7/29    What are some instances where the housing market tanked, not due
        to natural disasters?
        \_ cities where it tied itself to a major industry or army base.
           when the company or military base closes shop, everything goes
           downhill.  Or places where there is a major factory disaster,
           like Love Canal in the 70s.
           \_ new england has dozens of cities like this that were tied to
              manufacturing of various kinds.  you may have heard about
              Stanley Tool relocating to Bermuda on paper and moving
              alot of their production overseas.  I used to live in the town
              that used to be the Stanley headquarters, and it's really really
              sad.  houses stay on the market for months and go for nothing
              to slum lords that rent them out to the shitheads who have moved
              in and destroyed the town as the decent people with the skills
              all moved out.  once there is a critilcal mass of shitheads in
              the town(attracted by the cheap housing), the decent folks become
              literaly afraid to send their kids to the local school, and
              you pass a realestate event horizon beyond wich only slum lords
              dare to tread.  If you're the kind of person who likes to
              "buy american", don't buy stanley tools.  fuck stanley.
        \_ Seattle in the '70s. Boeing cancelled the SST program and laid off
           several thousand engineers. The trickle down effect wiped out the
           local economy for over a decade. This was culminated by the billboard
           someone paid for at the edge of town at the time:
           local economy for over a decade. This was culminated by the bill-
           board someone paid for at the edge of town at the time:
           "Will the last person to leave Seattle please turn out the lights".
             -- ulysses
           \_ Follow on note - the general thinking is nothing like that will
              ever happen here because the Bay Area has a diversified
              base. The "effect" of the dot-com crash on the housing market
              (owning vs. renting) pretty much proved this.
              \_ Don't be so sure.  "General thinking" has often been proven
                 wrong.
              \_ Yeah.  In Alameda, the dot-com crash combined with the closure
                 of the military base didn't seem to have an effect on the
                 home prices there.
                 \_ The dot-com crash didn't kill any jobs which existed
                    before 1997.  If Silicon Valley starts moving operations
                    en masse to India, the Bay Area would have the same kind
                    of dropout that the eastern industrial cities had when
                    all those industries moved overseas.  -tom
                    \_ Nonsense.  Jobs are not moving en masse to India.  If
                       you've ever been involved with an Indian project, you'd
                       know this "all the jobs are moving to India" noise for
                       the ridiculous FUD that it is.  Multi-lingual, multi-
                       time zone projects are insanely hard to get right.  Yes,
                       a certain amount of the grunge work and QA can be farmed
        \_ white flight from major cities had a serious effect on housing
                       out but those are $10/hr jobs here anyway.  All the real
                       work for American companies will continue to be done
                       right here for decades to come.  The only thing dumber
                       than sending important work to India is hiring masses of
                       incompetent H1b's based on fabricated resumes and the
                       recruiter's word.  Been there, done that, seen it fail
                       over and over.  My current company does India work but
                       only in very carefully measured doses and only the lamer
                       work.  The important work is still done here and always
                       will be because we don't want the company to go under.
                 \_ Au contraire. Alameda prices dived after the closure.
                    Prices on the unfashionable west side were about 200K
                    for a 2bd 1ba four years ago. Now the mean would be
                    closer to 400K due to leftover splash from dotcom.
                    \_ Oops!  I was only thinking about the Bay Farm side and
                       thought it represented the whole city.
                       \- you should see some of the photographs of places
                          like Flint, Michigan.
        \_ white people from major cities had a serious effect on housing
           markets.
        \_ The real estate market in SoCal tanked after reaching all-time
           highs around 1989. It took about 8 years to recover. Shit happens.
           Like the stock market, the general trend is up. --dim
           \_ That's the key point here.  If you buy something with solid value
              such as real estate (and not the stock of Anderson clients) and
              _hold it_, then over the _long term_ you'll end up ahead no
              matter the ups and downs along the way.
              \_ "no matter what" should be replaced by probably not.  In
                 the Bay Area, anything west of the east bay hills should
                 be safe, unless it's in active gang land.
              \_ I'm sure people who bought condos in Allentown in 1972 think
                 this is great advice.  -tom