I figure that there must be one. . . .

In the orig. post, the time frame of Mid-Lat 90's to 2000 was cited.

A peculiar thing was happening back east in NYC. (I used to work in the money district.)

Kids (as in 20 to 24 year olds,) were bouncing into work with the rest of us, (who were in information/computer based jobs. 'Sysco?' being a hot genre at the time, --and were being picked up by major investment firms over their lunch hour.
-It was not uncommon for someone to go to work at a group like Chase in the morning, stop by Morgan Stanley at lunch, and get hired on there for ten thou (plus) more a year.
They were already pulling down 55 to 60 thou a year.
-These were full on gigs that not only included salaries, but also had perks of free transportation allowances (so literally all they had to do was fall onto a train, and it and everything else was covered by stipends, free Cel service, too.)
--Note: they all college edumacations, and (at least,) had tech school training.

By 1999, (I was with Deutschebank at the time,) things began to slow down, and the market began to seriously crash in 2000.
(like, really crash...)
I worked with old traders and bankers side by side, and it was really heartbreaking to have one buddy of mine suddenly have to make all of these phone calls, scrambling around trying to keep his daughter in college, while trying to negotiate such things as a college's financial aid department. (Colleg Admin. zones are business purgatory...)
He was far from rich, --and had a lot of good investments.
-Problem was, he did not have a track record of being poor, -and financial aid was not really an option.
I think he wound up selling his house.

In the fall of 2001, the towers got hit, and suddenly The Street had something to blame the market tanking on, --but it had been down (again,) for a year prior.

Afterwards, it was all '9/11' '9/11' as the reason for everything.
(This is in no means a downplay on the WTC atttacks, we lost a lot of good people when the towers got hit, and a lot of great firms had offices in them.) The whole money district was disbursed to outlying counties, outlying offices, and it was a real jungle of floors, -once vacant, --now overstuffed with workstations on conference tables, and new cables being run under the floor each night. Mix that in with everybody getting searched each time they entered the building. Lots of fun.

At that time a very interesting thing happened in the surrounding areas, property wise.

I lived (approx.) just over an hour and a half, by train, from Manhattan to up in the Appalacian/Shawnagunk/Cattskill area (Lower NY State.)
-Total hillbilly territory, (protected land, forests and mountains all over the place, -the works.) It was noted for vacationing, resorts that were now torn down, as well as hunting. (Millions more critters than people per square yard.)

The county that I lived in (initially,) from '96 to '98, (Rockland,) saw it's housing boom and prices double and triple just before and just after the attacks. -Same in Jersey, same in Westchester, Dutchess, Putham (NY) and other removed counties.

After the attacks, the property values pushed so far up, that Rockland Co. was now completely out of reach for anyone with a sane pocketbook, --and the county that I lived in from '98 to 2005, saw prices also jump through the roof.

Initialy you could buy (in come cases,) 20, 30, in some cases 50+ acres for next to nothing.

There was no such thing as rental property, (everybody bought,) --and there was no such thing as a 5 acre plot.
On average, a decent 3 to 4 bdr. with 2 and half baths, pretty tricked out with good land around it, was going for around 60, (though I saw stuff go as low as 45, and as high as 80.)
From '98 to 2001 (chiefly up to WTC.) the property values went up 3 to four times, -then, after the attacks, everything changed.

-Sizes of property went down, prices went nuts, anything near public transportation or a decent highway that led to the city went stellar, --and entire townships were bought and flipped, and condensed into new fictitious names.

It was astounding.
Whereas you used to be able to swing a a good house with some serious land in (truly,) a gorgeous setting for well under a hundred,(sometimes half that,)
--you now had to drop at least 3and a half, if not 5, --and you were assured to now have a house next to you, (like, '...hmm, better buy some drapes or put some trees up, I'm getting tired of getting mooned by my neighbor.')

They were building saltboxes (or townhouses,)all over the place, --and the quality of the homes sucked.
-These you also couldn't touch for under two and a half.

-Further:
Wheras the 'major towns,' (Middletown, Port Jervis,) had a serious police force that was also seriously overtaxed by the amount of work,
-My area (which roughly covered I think 60sq. miles,) had a police force of (maybe) 30 cops, -and they were all part time, (we also shared state troopers, but there were even fewer of them.)
-Not a huge problem, most hillbillies are also serious hunters, and you didn't go near someone's house or property unnanounced without expecting a few more holes in you than when you woke up that day.
(We also fixed our own vehicles, all had 4x4's, knew how to plow snow, and owned a Skynyrd album or two... (ahhh, the good life.)

-My area (now known as 'Deerpark,') was the one that had all the houses going up.

-When the builders built, it was not just a nice split level well placed, --it was entire horsefarms and the like, now being turned into entire neighborhoods of McMansions...)

