01.11.2007 - Snow Day Open Thread
This is your open thread for Thursday, January 11, 2007. Please post random links and off-topic discussions here.
Off-topic comment? Interesting link?
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15 comments:
Snow day? Eh? What snow?
There's no snow here in Ballard -- just sunny skies and smiling yuppies!
(What do you expect? The streets are paved with gold, and the McCraftsmen appreciated $10,000 before lunch!)
Yeah everyone in my office is here today... no snow day for me. But I'm not a 206er, half an inch of snow doesn't scare me!
OWNING A HOME
Male renter might as well sit in squalor and wait
As a young male who rents his home, I was disappointed to learn from reporter Aubrey Cohen ("Single female home buyers have lots of company," Monday) that my decision to rent is due to the fact that that "there's just something about young men" that makes us bad with money.
For years, I've been paying less in rent than the cost of a monthly mortgage, diligently saving my money and avoiding the rampant price speculation that has made local homes all but unaffordable without the help of "exotic" financing. I thought I was being responsible. But as it turns out, renting is just another deficiency I can attribute to my Y chromosome.
Sigh. I guess my only choice now is to live in my squalor, eat some cold pizza and wait for a good woman to rescue me from my life of financial destitution (I hope she finds me before she's underwater on an interest-only mortgage.)
Tim Robertson
Seattle
pi letter
Nice one, Tim!
I found a few more reasons why "everyone wants to live in Seattle".
According to the PI editorial, Seattle is 2nd in drug use and 4th in bank robberies!
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/299167_drugsed.html
Former meth houses have that certain attraction. No wonder the prices have risen so much. "Street Value" of some of these places is higher than the mortgage?
Oct with a fez,
In all my travels from west to east, I have seen a better synopsis of a brothers woes.
When they say 4th in "bank robberies" they mean sub prime and home equity loans that the banks aren't going to get back when the bottom falls out.
“Sales of existing Scottsdale homes dropped 40 percent in 2006 from the previous year while the median price edged up. Scottsdale Realtor Mark Tait said Scottsdale’s median price increase is misleading because it is skewed upward by luxury home buyers.”
Wow! I got the above quote from Ben Jones blog "The Housing Bubble"
A realtor is actually explaining how median price statistics can be misleading! This is a truely rare phenomenon.
Had a snow day here, even though I could have made it in. Only 3 inches in Lake Hills, but people are nuts. Driving around today I saw a car that had crashed into a wall and knocked it down on another car. And a friend got rear-ended in traffic last night on the way home. People just cannot drive in the snow here, despite there beaing so many mountains nearby. That's the main reason I didn't go in -- well, that and the fact I look for any opportunity not to go to work. =)
Hey, where is Shug and Finance Guru? haven't heard a peep from them lately.
CNN Money reveals "Housing market pain not revealed by stats
Home sellers are crying but the data doesn't seem to reflect their woes."
Kinda what everybody here has been trying to convey.
Housing market pain not revealed by stats
I believe that article is missing a "Special Advertising Section" disclaimer, just like the real estate section in the paper edition of the Seattle Times.
Seriously, that article, and some of the quotes in it, made me alternately laugh and become nauseated.
What a hack job.
T,V & Mr.B - Ahh, thanks for wondering about Shug & I...as for myself, I decided to sell (flip) my condo, short the stock market and RENT (a dirty 4-letter word)!
Ok I lied, I did none of the above. However, I have been crazy busy at work, MBA classes started back up at SU (taking 1 class and studying for the CFA, Chartered Financial Analyst), and got me a hot woman recently. So my free time is now non-existent. I have been reading the posts and will have some cool stats for tomorrow.
BTW: For my condo, if the market does take a dive or something really bad happens to me here is my back up plan; use my $10K reserve account squirreled away, 401-k is my 2nd back up plan, and 3rd back up plan is taking out student loans, 4th back up is "the parents". So at least I have an exit strategy (until the market regains traction if the Seattle market stagnates).
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