California to Recover before New Jersey

Riversider is like the anti-SteveF. Reads everything *but* the headline. ;-)

US housing barometer points to danger

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A large overhang of foreclosed homes along with a credit squeeze is pushing the US housing market to new lows, just as government assistance is waning, in a worrying reminder of the fragility in the broader economic recovery.

Sales of new homes fell to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 250,000 in February, the lowest on record, the Census Bureau said this this week.

EDITOR’S CHOICEUS jobless claims decline as lay-offs slow - Mar-24.Lex: State and local workers - Mar-24.US new home sales drop to record low - Mar-23.In depth: US foreclosure crisis - Jan-18.Lex: US home sales - Mar-23.US home sales fall more than expected - Mar-22..
Home prices have already dropped more since their peak in 2006 than during the Great Depression of the 1930s. Almost four out of 10 homes today are sold by someone who either can’t pay their mortgage or won’t because he or she owes more than the home is worth
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Step right up folks: Buy your home in California now--before the next earthquake, wild-fire, land/mudslide. Be there for it.

Ian McLagan refers to L.A., (he's a former homeowner) in his book: "All The Rage": Shakey-town.
The earthquakes and mudslides -- he went through it.
It was when a wildfire changed direction at his property-line, that he decided to move away from "Shakey-town".

Because there were not JUST huge floods and blizzards in NJ....

Don't buy in a flood-plain in NJ and you are fine. and you can tell that flood plain because a house will be 40% or less the price than a similar house in the same town. (or check a map).

You CAN predict the houses that will flood in NJ (and they are priced as such). You can't predict the ones that will get hit in CA.

I didn't know blizzards hit NJ but avoid NY.

Jason, you don't like the northeast, and we don't like you. Why don't you move back west instead of complaining all of the time about this area and how California is so wonderful. It's a win-win. You go there, we get rid of you. Everyone's happy.

jason: The huge floods and blizzards in NJ are dangerous but nothing compared to earthquakes, mudslides and watching as wildfires approach your home is the scariest. If you're from California you must know something about that.

AvUWS: Right, like Wayne NJ and those other towns.
I was out of town for much of the blizzard action in NY. Most of them blew through NJ before NY.

Riversider: While I was out of town, I visited various people who responded to my inquiries on other website dicussion boards re: The photos of old hotels, no longer existing in Manhattan; for the Tom Wright T.V. show.

Baby-boomers are being bequeathed the homes of their relatives, and there is a mother-lode of great photo/film footage; up in the attics and down in the basements and in other storage.

Even more important for those who have boxes down in their,or their relative's basements -- don't let it flood with all of that valuable photo/film-footage.
Even if they aren't sure of what's in the photos/film footage: store those things in a safe place.
There's money to be had for it.

Wow what dummies. In CA if you avoid living in the hills you avoid wildfires and mudslides. DUH!!!!

as for major quakes - on e every 100 years is not so bad. When you get weather like that.

And the 89 quake ONLY damaged houses on landfill in SF, so avoid those too.

jason: I don't dislike you, so don't take this personally:
The '89 quake damaged a lot more than that.
Like the Bay Bridge, and other infrastructure.

I won't call you a dummy for not knowing that.

And I like California I really do. I go there often, but would not want to live there.
The weather is nice. Even in San Francisco at certain times of the year.

Avoiding living in the hills?
Should all those people move to Palm Springs?

The San Fernando Valley?

I am from SF and was at Berkeley at the time, I know. But we were talking about HOUSES. if you want to talk infrastructure, there's plenty of exploding steam and gas pipes and such to speak about here, not to mention tornadoes in NYC.

And I meant suburban wilderness hills. Not Nob Hill. Having lived there 30 years the weather is better 98% of the time than here. And no blizzards or tornados.

Why are you here Jason?

I love blizzards. Loved them when I was a kid (and we would miss school) and love them as an adult. And this is coming from someone who parks on the street and drives 20 miles to NJ and back every day.

Thinking about it I realize what a magical part of childhood the snow-day was. There was certainly something better about an unplanned day off than a weekend snowstorm. Nothing objective, but subjectively it was certainly magical. I still smile when I hear how my nieces where their PJ's inside out when they hear snow is coming and I hope my kids will do the same.

