Comments on: Real Homes of Genius: Culver City Pricing Dysfunction! Prices all Over the 405.

By: Terry

Terry — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 22:20:16 +0000

Just rent. Cheaper. Property taxes for nothing. Chasing never-ending repairs due to shoddy american crapsmanship. Massive interest payment to corrupt banks, HOA dues that always increase, commissions to realturds, decreasing property values, dwindling tax “benefits” etc….renting is far better for many IF done right (investing-reinvesting all the money saved from “buying” a home–diligently getting a place in a low-crime, middle class area-not falling for the LALA land of posers trying to impress strangers with rented cars, shell games with credit cards, or joker “drs” who buy 1.6 million bungalos (sp) in Santa Monica–not fit for a lawn mower, yet the wage slaves “rich” (doctors) fall for these over-priced dumps time after time due to ignorance and stupidity and keeping up with other imbeciles/wannabes. No money downs, 3-5% down, Good luck to all.

By: don

don — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 18:31:06 +0000

the solution to the housing price bubble is to bring back subprime, undoc loans and open the border for more borrowers to take advantage of.

By: don

don — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 18:21:15 +0000

hey saps! come up to the oregon coast, where 700k will buy you a 2500 sf NEW house on a clean lake. you also get clean air,good schools,low crime and no work. unless you are in the med or casino industry. divide your yearly take in gross wages in (KALIFORNEA) by the amount of time you spend and taxes you spend for nothing, and most likely youll find you are underwater with you house payment and your job too. left KA in ‘89 and went back to visit my home town in ‘77. spent two days there. looked like it snowed there in june by all the crap in the median strips. even tho you cant afford that glorious lifestyle, at least keep your garbage in your car.

By: drhousingbubble

drhousingbubble — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 02:47:54 +0000

I appreciate the thoughtful comments. The point of these posts is that only a very tiny subset of the market is able to purchase these homes. Since only a small fraction of people can buy these places, the exotic mortgage market boomed to make up for the lack of income. This correlation is absolutely clear. If it weren’t the case and incomes and fundamentals supported the market, why wouldn’t prices continue up since rates are at multi decade lows still?

I understand that the median family isn’t likely to buy this place. But who is then? Someone posted that only 12 percent of Culver City households make $125,000 a year or more. Even using this number and conservative budget ratios, this home is still overpriced since it is nearly 7 times yearly earnings.

Comparing homes to buying a yacht is not appropriate in my opinion even in prime areas. 70 percent of the US population owns a home. What percent own a yacht? Or a Rolex for that matter? So looking at the 12 percent that are the target population, clearly this home is still vastly overpriced. And how else can we get a specific subset since trying to categorize someone as a “potential” buyer is simply an art in a bubble? If we break it down to the individuals that earn a specific income, that is the 12 percent (and what if they want to buy in Manhattan Beach, Rancho PV, or Hermosa Beach) then we still arrive at the same point. Housing is incredibly overpriced and will need to adjust downward.

And it is correct that the majority of folks in LA County are renters. With the yacht comparison, you either own a yacht or you don’t. There isn’t a substitute. With housing there is. You can lease or you can own. In the end, you get a very similar utility. So the other factors come into play such as income, tax benefits, and desire to own. However, if the numbers get out of line you have the ability to rent or the market forces will price people out. This is where we are at. I would imagine many people on this blog want to own in a metro area be it Los Angeles or somewhere else. If they don’t own, they are renting. If someone doesn’t own a yacht, the direct implication means they simply do not have one and aren’t in the market. That is why measuring the actual concrete number should derive from income, price, and market conditions. Otherwise we’d be looking at a tiny sliver of the population which does nothing in terms of giving us insight into future trends. After all, we had people making $50,000 buying $600,000 homes only recently.

By: ben

ben — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 01:32:27 +0000

In response to your post(RayW):

Wasn’t that perfect to live in California before 2001 when prices where more realistic and half of what they are now?

Or it is more perfect now, in 2007 and everything is justified !? What is your justification? How can that be? People just realized that Cal is a place to be?