High-end L.A. market is starting to tumble. Losses of $5k-10k a WEEK.

We need an FHASupraSecure (FHA-SS) to insure loans up to $2.5 million. Problem solved!

You know when the highend is smoking crack things are getting bad. Wonder if Ms. Houston is on the whack crack yet.

I wouldn't rent a house in Phoenix without doing a thorough credit check on the landlord

High end in Silicon Valley is not cracking, as of yet. But I notice that Santa Clara County ranks 2nd amongst Bay Area counties (trailing only Sonoma County) in the rate of increase of NODs for Q2.

For Trustees Deeds Recorded, nobody can touch us! The YoY change for Santa Clara county was 512%.

That's gotta catch up with the high end at some point, just like it is in now in Denver and Phoenix.

Was talking to a mega apple nerd and he was saying they can't keep the iPhone in stock due to production issues, you have to get on a list just to get one in a couple of weeks, supposedly.

Just cant understand the buying in financials this week with all te bad news.

Just my humble opinion, but I think we're trying to price in the Fed being able to monetize enough bad debts to keep the banks alive since the price of oil is retreating some from its apex. That, and they're difficult to short now thanks to the SEC.

Fundamentally, you're absolutely right that business is ghastly, would be more ghastly without condoned accounting silliness, and will get more ghastly as house prices finish their mean reversion. However, the fundamentals only really matter if oil is stubbornly high.

Oh, yeah, I forgot to mention I'm looking in the southern exurbs of San Jose.

Winston,

Mind if I ask, what town/area in San Jose is this gem?

The new building next to mine on the Upper East Side currently has two tennants of a possible 40. The building has been complete for a couple of months now, and the developer has been marketing it heavily for the last year.

Six other (mostly much bigger) buildings are going up within a ten block radius, all of them even more high end than the one next to me. 2BRs starting from $1.5mm. Yikes, it's gonna get real ugly in NYC quite soon.

OT: somewhat. Dan Radcliffe, boy wizard, spent about 5 million of his fortune on a very outre very modern apartment in NYC. It was said he intended to rent it out for $20,000 a month. I would be curious to know if it has been rented. (He later bought another apartment about as expensive, supposedly to live in when he comes in the fall to do Equus.) $240,000 per year on a capital cost of 5 million would be less than a 5% return. Is this normal for NYC?

Not many cracks at the really high end in La La land.

From Real Estalker blogsite:

Well children, now we know why ridiculously rich Hollywood widow Candy Spelling has been looking to unload some of her real estate holdings of late...she's downsizing. The lavish living ladee just forked over a record breaking $47,000,000 to buy the top two floors of a yet to be completed A.M. Stern designed building called The Century currently rising on Avenue of the Stars in Century City. For those not overly familiar with the lay of L.A. Land, Century City is a glittering and puny pocket of tall towers that sits south of Santa Monica Boulevard and between Bev Hills and Westwood Village.

Miz Spellings dee-luxe doo-plex will span about 16,000 square feet with 360 degree views from downtown Los Angeles to Catalina Island. Not surprisingly, the reported $2,848 per square foot price sets a record for a Los Angeles condominium.

The pampered and polished Mis Spelling has purchased her giant con-doe early enough in the construction process that she will be able to bring in her own architects and designers to finish her 41st and 42nd floor aerie. A few of the high-priced details of her new digs were reported in the Los Angeles Times and include a living room with two working fireplaces, a bizarrely large 4,000 square foot master bedroom, a massage room, exercise room, and conservatory that will feature a damn rose garden as well as an indoor swimming pool that will open to a terrace. Oh it's nice to be rich, ain't it children? Your Mama imagines that Miz Spelling's team of people will somehow manage to squeeze a gift wrapping room into the plan too because let's be honest, once you've become accustomed to having a gift wrapping room or two, you simply can not live without one.

We suppose this big buy means we'll start hearing whispers and rumors about the sixty something year old's 123-room mega mansion–dubbed The Manor–on S. Mapleton Drive going on the market. In fact Miz Spelling's attorney, a gentleman named Stephen Goldberg, is quoted saying that the woman with a penchant for all things glam often receives "feelers" and expressions of interest from potential buyers for her 11 bedroom and 16 bathroom behemoth including one filthy rich party who "promised nine figures and change plus a jet." Well good for her, because no matter how you slice it, decorate it, or keep it up, 56,000+ square feet is a lonely amount of space for just one person.

The comment about Ms Spelling brought to mind a conversation I had with a guy who was intalling systems in a large house up here - 11000 sq ft. The owners were visiting the almost finished construction when the wife approached him saying: I lost! Help me find my husband!