Monday, January 07, 2008

Bubble Confirmation


This can't be right.
If it is right and it does sell you may not hear from me for a while. You see this is my neighbor, my next door neighbor. If they get $5m then I can get $5m and next stop trust fund alley; Beemer, Club Med vacations, the whole hedonist lifestyle baaaybeeee.

Now, don't get me wrong. I love my predialian manse but properly structured $3.5m clear after expenses throws off $15k per month. that's a lot of suntan oil.

73 comments:

Akubi said...

Yuck!
I hate Safeway.com and Blogger too!

w said...

Must be they really value you as a neighbor.

Jim the Realtor said...

I'll list your house today for $3.99 and we'll be in escrow by Monday.

I'm not kidding, here's your second once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to make out like a bandit.

Tell your wife later, once the check clears.

TK said...

Now is a great time to buy AND sell. Barbara Corcoran said so last week! Just put some rented furniture in there, gay it up a bit, throw a little wine and cheese soiree and that'll move it within hours. Above asking price! Phenomenal.

H Simpson said...

Decimal point looks to be off by 1 position.

Dawg. Tell your neighbor to get a new tv. That pos was obsolete during the Clinton Adminstration.

And that ceiling fan. Looks like a Hampton Bay special from the Home Depot.

5 mill my kister. Has he not heard Casey is no longer flipping properities?

So what is the property tax on a 5,000,000 abode per year?



Gonna be some serious numbers in NH today. It is close to 55 degrees. Feels like March. Expect a big turnout.


h.

serinitis said...

Maybe Casey got his new id. 5 million pays a lot of cashback

Jim the Realtor said...

I just talked to Casey, and he's looking for more deals. I'm going to show it to him - he'll be your neighbor!!

Want to sell now?

Bilgeman said...

Rob:

Good luck!
You can be the "Anti-Casey".

Sweet!

w said...

I believe that same house is listed all over Camarillo in the 1-2 million range. And sitting on the market for 2 years.

Rob Dawg said...

For those of you who clicked thru to look at the property and have questions:

That little gray rectangle in the picture at the top of the post is my house. They have a larger view but less privacy and we have the golf course. The stucco monstrosity to the right in the picture is builder owned spec that the builder was forced to buy back for $2.1m last year. On and off the market at $2.4m with no interest. Another McStucco 3 houses further to the right is also sitting at $2.4m with no action.

JtR, I -assume- you meant $3.99m and not $3.99. Comissions on three dollars and ninety nine cents wouldn't buy you a cup of coffee at the McDonalds cafe bar. Oh, that's right your coffee will be free. ;-)

The owners are a nice elderly couple. I have no idea what is really going on. Despite the pictures and MLS and listing it is with an out of area agency and there is no sign and the price is just wacky. Sure solidly in the million but no way anything remotely close to two million.

Taxes now are maybe fifteen hundred a year. On $5m sales price; $1500 per week! Taxes.

w said...

Sales History
03/25/1988 $320,000

Taxes paid in 2007: $7,020

Bought in the last bubble. Maybe there is supernatural forces at work making this house a real estate indicator? Have you ever found any Indian bones on your property Rob? Any Chumash dancing in the yard?

Property Flopper said...

$15k per month. that's a lot of suntan oil.

And you'd need a LOT of suntan oil for the woman you chose to "decorate" the post with.

PLEASE don't do that for a morning post, it's not a good way to start the day. Late afternoon, possibly, but early mornings deserve something nice to look at.

:)

Rob Dawg said...

W,
thanks for looking up what I didn't have time to do. the taxes are actually much less, there is a temporary sewer assessment on the bill you cite which is why I only hazarded a guess.

I dig up seas shells on occasion as we are on a very weird geology. No artifacts and trust me, there have been enough horror stories that anyone finds anything they keep quiet.

There is nothing 'extraordinary' about either of our homes. Nice places to live and raise families. In the early 60s these were 'luxury' high end on modest lots. 2644 sq feet on a bit less than an acre. What has changed is the new idea of luxury. 6000 sf on 1/4 acre buildable pad. Yuck. I keep expecting plaques on the wall of the front entry hall cum mausoleum indicating where the ancestors are entombed.

Rob Dawg said...

prop flop,
Point taken. Just count yourself luck I didn't put up Borat in his mankini. My intent was to emphasize that something just wasn't right with this picture.

Property Flopper said...

