I think you have me all wrong. I don’t “like” or “dislike” any areas. Each area is what it is, and frankly as a professional appraiser I have no problems acknowledging that every purchase decision involves compromises. I don’t get emotional about how other people choose to live or the decisions they make. I just observe and report.
FTR, I live in the 92008 zip area but it’s about as close to the 78 corridor as you can get and 90% of the time when I surf it’s in Oceanside. If I didn’t have kids when I moved here in 1990 I probably would have chosen southern 92054 or 92056 instead, and now that my kids are out of the high schools those areas are not outside my range of consideration for future purchases. There’s nothing wrong with Oceanside.
But if I were buying a move-up home I wouldn’t do it in the back gate area under any circumstances, and if I could find a similar starter home elsewhere in O’side I’d probably go there instead too. The area is too far back in terms of access and there are too many other detrimental conditions to make it a destination location.
My comment about not building move up homes may have seemed a little harsh, but only if you consider it within the greater context of the market in general. If we didn’t build another subdivision in this region featuring homes in excess of 2,000 square feet in the next 15 years we’d still have plenty of that type of product on hand to meet the legitimate demand for it. Most wage earners don’t need a larger house than that. There would have been nothing wrong with building another Mira Mesa back there to service the housing needs of our service members who work at Camp Pendleton. And before you start tossing out accusations of creating slums let me just say that the neighborhoods with the lowest rates of crimes in our region are located on the military bases and populated by military personel. Driving through one of those neighborhoods is literally like going back in time 30 years ago, except the population is much more diverse.
Lastly let me note that you obviously didn’t choose the back gate area for your purchase and I’m guessing that wasn’t by accident. So lighten up.
