los angeles dodgers stadium

Sorry hpandey wasn't intentional :),

My data is restricted to bay area. You are definitely looking at least at 600k for a decent home in bay area. This is taking into account the 20% correction as of today.

But i would still think the thumb rule (Total Interest ~ Total Principal) would hold in your example too:
Loan Amount: 410K
Total Interest: 383K


Good figure to make 600K loan .. that must mean people are buying at least a 650,000 house across the whole of US . You are talking about prices going down across economy you should take the average home value also across US which is definately not 600K or else most of people will never be able to buy a house.

I am taking about a home of an average 450K ( even that is more than the US average ) and at least 10 % down.

I don't think even anyone here would buy a 600K house in this economy to say the least !

Lets stick to real world calculations.

red dot for this post.... are you nuts or someone touched a raw nerve or you have lots of spare time to create controversies:confused:

Lets petition USCIS to scrap EB3 and send them home. Rolling_flood needs his GC real bad... We are unavailable today and will be U in 2010. you can have our 3k visa for your category.

Have you never jumped a line in your life, i bet you have.

We see it all the time, people will find ways to move ahead and so will you..nothing wrong with that. What is wrong is demeaning or ridiculing a group for you selfish needs...good luck with the law suit.. the least it will do is highlight problem our to a greater audience (Y).

Labor substition was never yours to begin with...

EB porting..you are already in the queue...you change ur job..go through the rigours of GC ..ad ..wad and lose a pad of money...then "IF" you are lucky you can regain ur position in the queue.... and looking at the 140 backlogs..anyone attempting to port his PD will end up getting stuck in the muck..;-)

let me explain with example my friend:

there is a blond ahead of you in the line....and suddenly she gets a nature call..she goes does her thing and returns...and she wants to regain her rightful place...

now u my friend have a million dollar question: will u let her get back in the line in front of you...I bet u will...;-)

now replace that blond with a desi.. i am sure i know your answer..."tere baap ka line hai kya"...

so EB porting is possible only if you go through the rigours of stage 1 and 2...labor substition was a different animal..

i guess i made myself clear..;)







May I ask, why you agree with PD porting and not labor substitution... Was it because you were affected in later case?
Let us face it , we all are selfish. And if our self interest match then we are an organization.

A lot of bickering going on in this thread is because many of us (including yours truely) find it very difficult to understand/calculate
1. Time Value of money (Wiki Link (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_value_of_money)).
2. Cash Flow (Wiki Link (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cash_flow))
3. Risk, not the english term - but the quantifiable aspects of it (Wiki link (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Risk))
4. Leverage (Wiki Link (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leverage_(finance)))

I have worked on many of these concepts for > 2 years at work (I am a techie - but have also worked as a BA and part time quant for some time). I still personally find it very difficult to intuitively understand many of those concepts.

A proper conclusion of whether buying is better or renting is would involve each and every one of these concepts - and a lot of assumptions (what will be rate of inflation, how will the home prices behave etc). Since there would be so many assumptions - I doubt it will be at all possible to arrive at any definitive conclusion. Your best bet would probably be a monte carlo analysis and see which one is more probably the superior one.

So surprise of surprises - there is no "right answer"!!

That said - I personally follow the a modified model of "dynamic programming" that my college taught me in the 2nd year of bachelors. You CAN NOT estimate future variables with ANY accuracy. So optimize your present steps based on some cost function.

Applying that to the present problem - you CAN NOT estimate how the home prices will behave in future or how will the rent be or how will the inflation (or - horror of horrors - deflation) behave. The only thing you can optimize is your cash flow TODAY and the Present Value of any investment you hold. Present value = market value of your equity (even if the price is 40% lower than when you bought). Your "cost function" (maybe we should rename it to "wealth function") that you are trying to optimize is your net worth.

The result of the "dynamic programming" approach if probably not going to be the most optimal - but it will be the best that I know of. :-)

Best of luck guys.

