A tiny snack for all you California haters out there...
We just had some research that showed that our most common customer cohort has a single-family home (I hesitate to use the word "owns" since the bank owns most of these) with a value of over $1,000,000. I was curious what that meant and came across this article.
11 facts about San Francisco's housing market that will make you glad you live somewhere else
https://www.businessinsider.com/san-francisco-housing-market-facts-rent-2019-5
Average price of a home in SFO went from $420,000 in 2000 to $1.38 million in 2019.
Since the largest cohort of customers are from the Bay Area, that means our customers with million-dollar homes are just regular, average people by Bay Area standards.
The craziest thing, though, is that condos in the 2009 Millennium Tower, which has sunk 18 inches since 2009 and tilts 14 inches are still selling for $2 million.
For the Bay Area at large, the median price is $996,000
http://www.vitalsigns.mtc.ca.gov/home-prices
For California at large, it is $611,000
https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/california-home-sales-retreat-in-june-but-2019-housing-market-outlook-revised-upward-car-reports-300886676.html
For Fresno it is roughly $250,000. Bakersfield is even more affordable, but they didn't give a price.
https://thebusinessjournal.com/index-fresno-home-prices-fall-boosting-affordability-for-april/
The flip side, is that if I look at the most affordable cities in the US, the list in april (same source) was:
Detroit
Fort Wayne, Ind.
Wichita, Kan.
Cleveland, Ohio
Buffalo, N.Y.
Thanks, but no thanks. First of all they are all cities, just for starters. Second of all they are all all hundreds of miles from the nearest thing that could be called a mountain (Buffalo is closest - a mere 343 miles from Lake Placid).
Despite what RC posted the other day, for me, I have noticed that proximity to mountains has a high correlation with happiness, whereas proximity to ocean does not.
>The craziest thing, though, is that condos in the 2009 Millennium Tower, which has sunk 18 inches since 2009 and tilts 14 inches are still selling for $2 million.
wow wtf
>Thanks, but no thanks.
Yea, that's pretty much an armpit list.
Side note, I've been seeing a lot of out of state plates in the area lately, from nearby states, but also NY and surprisingly a lot from Texas.
>million-dollar homes are just regular, average people by Bay Area standards
Yes. Though, many ordinary people would not be able to buy what they currently own today.
>Millennium Tower,
I swear I can see that thing leaning.
>armpit list.
The only place I've spent anytime in the rest belt was Ohio, it was probably the most miserable place I've ever been. Fresno is not much better though, I have no idea why anybody would spend $400k to live there.
QuoteDespite what RC posted the other day, for me, I have noticed that proximity to mountains has a high correlation with happiness, whereas proximity to ocean does not.
I do think that is very personal. I need both.
Sue (wife) has just come back from seeing an aunt in Redondo Beach, and the taxi driver (the one English speaking one) said a similar thing. He loved living there, but inherited the house from his dad, and could never afford the $1m price himself.
Not sure I would want to live in Millennium Tower. Never heard of it before.
Quote from: littleman on November 20, 2019, 10:02:29 PM
Though, many ordinary people would not be able to buy what they currently own today.
That occurred to me. I think $420,000 in 2000 was affordable to a lot of people in the Bay Area, but $1.38 million today can't be. Salaries are not *that* high.
As for the Midwest - I've lived in Madison, WI (5 years) and spent a lot of time in Rochester, MN (in-laws) and Grand Rapids, MI (I've taught a two-week course there every two years since 1998... gearing up for 2020 now).
They are all perfectly livable, even wonderful places -- if I had other hobbies. As I know from my niece, who went to Case and then worked for GE in Cleveland, there's a big difference between Cleveland and Columbus, Madison, Rochester and GR.
Still, if you don't care about mountains and ocean, there's a lot to be said for the Midwest.
I had a bumper sticker that said: "If you live a good life, say your prayers and go to church, when you die, you'll go to Nebraska." I was recently moved back from living in Switzerland driving through the flat cornfields of Nebraska, thinking about how hard it would be for me to live there, and stopped for gas, saw the sticker, bought it and walked out and put it on my car.
I was on my way to a conference. My major professor a church-going Christian, son and grandson of missionaries, was there. He read it. Paused about one second, and then said: "So that's why you don't go to church."
