Lately my mom has been telling me that several friends of hers are snapping up real estate in the East Bay because prices have fallen anywhere from 20% to 70%. She argues that if I ever see a property that has a mortgage lower than my rent I should just buy it. Well, hasn’t really fallen to the extent that any mortgage is cheaper than a comparable rent yet. The average price per square foot in my zipcode is currently $571. We live in a place that’s about 1040 square foot and pay $1700 a month. So the purchase price for a comparable property would be $592.8k and it still doesn’t make sense to buy since I am 99% positive prices are still going down right now. Financially, it’s more beneficial to us to invest all the money we are saving rather than being tied to a $3000+ mortgage.

Financial considerations aside, I don’t think we’re very enthusiastic to be homeowners because of the maintenance it would involve. I read a pretty funny article on Salon.com recently about a. His conclusion was, “What the hell was I thinking?” He didn’t have the money to fix all the problems his home had and he didn’t have the skills to do it himself. While I am a renter I could just ask my landlord to repair the leaky pipes or replace the broken stove. Sure, I am paying rent, but I consider it to be outsourcing home maintenance to my landlord. The simple fact that renting is actually cheaper than the mortgage and property taxes makes the arrangement a sweeter deal for me.

Another ridiculous argument people have thrown in my face as why owning is better is that, “it’s better for the children.” I have no idea why this is remotely true. As long as children have a safe and loving place to call home, it doesn’t matter if their parents rent or own. I would actually argue that a home ripped apart by the financial stress of an unaffordable mortgage is a much worse place for a child to grow up than a family that happily rents without financial trouble. So before anyone tells me that I have to raise my kids in a place I own ever again, consider that I can rent in an excellent school district for less than 13% of our salary. On the flipside to own the same property in those school districts we would have to carry double or triple that cost. The money we save by renting could be used for tutors or a college fund for our kids. Renting gives us flexibility to live wherever we want, and that freedom is extremely valuable.

The hubby and I are pretty sure we won’t stay in our present condo forever, but I don’t know if homeownership is ever going to be right for us. I think I will only considering owning when it is cheaper than renting and we decide to stay in one area for more than ten years. If that never happens, then we just might rent forever. For me, I feel much more secure in managing a gigantic portfolio rather than a gigantic house. Currently my portfolio already generates enough income to cover approximately half of my rent, and to tie a lot of these perfectly sound liquid investments up in a house seems rather stupid at this point.

Anyway, here ends yet another one of my rants against the overrated ideal of homeownership. I think what frustrates me and several other of my friends is that our Asian parents are unhealthily obsessed with real estate and our parents want us to become indentured servants to the banks as soon as possible. I probably have enough material for that to fill up another ten blog posts, but I shall stop here. Finally I shall say that homeownership is not proof of adulthood or financial security. The ability to logically analyze your means and make responsible choices is better than succumbing to the pressures of society and doing something you regret later.

A few weeks ago I stumbled upon a site named through a Google ad. I rarely click on Adsense ads, but this one intrigued me. The site presents a petition for renters to sign in hopes of stopping a housing bailout. I perused the site a little bit and figured that online petitions never really work, but I left a comment anyway and moved on.

Interestingly enough, this weekend I read an “expose” by The gist of the article is that Angry Renter is a fake grass roots campaign run by a non-profit organization called FreedomWorks.org ran by a bunch of fat cats including Steve Forbes. They also listed the expensive properties the leaders of the organization owns. They also quoted the president of FreedomWorks.org saying “I’m an angry homeowner who pays his mortgage”.

I found it funny that the Wall Street Journal needed to write this article because it shows that maybe Angry Renter is really pissing someone off. So what if Angry Renter is run by homeowners? Homeowners pay income taxes also, and I don’t think any sensible person wants their money to be used to prop up bubblicious housing prices so that their children cannot afford a reasonable home. I also don’t think anyone wants to contribute their hard earned money to banks that scoop in billions of dollars a year by being legal loan sharks. Though the site is biased, some of the statements on Angry Renter are true. For example, renters do not get tax rebates for renting, and for all intents and purposes, renting serves the same basic need as buying a home. Why is there such a clear discrimination? Renters do wield less political power because they own less money as a whole compared to the banks and homeowners. So what is the problem with one little non-profit group with rich donors wanting to give renters a voice?  Additionally, it is also true that most homeowners are responsible and didn’t buy into the housing bubble so that they don’t need a bailout.  So why should all of us suffer for the folly of a few?

I am just surprised that all of this is happening in America, a place that prides itself on freedom, democracy, and free market.  Why should people have the freedom to be stupid and irresponsible, but not be encouraged to manage their money wisely?  A general housing bailout seems to send the message that saving money for a downpayment and renting is stupid because as long as you bought a house the government will protect you.  Why don’t they apply bailouts to obsessive gamblers that were “tricked” by the , or stock speculators that lost their shirts during the dot com bubble?  Why is the housing bubble so special?  The answer is simply that the banks want their money back from people who can’t pay, and they are disguising their greed and grapple for survival as a humanitarian mission to “save the troubled homeowners”.  Give me a break because I don’t want to pay for mortgages that I did not sign for.

