tattoo empek empek

All good points, As always with Real Estate, its Location, Location and Location. So the decision to buy a home depends on where you are. My analysis was more towards the Bay Area market where prices have held steady except in periphery markets and neighborhoods which had lot of new construction. Demographics here are dual incomes, steady jobs, limited housing/new construction and strong tech sector(due to the global nature).

One thing I believe is that, Mortgage rates are probably at the lowest we will see for a while. If you time it right, maybe you can go another 50 basis points lower but generally its quite low.

Now, is the price of a home lowest? New home owners GENERALLY dont consider the price of the home but rather the MONTHLY payments. How much will it cost me monthly to own this home? And this is what drives the price of a home. So the price partially depends on the mortgage rate, type of mortgage(5-1 ARM, 30 year, 40 year etc).

Finally another major thing to consider is the loan process. With the recent changes, its got much tougher. My company almost has a freeze on new loans and except for refi the rest is frozen. Tighter conditions like

DTI ratio less than 35%
LTV ratio not more than 90%
For Pre-approval you need to show atleast 10% in liquid assets.

will certainly slow down things even further.
what is LTV ratio ? I guess DTI is debt to income ?
I agree with all the above ..so if u have a house and can refi ..good. have a GC and u get a good deal- good. EAD in these shaky conditions - not so good.
one thing is for certain - in our life time, most likely we will never see such price appreciations. maybe appreciations of 4 percent ..which is effectively 1 % appreciation - if inflation is 3%).

Make no mistake about it, IEEE-USA is not for any meaningful reform. They say that they support green card reform but actually they don’t. Otherwise they would have included some green card provisions in this bill, at least 485 filing provision. They make it look like they support green card reform because they do not want themselves to be looked upon as anti-immigrants. But that is who they are.

Just as an example: Ron Hira says that H1s drive down wages when they come and work here. If we go back, Ron Hira says H1s promote outsourcing. If we stay here, Ron Hira says we take jobs of people here. So no matter what we do, the bottom line is, IEEE-USA has a problem with people on H1. They have a problem with our existence, not just here, but anywhere. Why? Because they don't like competition from us. And here is another fact, guys lobbying for this bill are actually racist and they just warp their objective around the economic argument.
Again, IEEE went out of its way to get extra H1Bs for US-educated students. That alone wipes out your arguments because these H1Bs are for foreigners and these people sure will increase competition for people born here. IEEE is not only for meaningful reform, they have the power to do what they want.

I am in for it, a very great initiative.
But would request to check with IV first on this

It was crazy till last year. Things started going south from this year begining. I am seeing foreclosures and auctions here in bay area. There are price reductions of 100K in the mls listings. This is just starting. It is a matter of time. Some more quotes...
-----------------------------------
“Bay Area home sales have plummeted to their lowest level in two decades, making the wait between commission checks unbearable for many agents. Bonnie Stevens, an agent in Pleasanton, began her real estate career in 1995, at the end of the market’s last down cycle.”

“‘This is actually worse than 1995. There are agents in my office who have been in the business for 30 years telling me that this is the worst they’ve seen,’ she said.”

“During her 13 years as an agent, a good year for Stevens has meant selling 15 to 18 homes. So far this year, she’s sold only one.”

My Dear Friend:

Why do you want to defend crooks? Instead of ackowledging the fact that desi consulting companies are exploiting loopholes, you rather want to know why other companies are not feeling the heat. This is typical of us desis. There is absolutely no introspection.

For once, accept that we are at fault.

Its like this - You are in school and your teacher catches you copying off the next person. Now instead of correcting yourself, if you complain to the teacher that another classmate was also copying so you should not be penalized, will your treacher let you go?


Again, I am not defending anyone, I am saying that we should point all the consultanting...not just desi consulting ones...just don't descriminate...from your theory, it looks it is ok to copy unless you are caught.....I don't want to argue on this and deviate from the OP .

But many of your posts indicate you have a bias against Indians. You seem to be going hard against H1B and saying Indians are screwing H1Bs.


Isnt that true? If you are in the IT industry for the past 10 years you know it is true.
We, Indians are the ones who has mastered the art of circumventing the H1B process and screwing up the job market. Fake Resumes, Fake References, not working in the state where you are approved, somebody appearing in the phone interview and somebody else showing up in the Face to Face interview and what not.

I am not tainting the whole community here, and i am one of you. I agree that atleast 80% of us are Genuine, hardworking candidates. There are few chosen individuals(rest 20%) who did unethical & immoral things for their own good and we are the ones who are paying the price for this whole mess. You can chose to deny this fact and live in a world of denial.

Guys,

Ever wondered why a lawsuit never got filed against Labor Substitution, or stealing of EB Gcs by nurses, or against the discriminatory country quotas?