Yeah... there is a LOT not right with that picture. REALLY not a good thing in the morning. :)

Peripheral Visionary said...

Your comment on artifacts hits home. I know someone who owns a piece of property with some striking petroglyphs, probably not pre-Columbian but still very old. Of course, he hasn't alerted anybody outside the family to that fact because he doesn't want the state riding in and laying claim to it. And as it turns out, they're safer without state eminent domain, because if the local punk kids don't know about them they won't get vandalized. The trick is to let the local archaeologists have a look without triggering a legal process, he's been trying to figure out how to do that.

chickelit said...

Extra cleavage in all the wrong places!

Anonymous said...

2300 sq. ft. for $5 million? HAHAHA!!

Praise Jebus for propity taxes!

HAHAHA!!

Rob Dawg said...

Million dollar views. 5 of them apparently.

Praize Jeebus for Proposition 13. Iffen my neighbor actually got the $5m and there weren't Prop 13 then I could expect a tax bill commensurate with comparable recent sales.

Akubi said...

Is anyone planning to listen to Arnold's supposed solution to the $14 mil budget deficit in the State of the State this afternoon?

Akubi said...

Of course I meant billion not million, but I guess my fingers are in denial.

Anonymous said...

Praize Jeebus for Proposition 13

Gittin yer props, eh? Well good for you! House jumpers and flippers should pay more, IMO.

Rob Dawg said...

Arnold is lying. He's trying to manage the CA budget like Hollywood does accounting.

Best case; no one buys it and we start over.

Second; no one buys it and we muddle til things get worse.

Likely; Scared investors read between the lines and CA debt isn't even sub-prime. How do you think Massachusetts residents are going to respond to the Feds bailing out Poway sewer projects rather than let them default?

Rob Dawg said...

Prop 13 ain't perfect but it has several awesome aspects. Prop 13 is voluntary. Fer gawd's sake how much more fair in taxes can you get? Prop 13 is not arbitrary. Think about this. I don't pick, my neighbors don't pick and some ass in Sacramento doesn't pick. The sales price is solid.

Some CA debt will be obviated. This is a very, very bad thing. It will take many dozens of years to resolve. Me? If my my sewer bonds default I expect to own the sewer and dammit as a private utility i expect to recover costs plus profit.

Anonymous said...

Obviated? Wow, I had to look that one up. In what sense will some CA debt be obviated? Cancelled projects? Spending cuts? Higher taxes? All of the above? To what do you allude?

Anonymous said...

Hey Dawg,

I hate to plug HBB, but if you haven't seen this you might enjoy reading.

Winston said...

I don't think that CA defaulting on its bonds is all that likely. There is plenty of room for California to increase its taxes, as the state with the 12th highest percentage tax take, it's barely in the top quarter of states - far below Vermont, Maine, New York, Rhode Island, Ohio, Hawaii or Wisconsin. In fact the state and local taxes in California consume about 11.5% of the average Californian's income, which is only half a percent above average. CA could increase taxes by 20% and still have lower taxes than New York, Maine and Vermont.

$14 billion is less than $500/resident. Cut spending 5% (come on, you can do it...), allow another 15,000 Indian Slot machines, raise UC and CSU tuition and bring back the VLF. Do that and you have a balanced budget.

Winston said...

BTW,

Prop 13 is a great law but the limit of a 2% annual increase in your assessment is WAY too low. If they had indexed it to the CPI then it would have been much better.

sk said...

Prop 13 is great - but Prop 13a would be better - freeze property taxes to the level at which the property sold in 1990.

Why not ? Its just as freakin' arbitrary as any other.

The alternative is that property prices in CA return to 1990 levels and property taxes stay indexed to last sold value. In that case:

I'll be BACKKKKKKKK.

-K

w said...

Prop 13A.1a as follows:

Home owners pay property taxes only up to the average assessed property value. In other words, if the average CA home costs 400k you only pay up to that price and anything over that is untaxed. Property taxes are too progressive.

Anonymous said...

Store clerk: Hey are you going to pay for that? Ahnold: "Talk to the hand."

Bilgeman said...

Rob:

"How do you think Massachusetts residents are going to respond to the Feds bailing out Poway sewer projects rather than let them default?"

Prolly the same as Californians felt about helping the Feds finance Boston's "Big Dig" so that Bostonians could enjoy their traffic jams in leaky underwater tunnels rather than on dilapidated steel bridges.

