In article , John
Cairns wrote:

"Peter Wiley" wrote in message
. ..
Katy, with the exception of waterfront property, there is probably no
real
estate in the state of Michigan that's significantly overvalued. Even
the
waterfront property, probably. Agreed, the real estate market in
Michigan
is
fairly poor, but there's the economy again. Now soCal and soFla are
another
story entirely. I've read recently that some areas may be overvalued by
as
much as 40%.

John Cairns

Have a conversation with our realtor. He sends us gobs of articles
about it every week...I ahte realtors...wish we didn't have to use
one...

No such thing as overvalued or undervalued in a free market, except in
someone's perceptions. It's worth what you can sell it for, when you
want to or have to sell it. Period.

What a person paid for it is totally irrelevant.

I agree with you about changes in use driving up prices to where some
activities are no longer economic. Sydney, where I used to live, has
almost no industrial waterfront left because the yuppie scum all wanted
waterfront apartments and then didn't want their view disturbed by
industry, or their peace & quiet disturbed by power tools.

PDW

That's what these fellas are referring to, what the thing is ultimately
worth. Do a little googling and check out real estate prices in soCal.
Houses that would sell for 250k USD anywhere else in the country with the
exception of a few other bubble areas are selling for 750k or more. The
pundits are concerned about what the the 750k houses might be worth down the
road, when the bubble bursts, mainly due to the fact that much of the US
economy is driven by the housing/retail sector. There are a LOT of folks out
there that are apparently living the good life off of the equity in their
houses!

Yeah, here, too, at least in the mainland capital cities. I ignore it
all. You have to live somewhere and the only people who make money out
of getting others to move house are the RE agents, the financial
institutions and the Govt. Pox on all 3 groups. They tell me my place
in Sydney is worth 10X what I paid for it. So what, it costs that much
to buy an equivalent place so where's the benefit to me? I bought my
land here in Tasmania right at the end of a decade long price slump.
That doesn't make me smart, just very lucky. It was good value to me
and that's all I cared about.

The only way to crystallise so-called wealth is to sell & move
somewhere cheaper. Some of my friends have done that, more are planning
on doing it. Few want to move to Tasmania, thank god. What we need here
is a real estate slump.

PDW