Simple, you need an Immigration Attorney to file the case. The same AILA cardholding person who is expecting a windfall profit out of interfiling/PD porting. I am interested to see the immigration attorney who is willing to sacrifice profit for principle. It would be a first in history if that happen!!

Good luck to everyone willing to participate in this wild goose chase. I guess you guys have too much money in bank to spend over such a mission impossible. If only you'd contribute equally to IV campaigns...

5% per month is easily attainable with some options strategies. But not everyone has the temperament/stomach/psyche for active trading.
Reward checking accounts are your friend....
Reward Checking Account Discussion (http://www.fatwallet.com/forums/finance/775437)


They typically have some requirements like you may have to
1. Make 8-12 debit card transactions a month. Automatic payments for small amounts are usually your friend here.
2. Some of them may also need one or two direct deposits per month into the account.

The max balance up to which they will pay this interest rate is usually 25k. If you are rich - simply open up more than one at different financial institutions.

Right now - the rates are in the 4% range - but this is a very unusual time. I have seen rates in 6-7% range most of the time.

And if you are worried about risk - I guess nothing in this world can beat FDIC insurance in terms of risk hedge. I don't mean to say that the US government can never go bankrupt. In fact - the current strategy to spend spend spend out of the recession increases that chance. But there is NOTHING, not even stuffing your money in your mattress (hint: inflation) - which is superior in terms of preserving your capital.

what a loser a person has to be to give out red dots for jokes.

i am here to counter the trends of red dots :)

I also got a red dot for my joke:confused:. Never used any foul language. Comment left was "This type of "blonde jokes" or "sardar jokes" etc are not really suited for a skilled immigrant community forum." I don't understand why do people give Red dots even for jokes. The title of the theread is Ligthen Up.

A university committee was selecting a new dean.
They had narrowed the candidates down to a mathematician, an economist and a lawyer.

Each was asked this question during their interview: "How much is two plus two?"

The mathematician answered immediately, "Four."

The economist thought for several minutes and finally answered, "Four, plus or minus one."

Finally the lawyer stood up, peered around the room and motioned silently for the committee members to gather close to him. In a hushed, conspiratorial tone, he replied, "How much do you want it to be?"

Look what really does not make sense about the "Consulting company" portion is that management consulting companies like BCG, Mckenzie or the Big 4 consulting firms have a business model where they "outsource" employees for projects to other companies. So, as it stands, these companies will not be able to hire anyone from top business schools. And we are not talking about desi consulting companies here (no pun intended).

Again, this bill embodies the basic principle that displaces US workers do not want to understand:
"What is good for the economy may not be good for an individual".

And I say that because I have been myself displaces 2 times in my life, and every time, I have fallen (or stumbled), I have walked an extra mile to get a better life.

I just feel sorry for people like me and many others who came to this country with a different mindset and now find themselves in the midst of the worst anti-immigrant clime that has existed in a long time.

That said, I feel obligated to remind everyone - "Do yourself a favor and do everything within your means to make a meaningful change, self-help is the best help you will get"

- Raj

What about professional services? Like IBM global services, Oracle consulting etc.... all these companies thrive on after sales customization and support based on professional services contract and there are thousands of h1b visa holders doing professional services. It is also outsourcing of a employee to a client implementing their system. Look at SAP, Siebel consultants, they are outsourced at client places for years together to finish implementations and their work locations are changed based on client's needs from time to time in between jobs - this is again a huge pool of H1bs.
I used to work fulltime for a company in their professional services group and travelled on the job to a lot of places. The company thrives on h1b resources for their high pressured jobs and they always bring in people from outside the country to do their jobs.

I think outsourcing employees to a different location is a part and parcel of H1b, and this bill is nailing exactly on that. It is aimed solely to purge out H1bs from the country.

So all said and done, we may now go down based on a racially motivated bill. I am not sure what it takes to educate the law makers, I would like to see the senior personnel at IV and more analysts to look into what can be done on this bill.

I participated in the "mumbai attacked" thread, but always tried not to give any analysis of the history because I sure don't have the background not belonging to the region..
yet I'm reading the darnest things here from people who apparently read 2 lines from wikipedia, copy and paste here then start talking like they know everything about the arab-israeli conflict and think they can analyze it..

The phrase foxnews and similar media have everyone parroting here is "Israel is surrounded by hostile arab countries that waged wars against it several times. Israel is always in self defense" Let's see..

1948: Israeli Irgun and Shtern gangs, the prototype of the israeli army were going village to village massacring palestinians to drive them out of their villages to annex them to newly created israel which they did.. arab nations who were mostly still under colonial influence sent their police-like forces to try to protect the palestinians, but of course they were no match for the mostly european WWII-veterans Israeli forces

1956: In a dispute between Egypt, Britain and France over the control of Suez canal that in no way involves Israel, Israel attacked Egypt and took control of Sinai peninsula until Soviets and US urged it to leave.

