That's more concerning. On the up side, qualifying is MUCH harder and more rigorous than it was before.

Well that sucks, unless I start making buku bucks i'll have to put my housing plans off for a while it seems.

Do you enjoy or are you at least capable of basic construction/handy man type stuff? If so, you can find "fixer uppers" or houses that need "TLC" for an ok discount, though they are getting chewed up by flippers now.

This all might just be a flash in the pan and settle out once liquidity gets used.* In any event, save for a 20% down to stay conventional and avoid PMI and other hassls if you can, find a house that needs a little attention in an ok neighborhood and you *might* be able to find something that wouldn't break the bank, especially if you were willing to go out a little ways towards Fontana/Riverside. This is where a lot of people get really fucked up. A house is not really an asset, it's a liability sucking money and time away. It's only an asset if you're renting for positive cash flow or at the time (and only at the time) you sell it for a profit. Always assuming the price of real property will be higher in the future just cuz is not all that bright. A few million people have had there asses handed to them in the last couple years on that little error.

*Liquidity
The banks are flush with cash. If they open the flood gates (lowering requirements for example) for whatever reason(s), all bets are off, property values would sky rocket to who knows where. On a tangent, there's already some signs of general inflation (and definitely in the producer prices area). Fortunately productivity is always increasing and people and banks on the whole are a "little" more careful on the spending side than before, so things might stay reasonably under wraps, but no guarantees. The gun is loaded, it's just matter if we're going to put it to our heads and pull the trigger. :smack:

Ben, your house is freaking awesome. And your wife is awesome enough to allow you two project rooms. Dont cry.

Omg omg omg plasti dip is sooo amazing omg Im gonna spray my lights and my wheels and my trim panels and my entire car and my cock and balls with it omg.

Instead of benching, one day, you and Carlos should have a drunk posting contest. . .

I do like it , and location to work is about as good as it gets. Gonna do a patio room conversion, and pick up a couple hundred square feet. There some really nice product on the market that makes them pretty nice, like a pleasant sun room. Gonna continue with making the garage a nice shop space and keep the snake here.

I was worried about some safety issues, but in the last year or so the Koreans have been moving in big time and displacing some of the riff-raff in surrounding neighborhoods. There's already a nice Asian market here now (across from Nick's loaded with goodies round-eyes aren't hip to.) We'll see how it goes, but it should work for at least a few more years.

My dream is to find a ample piece of land in Glendora and build my house with my own hands, I have the skillset and the ability, just not the money.

There's loans for land + construction like anything else and you could theoretically do for less if you had all the right connections and a lot of patience to work through all the hoops. My family back in Wisconin has done this sort of thing several times. My favorite story is a distant cousin who bought 40 acres heavily forested with hard woods. He thinned the hardwoods (mostly maple) and sold for high grade lumber damn near the purchase price of the land. Scratching around in the middle to make a clearing he discovered the water table there was pretty high so made himself a little lake. In WI, you can buy stockers basically free, so he put in like a couple thousand fish for like $100 or something ridiculous like that. Of course, that was a one time deal, never have to do that again since he's about the only one fishing there. Naturall there are all the deer you could ant (too many in fact), etc. Then a cottage on the river that runs along the back. All in, said an done, basically he has a private 40 acre park for well under $100k.

I have the connections, buddies who own rental companies, only thing I would really have to contract out is someone to pour the concrete for the rebar reinforced walls. Everything else i can do.