Conference nyoss1::market_investing

    Sunday's Globe [or an issue within the last week] had San Francisco
    pegged as having the least affordable housing in the nation.  The
    article also said that Nashua and Merrimack had moved up [i.e. some
    of the most affordable].  While California may be undergoing
    problems, and Silicon Valley has plenty of layoffs, the limited
    buildable land combined with the desirability of the bay area
    helps keeps a floor on prices.  Even the mountains south of Oakland
    are getting built up, and that's over an hour commute to anything.
    .02 Kb
    

    Townhouses are running in the high $100K low $200k range now in the
    Santa Clara (Silicon) Valley, depending on location.  This is lower
    than it was 5 years ago.  It is a buyers market at this point, and
    probably will be for a while.  As to where it will go, it's anybody's
    guess.  As long as there's no big 'quake to drive people out, the
    prices probably won't drop a whole lot more.

    
    I sold a house in the Bay Area about 18 months ago.  I could probably
    buy it for 80-90% of what I sold it for, and the price is still going
    to drop.  It took about 15 months to sell, and I probably could have
    sold it for $75K more, had I put it on the market 6 months earlier
    thaen I had.  Sounds like a bad market, huh (I still made about a 40%
    profit on the 6 years I owned the house, though)?
    
    I don't think it's going to get better, either.  Much of the Bay Area's
    economy is defense based, and that business is shrinking rapidly.  I
    believe that it got hit with 5 base closures in the latest cut, and
    will probably lose some more.  The high tech and biotech industries are
    also very important to the local economy, and neither of those are
    doing well.  I would wait as long as I could before buying there, and
    think you would get more for your money.  Except for the housing costs,
    it's a great place to live, though.
    
    Bruce

    I believe the housing industry will continue to drop.This is due to 
    a lopsided balance of our population.Baby boomers, age 31 to 40
    something, make up the largest group of our population.Many of these
    have bought and bought up during the eighties.The next generations,
    being smaller and suffering thru worsening economic times have not
    been in position to buy,therefore creating compromises on behave of
    the sellers in order to sell their homes and creating a buyers market.
     I don't foresee the sellers market reappearing until the baby boomer's
    offspring are grown and in the market to buy.
    
                                                             My 2 cents

It is hard to predict the whole bay area housing market currently.  The 
Oakland area is going to be greatly affected by the base closures,
approximatley 35K people dirrectly, and some large number indirectly.  We 
haven't had the same type of Defense layoffs that have hit the LA and 
Orange County area, though they are possible.  More of the Aerospace 
industry is electronics and survelience which is growing slowly in the 5 
published future budgets.

Many people look in a small region, (East Bay, South Bay, The City...) and 
don't concider it a unified market though the census bureau does.  The 
median age is much lower than much (most?) of the country, and we have a 
very high level of immigration.  Obviously not all can buy, but the demand 
is still rather high.

Some of the lower priced areas are getting very stable, and there are 
starting to be more demand for the midrange houses. Low starts at the 130Ks 
for a small townhouse in a less than perfect area, and the midrange is 
still high 200s to mid 400s in the San Jose area.  

Where in the area will you want to work, and where will you want to live?  
I would strongly reccommend renting for a while in th area yo would buy in. 
 Tracy seems close until you drive it during commute hours.

The commuting is still much better than LA and NY, but I would think hard 
about living on the transit line that can get you to work.  BART from the 
East through South San Francisco, CALTRAINS anywhere on the peninsula.

Matt