[quote=bearishgurl]OMG, Piggs, it’s what I’ve always believed. Call it what you will but, as of this month, the folks living in San Fran are solvent. Sure, unemployment is high all over the state, but San Fran’s foreclosure rate is .68 and BK rate is .57 . . . almost nonexistent.
Go where the opportunity is and don’t bother commuting. You can feel confident that your (circa 1917) flat will hold its value for years to come :=)
If I was free NOW to do so, I would be looking for work there as I write this and readying my house here for the market for whatever it would fetch so I could move there and buy a place. Life can be short.
My kid who’s currently a senior in college in SF just landed an internship with a major nationwide corporation there (pkg./lunch incl) and is slated to be finished with school Dec 2010. Of course, this is in addition to their $40 hr. job.
CA Counties next in line vying for the “most solvent populace” are, in order:
2. Humboldt: For = 0.79%; BK = 0.68%
(surprise! This is a lower-income county)
3. Marin: For = 1.28%; BK = 0.80%
4. San Mateo: For = 1.45; BK = 0.97
5. Mendocino: For = 1.62; BK = 0.71
Guess NoCal didn’t get hit as hard as SoCal did, except in the San Joaquin Valley and Sac Delta. IMO, the inland Counties of Placer, Merced, Stanislaus and Fresno were hard hit because they were grossly overbuilt in the last 10 years. In addition, the typical RE buyer in these counties (excluding Placer) is not as educated or high-earning as coastal buyers.
Just look at the fundamentals here. SF County was built out in 1930 and SM County was built out in 1960. The other three “solvent” counties have slow or “no-growth” initiatives in place.
In CA, the “winning formula for a solvent population” seems to be residing in a county with all well-established areas and no vacant land available as well as a substantial employment base within or nearby (no or low commute) or a county where it’s citizenry long ago voted in no-growth initiatives and thus has an unmatched quality of life.[/quote]
I think it’s a little more than that. NorCal was the first to get wacked during the dot.bomb implosion. At the time when people where hurting there, we were just getting into the SoCal housing bubble…The thing is though that for the most part, tech has been recovering. So depending on where were are at, there’s either a migration from NorCal to SoCal or vice versa. I’ve always said NorCal and SoCal economies move like in inverse directions. The prevailing wind is folks are migrating from SoCal back to NorCal (at least in my industry). It’s pretty dead down here in SoCal frankly. VC’s aren’t really looking down here…. Startup’s aren’t really happening here either…
The NorCal RE and “lifestyle” was always more driven by tech work/equity/compensation/etc versus RE bubble themselves. So I suspect, quite NorCal will probably do much better than down here for the next decade…Great if you’re already use to the cost of living up there and already have a place…Sucks if you are moving from a lower cost area to there…. (And of course there are some areas that will get hit hard too. Like east palo alto, and most of the east bay, except maybe part of Fremont (Mission SanJose) with the standout school district that apparently folks fight over all the time…)
Want to know what $1.1 million will currently buy for you in NorCal?? A 1600sqft home in Mountain View with an ok backyard that was built in the 1960’s…..Interested? Don’t expect to be allowed to run an inspection or get some cooling off contingencies…If you think that’s crazy, you’re probably right…Still interested? No problem. You just got to compete with the other 5 offers. (A colleague of mine is going through this right now…)
I keep telling myself, boy I’m glad I don’t have to deal with that…I mean, unlike here, in NorCal, there really isn’t many places where new homes can be built (unless you plan on living in areas like Gilroy )
