Recently I short-sold the dollar for 30 years. In lieu of a good fath deposit with a commodities dealer, I made a down payment on a house "purchase". In the US a good way to issue long-term fixed-rate debt is to "buy" a house. So I did. WC Varones, I salute you, see WCV's 12 January 2010 post:
http://www.wcvarones.com/2010/01/how-i-learned-to-stop-worrying-and-love.html. Houston real estate is cheap compared to that in Los Angeles. I estimate my house would have cost 4X as much if in say Woodland Hills, CA, about 25 miles northwest of downtown LA. Zimbabwe Ben help me pay my mortgage. No exit! Tax credits! Panem et circenses!
8 comments:
500k chicken-shacks in San Jose; still way too high; 1400 condo rents for $1500, saving thousands by renting. Then, when he time is right, move to a rational housing market elsewhere (maybe New Hampshire) with a fat down payment.
Texas look equally promising; congrats on the new digs, I happen to agree with WC and yourself; a house at a fair price might be the best hedge--but not in hyper-inflated parts of California.
Congrats IA!
Proud new debt issuer...
Yes... do thank Printer Ben... it's the only form of savings he allows us...
Ubu:
In late 2006 I sold my condo in zip code 90068, Hollywood Hills for 3.91X what I paid for it in 1998. For the condo's sale price I could buy a mansion here in Houston.
When you get the right opportunity leave California behind. Keep your eyes open.
IA
IA, I'm already gone, just waiting for the right business alignment; California is for suckers.
Last one out is a rotten egg, Ubu. My tentative last date in California is September 1st.
Ubu:
In late 2006 I sold my condo in zip code 90068, Hollywood Hills for 3.91X what I paid for it in 1998. For the condo's sale price I could buy a mansion here in Houston.
When you get the right opportunity leave California behind. Keep your eyes open.
IA
I wouldn't get too smug. I've got family that has lived there since the Ford administration. Houston/Dallas/Ft. Worth goes up and it goes down. Busts are relative. When oil goes tits up (which it is known to do dating back to Spindletop), Houston gets weird.
Jeff
Jeff:
I saw the 1982-87 oil bust. I foresee nothing like that now.
IA
Jeff:
I saw the 1982-87 oil bust. I foresee nothing like that now.
IA
What would you call oil going from $140 a barrel to its current level?
Texas doesn't make nearly as much money from oil as it once did - it makes it from oil know-how. It's only a matter of time before the Chinese and Indians and Russians get a few things figured out for themselves.
What galls me is that there is much on your blog bashing monetary policy, tax give-away’s, bullshit Fed shell games but then you go balls deep into it. You've been around the block. If everyone refuses to participate in this bullshit and demands better, it goes away and the market then sets the price (as it should).
“Many immigrants are poor and low skilled. ... From 1989 to 2007, about three quarters of the increase in the poverty population occurred among Hispanics--mostly immigrants, their children and grandchildren. ...”
As Texas demographics approach Mexico's, Texans average living standard will approach that of Mexicans. It's that simple.
The immigration from Mexico helped you buy a California condo and sell it for nearly four times as much as you paid for it a scant six years later. To borrow a Bob Dylan lyric:
I can tell you fancy, I can tell you plain
You give something up for everything you gain
Since every pleasure's got an edge of pain
Pay for your ticket and don't complain
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