1967: Without a single bullet shot at Israel, it attacked Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Gaza and the west bank, occupying Egypt's Sinai, Syria's Golan heights, and annexing gaza, East Jerusalem and the west bank.

1973: Only time Arabs started the offensive, Egypt and Syria attacked to get back their occupied lands. Egypt managed to get part of Sinai, and got the rest through peace treaty. Syria failed and the golan is still occupied till this day.

1982: Israel invading Lebanon and occupying southern Lebanon till 2000.. Reason was meddling in a conflict between Palestinian refugees in Lebanon and Lebanese factions in which none of these parties attacked Israel.

60 years have passed with the civilized world issuing UN resolutions for israel to end its occupation and to let the millions of displaced Palestinians return to their homes inside israel and Israel rejecting them. Then we have the courage to blame the Palestinians for not taking it easy, accepting the miserable conditions israel imposed on them and firing their 7000 fire crackers that killed 4 people.. the ungrateful bastards!!

I got a negative comment on this one saying "watch ur language"!!!
someone didn't get the sarcasm in me calling the palestinians bastards, the whole message was defending them buddy

Dude between 90,000 to 98,0000 people have been killed in suicide bombing and executions in Iraq from 2003 to 2008, more than 99% of them were muslims, and those suicide bombing and executions where conducted by muslims, your heart didn't bleed for them, why because they were muslims killed by muslims, so you are ok with that, but if muslims are killed by non-muslims in self defence then you talk about innocent muslims being killed. Hamas is ruling party and should be held responsible for the innocent killed because of their actions, if hamas wants they can stop firing rockets at israel and stop the israel from killing innocent civilians, but they are not doing that. But i guess you will never understand that.

http://www.iraqbodycount.org/database/


Now the killing has gone mad. Apart from k

illing the innocent civilians, crazy war mongers started bombing schools and killing innocent school kids. Today two schools were bombed and more than 40 children have been massacred.

Its sad to see school children being brutally killed by missles and tanks. I don't understand how people could blow up innocent kids, women and men under the name of self-defence?

This world has gone crazy and there's no one questioning about this in-human atrocities committed against fellow human being.

Lets us pray for those who are going thru this hardship, and for an immediate end to this war crime.

How many more innocent civilians including children they are planning to kill?. All these so called peace loving nations blocking the UN from making a cease-fire resolution. Looks like so called freedom lovers want more innocent lives.

When Mumbai was attacked by terrorists, whole world was united and supported the victim(India). Now the same world is against the victim and encouraging more killing by not stopping the attrocities.

be it Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan Somalia,Darfur,Chechnya, Kashmir, Gujarat... everywhere muslims are killed for being muslims...noone goes to cuba,srilanka,north korea,zimbawe or whereever for watever reason...just imagine God forbid someone comes into your house, occupies it, kills your family, your brothers and sisters in front of you and kicks you out of your home and you are seeing no hope of justice... you wont stand outside your home sending flowers like munna bhai's gandhigiri.. trust me you will become a terrorist.


It is very true..and it is fact...why is that all terrorists are muslims...something is wrong ...muslims need to come forward....

Anyhow there are more chances for increasing H1b numbers at this situation with some restrictions(Our Indian companies will easily find a loophole for any law).Banning of H1B for bodyshopping or consulting will be impossible. Wait and watch for how CIRcus unfolds for next few weeks.

Of course I don't work for a consulting company. And if I did I wouldn't be here UNLESS I WAS EMPLOYED 100% FROM DAY ONE.

What people look like doesn't matter in regards to the H-1B. You are implying that I am doing something wrong in encouraging people TO OBEY THE LAW. That says a lot more of you and your standards than anything else. People are not committing crimes by being consultants. SOME people are comitting crimes by being here illegally because they don't meet the requirements for the H-1B they hold, because they went through a body shop. You can defend it all you want, IT'S ILLEGAL.

For all who think "Fatah" is more moderate than Hamas, heres a part of the constitution of Fatah:

Goals

Article (12) Complete liberation of Palestine, and eradication of Zionist economic, political, military and cultural existence.


Article (13) Establishing an independent democratic state with complete sovereignty on all Palestinian lands, and Jerusalem is its capital city, and protecting the citizens' legal and equal rights without any racial or religious discrimination.

"Eradication" of the Jewish state., their culture and there economy. Heres a movement which has "Genocide" as its constituional goal. How the hell do you negotiate with such people? Israel needs to be supported in its noble actions of self defense againt such fanatics.

