A housing question to Californians

[:) Smiley]

Naturally the ones you see on the street are those who have the time to dress up and party.

[Ted Striker]

.

[Cyclotron]

Originally posted by Ted Striker
Hot (and really smart) asian ladies attending UC Berkeley

Ted knows what's up.

who are the ones paying the high prices in the bay area of Cali, which allows them to move up to the north bay area(sacramento, notomas areas) paying cash and driving up the prices

If you sell it, they will come. Houses are worth that much here now, and everyone knows it; wherever they come from, there are a lot of people somewhere who can afford to buy.

When my parents sell our house, probably in a few years, they'd be crazy not to get as much out of it as they can - it's enough to retire very comfortably in a cheaper state, and they may even be able to buy outright and not have to pay mortgage in their retirement years. I can't well blame the sellers; they're just trying to get a good deal.

And as far as the buyers go, they want a house here, and they can't bargain the owners down. Everybody here knows that houses sell for big bucks, and they also know that at present there are plenty of rich people to buy them. Maybe this won't last forever, but for now it's how things work, so those rich people don't have any chance of driving the cost down to something reasonable. And they don't need to anyway; they're rich.

I'm starting to wonder if what Ted says is true. Every year, the newpapers talk about the "housing bubble" and how it's going to collapse so soon, and then nothing happens... and this has been going on for a decade. I'm wondering if what we are seeing is just the stratification of American society taking on a geographical facet - just like there are permanent rich parts of cities and towns, it's looking like we're becoming a permanent rich part of the country.

[Spaced Cowboy]

What worries me more than urban sprawl is the rising energy prices. Will they contain or reverse urbal sprawl? I presently rethinking my purchase of a 3400 sq. ft. home with the big yard etc.

July electric bill: $525
August water bill: $212
2005 property tax: $6300

This article was in the Dallas morning new and was quite interesting and somewhat related.

http://www.deanterry.com/blog/index.html

[Ted Striker]

.

[:) Smiley]

Rising energy costs are more likely to lead to efficient houses. Those who can afford 3,000 square foot houses can probably afford the extra 10% to have it built with better design and insulation.

I'm wondering if what we are seeing is just the stratification of American society taking on a geographical facet - just like there are permanent rich parts of cities and towns, it's looking like we're becoming a permanent rich part of the country.

Most places are rich on the coasts and poor in the interior. Therefore I propose this solution:

[Cyclotron]

@ Cali mark II

So, if being on the coast correlates with richness, will the people of Nebraska now all become the richest in the country?

[:) Smiley]

Who knows, maybe.

Being near water has the following economic advantages:
1. Cheap transportation
2. Natural heating and cooling
3. Cheap water
4. Easy access to recreation

This kind of stuff adds up and compounds quickly.

[Zkribbler]

Smiley How recent is your highspeed-rail map?

Last I heard, Palmdale got cut out of the route and the rail was going to progree directly up the 5. I was disappointed because Palmdale has an airport, which can take some of the burden off of LAX and Burbank, and because Palmdale is a great place to jump off to the desert, the mountains and to Vegas. I hope your map is correct.

[:) Smiley]

It's the current one at the CA High Speed Rail website, http://www.cahighspeedrail.ca.gov/, though I don't know how recently that's been updated.

[Ted Striker]

.

[Joseph]

Originally posted by Zkribbler
Smiley How recent is your highspeed-rail map?

Last I heard, Palmdale got cut out of the route and the rail was going to progree directly up the 5. I was disappointed because Palmdale has an airport, which can take some of the burden off of LAX and Burbank, and because Palmdale is a great place to jump off to the desert, the mountains and to Vegas. I hope your map is correct.

According to the map, palmdale is still on the map.

His link did not work for AOL search, so I typed in the link and found the CA web site.

[:) Smiley]

Well, I propose a California-wide Polymeet at the Fresno station whenever High Speed Rail finally opens.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Az
Example of middle-class high-rises.

http://www.b-yair.co.il/rishon_h.html

A nice idea but making all three towers identical is architectually boring. I also noticed there was no parking spaces for all those thousands of people nor were there restaurants or stores integrated into the development so people will have to travel if they want to do either of those activities. With a bit of planning residential, commercial, and retail space could all be integrated into the design as could underground parking.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Sikander
The problem is that in a large urban area like southern California commuting patterns aren't hub and spoke. The vast majority of the traffic is suburb to suburb, which means that any rail routes will have to be diffuse and include many times more mileage than simply connecting the suburbs to the city center.

The way they've been dealing with this is to create transport corridors and rezoning the areas next to the rail or subway lines from low density residential to high density mixed use. That means that around LA's new subway stations large apartment highrises have been built and the first floor is typically made into retail/office space. Housing demand is such that developers will still jump on this and build such mixed us high rises.