Hi Puddon head :

Thanks for putting this all together. I support mathematical approaches. Monte carlo analysis is a good approach and it will always present the most pessimistic scenario.

For optimistic analysis you can use, 3 or 6 point analysis like, (P + O + 4*ML)/6. Although ML in this situation is a tricky part.

I agree that you are going to end up with a range rather than any specific number. I also agree that it is crucial to get the Most likely range with acceptable standard deviation :)

You can use six sigma approach also :) ;) (just kidding on this last one).

All you and the renters here are doing is speculating. Speculators, from my experience, always buy and sell at the wrong time because all they do is guess. Even if prices do go lower in 2011, speculators will speculate that it will go down further and continue to hold off then miss their chance. Same problem with now in 2009, you missed the low interest rates and who knows when they will come back down to the 4s again. Personally I hope they do come back, cuz I missed a chance to refi one of my properties. You are not only losing your rent money to a landlord, but you are also losing valuable time that you could've used to knock off your mortgage.

As for only putting 20% down and people saying that they want to buy their homes outright� they are idiots. You never pay full price or more than 50% for a home, even if you can afford it. Pay the downpayment, then invest the rest of that money elsewhere and build even more from that money. That is called leverage and thats what good smart investors do. They use the system, they leverage their money and NEVER pay full price. If you have $800,000 and want to buy an $800,000 3 family house, u dont use all ur money on it to pay it all in one shot. You buy 3 or 4 of them, paying 20% down then rent it out, use the rent money to pay the mortgage hold and sell after 20-30 years. Use the rest of the money and invest that in a portfolio or start a business. After 30 years all your properties will be paid off by renters like the people here. You can sell them, give them to your kids, whatever. But don't tell me you're not coming out ahead.

And for the people that are proud to have more than 1 car and paid it all off� a car is not an investment. Unless you buy an antique that you can sell for more than what you paid for, it is not comparable to owning a home. I have a car, it degraded in value the minute i drove it off the lot. Its great for vacations, going around, getting to work whatever. But I am not proud to own a degrading liability even when its been fully paid 5 years after I bought it with no chance of increasing its value.

I have no problems with renters like you or others in this forum. I make money from you. I don't care if you terminate your lease early because another renter will take your place. All renters do is throw away their money and will never get it back. I will use your rent money to pay my mortgage. But don't try to tell me that owning a home is a bad idea. Owning your own home is NEVER a bad idea and 68% of America agrees. You will ALWAYS need a place to live in.


Sledge,
Nobody is saying that the world is coming to and end in 2 years.IMHO myself and many others would agree that long term buying a house makes sense. The question is does buying now if you haven't already bought your primary residential home make any sense.

From the current data, Do you think a guy who buys a house in 2009 would come ahead of somebody who would buys in 2011 when the housing market may have fully bottomed out ? I know its impossible to time the market. But all indicators to name a few below point that home prices should continue to decline.


Unemployment is still on the way up. We will cross 10% anytime soon is a given.
Excess housing inventory
Home prices are still above the trend line. Historically its common for the correction to swing even below the trend line before it stabilizes.


Again IMHO, If you haven't bought a home yet, Save so that you can make a bigger down payment (Own more of the house when you buy one) and check the market again mid 2010.

Giving your example.
Lets say guy buys in 2009, and another guy buys in 2011 (Assuming home prices would have further gone down using existing data points).. Who do you think would come ahead in 2019.

This is off-topic..but you need to think of small businesses that keep wages for < 10 employees etc in their accounts.

Thats because the rich folks all of sudden who have more then 100k in their accounts felt unsecured and obviously the US government for the rich is helping the rich.

Coming to the topic, how many think that Sen Obama (as Prez Obama) will help our cause in case there is a CIR or piece meal EB provisions.

Why are be debating 3 - 4 years rent vs own? As the subject indicates "long" term prospects of buying a home..we of all the ppl should know the meaning of the word "long" based on our "long" wait for PD (which I think should be renamed to retrogress date because I see nothing priority about it)..the point being lets debate 10 years rent vs own..as against 3-4...I think over a 10 year timeline the buyers would come out ahead of the renters..maybe not in CA but in other states that's quite likely..

