What's your house worth?

[Flying Ace]

Originally Posted by fravel

Yeah, I'm learning that financing an education doesn't fall in the "good debt" category anymore.

depends on what your college degree is and how you apply it. Seriously though, college degree doesn't equal guaranteed good paying job these days. People need to study what the marketplace wants. Else your college debt is bad debt. You're paying money into something that doesn't give you a return on investment.

I don't know if high school counselors or college career office are not being realistic with kids these days, but kids need to show what the payouts are per major before they make a choice.

There is no shortcut or easy street to life after college. You don't like to take engineering/accounting/science classes, then be prepared for skills and knowledge sets that's not applicable nor marketable to the employers out there.

The undergraduate business school I went to did exactly this for all undergrad business students (if you so chose to attend their seminars or go into the career counseling office for more information). They gave you a printout of all the average payouts per undergrad business degree...at the bottom of the list: Marketing, Hospitality, Entrepreneurship, Int'l Business majors, and at the top of the list: Accounting, Logistics, MIS, Finance. Any guesses on which ones are the "easier" classes to take in the undergraduate curriculum at my school? Any guess what the bulk of undergrad business students selected?

For example, Art History. I'm sure somewhere in the US, there's 2-3 teaching jobs or museum curator jobs that opens up every year that requires an art history major. But what about the 50 other art history majors in your graduating class? It's a highly competitive for those 3 jobs in this field. So if you're not the best of the best in your field of study, you're not getting that job and working as a realtor or at Starbucks and bitter at the world for misleading you.

[Mr Tonka]

Originally Posted by SilverII

Ten 100K house or one 1mil house?

Ten $50k houses and one $500k house.

[euro*]

Originally Posted by supernoob

Out in lovely Vancouver Canada one can buy a 1200 sqft roach infested asbestos insulated shack for around 1.5-2 mil. And these properties sell within days of listing. These foreign investors have totally destroyed a local vancouverites ability to buy a family home. It's really kinda sad.

i feel your pain, same thing is happening in Toronto/GTA area right now. The market is scorching hot, and newcomers that have been in Canada less than half a year are scooping up houses like i dont know what, money is obviously no issue.

[M_Six]

I posted this before, but I'm going to leave it here again.

http://www.realtor.com/realestateand...0_M80465-44420

This is what you get if you're a surgeon at the local hospital or the CEO of one of the local plants or banks. But you still have to shop in the same crummy supermarket as everyone else and you still have no decent place to shop and you're still 2-3 hours from a major airport.

Being back east for a week is really making me miss the good things this area offers. But those thing are offset by traffic I haven't had to deal with in years and crappy roads and long waits for restaurant seating and so on. No place is perfect.

[fravel]

Originally Posted by Flying Ace

depends on what your college degree is and how you apply it. Seriously though, college degree doesn't equal guaranteed good paying job these days....

I don't know if high school counselors or college career office are not being realistic with kids these days, but kids need to show what the payouts are per major before they make a choice.

Field of study doesn't matter (did my undergrad in biomedical engineering). Financing an education just isn't a path to financial freedom anymore and shouldn't be looked at as one. If someone else wants to pay for it (or you can do so in cash) and you have a genuine interest in the field of study, then more power to you, but it's a waste of time and money if you have to finance it, period.

Your second point is the boat myself and many of the kids my age find themselves in - we were always told "Get good grades so you can get into a good college or you'll be working at McDonald's". I had no delusions about pursuing a worthless degree, I chose something that was difficult with the expectation that it would be a worthwhile effort. I was wrong. You can't get a job without already having experience in the field, and you can't get experience without a job. Co-op programs/internships are so common now that companies don't even consider that as experience anymore, just another filter.

The shitty part is that I'm actually worse off for even trying.

[csu87]

It's 50% luck and 50% who you know to get a good job out of college; even with a good degree.

I lucked into a great job, but I know people who were probably more qualified that are still working shitty jobs.

[JS135]

Originally Posted by supernoob

Out in lovely Vancouver Canada one can buy a 1200 sqft roach infested asbestos insulated shack for around 1.5-2 mil. And these properties sell within days of listing. These foreign investors have totally destroyed a local vancouverites ability to buy a family home. It's really kinda sad.

This ^^ really bothers the hell out of me.

Not quite as bad in the Toronto area but it's getting worse.

[David70]

Originally Posted by csu87

It's 50% luck and 50% who you know to get a good job out of college; even with a good degree.

I lucked into a great job, but I know people who were probably more qualified that are still working shitty jobs.

Interesting that you put zero percentage to what you know and the person you are. Personally I new no one and think most of my success was because of the degree I got, what I was willing to do and that I was willing to move to a city I had never been to. I would put luck at 10%.

Also surprised when people complain about what it costs to live where they have chosen to live. If you don't like it move somewhere else.

[csu87]

Originally Posted by David70

Interesting that you put zero percentage to what you know and the person you are. Personally I new no one and think most of my success was because of the degree I got, what I was willing to do and that I was willing to move to a city I had never been to. I would put luck at 10%.