But then I moved to the Bay Area, and I ran into so many people from Nebraska who were itching to move back. Why? Hunting, fishing, riding motorcycles, schools, housing costs, family. Lots of good reasons. It started to make me feel ashamed of the sticker. When people would ask if I was from Nebraska, I would answer honestly: "No, I was just driving through and loved the bumper sticker."
And THEN there were the Californians, unable to contemplate the horror of living in one of those flyover states. Strangers would walk up, pause, read the sticker, pause, then say something like: "So. Uh. Is that. Well. Is that a joke?"
To which I would say, "No, Nebraska is a fantastic place. Have you ever been?"
To which the answer in 100% of the cases was, of course, "No." Overall, having that sticker made me feel more positive toward Nebraskans and less positive toward Californians!
Quote"If you live a good life, say your prayers and go to church, when you die, you'll go to Nebraska."
love the story. A Tom special :)
>>Ohio
My wife is originally from Columbus. I have been there twice and hope to never go back. There is nothing I saw that was attractive about that state.
> Ohio
Plus a lot of speed traps.
I worked with a guy in the 70's
We keep in touch.
He and his wife went to Stanford and they live near the University.
I asked him about California and he writes:
Dear MM:
For those who live in California...and as you know, aside from the weather, family, and friends, the state is dysfunctional & failing in many ways. The State of California is blessed with many wonderful attributes....however, it has and is failing in many area...let me elucidate on but a few off of the top of my head....
Politically , California's s foundering because of the wretched political correctness and self-proclaimed Wokeness that pervades virtually every aspect of our society (political class, academic elite, tech-gurus & wisdomless Millenials). These folks are NOT stupid but carry with them a guilt trip because they are successful, white, male, bored, a victim of or wanting to be the victim of something, seeking a cause de jour, or simply grumpy.
Financially state is bankrupt (via unfunded mandates including all levels of government/state, county, local),
Further, the state is also growing inexorably & exponentially to 'protect' citizens from themselves (and failing miserably - SF, LA are prime examples) Homelessness, drugs addiction, unattended mental illness & brazen violence are rampant (retail stores on University Avenue and at Stanford Shopping Center are regularly broken into by gangs of street thugs who race off to repeat their crimes another day. Wha's so interesting is that when local newspapers describe the event and the perpetrator(s) quite often race is NOT included. These are normally robberies that occur during the daylight hours. Guess that's too personal and insensitive. The cars involved are described by color and as SUV's or sedans not by make as they all look alike.
Family, Values, Responsibility, Character, Tradition
The answer by most Pols is to use 'unlimited' PUBLIC $$ at problems as it gives them a political theater opportunity to 'feather' their caps and makes sanctimonious public servants feel better about their actions. The actual fact is by placing a band-aid on metastasizing cancer they are simply exacerbating this epidemic of problems into the future.
'Leaders' seem to be blind to the root causes of many of today's problems...ie: the dissolution of the family unit, the lack of responsibility at every level, the belittling of morals, faith, family, the expectation that Jane/Joe should look to the government to solve his/her problems instead of taking full responsibility for their own destiny.
The Rule of Law
The Calfornia legislators have created a legal system that eschews common sense. What were felonies in the past are NOW misdemeanors.
Car break-ins are commonplace and your car becomes fair game to those who regularly break in to steal your valuables (carelessly left visible to the passerby). The penalty is a 'ticket' to appear at a future date....in courts that are already overburdened. And to compound this idiocy, the State of California is releasing 1,000's of felons back onto the streets (assuming that they will not become recitivists) to again prey on the law-abiding public basically at will. Why do you ask? To save the State the outrageous amount of $$ it costs to incarcerate 'the bad guys and gals' and in so doing place the financial burden on those who are preyed upon.
This at the same time that the well connected and financially powerful are insulated from any such 'outrageous' legal limitations (that the average person is supposed to be judged by) seem to fall into a bifurcated legal system and are excused, exonerated, or somehow found NOT guilty of virtually anything.
Regarding the California (and other locations as well) meltdown, I suggest that you read PROFILES IN CORRUPTION, By Peter Schwizer.
The first 'expose' is on California's current Jr. and former candidate for the POTUS, Senator Kamala Harris.
The book is annotated for fact-checking and is an eyeopener on many levels..
And people wonder why great states like California, Illinois, Oregon, New Jersey, NY, Maryland, etc. have turned into virtual s**t-h**e's.
Makes me sad to consider what is happening here,
Thanks for asking the question that prompted my regurgitation of this sad drivel!!
