At 4:00 today I’ll be joining Dustin and the Rain City Guide crew for a live podcast sort of thing that they’re calling Rain City Radio.
You can join in on the conversation via chat or call-in by going here, or via the embedded widget on this post (if I did it right). If you can’t listen live, you can listen to the recorded call there later.
Update: That was fun. You should be able to use the widget on this post to listen to the recording. Here are a few of the posts I mentioned in the call:
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19 responses so far ↓
1
Deborah Burns
// Jul 1, 2008 at 5:08 pm
Thanks Tim,
That was very interesting to learn on Rain City Guide why and how you began Seattle Bubble…and to see how far you have taken it from “just a guy wanting to learn more about real estate” and deciding to post what you found out, and turning it into such a good resource.
2
Dustin
// Jul 1, 2008 at 5:34 pm
Thanks again for joining us! I’m uploading the new mp3 right now, so hopefully we’ll have one coherent conversation recorded! ;)
3
Sniglet
// Jul 1, 2008 at 8:13 pm
Personally, I would suggest waiting for more than 6 months of consecutive price increases before buying, as Tim suggested (if you are trying to time the market, and buy at the bottom). If you look at Japan’s price decline in the ’90s there were some periods where prices seemed to have stopped dropping for about a year, but yet the decline continued anyway.
One thing that is consistent at all housing downturns is that it takes years for prices to really pick up significantly. My advice would be to wait until it looks as if prices haven’t declined anymore for a couple years. There is certainly no rush to jump in once a market has hit bottom, so patience is the best policy.
4
david losh
// Jul 2, 2008 at 8:11 am
Good Morning Tim,
You have an excellent presence. Most people are afraid of interviews or having a recorded comment, you can hear it in this pod cast. You answer questions or make comments in a conversational way. It’s a great gift.
Another thing that amazes me is that you give constructive information. In the blog it could seem calculated; reasoned out. In interviews it comes across as the way you are. It’s what I think sets you apart.
Great job.
5
david losh
// Jul 2, 2008 at 8:23 am
I don’t understand the continued reference to Japan’s Real Estate market. Japan is a rock that came under nuclear attack. When China came into it’s own as a world trading partner Japan lost most of it’s economic viability as a conduit for trade in Asia. The stake through the heart for Japan was when China left Hong Kong alone after England handed it over to a “communist country.”
So my question is what Japan had or has that makes it an economic model for Real Estate values.
6
softwarengineer
// Jul 2, 2008 at 8:32 am
YOU GIVE ‘EM THE TRUTH TIM, DON’T SWAY TO INAPPROPRIATE OPTIMISM
Your moderator will like do that anyway.
If they ask a get well for the real estate bottom out, tell ‘em no one knows [estimate by 12-18 months will know more if its going to continue another 12-18 months, etc], this recession is worse than 1970….it has wage deterioration and high gasoline with bank collapse….we’re in totally uncharted territory.
7
Sniglet
// Jul 2, 2008 at 8:56 am
Fine, take Japan out of the equation (although I don’t see how Japan’s changing status as a trading power vis-a-vis China is any more dramatic than America’s changing status as the engine of the world’s economy). When you look at bottoms of any local real-estate market in the US, there has seldom been any swift uptick in prices. Prices SLOWLY move off the bottom over several years, and then gradually pick up momentum to see greater and greater appreciations as the market peaks.
My point still stands: there is no reason to rush into the market at a bottom. True real-estate market bottoms are lengthy affairs.
8
cheapseats
// Jul 2, 2008 at 9:03 am
“Japan lost most of it’s economic viability as a conduit for trade in Asia.”
May be true some day… As of 2007 Japan still has the #2 GDP only behind the US. Leading to a prime reason some people use Japan’s real estate meltdown as an example of what is a possible scenario.
9
Garth
// Jul 2, 2008 at 9:40 am
The big difference between japan and now is the CDOs and SIV’s were just being invented when japan started, the banks there had all of the loans on their balance sheets, and did not write them down forever.
10
What’s Your Housing Bust Strategy? | Seattle Bubble — News & discussion about real estate & the housing bubble in the Seattle area.
// Jul 2, 2008 at 9:50 am
[...] Register ← The Tim on Internet Radio with Rain City Guide [...]
11
Sniglet
// Jul 2, 2008 at 9:56 am
Are you saying that the presence of CDOs will reduce the damage of the real-estate bust, and help get things back on track sooner?
12
Garth
// Jul 2, 2008 at 10:14 am
Nobody has any idea, these things sold like cash from when our government invented them at the end of the S&L scandal (about the same time as the start of japan’s long slow decline) until this june.
The distribution of risk is much different in this case, and I have a hard time using japan for comparison unless you are looking only for the biggest and longest crash.
13
laxtosnoco
// Jul 2, 2008 at 11:13 am
David Losh and Ray Pepper need their own call in show. Tim, can you make this happen? It might take some engineering talent; I think there’s a 20 minute or so delay for radio signals from Mars back to Earth.
14
jon
// Jul 2, 2008 at 11:18 am
The main difference between Japan and USA for the RE market is that in Japan the number of deaths is now greater than the number of births. That started only recently, but the fact was known to be coming years ago. When demand is falling like that over a period of decades, of course the price will slowly decline. There is nothing analogous in the US RE market, except specific areas for a time like Detroit and Riverside.
15
uwp
// Jul 2, 2008 at 11:30 am
“David Losh and Ray Pepper need their own call in show. ”
I would listen to that. Epic.
16
denismurf
// Jul 2, 2008 at 3:16 pm
Toward the end of the interview, Tim said something to the effect that home sellers have institutional advocates for their interests while home buyers have none. Did I hear that right?
17
Eleua
// Jul 2, 2008 at 11:10 pm
The Tim,
Thanks for the kind words during your interview. I look forward to meeting you as well.
E
18
Thaxter
// Jul 4, 2008 at 11:23 am
Tim, I wish I had known earlier so I could have called to publicly thank you for your intelligent service the past few years in patiently explaining for example, why it’s better to rent than to own, or the work you’ve done in mapping out neighborhoods, and the nifty tutorial on how to search for rental properties using the Google reader. I have learned a great deal from this blog and only wish I checked more frequently. I was a little disappointed in the quality of the questions you received, as it seemed that many of the interlocutors had not bothered to really read the blog for very long. Still, at the end, they seemed to grasp your technical expertise and run with that a bit. Thanks Tim.
19
synthetik
// Jul 4, 2008 at 2:00 pm
That was an amazing interview. Kudos man…
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