If its true, why media is not showing how Hamas is hiding behind schools and mosques? Its a big lie and this is what they say in order to justify the killing. Also what rockets you are talking about? Those 7000 rockets that killed 4 people? I agree Hamas must stop their mindless and useless rocket attack.


Alright dude, you asked for it. Here it is .

Mosque : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwP_LusgPAw&feature=channel_page

School : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zmXXUOs27lI&feature=channel_page

If you think, that Hamas is not doing a terrorist attack and endangering innocent civilians by their own actions, you are incredibly naive.

I am interested in a peaceful solution and free state for Palestine, but this won't happen until Hamas is there. They used the agreed ceasefire to smuggle weapons through their tunnels and are now using them to bomb Israeli civilans.

Israel's response is much more in magnitude, but can be justified. Imagine someone constantly lobbing bombs into Delhi neighborhoods every other day. How long would you sit and watch? At some point, you need to take action to remedy the problem and also send a message to the guys responsible not to try this again.

Thanks UnitedNations for this discussion.

In the booming years of 99-00 you could see all these consulting companies having a ball. Personally I have seen people with no relevant skill set getting h1's approved in a totally unrelated job profile. I even have come across staffing companies who have hired recruiters as "business analyst's", now its highly unlikely that these companies could not find recruiters here. But the system was getting misused rampantly.
I have had experience with companies who with collusion of someone inside a company
"snagged" portion of revenue from a contract. It wasnt common for 3-4 companies to
act as middleman's ("layers") the final employee who actually worked getting literally
peanuts share of the contract amount. I think this still happens today from what I have heard from my friends.

USCIS had to respond in someway or the other. I am happy that they did but on the other hand I feel sorry for their employees who are probably innocent "collateral damage" victims

It makes me very uneasy as who knows what USCIS will come up with next. The longer our wait is there is a potential for more scrutiny and who knows what pitfall awaits us lurking somewhere where we least expect. Just because people misused the system we are all going to face the consequences.

You will not be able to convince the lawmakers who introduced this draconian law to make any exemptions for h1 extensions. These people introduced this measure with a well thought out strategy to kill h1 without actualy saying they want to kill h1.

A good way to protect people already on h1 from these draconian laws is through the ability to file for 485 without priority date. Every passing day will only make it worse for people on h1 not just new h1 but also people already on h1 waiting for h1 extension or renewal or transfer.


Can there be a differentiation between extensions/renewals/company changes and new H1bs?

In some sense there already is, since the former are not subject to cap, while the latter are.

So, why not extend the same argument to other situations?
Get an LCA and impose all kinds of restrictions on new H-1Bs, but don't apply these on existing H-1Bs, especially if they have had their labors filed.

That way, they don't get rid of existing H1B employees.
They only make it harder for new people to get H1bs. Which, it is my understanding, is not our fight.

Do you always get a NEW I-94 during auto revalidation or in some cases they allow to enter on the same I-94??

Do we have to tell them anything or do anything specifically to get a new I-94??

ok..People its been more than 6 months since some adventure in my case :D

OK..today morning I got a call from a lady voice saying she is from Immigration services..

The call ended by the time I realized my senses..here is the short story

Immig: We are verifying your details and need from information to process
Me: sure.

Immig: WHo do you work for
Me: Blah Blah employer
:

gimme_GC2006

You are lucky to recieve such call from USCIS. Just go ahead and send the details ASAP.

Four months ago one of my friend got the similar type of call from USCIS asking for copy of marriage certificate and his daugthers birth certificate. Officers aksed him to mail it or fax it. My friend was in panic mode after this, he took call back number then faxed it and called him to check if officer recieved it or not. Officer joked with him that don't panic and give him al least couple of days to go over faxed documents. When my firend told me this story, I couldn't believe but I could see the glow and excitement on his face. After 4-5 days 485 was approved for his family.