Best,
T
Car break-in crackdown bill made perfect sense. California lawmakers killed ithttps://www.sfchronicle.com/news/article/Car-break-in-crackdown-bill-made-perfect-sense-12995551.php
QuoteCalifornia law now states that smashing a window and stealing items from inside a car can be charged as felony burglary only if prosecutors can prove that the car's doors were locked. If not, it's misdemeanor theft.
There are three levels of crimes in California: felony, misdemeanor & infraction. A misdemeanor can have serious punishments in this state, auto burglary can be a year in the county jail. If we're going to bash California for being a bastion of faild liberal policies lets look at actual numbers.
California
Crime per 100K
Homicide Rate: 4.4
Property Crime Rate: 2,380.4
Poverty Rate: 14.02%
Teen pregnancy rate per 1,000: 15.1
Florida
Crime per 100K
Homicide Rate: 5.2
Property Crime Rate: 2,281.8
Poverty Rate: 14.49%
Teen pregnancy rate per 1,000: 18.2
Texas
Crime per 100K
Homicide Rate: 4.6
Property Crime Rate: 2,367.2
Poverty Rate: 15.11%
Teen pregnancy rate per 1,000: 27.6
North Carolina
Crime per 100K
Homicide Rate: 6
Property Crime Rate: 2,494.1
Poverty Rate: 15.01%
Teen pregnancy rate per 1,000: 20.6
South Carolina
Crime per 100K
Homicide Rate: 7.7
Property Crime Rate: 3,017.6
Poverty Rate: 15.55%
Teen pregnancy rate per 1,000: 21.7
Some other stats from the Left Coast....
Infant Mortality: third lowest (behind Massachusetts & Washington)
Life Expectancy: second highest at 81.5 (right under Hawaii 82.5 )
Lowest Accident Mortality rate in the country
Fifth lowest Suicide rate (behind New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts & Maryland)
Now, consider all the inherent difficulties of managing an enormous, diverse boarder state with a huge immigrant and refuge population, I don't think we're doing that bad -- especially considering that D.C. takes more from us than what we get back and interferes with our decision making.
Just to add some fuel to the fire, lets look at what is going on in that progressive hell hole country to the north.
Canada
Crime per 100K
Homicide Rate: 1.48
Property Crime Rate: 3,338.81*
Infant Mortality per 100k: 4.3
Life Expectancy: 84
Suicide rate per 100k: 10.4 (USA=13.7)
Teen pregnancy rate per 1,000: 16**
Poverty Rate: 12.1%
*I'll concede that knowing that you're not going to get shot does have a tendency to increase property crime
**Its cold outside
Quote from: littleman on February 17, 2020, 04:46:28 AM
Fifth lowest Suicide rate (behind New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts & Maryland)
Interesting. Not a red state among them and that's a pretty important measure of well-being.
California ranks fifth for "happiness."
https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/economy/2018/09/16/best-states-happiness-study-hawaii/1281617002/
Hawaii ranks #1, but I could never live there. Every time I go there, having people constantly tell me how lucky I am to have a few days there and how sad it is that I have to leave drives me insane. Plus, no skiing or rock climbing. How can people live that way ;-)
I will also point out that the "accident" rate hides a certain number of suicides. Single-vehicle accidents, for example, rise when the economy goes bad.
Quoteauto burglary can be a year in the county jail
The guy who broke into the apartment downstairs when we were in Berkeley gave the cops a broad smile and said, "Well, ya got me." The cop said, "Three priors. As far as he's concerned, it's three square meals a day." So there's that as well. If your life on the outside isn't much better than your life on the inside, the risk isn't that high.
BTW, the portrait of California above is nothing like what I experience here.
The unfunded mandates are a problem though. California government by referendum results in people voting in measures that both reduce the state's ability to tax and require the state to spend. When the economy booms, corporate taxes make up for it, but when it doesn't we ended up with the situation that resulted in the recall election of 2003.
As for the rest of it (the "values" question), I mostly don't dare to go there so refrained. But as I've said before, I haven't lived in a place with such good neighbors since the 1970s. I'm in the middle of a major remodel and I would guess that neighbors have contributed at least 50 hours to help me. I've had dinner with neighbors at least four times so far this month. A neighbor just asked if I need him to pick anything up in town. And so on.
As one neighbor told me about another once, "Dick and I don't like each other, but when I call him at midnight because I have a water leak, he comes and helps me fix it."