Also surprised when people complain about what it costs to live where they have chosen to live. If you don't like it move somewhere else.

Id say that stuff helped me keep the job. But in my field, with a graduating class of 100+ people, + all the people across the US, all fighting over the same jobs in a declining job market, i call it luck. Like i said, I know plenty of people that were more qualified that never ended up getting something good out of school.

My junior year I was needing to do an internship which was required to graduate. After going through the process of interviewing with tons of companies, this one company calls me up out of the blue 1 week before the deadline to start internships. There was one other intern and he was absolutely terrible, so it made me stand out even moreso and turned into a nice job once i graduated.

So many things fell into place, that it was definitely luck.

[SDH]

Originally Posted by supernoob

Out in lovely Vancouver Canada one can buy a 1200 sqft roach infested asbestos insulated shack for around 1.5-2 mil. And these properties sell within days of listing. These foreign investors have totally destroyed a local vancouverites ability to buy a family home. It's really kinda sad.

The same the world over. Although I bet there are a few long time inhabitants in central London that love all these Russian and Chinese investors bumping up the value of their homes. Sell up, move to the countryside and retire early on that property boom.

[Flying Ace]

Originally Posted by fravel

Field of study doesn't matter (did my undergrad in biomedical engineering). Financing an education just isn't a path to financial freedom anymore and shouldn't be looked at as one. If someone else wants to pay for it (or you can do so in cash) and you have a genuine interest in the field of study, then more power to you, but it's a waste of time and money if you have to finance it, period.

Your second point is the boat myself and many of the kids my age find themselves in - we were always told "Get good grades so you can get into a good college or you'll be working at McDonald's". I had no delusions about pursuing a worthless degree, I chose something that was difficult with the expectation that it would be a worthwhile effort. I was wrong. You can't get a job without already having experience in the field, and you can't get experience without a job. Co-op programs/internships are so common now that companies don't even consider that as experience anymore, just another filter.

The shitty part is that I'm actually worse off for even trying.

Dude, seriously...you have it good. Bio-Engineering is better than Art History. It's partially luck, partially how you look for a job. You're so damn close man. Review the manner of how you're looking and applying for a job. Also, is your region even relevant in the field? Thought about coming to the Bay Area? Do you have to be where you are today? Just a few thoughts.

When my wife and I moved from DC to SF, I had to change jobs. I was discouraged for a good 3 months too. But I realized, for me and my field, it was about the manner of how I was going about looking for a job. Your chances of hitting an interview doing "blind application submissions on company websites" is pretty much the lowest probability out there. It's about finding the right recruiter or even using the paid LinkedIn feature to help you search smart. Remember, work smart not hard at this point when it comes to looking for a job.

Serious dude, your degree IS a good investment, don't get discouraged b/c you don't have a job today. You're so damn close.

[JohnnyCanuck]

Originally Posted by supernoob

I've been riding these markets for over ten years now and praise allah or Satan or baby Jesus or whoever that I got in when I did. But...

I feel for these first time home buyers. Young families types. These respectable and hard working citizens may never own a detached house at this pace. That's unless one wants to call a condo or townhome or any structure where one shares a wall with strangers in a highly densitified urban district a house.

I'm with you ... both my wife and I got in the market before we met so several places later we're pretty good. On top of that, we got a fantastic deal on our current home.

I look at it this way, when my parents bought the home we grew up in back in 1961, the cost was equal to 2.5 years of their gross family income. When my Dad sold it in 2006 (the house was a knockdown so the value was purely land), it was about 4.5 to 5 times what my wife and I would have made back then. Now, the land alone is assessed at 15 times what we make (and we're pretty well off and make good incomes ... not rich, but we do more than OK).

Part of the Vancouver scenario is there's no real land for urban expansion. Ocean on one side, mountains on another, ALR on the third, and the US border on the fourth. The only place Vancouver can go is up which leads to significantly increased density (which is also part of what makes Vancouver so livable in some ways). It's not all foreign money. That's different than the Toronto phenomenon ... not sure what's driving that.

[te37]

Who honestly has a 100+ million dollar home?

[PoorLurker]

Originally Posted by M_Six

I posted this before, but I'm going to leave it here again.

http://www.realtor.com/realestateand...0_M80465-44420

This is what you get if you're a surgeon at the local hospital or the CEO of one of the local plants or banks.

Is that a nice neighborhood? Is that house a rose in a thorn bush? Always interesting to see what I can come across on the internet. However, I always question what type of people are in the surrounding area. That house costs less than a 1700 sq. ft house near me and my neighborhood isn't even that sought after relative to the So. Cal market. People turn their nose up at me when I tell them where I live. They are like "ewww"

Originally Posted by te37

Who honestly has a 100+ million dollar home?

trolls. Trolls are the richest types of people on the internet.

Regarding housing values/pricing and how it's hard to get ideas from because of area.

I am pretty sure that none of my neighbors have salaries that equal the value of their house. My neighborhood does not sustain that type of income. Then again, it's not always linear either.