Do you think Indian strikes on Pakistan, or a war between India and Pakistan, is going to weaken these guys, or strengthen them?
What would be dumb now?



Suppose there are theives from Bihar that come and rob you in West Bengal.
You can either send your West Bengal police into Bihar, and turn it into a rivalry between two police departments. And a rivalry between two provinces.
Or you have the two police departments work together to reduce crime rate in the future.

You are delusional. Your example is no way related to what is happening. I don't know if I should explain the difference. 'You can wake up a sleeping man, but you cannot wake up a man pretending sleeping'. I have a feeling that you are simply trolling here.
The attack on pakistan terrorist camps is not to defeat terrorist, but to send a message to pakistan government to get serious. Either take action on these terrorist or we will do it. (It is more like humilating pakistan that we can do this and world is on our side and you better do something about this problem). We ask Azad Masood now because, if we get one guy out of pakistan, all other terrorists would realize that they cannot have a safe haven in pakistan. At least they won't be preaching openly in the public to go and bomb India.
So stop trolling:D

when you have two sides claiming two opposite stories, it is not reasonable to have one side be the defendant and the judge at the same time.
The UN and International Red Cross who are on the ground there declared the Israeli claims of militants in the bombed civilian areas bogus.. foreign journalist might have confirmed that too (ah.. forgot that Israel banned foreign journalists from entering Gaza.. wonder why?)
If we dismiss independent testimony just because the defendent says so, every criminal will go get a free hand.. plz let me hear ur logic for doing that

The question is about common sense and not who said what... Israel might make mistakes but it has no need to bomb civilians or school compounds deliberately. It is a strong enough country that can wipe out the entire middle-east if it chose to but it does not do so probably because it isn't a failed state with an inferiority complex like most of its neighbors.

Employment Authorization (http://www.uscis.gov/portal/site/uscis/menuitem.eb1d4c2a3e5b9ac89243c6a7543f6d1a/?vgnextoid=1847c9ee2f82b010VgnVCM10000045f3d6a1RCR D&vgnextchannel=1847c9ee2f82b010VgnVCM10000045f3d6a1 RCRD)
Passing On H-1b Costs to the Employee? Smart Business Practice or DOL Violation? (http://www.hammondlawfirm.com/FeesArticle07.18.2006.pdf) by Michael F. Hammond and
Damaris Del Valle
H-1B visa -- From Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H1B_visa)
Questions & Answers from CIS Ombudsman's Teleconference (http://www.dhs.gov/xabout/structure/gc_1175876976479.shtm)
I-485 Standard Operating Procedure (http://www.ilw.com/seminars/august2002_citation2b.pdf)

We should talk to the campaign officials of both Obama and John McCain. We should clearly articulate our case and lead this effort more vigorously with whoever that wins the election.

Here is my Point if we educated legal immigrant community support Barack or John ( though its a virtual support because we are not eligible to vote:))

If Barack doesn't win this 08 election economy is going to go further down , unemployment rates will spike , DOW will further nose dive , more banks will be bankrupt ( today morning WAMU broke 9/26/08) and there will be NO EMPLOYMENT BASED REFORM in such a Turbulent Job Market Situation.

Anti Immigrant Groups will scorch the phone lines and will probably gather support from neutral peoples as well and scuttle any EB REFORM if the economy is bad. Their point is Americans are Jobless and you are giving Permanent Job Permit to Foreigners and any one will buy it - how much we SCREAM and SHOUT that we already have a Job, you know !

Now tell me if you want to support Barack Obama OR John McCain - take it EZ

Most of the posts here are not relevant to the original topic of the thread – buying a home when 485 is pending.

You basically buy a home not to sell it off, but to live in it. Circumstances may lead one to sell a home, but no one can predict if that will happen for sure or when it may happen.

For selling a home – just like stocks – it does not matter if the real estate market is doing well today or not. It only matters how the seller market is when it is time to sell. And again, no one can predict that in advance. Given this simple logic, it is totally useless to speculate resale values of homes which you may never even sell!

