builders. Not to mention motorhomes! I had a neighbor across the street from me here looking at me with disdain whenever I came back with my pickup covered with mud. He had both a new Toyota Land Cruiser and a new Lexus SUV in his driveway, and never left a paved urban street or the freeway. Then he complained about his mortgage. All about style, bragging rights to a more expensive urban SUV than thou hast, that's it.
Same with houses. I've known billionaires just as deeply in debt as ordinary people because they lived above their own means too. An hour north is the ruins of the monstrous Jack London Wolf House. Once he couldn't keep paying his workman, the whole thing mysteriously burnt down one night. Similar things have happened to rich contemporary moguls who decided to start stiffing their workmen instead of scaling down their giant ego building projects.
I fully understand supply and demand. I simply find it hard to understand that a couple can so readily afford the $572k (20% down) to qualify to buy a $2.86 million home across the street from me, and assuming 4% loan (absurdly low, these days) that means $10900 excluding property tax and insurance...and if you assume that conforms to 30% of gross (per bank guideline), that calculates to gross pay over $36000/mo gross pay !
At today's interest rates, the housepayment is $16000, meaning gross pay (per bank guideline) is over $53000 per month!
In the brief time I lived in Emeryville, I had the experience of having to go to Pleasanton for a meeting for work. They really ought to rename it Unpleasanton for as broilingly hot as it can get there.Yes.......... I lived in The Sunset. Judah and 24
There were times in the summer when i would go see my Father in San Jose.
68 in SF and 103 in San Jose
The house I bought in ‘82 in SoCal was a 1926 Craftsman bungalow that I acquired from the original owner. The only upgrade was the bathroom. Luckily, none of the original wide wood molding had ever been painted. During the 10 years I had it I gutted the kitchen and enlarged it by taking out a wall that had created what I think they called the “service porch.” I built all the cabinetry myself and kept with the period. I rebuilt and retained the fold out ironing board.
In my current home, a mid-50s rancher with a full basement, I’ve been going through room at a time, resurfacing the hardwood floors and putting in new molding that replicates that ‘20s bungalow. I added crown molding and faux beams in the ceilings of the living and dining rooms. I painted one with a rose and the other with a green, both picked from a 1930s color sample. Of course the room is furnished with antiques, some of my art, and, sometimes to my wife’s eye rolls, my many floor model 1930s radios.
Some might suggest that much in the Bay Area is overpriced. Someone I know just bought a 1,600 SF rancher in Mountainview for over $2 million.
With these sort of discussions, I try to use "local market value" rather than "worth".
We too live in a corner of the world where housing prices are very high.
Strange how people get hung up on semantics or 'definitions'.
If that house sells for 5M USD.............it was 'worth' it to the new owner.
Absolutely.
But when discussing these things on an international website with people located all around the globe, the word choice helps keep clear that the discussion isn't about worth, it is about price.
Absolutely.
But when discussing these things on an international website with people located all around the globe, the word choice helps keep clear that the discussion isn't about worth, it is about price.
Exactly and if one is willing to relocate, the price thing can be a definite advantage. After owning my California bungalow in the Los Angeles area for 10 years, I left that for Montana where I bought a house that is over 3 times the square footage on a 1/4 acre city lot, paid cash for that AND cash for a rental property. IMO, too many people are stuck or otherwise hung up on where they live and ignore the advantages of new digs.
I’d love to do the same after retirement, but my wife’s too deeply rooted in the Bay Area to move. She’s lived her entire life within 25 miles of where she was born.
I know people here who are of retirement age and have lived in the same house their entire lives. They also tend to be the most outspoken against "outsiders" who move here and how this is the best place to live even though they've never lived anywhere else.
But I have known a number of people who went into outright culture shock moving from fast-paced urban areas to Western desert towns or the Midwest. Fitting in might not be as easy as you think. Views about things can be very very different.
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