Rob Dawg said...

Prop 13 didn't freeze property taxes, it tied them to the individual purchase price. Imagine getting a good deal on a used car only to pay sales tax based upon the highest price the dumbest person in the state paid for a similar vehicle that year.

I have neighbors still under their 1975 assessments. How is that fair? Their tax rate is 1.92% and recent purchasers only pay 1.02%

Lou Minatti said...

$14 billion is less than $500/resident. Cut spending 5% (come on, you can do it...), allow another 15,000 Indian Slot machines, raise UC and CSU tuition and bring back the VLF. Do that and you have a balanced budget.

I swear that I read right here on Rob's blawg that University of California students are not charged for tuition. That means it's free, right? No tuition. In about 2012 when my son gets ready for college I am going to send him off to live with his relatives in Cali so he can get free college too.

Man, you folks in California sure are wealthy if college is free for everyone.

Lou Minatti said...

Prolly the same as Californians felt about helping the Feds finance Boston's "Big Dig" so that Bostonians could enjoy their traffic jams in leaky underwater tunnels rather than on dilapidated steel bridges.

The Big Dig cost more than the entire California budget deficit. I think the final bill for the Bay Bridge reconstruction project will also be higher than the current state deficit. Anyone want to bet against me?

Me personally? I have become numb to the concept of Billions. It's meaningless to me, hundreds of billions on the military, hundreds of billions on medical care, hundreds of billions for welfare payments... I don't really sit up and pay too much attention now until they start talking about Trillions.

Anonymous said...

Billary is winning in NH. Man, how can anybody vote for that skank?

Rob Dawg said...

$14 billion is less than $500/resident. Cut spending 5% (come on, you can do it...), allow another 15,000 Indian Slot machines, raise UC and CSU tuition and bring back the VLF. Do that and you have a balanced budget.

$14 billion is cut spending 15%. The major tribes cut a sweetheart deal and will only pay $9b over the next 20 years or $350m next year at most. Higher Ed is tuition free but yes fees will go way up. Someday somebody is going to challenge fees and tuition. That person will live on in history with as much fame as the now dentist who broke the back of racial discrimination in the UC system. Come on people, what is his name? Starts with a "B." Has set the supposed law for the last few decades.

Okay. See the problem? California is no longer a Republic and has very few remaining aspects of democracy. We are going to have to fall down and pick ourselves up rather than work out a few wrinkles.

Akubi said...

@Edgar,
I said I wouldn't discuss politics, but I want to vomit.
How long can she pull off this sensitive PMS-experiencing feminine BS to make women voters sympathize with her?
When I realized Safeway.com didn't deliver my toilet bowl cleaner, I decided enough was enough and I want my missing groceries delivered and I want them now.

Rob Dawg said...

Give it a few more returns Edgar. The college towns are yet to report. Honest, it doesn't matter. Mitt takes Michigan and solids Super Tuesday. Barack does near as well as Hilly and the Dem money machine shifts to him.

Rob Dawg said...

Akubi, right on. I forgot to mention reporting in threads is okay but even though Hilly is a skank and I have no prob calling her skankiness skany I really don't want her skank skanking my blog up any more than I want the huckasmell smelling up my blog.

Ogg the Caveman said...

@ Lou Minatti:

That sweet deal only applies to residents. If CA is like most states, "residency" for college admission purposes includes a bunch of conditions like having been in the state for so many years and not having moved there for the purpose of going to college. That last part is hard to prove, but the first part is another matter.

Akubi said...

Well, after wasting a lot of time on the phone (and being disconneted) with Safeway.com customer service over the past 24 hours or so, I finally started yelling at them and DEMANDING A SOLUTION to this probem when I realized the PMS angle was working (as I recall, Bill would do that semi-tearing up BS on a regular basis). No toilet cleaner, but a sweet credit. I think the latest delivery guy is a POS.


U.C. tuition is a hell of a lot more expensive than it was in my day.

Bilgeman said...

Rob:

"Bakke" if memory serves.

(And no, I didn't wiki him, yet.)

Anonymous said...

@ Rob Dawg sed:

Akubi, right on. I forgot to mention reporting in threads is okay but even though Hilly is a skank and I have no prob calling her skankiness skany I really don't want her skank skanking my blog up any more than I want the huckasmell smelling up my blog.