QuoteStill, if you don't care about mountains and ocean, there's a lot to be said for the Midwest.
I personally like that I can see beautiful sunsets. Mountains get in the way of sunsets. (Or sunrises.)
As a teen I spent some time in Kansas and I absolutely loved the sky there, it seemed so vast.
>>>olitically , California's s foundering because of the wretched political correctness and self-proclaimed Wokeness
That is spot on. I read a research study the other day about homelessness in San Francisco. The author's politically correct unwillingness to "blame the victim" led her to blame society and the economy. She ignored the obvious twin issues of drug and mental health problem that is at root of probably the majority of homelessness in San Francisco (at least from the sixties to the mid-2000's when I lived there).
Consequently, the solutions she prescribed (more affordable housing) ignored things like more drug abuse counselling, more mental health facilities and the like.
Hell, a kid who grew up in the house next door (and is now in is late 50's) was arrested in December for panhandling on CalTrain and attacking a train worker. He's homeless because he's mentally ill. He inherited a million dollar home and let it go to shit and was thrown out.
In the 1990's I walked past a homeless beggar that looked like a human cockroach, smelly, filthy and wretched. Turns out I went to grade school with him. His demise was crack.
When I lived in the Mission in the 1980's through the early 2000's, there was a fat old hag that used to ply her body on two blocks away. When I saw her boyfriend, a thin ratty man who looked to be twenty years older I recognized them. The woman was younger than I and he was about my age. He was dating her since high school. He used to be handsome mixed race boy, part black and white. The teenaged girl went to a Catholic high school where my own girlfriend attended as well. They were both hooked on heroin.
Seriously, how can one address a homelessness without acknowledging the root problems of mental illness and drugs?
As far as the base price of a home in 2000 as $420,000 that's incorrect. As I recall the base price of a home was closer to $700,000. By 2004, when I was in the market, you couldn't buy a condo in Berkeley for less than $500,000 and homes were already selling for around $700k.
That Millenium Tower is going to collapse during the next major earthquake. Remember what happened to the landfill specials in the Marina in 1989? They all sunk. If that building is sinking now, in an earthquake the water is going to rush in and shift the sand beneath it. Large portions of south of market were destroyed in 1989.
Well, I would hardly blame liberals for that.
The two watershed moments that led to California homelessness of the mentally ill were
1. 1967 - Massive cuts to the CA Department of Mental Hygiene and the Lanterman-Petris-Short Act which made involuntary hospitalization illegal (which from a personal freedom point of view was a good thing, but coupled with cuts to DMH, was disastrous).
2. 1981 - Repeal of the Mental Health Systems Act on the federal level.
Who was the governor of CA in 1967 who drove the massive cuts to DMH? The same guy who was president in 1981 who drove the repeal of the Mental Health Systems Act.
https://www.kqed.org/news/11209729/did-the-emptying-of-mental-hospitals-contribute-to-homelessness-here
https://www.salon.com/2013/09/29/ronald_reagans_shameful_legacy_violence_the_homeless_mental_illness/
Oh totally. We never had pan handlers on the scale of today until Reagan was in office. Of course there was Proposition 13 (was that it?) the tax revolt thing that lowered housing taxes and gutted the counties without a plan for how police, fire, schools and public hospitals would be funded, leading ultimately to the state debt that went out of control from constant borrowing.
I don't blame liberals for the homeless problem. But they did fail to properly address it. Mayors Art Agnos and Frank Jordan were the worst, they basically ignored the problem. Remember the homeless camp in front of City Hall in SF? OMG, what a shit show that was.
California home to 91 of America's 100 most expensive zip codes
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/nov/18/california-most-expensive-zip-codes-us
Gavin Newsom Says Doctors Should Write Prescriptions For Housing
https://twitter.com/GavinNewsom/status/1230889348167434240
MB, since you've left there is an emerging category of homeless that are working but don't have enough income to pay for rent. The local public radio station was interviewing a San Jose bus driver who has been living in his car for 10 years. The Bay Area just has too many people for the available housing and the tech jobs are making rents 4x what non-tech people could afford.
Quote from: littleman on February 22, 2020, 07:52:19 PM
MB, since you've left there is an emerging category of homeless that are working but don't have enough income to pay for rent.
Even when I lived there (1996-2003), if I went to the gym early in the morning, I would see people waking up in their cars, go in, shower, and then come out in a shirt and tie and dress pants to head off to their office jobs.