O.K. jason.
I was talking about not buying a home because of the range of natural disasters in California.
Some homes are left standing while others in the area are damaged/destroyed during quakes, slides and the wild-fires that change direction and just miss other homes while burning down the neighboring homes.

Nob Hill had damage from that '89 quake: the foundations of many homes needed to be repaired, and a few of the steep streets not already closed to cars, were closed to traffic after and remain that way.
Wavy Gravy was here in N.Y.C. with me at the time of that quake while we were working with Ben&Jerry on Wavy Gravy's flavor. He rushed back home (Berkeley, as you probably know) to help friends.
It was scary for everybody there in the Bay area. Except for you.

The weather is nice there, I agree with you again about that.

It was not particularly scary, no. Foundations damaged? Oh my!!! Run for the hills. Wait, no.

Homes DESTORYED? Only a few. On landfill, as I said.

And the homes in Nob Hill were probably old and built prior to current zoning. But nothing life threatening.

I am not saying that every state or city has an equal chance of suffering from mother nature. Surely some are more dangerous than others.

But the population of LA and SF (and Orange County and San Diego) all went up by more than NYC - Los Angeles grew by 2.6 percent since the 2000 Census. San Diego grew by 6.9 percent, San Jose grew by 5.7 percent, San Francisco grew by 3.7 percent, and Fresno grew by 15.7 percent.

O.K. jason. Not life-threatening, just very costly to repair.

Los Angeles county grew by 3.1 percent since 2000. San Diego county was up 10.0, Orange up 5.8 percent, Riverside up 41.7 percent and San Bernardino up 19.1 percent.

If you can find me a "wall street" job that pays what I make, i would move back yesterday. I hate NYC weather. Blizzards suck. You know what is better than "snow days" for kids AvUWS? Being able to play outside ALL YEAR ROUND. Having 50,000 acres of open space for hiking and bike riding within a ten mile radius of SF proper, and four times that with ten miles of LA proper. Skiing and water-skiing both within 2 hours or so. Etc.

Being able to go to the beach (especially in SoCal) all year round.

School or boy-scout spnsored camping trips in January.

Wait - is there such a thing as "LA proper"? LA is just an urban/suburban/exurban sprawl

jason: I'm glad that we are having a civil discussion here.
I was going to ask you about your plans re: return to CA. to live, and I figured you moved to N.Y.C. for career opportunities.

In your opinion: Where is the best place to live in CA.?
It's the totality of the natural disasters that wear residents down. So where is least likely?

Live on bedrock in a flat, abvove sea level area. Berkeley (west of College Ave), Santa Monica, West LA, San Mateo County east of the hills) etc if you want to avoid mudlsides, wildfires, or severe Earthquake damage.

Honestly, 99.9% of Califonians are NOT "worn down" by the naturual disaters. Most of the wildfires and mudlised keep happening in the SAME places over and over. Its like people in the Carolinas who keep building on flood plains.

But no part of the state is immune from Earthquakes. The Big One could happen in SD, LA, SF, Sac-town...who knows.

To me, SoCal is better weather, so even though I am from SF, I want to move down there. OC or SD county have more picturesque stuff in general than LA, but for most New Yorkers, LA proper or SF have more NY-like amenities.

I would go so far as to say that for everyone who does NOT live in NYC or LA (and maybe 3-5 other big cities proper) in the US, NYC and LA have more in common with each other than with the rest of the US, culturally speaking. More than say with Atlanta or Dallas or even Chicago. Most NYers would not want to admit such a thing, but its true.

SF is more compact, but not nearly as cheap as so-cal.

Newport Beach or Santa Monica would be great for me.

Agree jason: Newport Beach is good. Santa Monica too.
Back in late 70's I went out to visit a friend who lived in Santa Monica, right after wildfire action, elsewhere--yet not that far away.
We drove over to help his friend in the wildfire zone and pick through his belongings in the rubble of his formerly beautiful home.
It wore us all down, especially the Santa Monica residents who came there to help.
It takes a toll on people there -- even if you are in a safe zone.

So, we both are good on this, jason.

It's been a pleasure having this discussion with you.

All best, Truth.