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Technology Stocks : Semi Equipment Analysis -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: BWAC who wrote (4718)	8/6/2002 10:38:55 PM
From: Kirk ©	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 95503

It is location, location and location. As you said, a house on a pile of rocks in a crummy location is worth the price to build it less depreciation. In CA there is a VERY big reason homes are so expensive and it was very well documented in the SJ Merc. IF people have a home, then they don't want high density built near them as it means more traffic. Cities break even with single family homes on fire, police, etc and lose a good deal with high density but make money with business and retail so they favor buildings that have jobs... Hence, the value of homes in good locations near jobs sky rockets due to supply and demand. There are not many open lots zoned for new homes between San Francisco and San Jose. The very nice places to live like Palo Alto, Los Altos, Woodside, Menlo Park.. Atherton... no new room period... Others like Saratoga are probably zoning issues as they have many mansions there and plenty of space but few permits. Also, CA real estate ALWAYS has the potential to fall 20 to 40% at the drop of the hat. IF you can't deal with that, then don't buy. My advice to ALL that buy here is NEVER buy at a peak but look for a pullback... so you are at least half way to a max pullback. I buy my stocks the same way, btw. To me, a bubble implies a 70 to 99% pullback is possible as we saw with the NASDAQ and Japanese market. Most of the friends I know that moved into the $1M+ homes used much of the money they pulled out of stocks going up or going down... I live in Los Altos and we've ALREADY had our 40% pullback and then a recovery... Peaked in 2000, bottomed in 2001 and are back near the peak now.... perhaps a double top... but I suspect we just meander along from here as the market recovers... MUCH FRESH money is ALWAYS coming in from Asia to pay cash... BIG Asian community in Los Altos Hills from people running chip companies, etc... tons of cash to buy their $2-$6M homes... Oh yes, schools. You can buy a beautiful $400K, 3500sq ft home in the boonies of CA and your kids get to go to school with the grape pickers in a 35th percentile school... or spend >$1M in the areas I mentioned and get 90th or higher percentile schools. One friend in a $700K area is spending $40K a yr to send his kids to private school... Money saved in you move to the right neighborhoods. So... perhaps a double top but I doubt we will see a bubble burst implying over 50% declines. Kirk out