San Diego Housing Market News and Analysis

Oh, cool...I have a Vons, La Salsa, and Trader Joe's near me, too. I wonder if my house is worth that much.

Seriously, this is a candidate for "Worst pics in the MLS."

Is this a condo or sfh? I can't tell.

http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/...

For that kind of money, go buy a similar house in CV. You will have better school, nicer neighborhood, and probably closer to work.

Btw, they look like house but they are more like detached condos. I think (I could be wrong on this one) some of the houses don't even have a garage.

All the homes have garages. I won't speak to the UT article (it is biased and full of mis-stated facts). Regardless, Liberty Station is truly a success from a base redevelopment standpoint and I think it would be a wonderful place to live.

With that said the homes are overpriced.

*Qualification* - I used to work for McMillin.

caveat emptor (as always)

from one of my posts about Liberty Station:

Navy records show 50-60 toxic hot spots on the property and there are questions about how well these sites were cleaned up.

The most telling point to me is that McMillan trucked in six feet of clean topsoil before building on the home sites. Wouldn’t want anyone to test the soil in their front yard now would we?

McMillan told the city that he needed the extra height so the sewage would drain which is interesting since none of the historic buildings are being raised but I assume they will have bathrooms in them???

Here’s a website that tracks ongoing issues at Liberty Station: http://www.ntcsd.org/ - spend some time at this site if you want to see how badly the city and McMillan are screwing the public on this deal.

~

search the archives on 'Liberty Station' and you will find several threads

~

Liberty Station is a great location but the housing is a joke - $900K for a townhouse that is so close to my neighbor that we can hand each other recipes through our kitchen windows? I don't think so ... $900K for a townhouse built on a toxic site with questionable cleanup? I don't think so ...

Look for Liberty Station townhomes to drop below $600K before this correction ends

Liberty Station was only a success if you are McMillin or on their payroll. Free land and then then fail to upgrade the infrastructure like you claimed. McMillin should be ran out of town on a rail.

McMillin basically raped San Diego. Free land which they got to sell their cheaply made million dollar glorified condos.

The build quality is on par with a 125k detached condo in Victorville.

Can you tell I'm bitter about that project?

PadreBrian,

Let's just say MCM started that project 3 years later and landed slap dab in the middle of the shitstorm housing market we have now. They would still be obligated to completed everything at Liberty Station. The park, the public spaces, the homes, the office buildings etc. They took on a ton of risk, placed $150+ million in completion bonds on the project.

The proof is in the pudding in my opinion. If you walk that project today it turned out amazingly well. Outside of the land, MCM received no government assistance to complete the project.

It is easy to throw stones when you have no idea what it takes to develop a project.

I was not involved in the residential developmet, or master development of Liberty Station but I know the amount of dollars that were spent all at risk by the company and I know what public improvements were made. Liberty Station did not win Base Redevelopment of the year because it turned out as a crappy useless project. It is well executed and enjoyed by the masses.

My wife and I looked at resales in LS

They are right on top of each other, have a very expensive mello roos and HOA, there were no kids to speak of in the neighborhood, you are next door to military housing (I'm military for the next 6 days, so I'm not casting stones). Back in late 2006 there were three or so houses for sale on the same small street and one was in the mid-high $700s. They were desparate to sell because they couldn't sell their home in Michigan.

These homes, in the flight path of Lindberg and in a crappy school district, aren't worth much more than $400K

Trojan4life

Interesting - this house is pending.

http://www.sdlookup.com/MLS-081028560-28...

The house down the street is still asking $924-$945

"Outside of the land, MCM received no government assistance to complete the project."

Oh sure, hundreds of millions of dollars in prime point loma real estate would be considered 'no government assistance' in anyone's book.

I'm sure they were taking it in the shorts selling cookie cutter townhomes on tiny lots for a close to a million a piece on free land.

I'm sure that all the people working for Corky as well as all of the government shills that were able to get property in LS for below market value are really happy about the project. For everyone else, including the tax payers, it was one gigantic and indefensible government giveaway.

Remember

Lennar was recommended for award of the project, after a review of all proposals, on the basis of more amentities for the community and a variety of other criteria in which they offered more.

Then in the typical SD insider backroom secret dealing whatever, next thing it is announced that Lennar was out and that MacMillian would be awarded the project.

It had a foul smell at that time. I suspect a current review would show it still does.

Lot's of Million dollar homes measn lot's of taxes being collected to pay for services.

It also attracts lots of disposable income that is spent in stores and creates jobs which in turn provides additioanal tax revenue.

With respect to school I believe High Tech High is in the area and it is considered one of the best in San Diego. I already know that this is a charter school not the actual public school for the aea.

I also beleive this was an award winning project.

So let's see. Let's do nothing with the land and collect no revenue's or let's have a developer pony up his cash and create a purpituity of tax revenues. Do a net present value calcualtion on that and see if the deal makes more sense.

Could they have negotiated a better deal. Who knows? Did they create a disirable area. Absolutely.

The question is why the city didn't put the land out to bid in the open.

If the goal was to maximize tax revenues from development, many other projects would have worked much better. I'm thinking a "The Grove" or "Americana" like development by Rick Caruso.

The answer back then was "This plan allows all the houses to remain affordable to the middle class AND the city gets to make money off the deal".

LOLOLOLOL

Not after Corky "I'm drinkin' your milkshake!" McMillin got through with them!

the city really should have use this land to expand the airport.but since this was prime land to build on they made houses instead.

i guess back then, they thought, miramar was going to real  base closesure,and it would be the new san diego airport.