Rosewater

WSJ: Coastal Homeowners Are Now Cashing Out

WSJ.com has an article about coastal homeowners cashing out and using their profits to buy less expensive houses outright in less expensive markets. The main justification for the current house prices that is given is the shortage of supply in hot housing markets. While I think that argument doesn't have much merrit on its face, it's worth pointing out that this is one way a supply shortage could reverse itself.

Google's "Do no evil"

People make fun of Google's "do no evil" motto. But, in their case, its not just ethics but good business. Google lives and dies by the good will of its users and customers -- none of whom have, in a practical sense, very strong lock in to Google's technology. At the same time, much of the low hanging fruit for a search company like Google, involves doing kinda creepy things (like pay-for-placement, selling data mined from users, etc) . In order to last and avoid the fate of their predecessors, they have to walk a fine line -- "Do no evil" seems like an excellent guide.

ok, now you know there's trouble

Thanks to a Web Alert over at Google, I've been reading just about every article printed on housing prices in the Bay Area. After you've read a dozen or so, you begin to see a pattern -- an economist will say the values in the market have departed from fundmentals; a realtor or someone from a realtor association will sat "no they haven't - there are more buyers than houses for sale". In other words, scarcity is all that matters. Well, now even the realtors ar forced to concede there is more than one force at work in setting house prices; and that a new one is about to start exerting itself: The tide seems to be turning in the coverage of housing -- from "oh my gosh, those crazy house prices just keep on climbing" to "ok, we all know this isn't real".