Quora: Will house prices go down in the Bay Area?

What? I need to give evidence? This is web, no need to give evidence. Just claim is good enough.

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:rofl:

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I saw 3 claims. For some reason, I only had suspicion about yours :rofl:

The other 2 seem to be legitimate

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Antioch? Is that “Bay Area”?

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I’m afraid it is. But I’m also afraid Santa Cruz isn’t.

Also, you’ve been out for so long certainly I thought the first thing you’d like to share here would be your experience with your bitcoin investments as opposed to swiping at Antioch… :laughing:

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The gloves are coming off…all in good fun.

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BA Mega region of 12m people goes from Santa Cruz to Sacramento now. Keeps getting bigger.

Forget Austin houses. This how you make money in Texas RE.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-09-12/meet-the-shalennials-ceos-under-40-making-millions-in-texas-oil

I was thinking of buying houses in midland when oil price going up. But looking at the map, it’s remote so I gave up for fear of vacancy when oil bust comes. It could be a good investment

Never invest in the middle of nowhere. Stick with coastal.

Are you swiping at Austin? :scream:

Austin is in the Gulf coast

Funny how you like to extract something out of nothing from my post while turning a blind eye on other people’s blatant swiping… :rofl:

But yes, personally I definitely wouldn’t invest there… :rofl:

well, I was just wondering how you bought a condo for $100k… either it was a really good deal, or in Antioch. I mean, you could not get a $100k condo in Santa Cruz County, unless you time travel back to 1980.

That said, I did buy a SFR for $84k in 2010 or 2011, located in the cheapest part of Felton (known as “Lompico”) that would today rent for $2400/mo. It sold in 2012 for $200k and is worth about $350k today. And it was an attractive structure!

Your $1800/mo for a $100k condo is not bad for an investor who is trying to buy near San Francisco.
It might compares to my $1890/mo for a $172k SFR, if you factor in that I don’t have to deal with an HOA. (Market rate would be $2400 for my 3-bedroom SFR.) I bought in 2012, just appraised $425k.

If you like to compare sizes, um, numbers, how about $3750/mo rent for a purchase price of $165k?
Purchased in 2012 as well, rent has not been increased in 6 years, and 0 vacancy… has generated $270k rent with nice low taxes as well :slight_smile: it’s an SFR that appraised $540k half a year ago.

Or this one… also from 2012… purchased for $270k, appraised $740k half a year ago, annual rent is $64k (~$400k collected since purchase)… it’s a 4plex and market rent would be $75k/yr.

The last 3 are in Watsonville.

I don’t care if you label it “Bay Area” or not. That label wouldn’t show on my tax return.

To get back to the original topic. Will prices go down?
You notice that I gave recent appraisal numbers for each property. I don’t hire appraisers to get insulted by their lowball numbers (4plex appraised $740k? Smaller triplexes sell for $900k) because I’m bored. I did expect a correction in market sentiment and price. Since I am generally opposed to selling (think taxes), I refinanced most properties to extract equity while lenders are willing.

Unfortunately lenders are not sleeping and even more conservative that I am. I ended up with 50% LTV on my new loans. Better ask them for money in 2018 than in 2019, I guess.

I sold one 4plex that we had bought in late 2012 for $640k… closed in August 2018 for $1563k and buyer took no commission. Factor in aggressive depreciation and you can see Uncle Sam smiling on this sale (no 1031).

In hindsight, I should have made it a 1031 exchange. Last month I closed on a nearly identical 4plex (4 side-by-side townhouse style units with kitchen/living downstairs and 2 bedrooms upstairs) on a better street for a nice low $1050k. Offer was all-cash with 5 day closing, accepted after 1 DOM.

It could not have been a 1031 though, as I had partners in the 2012 purchase, and the relationship, well, we’re in a divorce. The partners are from the real BA (sort of real – Saratoga, Cupertino, Sunnyvale)… and the November 2018 purchase was without any partners.

To get to your last point… Bitcoin… I am yet waiting for my first retail experience. I heard of a “BAKK” project (https://www.bakkt.com/index) which is backed by MS and Starbucks. Supposedly in the near future you can buy coffee with BTC? I don’t drink coffee though, ever. Not buying Microsoft products much either.
The price of BTC in US$ has continued to drop. What can I say? If I thought buying at $8000 was a good idea, and then waiting for $5000, then today buying at $3500 is a better deal, right? You need to look at Bitcoin’s history. There have been many larger drops, around 90% each. 90% would mean dropping from $20k to $2k. Each time it recovered.

But rest assured, I did not take the real estate equity and put it into bitcoin.

I expect some sweet foreclosure sales as in 2010-2012. Probably not quite as many. Already there’s an uptick in completed trustee sales. One needs all the cash one can get for that time.

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Cash is King.
BTW thanks for contributing to Newsome’s $19b surplus. Bound to be squandered by the Progressives in the legislature.:sunglasses:

Mine is legitimate. I have conveniently ignored the rehab cost of $100k. Thought you are experience enough to detect omitted info.

Unfortunately lenders are not sleeping and even more conservative that I am. I ended up with 50% LTV on my new loans. Better ask them for money in 2018 than in 2019, I guess.

Interesting comment on refinancing. Is it better to cash out now (with high prices and relatively high rate) or after a downturn (lower prices but likely lower rates)? Where are you keeping the money?

I’ve been thinking through the two scenarios and came to the opposite conclusion. In addition to higher rates, a downside of refinancing now is that if there is a correction, high LTVs post correction could make it harder to get loans to purchase new properties.

My best RE deal was my Sacramento apartments. Bought in 1999. For $3.2m.
Worth $12m today.
$9m return on a $800k down investment. And that doesn’t include rental income. We make money on refiis. Selling is too painful without a 1031.

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For serial landlords, plough into rentals immediately. For flippers, fund the purchase of … immediately.

Midland is awful, only people who live there are working for Energy companies.