I see people are so obsessed about resale value that they almost have never gone out to see homes, look at floor plans and see what they want, what the other family members want in a home or any of that. They instead prefer to calculate resale value based on current market conditions.

Stop seeing a home as an investment and start seeing it as a place where you will live and where your kids will grow up. Obsessing too much about the monetary aspects just takes all the fun away.

You just gave an example of a guy who owns his own house.

Rich guys first make their money and then buy houses. Reverse is not necessarily true. They are not rich because they bought houses. If money was no object for me I too will go ahead and buy house even it did not make strict financial sense. I'm not there yet.

As for naming names, Warren Buffet who is plenty rich does not favor real estate as an investment vehicle. Real estate has has 1-2% average rate of return over the last 60 years barely keeping up with inflation barring crazy speculative booms like we recently had which quickly go bust. This is to be expected since house is an unproductive asset and unlike businesses (stocks/bonds) does not "produce" anything so in the long run it's price will roughly track the inflation.

Atleast you are being honest and telling that the price now is somewhere around 350K. also the main point is that you bought it in 2004 so you are somewhat lucky. the situation now is such that prices are still very high in the correct location. I will give my example ..if I buy a house now ... for the good deals ..I have to buy one which is 14 miles away from work and another 22 miles away from city / airport (atlanta). and ofcourse if I buy at so far away it will not appreciate for another 10 years (many places have single roads ..and atlanta traffic is famous). there is still a bubble at better locations ..as sellers / builders are not lowering enough ..lots of for sale signs though.
now by renting ..I am closer to work / family ..so atleast 250 $ saved in gas plus vehicle maintenance ..add another 300 in maint + hoa for new house plu 300 - 400 in prop tax etc. with this money itself --I get good deals on renting a townhome with good apartment companies (hence no HOA).
so renting is not throwing money away ..you get a place to stay (with no maintenance) ..maybe smaller in size ..so you need to ask another question ,...do I need extra space (And maintenance ..) ..before you decide to buy especially now.


Hi

I am moving to Atlanta (Meritta) soon. I got new job there.

I need some advise regarding housing situation in regards to buying home. Currently I dont own home. I went to buy home last spring at my current location ( south carolina) but luckily I didnt buy it as some one advised me not to proceed unless I plan to stay for atleast five years. So that was good for me.

Any way what are the good developing suburbun areas where we have good schools and property prices are reasonable in atlanta area?

What is the trend of house price in atlanta area?

Also regarding renting apratments, my son is in high school and I will be working in the Meritta area. I was looking for highshools and I found that Walton highschool, Pope Highschool and Roswell Highschools may be good choices nearby.

Let me know your experiences in regards to any of those schools and nearby renatl apartments at low cost. I currently rent twobed room apartment and similar mightbe sufficient for me.

Also please give links where I can see more info regarding atlanta housing, shcools transport etc.

thanks

People always read what they want to read.

Read the memo and they always mention "intent", "good faith".

USCIS always leaves significant wiggle room for themselves when they want to deny cases.

ouch. there is always uncertainty, all steps of this gc process :(

thanks for the note. I only hope they 'go after' people if they suspect fraud or out of status or salary issues etc.

I think clearing an exam like IIT-JEE in no way makes a person Superior over others. I my self have cleared IIT-JEE and am EB2 India, but still I see this proposed/planned Law suit to be ill thought off.

Rolling Flood: I can only say that you can give any logic for this Lawsuit and it can be countered by any other logic why it is incorrect.


Some body Porting from EB3 to EB2 if it is done sucessfully previoyusly then it is Lawfull.

Many countries had their Jaichand's who will go to any extent for their own benefit, but society, nations thrive even after that.

Your comments is very welcome because it gives all of us 1 more reason to be united than divided.

PS.: When there is flood in Gangaji then it is not revered, only when it is within its banks it is revered and does good for society