So the bottom line is, I don’t think you need to be a renter right now to be angry about the impending giant housing bailout. Currently, the House has passed a $300 billion bill for housing aid which . Unfortunately, old George only has a few months left in office and as long as the Democrats stay in power this housing bailout will probably go on regardless of how many signatures people collect.  Anyway, I hope more bailout bills never go through, but that is probably just wishful thinking.  Meanwhile, I will be a patient and maybe slightly angry renter.

I have decided to do the update of San Mateo homes every 4 weeks, and the last update is pretty interesting. In 4 weeks there were 126 unique properties totaling 142 listings that are listing less than their last sale price. This is an increase of 50% from the last report in January. Here are some highlights.

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A notable home is , which sold for 7.9 million dollars in 2001, but is now listing for 6.95 million. I guess we are rolling back to 2001? It is a beautiful property from the looks of the pictures. This is the most expensive listing I have found to date.

In you will see that over 1/4 of the properties have listing prices that are over 25% less than their last sale price. The worst example is a less than its last price. It seems that the Goldman Sach’s prediction of Californian homes losing 40% of their value is coming true one house at a time.

I expect that the next report will be even worse as more people try to list their homes for the spring selling season. They will be competing with so many banks and other desperate home sellers who already have their homes on the market. There is quite a bit of news that many homedebtors are just mailing their keys back to their lenders, and that may be a prudent thing to do if it costs even more to carry the home and try to sell it.

Until next time, enjoy!

I am sure that most Americans are quite excited about the tax rebates that may be coming soon this year due to a major economical stimulus package. What is lesser known about this package is that it will also raise the “conforming” mortgage loan limit from $417,000 to $729,750 in high priced regions until the end of this year. This means that government sponsored enterprises such as Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae will be able to purchase loans as large as $729,750, and any loan under this limit will not be a jumbo loan. Basically, people will be able to borrow more money and pay less interest. Who is cheering for this change and why? More importantly, how will you be affected?

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What I found interesting is that the National Association of Realtors put out an about this move stating that “NAR’s research found that simply increasing the loan limits for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to $625,000 would permit as many as 300,000 families to enter the housing market, reduce foreclosures by as many as 210,000 and allow as many as 500,000 jumbo loan borrowers to refinance to lower cost loans, saving these people $274 to $411 a month.” On the other hand, that “the director of the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO), which is the governing body over America’s government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs), warned the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee this week about expanding the GSEs’ ability to take on jumbo loans without first having the appropriate stipulations and regulatory structures in place.”

Who should we believe? The glowing report of an association of realtors who have lobbied for the change or the director of a branch of the government that has been tracking housing prices and demographics for more than three decades? I personally believe that the director of OFHEO’s opinion is prudent and logical. With bigger loans, the government sponsored enterprises will be taking on more risk, and if these agencies are destablized by more risky debt then the entire economy could collapse even further.

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The best case senario I see is that nothing really happens and very few loans get funded under the new limit. These few homeowners will benefit from the lower rate and keep on paying their bills. Hopefully, the paltry number of these homeowners will not affect the housing market in any significant way. The prices of houses continue to decline for a while making homes more affordable and lowering the need for jumbo loans. Basically, the best we can hope for is that nothing changes.

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Unfortunately, I think it is possible that this footnote to the stimulus package could have a devastating effect on the current mortgage crisis. First, it may prolong the bubblicious prices in California and the Northeast. Right now I am reading many stories where offers on homes fell through because of the lack of financing. Considering the fact that the average price of shacks in my neighborhood is $700k to $800k, most of these buyers are trying to secure jumbo loans. Once this package goes through, financing will be possible, and the prices on the shacks will not come down as quickly. Even though this higher limit is only in effect for one year, it is possible that more speculators and fraudsters will get into the market and drive prices up even higher. After all, it only took about two years (2004 to 2006) for home prices to double in many parts of California. You may say that this is not a problem for the rest of America, but if Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae become insolvent because of more risky debt, then all Americans will have to pay dearly with mandatory bailouts. Then we can kiss that tax rebate and even more money goodbye.

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I am not an expert, but I firmly believe that what we need is more affordable homes, and not larger loans. So it is probalby best if the limit was left alone and the ridiculous prices fell back down to earth. I think it is ludicrous that the “conforming” loan limit is being lifted more than $300,000 in this package in the blink of an eye considering that it took a span of 23 years for the loan limit to go up from $115k to $417k. Is more debt really good for Americans? What do you think should happen?

As expected, the Fed cut the interest rate by half a point today. It was really a move that they had to do because if they did not the market would have tanked once again. I and said that I expected a rate cut and wrote down some things people could do to reduce their debt and take advantage of this development. I hope some people find that article useful.

My favorite article that I contributed to Wise Bread is . The hubby is the featured photographer on that article and I linked his site, too. Origami is really a hobby of ours that kind of is a staple of our relationship.

Another article I really liked writing was . Unfortunately it was not that popular on Wise Bread because I guess not everyone wants the startup life. However, if you’re curious about how to join the next big thing you can take a look.

Finally, I did a which pays you to go on interviews. It is too early to tell how the concept would work out, but it is interesting and I feel like it doesn’t hurt to try it. A commenter on Wise Bread cautioned people about privacy, and I do agree with him, but I feel that the information I gave to LinkedIn is public forum anyway. You can just search for my name and find a profile so I didn’t mind duplicating the information.

Enjoy!