My Internet Notebook

General wisdom is that a family should not spend more than 30 percent of its income on housing.

According to California Association of Realtors’ Housing Affordability Index, only 13 percent of the households in the Bay Area in February (2005) had at least the minimum income of $157,210 to buy a home at the median price of $667,850.

For renters, the Center for Housing Policy found that a worker needs to earn $15.21 an hour in 2003 to have a two-bedroom apartment that did not exceed more than 30% of income.

Kathleen Pender at the SF Chronicles wrote that the number of Real Estate Investment Clubs in the country has increased considerably in the past ten years, while the number of traditional investment clubs registered with the National Association of Investors Corp. has fallen from 34,000 at the end of 1999 to about 20,000 today.

In hot markets like San Francisco, DC, Boston, it wouldn’t be surprising if Taxi drivers are starting to give passengers real estate investment tips!

Is it really a bubble is a question that’s left to economists’ to answer. For lucky home owners like myself, it is satisfying to see price go up on one hand. But on the other hand, you really can’t say you gained much because it is all “paper money”, just like those stock options in the good old days 🙂

Fresh All host Terry Gross interviewed Tom Friedman, who has a new book out on what he called Globlization version 3.0. (Funny how authors these days attached a version number to everything, not just software anymore.)

Basically, Friedman is arguing in his book that the world is flattened by technological advances (i.e. the internet), where individuals become increasingly powerful at what they will be able achieve. I have not read the book yet. But judging from what was talked about duing Terry’s interview, it should be a good read. I read Friedman’s first book on globalization – “The Lexus and the Olive Tree: Understanding Globalization” back in 1999. It was filled with good information. The new book could be just as good.