Well, you never know with all the bad housing news... it could be near the edge of a cliff.NimbleSexyXquisite said:
Scottsdale is great, it continues to see tremendous growth in boutique and luxury retail and custom luxury housing in the $2M+ range. It continues to sell its posh "place to be in AZ" image which does unfortunately breed pretension among some of the residents :frown:. Since it is one of the resort and amenity capitals of the US, I think it will be able to hold on to its high home values better than most AZ cities through the downturn... unless housing tumbles of course.
Chandler has actually really started to shine. They saw tremendous price run-up during the boom. We also own a home there which, at the peak, saw 50% appreciation. It has pulled back, but since they continue to remain an attractive location for high paying jobs and they have nearly as much retail as Scottsdale, they have held prices decently. Though they don't really have any distinguishing "thing" that makes them great, they do have just a good mix of everything that makes it a really nice place to live.
The locations that were really hurt by the housing bubble were the non-phoenix metro areas that use Phoenix as their hub... outliers.
LOL, I do watch CNBC :redface:. Honestly though, I don't blindly follow economic columnists and reporters. I think that much of what have to say sounds like a parrot squawking out clicheisms. Mostly, I read books written by people that have had the luxury of witnessing and impacting the broad US economy (mostly non-politicians)... I mean A LOT of books... and I try to read from both sides of the fence - which is difficult to do since most of these men are staunch capitalists. In affect, my conclusions are drawn from my readings, and what I see going on in the world today as it relates to the past. I suppose I am strongly biased against the Fed because 1. we have no say in what they do and 2. they have a policy of damaging the US dollar.
Oh my gosh, you're totally right... I levered ST rates to asset valuation much too strongly in my argument. Okay, here I go again... I certainly do use discounted cash flow analysis to help determine good acquisition candidate companies to invest in (your specialty :wink
- this has been one of the tools in my value investing toolbox and has helped my portfolio tremendously over last few years. I actually didn't mean to up-play the Fed's involvement in valuation so much (though I can see that I clearly have), just their ability to build up tension in the economy and then cut one end of the string (i.e. catalyst). I am right there with you on the minimal effect of ST rates on LT valuation, but the ST rates have a huge effect on releasing built up pressure because they signal an entry point for many investors... sort of like buying value on weakness or using short term indicators to pull the trigger for all those technical analysis guys.However, I do have serious doubts in the Fed's ability to continue controlling inflation while simultaneously continuing to build the house of cards. It wouldn't take much to send the US into a tailspin with the astronomical amount of credit the Fed issues. In that respect, I feel that the Fed will have a huge impact on valuation (and even currently a slight one due to global confidence) when that day comes. Of course, that is outside the scope of your argument since you're basing it on the them being able to maintain indefinitely - I was just adding food for thought :smile:.
