All Forum Posts by: Chris John

I'm not sure that median month over month prices is necessarily a fair barometer of the market.  I'd go more for price per square foot.  

It makes a lot of sense to me that the first people to not bother listing their houses would be the wealthy as their houses just got inordinately expensive on a monthly basis.  I'm not saying that we're not seeing a drop in housing prices in general, just that median price could easily be compromised by a shift to a larger percent of the market being made up with lower cost housing.  

@Sean Cassidy

I don't know @Patricia Steiner, but I can assume based on her post to votes ratio that she knows a lot more than the two of us combined.  (My limited knowledge + your distinct lack of knowledge (and class) < Patricia's knowledge).

Thanks for the laugh, troll.  Again though, if I'm wrong, please come back with your tens of millions in STYLE to let me know I'm wrong!!!  LOL.

I'll gladly give you the last word on this...

@Sean Cassidy

"You are extremely talented. Every sinfgle comment you made is wrong and completely misinformed. Did you pass the real estate test? I am in the process of retaining an attorney that won a $51 million judgment aagainst a landlord for one individual. So I will now be pursuing the real estate agent as well. Thank you I had not thought of that."

Mighty big talk for a guy living in a moldy apartment towards someone trying to give you advice.  Please come back on and brag when you get your windfall.  I'll happily eat crow.

PS.  I'd ditch the broken leg lady beforehand though.  If you can't get rid of her with a moldy apartment, imagine how difficult it'll be when you're in a mansion with all of your sports cars?

@Ben Cogdell

I'd keep the snowbird.  If you don't have a clear direction, there's no reason to upset their plans as they had nothing to do with it.  No reason to throw bad juju into the universe imo.

I think the issue is the magnitude of a crash as much as whether there's a crash or not.  In 2009, there were cheap houses EVERYWHERE.  The number of cheap houses changing hands was IMMENSE.

Even if the market crashes now, I can't fathom it will be nearly the same.  If prices drop, it will still be on a very small pool of available houses.  If people's portfolios go upside down, they won't care as long as they can cashflow it every month.  And, since most of us are locked in under 4%, that's a lot of houses that will NOT be hitting the market. 

So, even if there is a "crash", it won't be anything like 2009 because:

1.  The sheer number of houses will be minuscule in comparison.

2.  There are a ton of buyers champing at the bit to get into this "crash".  If/as prices drop, the new, lower prices will be met with more and more buyers.

Definitely seeing the prices decline and expect to continue to see that continue, but not holding my breathe on buying $60k houses in Cali again anytime soon...

@Mike Hinkley

I just wanted to throw out that it probably wouldn't cost much to turn that doorway into a wall (unless you'd like to keep the door for whatever reason).  Just a thought as I know it would be my preference under those circumstances.

Best wishes

I mean, appreciation is nice so that you can refinance and buy more...

It does make me laugh that some of you think that it's literally impossible for either BlackRock or BlackStone (or whoever ) to fail.  Again, I'm not saying I think it's going to happen as I have NO IDEA what they're finances are.  However, Rome fell, so sure as heck a financial investment company can.

Also, I've already linked an article where they're slowing withdrawals to remain liquid.  That must mean that it's possible to get withdrawals, no?  Otherwise people wouldn't have theirs slowed.  Again, not saying that they're on their way to failure, but sheesh, people want more money back than they can accommodate at the moment.  Is that not EXACTLY what we're talking about?

Finally, none of these financial institutions really has their own money.  They're investing on behalf of others.  It's all institutional pension money?  Fine.  Those institutional pensions don't really have their own money either.  It always tracks back to the guy buying the insurance each year, depositing money into a retirement account each month, etc.  If enough of those guys change their mind, the seas will ABSOLUTELY change.  It would be impossible not to.

Again, I'm not saying this is likely.  I don't know the exact mechanisms behind how it would happen, etc.  But ultimately, there has to be money on the other side of a sale.  If institutional investors decide to sell, are forced to sell, whatever, someone has to be on the other side of that transaction with money and that's hard to do if enough houses are brought to market.

@Nick H.

You're taking a lot of the fun out of this, Nick!  haha.

In all seriousness, you've definitely hit the nail on the head of why I've been averse to investment funds where you lose control. 

Finally, I'm happy to admit that I don't know the inner workings of BlackStone or even BlackRock.  I was literally just using the name of a fund that I've heard of as an example.  haha.

I do, however, think that there's some investors somewhere out there that will be very unhappy with low returns and might want to pull their money back in a stagnant economy.  Enough of those people and there might be forced sales.

Maybe if funds can't deliver a return, new investments will dry up and they'll want to pivot out of some of their holdings?  All I'm saying is that:

1.  I could see institutional investors deciding to sell before they'd planned.

2.  I've obviously used a VERY poor specific example!  haha.

Best wishes

@James Hamling

Thank you for the respectful reply.  Very interesting.  I definitely agree that "Joe the plumber" isn't going to break BlackRock or anyone else.  However, if these depositors start demanding their money, it's going to force properties onto the market.  I think we can both agree that the article I referenced wasn't a perfect example of what I was saying (Europe, institutional players, etc.) but I believe it helps make my larger point.

In the end, you're extremely bright, well educated, and have some interesting points.  I'd be lying if I said I enjoyed being called out like I was though!  haha.

@Michael Wooldridge

I'm definitely NOT trying to say that BlackRock is in trouble.  Just using it as an example of how a slide can possibly begin, for sure.  It was just funny to me that the article came out right before I did a Google search looking for it.  In the end though, nothing is too big to fail under the right circumstances.