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Old 11-06-2008, 17:18   #61
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Tao, I agree totally with your assessment of the current situation and, in particular, your comments about debt. If there are opportunities to be had in the near future, they will come for those who have the liquidity to take advantage of them (and recessions almost invariably present opportunities).

The current scare in the US and Canada may finally be the impetus required for some real action in the area of reduced consumption of fossil fuels and lead to a brighter future with less reliance upon OPEC, less political influence by OPEC nations and less greenhouse gases. It may also lead to some greater regulation of the banking and oil industries. The costs will be huge, of course, and the near-term future both frightening and uncertain. But sadly, it seems that hubris forced us to be brought to our knees before we could see the folly of our ways.

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Old 11-06-2008, 17:28   #62
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But sadly, it seems that hubris forced us to be brought to our knees before we could see the folly of our ways.

Brad
Humans don't learn from history.
They continue with the folly as long as they think they are not the problem. They won't change unless the next guy (in the herd) changes his way. The herd does not change direction unless there is a "scare" of some sort. Then it is forgotten.

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Old 11-06-2008, 18:13   #63
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News - Boating industry hits economy's troubled seas - sacbee.com
This is the local media on boating.

Local friends trying to sell say it is a buyers market, and I am seeing some sailboats listed at amazing prices relative to where they were --- another friend is buying a Hunter 40 from some folks who need to get it gone to get working capital to handle their other debt --- so, with patience, there are some really lowball boats out there! At least here in the Bay Area, compared to 12-18 months ago.
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Old 12-06-2008, 00:04   #64
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Too bad.
Misery loves company - welcome aboard.

Keep your nose to the grindstone for X years and you can be an old guy like me with a little more than zero in the bank.
The happiest day in my recent past was when I sold my house. I made a reasonable 4% per year on the investment not counting maintenance, repairs and property taxes. I haven't done the math accurately but home ownership for me after 6 years was probably net zero or less.

I am a renter and will be from now on - I may buy a small 1 BR condo at the wife's insistence for retirement or I may rent one...

My rent is less than my previous mortgage and while my rent will probably go up, as opposed to a fixed rate mortgage, but I am OK with that, I think. All I know is that feel unburdened and "richer" without that house on my back.

My excess goes into the boat fund and the eventual retirement home will be a 38 to 42 foot cat.
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Old 12-06-2008, 10:48   #65
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The happiest day in my recent past was when I sold my house. I made a reasonable 4% per year on the investment not counting maintenance, repairs and property taxes. I haven't done the math accurately but home ownership for me after 6 years was probably net zero or less.

I am a renter and will be from now on - I may buy a small 1 BR condo at the wife's insistence for retirement or I may rent one...

My rent is less than my previous mortgage and while my rent will probably go up, as opposed to a fixed rate mortgage, but I am OK with that, I think. All I know is that feel unburdened and "richer" without that house on my back.

My excess goes into the boat fund and the eventual retirement home will be a 38 to 42 foot cat.
Exactly.
I did not sell the house when I wanted so am still married.
If I have to I may buy that condo too. Only if I have to.

It is hard for folks, the wife included, to accept the idea that is would be better to own only the boat because who knows where one might like to have that condo anyway. Rent first to make sure you like the place/neighborhood, then buy if you must. They just have to have that Home Base.
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Old 12-06-2008, 11:26   #66
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Exactly.
I did not sell the house when I wanted so am still married.
If I have to I may buy that condo too. Only if I have to.

It is hard for folks, the wife included, to accept the idea that is would be better to own only the boat because who knows where one might like to have that condo anyway. Rent first to make sure you like the place/neighborhood, then buy if you must. They just have to have that Home Base.
I am convinced that men do what they do for women. If men had their way, they would all own boats.
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Old 12-06-2008, 12:15   #67
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Exactly.
I did not sell the house when I wanted so am still married.
If I have to I may buy that condo too. Only if I have to.

It is hard for folks, the wife included, to accept the idea that is would be better to own only the boat because who knows where one might like to have that condo anyway. Rent first to make sure you like the place/neighborhood, then buy if you must. They just have to have that Home Base.
Yes, it's the "roots" thing. I don't believe anyone would insist on owning something, however, if they could be made to realize that nothing, including real estate, only goes up.

It's like sailing with a current, as opposed to sailing against one. If you're sailing at 5 knots toward your destination with a 5 knot current, you're making 10 knots over the ground, but if that 5 knot current is against you, you're going nowhere. At the moment, the current is running fast against real estate ownership.

And let's not kid ourselves, either. Virtually no one "owns" his residence. You're only buying the privilege of claiming you own your house/condo/whatever as long as you make the payments on the mortgage/property tax/insurance/utilities/etc. Sure, it feels good at income tax time when you get to deduct a percentage of that from your income, but when you crunch the numbers, it may well be that it's less expensive to rent.

