Well this is a dumb story:

http://www.sacbee.com/103/story/454330.html

"Once Housing Turns, Recovery could be Fast."

Oh I am only too aware of this. I have mentioned many times here, we put up our condo like the day before 9/11 and ended up in 2-house hell for quite a few months. But our refi of the condo (to pull out the down payment for our home) happened to end right before the first weekend of recovery. After months of low asking prices and nothing, we raised the price a bit and sold in a day with competing offers. We had to take it off the market 3 months for the refi and the timing couldn't have been better when we put it back up. Oh yeah, that's the real estate market I know. So um yeah, in California, when things turn, they turn fast. You could get left in the dust.

Also, large returns here have been sustained for many decades. So all very viable. Not sure it is the end of the line for California...

BUT this article is insane. It's kind of like, "get ready, because things are going to go back to the bubble any day now. Yippee!"

I say, eh, give it a good 5 years at the least. Yeesh! Just seems to be jumping the gun a bit. I didn't read the 60 comments yet on the article but will probably be good reading. Will probably add my own too.

I am at a loss what all the freakout is really. I am trying to think - we have been here a good 6 years. Our house would sell EASY for a good 50% more than we paid. That is still a good solid 7% return per year. If you bought earlier you'd have a good solid 10% per year return. So basically only people who bought in the last couple of years are screwed. ???? & the economy is crumbling? Oh yeah, all the ARMs and borrowed equity. Like you couldn't see that would end ugly. Just plain, bad short-term thinking. I kind of wish we lived in a bubble so when the house of cards came tumbling we wouldn't be affected, but I always knew that would be a pipe dream. Well I did talk a few people out of ARMs (& yes they are very thankful today). I did what I could...

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In other news, just wanted to say, I got contact on 6 of the 7 cards (ID Theft) that everything is resolved. Got it all in writing. I'll give the last card another week and then call and see what is going on. Luckily that card is only $900 or so. The smallest of the bunch. Maybe why they are dragging their feet a bit. I actually got 5 of them this last week, and one before my trip. One more to go.

I have to say that it wasn't so bad to clean it up. IT would be even better to see justice served one of these days, but won't hold my breath. Well, it has been exactly 3 months. I will probably wait until January and then double check all my credit reports. They said give it 6 weeks. My FICO is in the 770 range as of today. (Balance transfers and all. sick of hearing how that will ruin your credit score. You just have to know how to play the game!!)

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P.S. I have seen this blog before (Very interesting). This last week he posted that 1/3 of the homes currently for sale in this area are foreclosures and short sales. Eeks! The newspaper is a mess of these statistics, as well as "things will be better tomorrow" articles. Guess it's covering all bases.

http://sacrealstats.blogspot.com/