I thought there was a writer's strike out there. Man, you slay me. I think akubi will agree with me when I say: "All politicos are skanks". My first order of business is to dig a bunker all the way to china. They'll kill us all...

Lou Minatti said...

I said I wouldn't discuss politics, but I want to vomit.
How long can she pull off this sensitive PMS-experiencing feminine BS to make women voters sympathize with her?


I said yesterday that she is far from finished. She has the most powerful political machine of my lifetime behind her.

Lou Minatti said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Anonymous said...

Yeah man, that sincerity crap really sells. If I didn't know what a skanky ho she was I'd believe it myself. My fellow amurkins deserve the gubbermint they have.

Bilgeman said...

The UberFrauFuhrer shall prevail, you will see.

She has yet to play her saxophone while wearing Wayfarers on the "Arsenio Hall Show".

The youth acclaim her for this...

Rob Dawg said...

Oh God. I thought I was alone in thinking the sniff moment was everything wrong with her and american politics. I don't personally like her. I don't personally like her positions. I don't personally like her strategy. I also have a gut dislike.

Don't get me wrong. If she hired me I'd honestly promote her avowed positions and never betray that access with dirt when it mattered. I'd even likely proffer my opinions as to what she should do different to be a better candidate. I'd do pretty much the same for most any candidate that would accept my services.

Lou Minatti said...

A Bush or Clinton will have been in charge since I was a kid up until late middle age.

1981-1989 - Bush Sr. (VP)
1989-1993 - Bush Sr. (P)
1993-2001 - Clinton, William (P)
2001-2009 - Bush Jr. (P)
2009-2017 - Clinton, Hillary (P)

That's 323 dog years!

Akubi said...

Arnold didn't say anything as usual this afternoon - and continued his defense of repealing the car tax - stating it helps folks get to work.
Hey, maybe there might be something wrong with public transit if someone needs a car to get to work?
Or _maybe_ we have a bunch of lazy, fat slugs who can't bother using their legs to get from point A to point B?
In some NIMBY anti-rail areas I’m familiar with, even the illegals don’t bother putting up with the bad weather and mile walks between stop and destination. So I sit alone in the rain at the bus stops and occasionally encounter someone else in the Twilight Zone.
Tax cars and gym memberships if one has to drive there. On the plus side of car and gas taxes (besides the fact that I hate Exxon) is that there are multiple benefit streams involved in car-less existence.

Akubi said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
H Simpson said...

on Letterman tonight, Dave is drinking Jamba juice.

His money line:

You drink one, and then you drink another and you feel sick to your stomach.

Then he is showing a Jamba Juice joint in NYC. No sign of Wheat Shot Casey

h.

Bilgeman said...

Rob:

"If she hired me I'd honestly promote her avowed positions and never betray that access with dirt when it mattered."

You would?

What if she hired you to shave her legs for her fishnet stockings?

(Sweet Dreams, fella!)

Unknown said...

It's finally happening on the peninsula - originally listed for $859K, this 2 Bed/1 Bath home in Belmont is going for $629K in a short sale.

I see tens of houses now in Redwood City, Belmont, and San Carlos in the 550K-650K range that just flat out didn't exist only 12-18 months ago.

Unknown said...

Here's the linky:

http://denicenagel.com/PropertyDetails?show_address=yes&show_description=yes&show_virtual_tour=yes&pid=758712&ls=REIL&presented_by=yes

H Simpson said...

CFC lost 30% today.

Rumors of bankrupcy denied according to cnn.

I do believe we are getting into the 3rd innning of this ballgame.

h.

Ogg the Caveman said...

I'm surprised that nobody has posted about Countrywide getting in trouble for fabricating evidence yet.

Bob said...

"Come on people, what is his name? Starts with a "B." Has set the supposed law for the last few decades?"

Allan P. ain't no dentist.

Funny Circus Bears said...

Alan Bakke.

Akubi said...

Lex - as in Lexus and such,
I do recall you stating "When boomers are alone, they give things to each other for free."

Winston said...

Lou,

The UC and CSU don't charge "tuition," but they do charge "registration fees," which cover FAR, FAR more than the cost of processing a student's paperwork. In fact, they're comparable in-state tuition for most state schools in other states (lower, but comparable). I was being somewhat flippant with my budget comments. A 5% cut would save around 5 billion, which is about the same amount that repealing the VLF reduction would raise. The other $4 billion can be saved through a raft of minor measures such as raising tuition, more Indian casinos, parole reform (California has a uniquely high rate of returning parolees to prison for minor offenses), and a bunch of smaller cuts and fee increases would do it.

