blog.thomaspan.com

Do we have a housing market bubble? I think that the answer is a YES, especially around Silicon Valley. We even have a web portal promoting the falling. The real question, however, might be when the market will fall and how the market will fall.

Year by year since 1995, we are seeing house prices keep soaring. Even 2000 stock bubble bust didn’t stop its steps. However, I have noticed two interesting news from BizJournals, talking about the rising foreclosure rate in California and in Sancramento. There are another series of two articles from Economist.com: one in 2005, and one in this year. We’ve experience the peak of housing market. We might go further high, or might experience a double peak. But, the knife is definitely falling.

Everything has its limit. For example, if the gas price reaches 10 dollars per gallon, most of people would stop driving cars, which leave zero profit for oil companies. If people cannot afford the house, they would rather rent. Eventually, the price will be driven down because of lack of demand. Low demand will either increase the cost of doing mortgage or reduce the number of mortgage companies.

When and how that will happen also depends on inflation, due to the fact that a lof of families have bought their houses based on ARM (adjustable-rate mortgage). Higher inflation will result in higher interest rate.

The effect of the combined two is fatal: it will become extreme costly to lock down to a low fixed mortgage rate while the flexible rate will result in an instant bankruptcy. Either way, people will be broken. Thus, they might simply return the key to the bank, which will drive the cost even higher for mortgage bank and will cause the panic of the whole real estate market.

Please keep a close eye on both US housing market conditions and US Inflation Rate!

Near the end of the year, most of big companies in silicon valley will launch a year end party for employees. Otherwise, one could turn to buddies for the rescue. However, before enjoying parties, don’t forget to empty one’s house by donating goodies that one doesn’t need. Since I live in Sunnyvale, CA, I have found some places nearby for donation:

Before the donation, make sure that one keeps records of all the items, and one has correctly calculated fair market values. In the Internet age, one could leverage popular on-line sites. For example, Amazon is a good place for books, and Ebay is a good place for both clothing and computer related stuffs.

During Thanksgiving shopping, we had bought a Bissell 35951 CleanView Revolution Plus Upright Bagless Vacuum. It is not expensive, about $100 from Fry’s. Among all the 12 amp vacuums there, it has the most cleaning power, thanks to its well designed front brush. It has 7 levels of blanket cleaning, plus one level for floor cleaning, which protects the front brush by turning it off. The following graph demonstrates how effective it is to clean up carpet (click for bigger picture).

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It is bag-less so that it will save you both money and hassle on dirt bags. Amazon provides more pictures on how to use this power machine.

Vacuuming the carpet

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Vacuuming the wood floor

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Finally, let’s talk about the bad part: it is noisy and heavy (17lbs), and generates diesel-like smell after every usage. Its heavy weight probably makes it the best household quipment for both cleaning and weight lifting. Further, it might be hard to find filter replacement. Check out before you buy.