Prior to this, (Eighties to Nineties,) I was part of the same boom down in the Phila. area...
Down there there was other concerns, like where to put the water, now that they've paved so much of the ground and put up houses, streets, and shopping centers... We started having flash floods in areas where this was unheard of (water levels in streams 12 to 20 feet over,) because there was nowhere for the water to go.)
--Same things were happening in my area of NY last spring and the one before, (I had two cars go underwater, most of the houses in my area had 5 ft. of water go through them, --in consecutive Springs.
-They won't insure for flood damage, and you're talking hundreds of thousands of dollars to rebuild, --in some cases they've re-zoned the land, so you CAN'T rebuild.

But nothing was as dramatic as the mass influx of young talent going into NYC, making a ton, ---then a lot of them getting the axe, ---and then the mass exodus of people who could afford it, into areas that you'd not see a car for an hour or two in. (within a year of the attacks.)
-Hopefully the boom/bust parallels will not be identical over here, but it is pretty interesting to see second gen. yuppies and boomerangs start to buy up property and change the face of the town,(I'm thinking directly of 'Vagabond' and 'Pearl'.)
Around here I'm also finding kids just out of college, buying houses whereas, back not too long ago, they were looking to just by a decent good used car.

Most obvious lesson?

-Well, have a major disaster or realize that your city is a prime target for one (either man made or natural,) --and folks will get the hell out of dodge, and live where it's 'safe.'

-Second?
Invest in land. (Like Beanie Babies and Willie Mays, they only made so much of it.) --and if you have land in an 'idyllic' area, -that is not far from a decent highway, or on a commuter line, (someday there will be commuter lines in Fresno someday, like before the year 3000,)
-particularly when something goes wrong, you are sitting on gold.
(That's if major Jobs that will support high-end living comes to the town.)

-Third... if/when the influx happens, the small towns in remote areas will become big.
The small towns around populated areas will dissappear, and will be lucky to be called a village or a neighborhood.
-Hope like anything that someone has the sense to plan out for increased water, sewage, elect, road traffic, schools, ---firemen, medical personell, and cops. (This should have been started years ago,) ---because, as the attacks showed us (within a 200 mile radius of WTC.) things can happen within a hour, and entire states can change, and monsters grow, overnight.

(It can get weird too... remember how I said they started calling my area 'Deerpark,'
-there is a much older 'Deerpark,' (out on LongIsland, like three hours (at least,) away,
-So when you called the operator for a number, said 'I'm looking for the 'X' business, they're in 'Huguenot or Rio,' the operator would say '..oh, that's Deerpark,'
--and next thing you know you're given the number for somwehere (basically,) two states away...
-so along with the clumping and renaming comes a lot of confusion... they still havn't got it right back there.)

(Stocks?
I dunno... they are way too shakey, and I've seen ugly things happen in a course of hours.
Buy land,
(in town,) buy an old big warehouse, (etc.) even if you have to bulldoze it, it will someday be worth something,
(outlying areas, small towns,) -buy where, if something really bad happens, folks will want to live and feel 'safe,'

Land is a good thing, they aren't making any more of it, last I heard.)

PS:
--among my clients and folks I talk to, when I ask 'so where do you live,' I'm hearing from people (some who are far from having kids,)
'Clovis School District but it's still zoned Fresno.'
-Love it or hate it, it's the first thing out of everybody's mouth.

Hanven't been to Morro Bay for years. Musta been some other devilshly handsome chap!

Craig
What is an authentic community?

Craig,
Were you in Morro Bay on Wednesday ??

Driving through the Jefferson neighborhood a few weeks ago I noticed a boarded up house with a for sale sign, it looked like a bargin so I called. This small 2 bdrm 1 ba house was built in 1918 and is in bad shape. The seller wants an astounding $260,000. Being familiar with the Jefferson neighborhood and the prices over the past few year I know that this house would have been sold for about $45,000 not even four years ago. In spite of the market increases there is just something fundamentally wrong with this picture, as least it seems wrong to me.

For some reason I have heard a few talkshows, and not just sports related, talking in retrospect about baseball cards. The gist is that there are still card shows and a fringe groups that trades them. But when it comes to valuation and the frenzy, it's gone. First you had Topps and Fleer (?). Then others joined the fray along with putting the superstars in the sets. Originally, the whole idea was to buy packs of them just for that superstar gem. Me? Back in the 70's, I would actually read the stats on the back, over and over. Then the whole card thing moved into other sports. The whole idea was to have rare gems, but they don't exist except in the past, like a Mickey Mantle rookie card.

When it comes to Beanie Babies, I just think of my sister, the smart sibling. During the BB craze, she had the audacity to buy them and, believe it or not, let her little kid play with them. There is the value of a thing, and there is the value of a happy kid. She figured out which was worth more.

North Fresno homes? I sit at my desk at work and occasionally mark homes that I find interesting in 93711. They're just sitting there with the price ratcheting down. 550,000. 520,000. 500,000.