Peripheral Visionary said...

Seems like there was a California politician who went down in infamy for proposing to do away with free tuition--he was met with massive campus protests, and I suspect that there were questions about what it would mean for his political career. What was his name again . . .

serinitis said...

The N.H results were interesting. I suspect the deciding factor on the Democrat side was McCain. In Iowa the democrats had a 2 to 1 advantage in votes. In New Hampshire they had a 25% advantage. The Democrats trend slightly away from Obama but the independants are strongly for him. McCain cut into his independants and cost him the victory. The machine Obama faced was also underestimated, but he is going to face that machine everywhere.

Property Flopper said...

That person will live on in history with as much fame as the now dentist who broke the back of racial discrimination in the UC system.

Rob - Sorry to disappoint, the UC system STILL uses race as a determining factor.

The case you're talking about (Bakke v. UC Regents) only struck down the use of quotas. In fact, the case actually supported the use of affirmative action in admissions. Universities could use race as a factor - allowing "extra" points for SAT scores for minorities for instance - just not hold a certain number of spots for minorities.

An often misunderstood case.

w said...

And with impeccable timing we have todays story:

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-tax9jan09,0,4326424.story?coll=la-home-center

Plan calls for 1.25% levy on all residential and commercial property policies. Foes say it is a tax.

Arnold is raising money for firefighters by adding a tax to property owners. This tax is small right now, but in 20 years it will be much bigger once the firefighters union works on it a little.

w said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
H Simpson said...

serinitis

Maybe not McCain, though he did better than expected. Then again, Mass governors do about as well as child rapists in the Granite State electons. Just ask "the DUKE".

About 3 pm yesterday, the NH sec of state was running all over So NH trying to get more ballots out to the polling sites.

Yes with the warm weather (62 sunny degrees) helped, as did the climate of a sea change. It was the largest turnout ever, but they were desparte to specificatlly get democratic ballots distributed.
So most the independents went to the Hillary/Obama race, hence the shortage.

The fact Obama made up as much ground as he did in the last week should be an issue to the Clinton campaign.

One major concern is that earlier in the season, it was noted that blacks were not going to vote for Obama as they thought he did not have a chance.

Now that it has been proven he can run with the best of them in 2 very white states, that attitude may change their minds.

S Carolina with 70% black voters is going to be an interesting litmus test for sure to see if the Clinton political machine can stop the thirst for change.

And how long until Al Gore decides to return the knife he dug out of his back in 2000.

h.

serinitis said...

S Carolina will be very interesting. If the blacks vote racial politics, they may go for Clinton. All of the black leaders are for her. One of Obama's strengths has been his transcendance of race. That might hurt him in S.C.

The real fight will be Feb 5th. And that may well be determined by how many states allow independants to vote in the Democrat primary.

serinitis said...

And expect change to be the Clinton Mantra.

Winston said...

serinitis

UC isn't allowed to use race as a factor for admissions at all anymore. They have spent the past several years playing with admissions standards to try to find a way around that requirement. When race was dropped as a factor, black and hispanic enrollment at the UC plummeted, which was unacceptable to those in charge. For their first attempt to improve minority enrollment, they decided to change the admissions criteria from the top 12.5% of all students overall to the top 12.5% from each school, which effectively penalizes parents who send their students to good schools because someone in the 80th percentile in the best school in the state won't be admitted to the UC, but someone who is 90th percentile of the worst school in the state and can't read or write (yes, there are schools that bad) can be admitted. Still, the cream floats to the top and this change wasn't enough to get the non-asian minority numbers to reflect the general population, so they're proposing using other proxies to improve the admission rates of blacks and hispanics.

Rob Dawg said...

I'm glad people say right through my sarcasm. UC is the very worst racial discriminator left in this nation excepting perhaps some East Coast big city fire departments.

The upshot has been a dimunition of academic quality and eroding public support for affordable higher education. Google for Ward Connerly.

chickelit said...

Winston:

That little change in in 12.5 rule has also had the perverse effect of raising scores in the so-called bad schools as parents slowly realize that their smart kid can more easily get into UC schools if they move to one. Look at it as a kind of school gentrification. This is actually a good thing as a mixing phenomenon.