http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-homes3nov03,1,405891.story

“The idea that everyone is supposed to own a home is baloney,” he added.”

But really, if you can buy a home and get a loan, definitely go for it and good on you mate.

MDman420, I think the Central Coast has to go through the same pain as the rest of the nation, though the degree will certainly be different. When the Japanese were buying everything in sight including Pebble Beach because they were flush with paper wealth we went through a local boom we thought would never end in the 80’s. Today the boom is based on “wealth” from housing prices that are unrealistic. I personally know developers who have made millions speculating here and lost millions speculating here and it was just timing that made the difference. I’m sorry to hear you bought at the peak, I hope you can stick it out. (At first I thought you meant Cali, Colombia!)

1 – Californians have high incomes, a home is a tax shelter. You can’t itemize if you don’t own so you burn money while renting.
2 – I hear people are moving back to renting. Well, that will make rents rise. And in 30 years those people will be still paying rent. The purpose is to buy and own your home.
3 – Who wants to be subjected to having to move when your landlord says your time is up?
4 – This is overblown, i live in Fremont, CA and our market is stable. In fact two homes sold while i stood in them two weeks ago. You know, there were 800 homes on the market in early 2001 after the tech bubble burst. Today there are 400 single family homes available.
5 – Loans are clearly available to people with 5% down and good credit, it’s not hard at all. It’s only hard for people that should not have bought a home to begin with. People with bad credit, high debt and no money down.

Step back and relax, property values may decrease but look out 10 years and they’ll be far ahead of where they are now. And you’ll wished you’d have bought sooner than later. I mean, if it goes down 30% more who cares? When i’ve paid my home off guarantee you it’s worth 100% more than it is this week. Long term, where else will you get that type of return AND have the gov. give you a tax break?

Perspective people, perspective.

I just sent an appeal to the tax appraiser, and I think they are going to adjust downward my taxes.

I am also in an neg am option ARM. I am trying to refi, but the drop in value makes LTVR ~97-100%. I talked with Countrywide, my lender, about a loan modification, and they took my info. I am praying for good news here. my rate is 7.625, and could get intro rate of 5.6% (or hopefully 6 or under).

Do you see the Central Coast holding up better than other areas (tourism, retirees, not very overbuilt like other areas in CA). though Santa Maria has high forclosures.

I live in Grover Beach.

When we first lived in that house, my dad made $12,000 a year, my mom stayed home and both me and my sister went to private school.

As far as demand, it’s declining. Why, there simply not enough jobs to pay for over inflated real estate. I don’t know the numbers for the Central Coast, but SD County has had a net loss of people in the last two years. Now there’s tons of inventory online, which begs the question, why even build anything new?

I don’t think the recent tanking of the American Dollar has anything to do with it.

It used to be relatively cheap to live here, until the 70’s. Prices eeked up, but the last 7 years was due to easy money, which artificially inflated value. I mean, double from 2000. The area I grew up in San Diego is San Carlos. It’s your typical early 60’s post-War tract housing. The house we lived in was worth about $34,000 in the early 70’s. A couple of years ago the homes in the area were well into the $500,000’s. They simply are/weren’t worth that much.

Russ, as far as the “tasteless” ‘hood out here, look at older developments. Up until the 70’s the planning and development were pretty good. Things took a turn for the worst in the 80’s as far as good taste.

It seems like there is nothing but miles and miles of bland, tasteless, McMansions with 5 car garages in tract developments built on corn fields and yet they are all priced well above $500,000. What is driving the prices there beside easy money? The easy money was everywhere and most places still don’t have the same absurd pricing for these boring housing developments 2 hours outside of a major city.

I want to hear more about what Goldman Sachs said. Me and a girlfriend of mine were predicting up to a 50% correction to all this TWO YEARS AGO. And people said we were crazy.

The good news is that I have good intuition about this business. The bad news is that I was right.

YIKES!!! Can’t wait to hear the rest!!!! THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!