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Strategies & Market Trends : The Residential Real Estate Crash Index -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: John Vosilla who wrote (46821)	1/10/2006 1:32:54 AM
From: gpowell	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 306849

In the end true value is based on cash flows the asset will generate. What generates cash flow (hopefully a profitable flow) is past and current investment in capital that yields a product, in this case that product is housing services. Tell me the average condo in Manhattan is worth $1.2M today because New Yorkers are more productive and capitalists and I'd believe it if market rent for those condos approached $8k/month. As best as I can tell rents are half that today. The rental market does serve as a possible reality check for home prices. Only speaking for rentals out here in the Bay Area, most are inferior substitutes for owner occupied houses. But that only accounts for a portion of the current discrepancy between the implied value of housing services (for owner occupied housing) and rentals. No doubt, by today’s prices of rentals, households are paying a premium for locking in ownership of the capital that produces housing services.

To: John Vosilla who wrote (46821)	1/10/2006 9:26:43 AM
From: Jim McMannis	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 306849

Seattle Nearing Record for Rainy Days By ELIZABETH M. GILLESPIE, Associated Press Writer Tue Jan 10, 3:37 AM ET SEATTLE - After 22 consecutive days of measurable rain, Seattle is closing in on a record so dismal even forecasters in this city famous for its gray skies are complaining. With more wet weather predicted over the next several days, Seattle may soon break a record set in 1953. The city saw 33 consecutive days of measurable precipitation then — the most since the National Weather Service office there started tracking rainfall in 1931. "Usually we have a few days of rain and one or two days of cloudy and dreary days and then it rains again and that's the way it goes," weather service meteorologist Johnny Burg said Monday. "We're not getting our dry days in between — just having one system follow another." A trace of rain fell Dec. 18, but the real wet weather started the following day. Since October, when the weather service's "weather year" began, Seattle has had nearly 18 inches of rain — about 2 inches above normal and well above this time last year, when the city had received 11 inches of rain. Mudslides blocked railroad tracks north of Seattle for most of the weekend as well as a highway near Port Orchard on the Kitsap Peninsula. State Route 166 was closed indefinitely in both directions Sunday because of damage from a mudslide. It was miserable in the mountains Monday, too. Forecasters said heavy snow falling amid gusty winds in the Cascades would continue through Tuesday, with about a foot falling every 12 hours. The Olympic Mountains also were getting slammed, with 6 to 11 inches predicted every 12 hours through Tuesday afternoon. Seattle natives often joke that it's easy to spot the tourists and transplants when it's raining because they're the ones using umbrellas. Not Nora Bailey, who moved to Seattle from northeastern France about 10 years ago. Bailey said the rain doesn't bother her as much as the unyielding grayness. "It's been a little depressing, but you know, what are you going to do?" the 32-year-old said as she ate at a Pike Place Market bakery. Richard Comer, 43, who moved to Seattle from the Fresno, Calif., area four years ago, went without a raincoat Monday. Cleopatra, the pit bull-lab that kept him company, wore a yellow slicker. "I'm getting pretty used to it, so I don't really notice it that much anymore, Comer said. Though Seattle is famous for its rain, the city's average annual rainfall from 1970 to 2000 was 37.07 inches, compared to 49.71 inches for New York City