Ideally, if a person develops a feel for the markets, it may be possible to apply the stock market strategy of "riding the winners, dumping the losers" to other aspects of one's life. In other words, "own" real estate when it's going up, rent your residence when property is going down; own commodities when they're in a bull market, dump them when they're in a bear market; own gold when the $US is being devalued, then convert it to $US when the dollar starts to recover.

I know, easier said than done - but not impossible.

If you do manage to talk her into selling the house, Therapy, and renting, you just might convince her that living aboard is just like owning/renting a condo but with the bonus of being able to own waterfront property for much less than waterfront real estate plus you can change the view whenever you feel like it. This forum is filled with accounts of cruisers whose significant others were resistant to letting go of land, initially, but who became real water rats after they took the plunge.

I hope it all works out for the best for you, Therapy, and Mrs. Therapy, too. You're one of the good guys here.

TaoJones
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Old 12-06-2008, 14:56   #68
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If you do manage to talk her into selling the house, Therapy, and renting, you just might convince her that living aboard is just like owning/renting a condo but with the bonus of being able to own waterfront property for much less than waterfront real estate plus you can change the view whenever you feel like it. This forum is filled with accounts of cruisers whose significant others were resistant to letting go of land, initially, but who became real water rats after they took the plunge.

I hope it all works out for the best for you, Therapy, and Mrs. Therapy, too. You're one of the good guys here.

TaoJones
Thanks for the compliment.

I am working toward it.

She is not totally resistant to "checking it out".

There is hope.................So I keep reading..........and posting too much.
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Old 12-06-2008, 16:18   #69
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It's like sailing with a current, as opposed to sailing against one. If you're sailing at 5 knots toward your destination with a 5 knot current, you're making 10 knots over the ground, but if that 5 knot current is against you, you're going nowhere. At the moment, the current is running fast against real estate ownership.

Ah! A boating twist.

You know what sucks? Every single current except the current exactly on your tail slows you down.

If you have a 2 knot current on the beam it will send you down range at 2 knots. Every hour you have to sail 2 miles back to your destination. Those or miles you have to earn back.

Any current not on the bow or stern will have a horizontal component. That sucks...

We now return to "The Joys of Home Ownership."
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Old 13-06-2008, 03:35   #70
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I am convinced that men do what they do for women. If men had their way, they would all own boats.
Quote:
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Yes, it's the "roots" thing.
Men do it for the roots thing as well. If the woman doesn't have her roots the man doesn't get his root.

Mike

Does this Australian coloquialism convert to the rest of the world?
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Old 13-06-2008, 07:50   #71
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Ah! A boating twist.

You know what sucks? Every single current except the current exactly on your tail slows you down.

If you have a 2 knot current on the beam it will send you down range at 2 knots. Every hour you have to sail 2 miles back to your destination. Those or miles you have to earn back.

Any current not on the bow or stern will have a horizontal component. That sucks...

We now return to "The Joys of Home Ownership."
Actually, that's not always correct. Look at a simple extreme example... no wind, engine only + current. Your engine makes say 1 mile/hr due north. The current is flowing to NE 1 degree at 10 mi/h. Your eastern component due to the current is then 10*sin(1) ~ 0.1 miles, or six minutes/10 miles by engine. The current saved you much time overall.
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Old 13-06-2008, 09:11   #72
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I would guess the way people would get hurt by this housing market is to assume that it will be going up again and taking out secondary mortgages to buy things like boats and thinking that the sale of their house would cover it in a couple years. If economists are right (not real estate agents), then housing is undergoing a permanent correction. The other way people could get hurt boating wise is thinking that this is a cycle and they only need to wait a couple years for it to get better and sell their house and buy their dream boat. In a bubble their houses are still worth more in constant dollars than they ever have been, and are still artificially high. So if they want that dream boat and have positive equity in their home, sell now. Every factor that caused the bubble is disappearing, people naively claiming that housing never had a year over year loss, banks thinking that housing loans were the best risk loans because people never defaulted on mortgages, wall street thinking that bucketized mortgages were low risk.
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Old 13-06-2008, 10:19   #73
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I'm confused... I thought a 'correction' was a temporary decrease during a bull (buying confidence high) market. Or is there no technical difference between a correction in a secular (25+ year) bull market (like real estate, presumably?) and a short term bear market?
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Old 13-06-2008, 12:29   #74
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I would guess the way people would get hurt by this housing market is to assume that it will be going up again and taking out secondary mortgages to buy things like boats and thinking that the sale of their house would cover it in a couple years.
Oh, I think it’s fair to say lending practices have been tightened to the point where only those likely to finish off the loan will able to get one. And most of them will not be taking a second mortgage to finance such a purchase.

You know I stopped reading the thread several weeks back due to it not being so interesting. That is until yesterday where I thought I would check it out. Glad I did. TaoJones -- I think you've have it in full; I couldn't have said it better.

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Old 13-06-2008, 14:22   #75
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