Good point.
There should just be a greater and proper Israel, with Gaza and West Bank as parts of Israel. And all people living there should be citizens of Israel.
Problem solved. No need to destroy anything or anyone.

Have you accounted for the increase in rent (not rent controlled) every year? Mortgage on the other hand is fixed for 30 years!

If you work based on the historic values of price and rent appreciation - it should not make any difference.

How? Just like the "fundamental" of any stocks price is how much money that company makes - the fundamental of a home price is the rent it can fetch in the market. So the home price and the rent will always increase at approximately the same rate.

With that assumption, you will benefit from a "fixed mortgage payment" only if your home price/rent increases > inflation. Based on historic numbers - I doubt we can assume this to be the case.

The period "right now" - is an aberration. I would caution everybody against using our intuitions honed in the debt fueled binge between 1980 to now. Cold hard numbers based on some quantifiable assumptions are better bets.

>> People are not going to sell. They will just say put rather than take a 40% loss.

Until inflation eats away at their "wealth" in the form of a house. :-). Markets are far more powerful and has a lot more tools at its disposal than people in denial.

Pagal did they ask you too for client contract letters ?

Nop, for me the questions were around tax returns, W-2 and current employment letter. The interview was focused on tax returns and explanation of passive income from a business.

But as I said, I wish this becomes a trend where USCIS starts calling up applicants to get the details they need to decide on the case rather than using paper mail.

After digging to a depth of 100 meters last year, Russian scientists found traces of copper wire back 1000 years, and came to the conclusion that their ancestors already had a telephone network one thousand years ago.


So, not to be outdone, in the weeks that followed, American scientists dug 200 meters and headlines in the US papers read: "US scientists have found traces of 2000 year old optical fibers, and have concluded that their ancestors already had advanced high-tech digital telephone 1000 years earlier than the Russians."


One week later, the Indian newspapers reported the following: "After digging as deep as 500 meters, Indian scientists have found absolutely nothing. They have concluded that 5000 years ago, their ancestors were already using Bluetooth and Wireless technology."

That has been Lou's view all along. Yet I doubt its sincerity, it follows along the Numbersusa ploy that if you make things hard enough first, all but the ones with the strongest roots will leave. Hence they will say enforcement first but then once that is done you will hear all the restrictionist agenda. In fact there has been some stepped up security at the border recently.
The policy of all these anti immigration groups is quite clear, divide and rule. They have only tepid and restrictionist at best arguments against Skilled Immigration , and for those of you in the IT field I want to remind you that skilled immigration does not mean just IT. Restrictionist groups are aware that most of america will not stand for their agenda and corporate america will steamrolll their lobbying might. Hence the play all these tricks. YOu should have seen the pathetec defence of the loss of some hardliners in the recent election that Bay Buchanan(Pats wife) gave on Lou Dobbs last night. Their end objective is the same, keep immigration as low as possible.
Last Night Lou was visibly concerned that there would be something cooking in the Lame duck session.
The AILA/Compete america is for sure trying to get atleast a H1b expansion and is pushing hard. I am happy to see that they are also pushing for some sort of EB provisions for their permanent employees also.

If you spend the rest of your life renting, the risk is 100%�you end up with nothing. I will take my chances investing my money in buying a home because its certainly better than losing 100%.

If you buy - and take a mortgate - you end up losing (the same way you "lose" your rent)
1. Interest you pay
2. Property taxes you will pay forever.
3. Maintenance you will pay forever.

On the other hand - if you rent and,
A. IF you pay less in rent than #1 + #2 + #3,
B. IF you invest the remainder plus your mortgage principal amount in some other investment vehicle with superior investment returns than real estate.
.... Then you will come out ahead renting.

The tipping point is whether your rent equals interest + property taxes + maintenance. Based on which side is higher - either renting or buying could be good for you. I don't think there is a clear cut answer. This does not take into account the flexibility associated with renting - which is important for non-GC holders. If you assign a non-zero dollar value of $X with that flexibility, then your rent needs to be interest + tax + maintanance + $X to get to the tipping point. On the other hand, if you are not forced to save (in the form of mortgage principal payment every month) - you may just spend that money instead of investing that. If you assign a dollar value of $Y with that (probability multiplied by actual dollar value) - then the tipping point is at
$rent = $interest + $tax + $maintenance + $X(dollar value for flexibility) - $Y(dollar value for probability of spending money instead of saving).

Now as soon as you plug in the numbers in this equation - it will give you your tipping point and will tell you whether it is right for you to rent or to buy.

Think about it. It is not as clear cut as you think it is. :-) Based on your earlier posts - you got an absolutely faboulous deal on your house (maybe because of your timing) and the tipping point equation would probably highly favor buying in your case. For many other (specially for those without a GC) - it may not be so clear cut.