j-man

hi all, just thought id share a couple pics of my 98. Currently it has 17" tundra wheels with 265-70-17 bfg at's, Saw's cranked 2" front, ome 891's rear. Im currently fabbing up a light bar to hold 4 - 130w daylighters for my baja excursions, as well as a roof basket to hold my eezi awn roof tent, and a cargo carrier to hold water/gas. Will post those when i finish.

Rock Slide

iTrader: (1)

Looks good.

Sounds like you've got a lot of plans for it.


Off topic: If you don't mind me asking, what are houses in the Santa Monica area currenlty going for? Say 2500 sq ft. Just curious.

j-man

hehe, well a tear down starts at 1.4 million in santa monica proper - north of wilshire blvd. Closer to venice area, they start at about 800k. It goes up from there. Its absolutely disgusting. But LA is the town with too much $$ and not enough sense.

Rock Slide

iTrader: (1)

That's what I thought. Between friends of mine that use to live in CA, to the episodes of "Flip that House" on TLC I've seen of homes being flipped in CA, I've come to realize that the majority of homes in CA are outrageously priced. I know it's not so much the house you're buying, but the land instead. I've seen homes on that show around the san mon area that didn't even look inhabitable and were only 600sq ft go for $300k. After the flip, that same house was $600k. That's nuts IMO.

Here in B'ham, AL, you can purchase an 8k - 10k sq ft hom for under $2 mil, and not only will it look like a castle, but it'll be in a great neighborhood and on a decent size plot of land. My wife's uncle built a 5k sq ft home 6yrs ago, and he only paid $660K...it's amazing to say the least.

So what kind of jobs do most CA residents have to afford these ridiculous priced houses? Do the salaries compensate the monthly mortgage pymt? Just curious.

Didn't mean to get so off topic on your thread. I'll quit after this

j-man

hey, no worries man. I have often wondered the same darn thing. I do know that there are a lot of people "in the industry" - TV/Movie people that live here, a lot of business people, corporate and private, but what seems more realistic is that the type of people that are buying these homes seem to be the ones that got into the market in the late 90's, early 2000. They have in turn sold their "smaller" homes in exchange for the larger ones. So people that bought their first house for cheap, have bought and sold a few since then and for the same mortgage they paid on their first house, combined with the $ they've made on sales of other houses, lets them get into a big house without any more out of thier pocket - thats my theory anyway. But whats for sure is that the number of first time buyers is not anywhere near what it was 5-7 years ago.
There are a lot of CREDIT WHORES too.
A lot of people buying houses they can't afford thinking it will double its value in a year or so - and now we're seeing a lot of homes go into forclosure already - the # of houses in forclosure in los angeles has tripled in the last year compared to what it was in 2005.
Pretty soon interest rates have to come back up forcing the "value" of houses down, or the american dollar will keep on de-valuing itself and pretty soon will be about the same "value" as the Mexican Peso.
Again, the housing market is a cycle, as is everything else. But its hard to believe or think that houses that are now selling for 1mil, will ever come back down to 500k. Who knows?

Oh, and the days of "flipping houses" is over - at least i think it is. Theres no way id ever get into this falling market and try to pump 50-100k into upgrades/remodels and sell at a profit. Closest would be breaking even, or a little positive. The only way to get in here is to have a chunk to put down, old grandmother dying and leaving her estate, or intrest only loans which when the rates go up - yer screwed.

97Runner

hey i live in B'ham! what part you in? I'm in Homewood

rocket

iTrader: (1)

You gotta ditch those running boards! It looks good but the RBs make it look like you don't have a lift. I have the same wheels and size tires too.

FUZION

Rock Slide

iTrader: (1)

Thanks for all the info j-man, that's interesting.




I'll PM you. I've already been off topic enough on his thread

j-man

i want to but heres my only dilemma - when im driving in baja, those are the only things that prevent the rocks/sand from sand blasting the sides of my truck. They act like big mud flaps. I didnt have em on my old truck, and after 3 trips down there - it seriously looked like someone had blasted the sides.

rocket

iTrader: (1)

Rock sliders would help a lot with that...