I know people who live in the nicest places in CA who have houses that cost less than their yearly income. Make $10mm and live in a $5mm house and that's normal. Make $600k and live in a $300k house in So. Cal and that's quite strange. Even living in a $600k house making $600k in So. Cal is very, very rare.

I used to like to think in proportions. For example, the most "baller" car on my block is like 1/6 of the home's value. The average house has a car in the driveway that is about 1/25 of the home's value. But then that always doesn't hold true because there are areas where one will have a stable of cars worth more than their house. There is a guy on forums who has exotic after exotic and lives in an OC neighborhood thats like $800k-1mm. Around here, that type of neighborhood just doesn't scream Ferrari and exotic owner. However, in other areas, a $500k house is Ferrari ownership status.

What do you guys do with all that disposable income!!!!! M_Six

[yakuza70]

Originally Posted by Mr Tonka

It's kind of meaningless without knowing where the house is located.

1m - 2m house in the SF Bay area or Connecticut could be a 2br 1ba duplex with no garage.

500k house in Macon GA is likely on 2 acres, 5br, 6ba, 3car garage with a pool.

Exactly! It's the same when I see polls about salary. I have a 692 square foot, 1 bedroom condo and an identical unit above me went for $500,000 but that's the S.F. Bay Area housing market for you!

[Flying Ace]

Originally Posted by JohnnyCanuck

I'm with you ... both my wife and I got in the market before we met so several places later we're pretty good. On top of that, we got a fantastic deal on our current home.

I look at it this way, when my parents bought the home we grew up in back in 1961, the cost was equal to 2.5 years of their gross family income. When my Dad sold it in 2006 (the house was a knockdown so the value was purely land), it was about 4.5 to 5 times what my wife and I would have made back then. Now, the land alone is assessed at 15 times what we make (and we're pretty well off and make good incomes ... not rich, but we do more than OK).

Part of the Vancouver scenario is there's no real land for urban expansion. Ocean on one side, mountains on another, ALR on the third, and the US border on the fourth. The only place Vancouver can go is up which leads to significantly increased density (which is also part of what makes Vancouver so livable in some ways). It's not all foreign money. That's different than the Toronto phenomenon ... not sure what's driving that.

Exact same situation with San Francisco today. However, compounding SF's problems are:

1. city ordinances that discourages building "up".
2. city ordinances that discourages renting, i.e. rent control laws that are disproportionally anti-property owner
3. red hot jobs market where new money, young, well paid people from other areas of the world are moving to SF and need to buy/rent.
4. company subsidized shuttle buses that encourage Silicon Valley workers to live 60 miles north in SF
5. displacement of legacy SF residents, the blue collar, the poor, the black, the Hispanic, etc.
6. district representation in the local legislature that creates a disproportionate and over-representation of the minority of citizens, but however creates local laws that are not agreeable to the majority.

this has created a pot of shit that get stirred constantly and people pissed off at each other.

[ASAP]

bad time to buy... holding off till market tanks again... and it will, questions is how much?

[PoorLurker]

Originally Posted by ASAP

bad time to buy... holding off till market tanks again... and it will, questions is how much?

People always say this.

some houses in my neighborhood have not rebounded from their peak price a decade later.

So are we expecting a market that has had negative return over a 15 year period?

From the early 1970s to the early 2000s, houses doubled every decade. This is where the common saying about housing doubling every decade comes from. Now I don't expect the houses to double from their 2011 price in 2021, however, 5 years out, some places are still not at their peak prices. While some bubbles are atypical (search Mainland China areas of interest)


Only time will tell. Personally, buy a home that you can afford and live in for the rest of your life and who cares about the ups and the downs.

[M_Six]

Originally Posted by PoorLurker

Is that a nice neighborhood? Is that house a rose in a thorn bush? Always interesting to see what I can come across on the internet. However, I always question what type of people are in the surrounding area. That house costs less than a 1700 sq. ft house near me and my neighborhood isn't even that sought after relative to the So. Cal market. People turn their nose up at me when I tell them where I live. They are like "ewww"

It is the biggest house in the neighborhood, but the others in that neighborhood (maybe 15) are all in the $350k-$480k range. There's actually a slightly smaller house in that neighborhood that I like a lot better. The overall area has a few neighborhoods like this where higher paid faculty or administrators live. But there are also lots of houses under $100k where many of the blue collar workers and university staff live. But that's a plus as well because almost anyone can afford a house here, unlike many other areas.

[Flying Ace]

Originally Posted by ASAP

bad time to buy... holding off till market tanks again... and it will, questions is how much?

Easier said then done. When shit hits the fan like 2008 and everyone around you are losing their jobs, will you have the balls to drop $300k+ on a house that might loose more value?

[eluded]

1.8 million. Kind of overpriced for a dump if you ask me

[Axius]

The basement I've been locked in and chained to for the past year is worth nothing. Haven't seen the light of day, being fed stale Cheez-Its and Capri Sun, and forced to watch The Goonies 24/7.