Hacker News Reader

Comment by kzhahou | Hacker News Reader

http://www.trulia.com/property/3223512589-714-Douglass-St-Sa...

http://www.trulia.com/property/3224704811-407-Loreto-St-Moun...

http://www.trulia.com/property/3164651301-1625-NE-Marine-Dr-...

http://www.trulia.com/property/3152279353-109-Syrah-Cir-Aust...

Of course, life isn't about how big/nice your house is. But at some point you realize you've just been working on a CRUD app the last few years (and not changing the world with a self-driving AI satellite hyperloop), you can't cross your apartment without stubbing your toe, and you have enough money for whatever you want but no time or room for anything, and maybe (just maybe) there's delicious food outside silicon valley, too.

View on HN

These are list prices, we are finding list and sale prices are quite different in the Bay Area. Folks list low on their realtor's advice to ignite bidding wars. And bid buyers do. On the plus side now we are hearing from our realtor and others that prices are stabilizing (i.e. not going up as fast, but definitely not coming down). Still hugely unaffordable for most.

Also, even if you can bid, cash is king. So, not only is everyone driving the prices up, but the winners are usually all cash. I don't know anyone who has a few million in the bank, ready to move on property. Sadly..

Absolutely. Unfortunately I know many, many who have a few tens of millions; unfortunately^2 I am not one of them. People say it's the Chinese buyers with the all cash offers, but I see locals do it left, right, and center with money made in SV within the last few years.

Yep, but that's because they're mostly foreign investors.

>About 60 percent of foreign buyers paid cash, compared with one-third of domestic buyers, according to the 2014 Association of Realtors survey.

http://www.sfgate.com/business/networth/article/How-and-why-...

Well, according to the article 3/5 of foreign buyers paid cash, 1/3 of domestic buyers paid cash, and 1/5 of all buyers are foreign cash-only buyers.

1/5 (all buyers) = 3/5 (foreign buyers)

So one in three buyers is foreign. Which means two in three buyers are domestic, which means two in nine buyers is a domestic buyer who pays cash. So that puts the number of cash-only domestic buyers higher than foreign investors. That means that it's roughly the same absolute number of domestic cash-only and foreign cash-only (allowing some fuzziness in the numbers), not quite mostly foreign cash-only.

We can safely then conclude that the article linked does not support the claim that the people bidding cash are mostly foreign.

Buying != Bidding. You don't just bid on one property and buy it.

When you're in an auction market, which has a segment of bidders that are more accustomed to bidding over with cash, you're going to see them push auctions into the cash over range more frequently, even if they aren't the ones ultimately buying.

A reasonable hypothesis. Since there is no evidence that domestic cash-only and foreign cash-only buyers have different bidding patterns, we can then conclude (contingent on your latest hypothesis) that the link with the stats does not support the idea that it's mostly foreign buyers bidding up the price.

It's not a hypothesis - it's part of auction theory for markets that use absolute and reserve auctions. Why are you so adamant in attempting to redefine this to dismiss it?

The first link's house looks like it's on the verge of collapse

Ha! I'm experiencing all the negatives of the region that you listed, and since I'm not into restaurants I'm not experiencing the one positive you name.

Wow, that Mountain View place looks like a real bad deal. Will need to do a complete renovation there. Judging by the date it was built and the condition it was in, you're probably going to have to look at at least repairing the foundation/roof/etc. I didn't realize prices have gone up so high in the South Bay. Makes San Francisco seem very reasonable by comparison.

On the food portion, those that move to New Mexico often enjoy our food more.

Conversely, once they move out of New Mexico they seem to deeply miss our food.

Markets reveal preferences

They also stay irrational longer than you'd expect.

So how many decades now?

I think you're saying that people must prefer crappy housing with SV's tech scene, versus the alternative nice houses with a smaller scene? If so, that much is self evident. It is what it is.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com