[quote=CA renter]. . . BG, it would be far better to have affordable housing available to owner-occupants than artificially fancied-up houses with cheap granite counter tops and a coat of paint. Our concern should not be for the hopeful sellers, but for those who are looking to buy an affordable roof over their heads. The notion that your primary residence is an “investment” needs to go. It is a consumption item, and there is no guarantee that a buyer will make money on a home purchase. Maybe, if we teach young people to think logically about housing, they might be less inclined to eagerly overpay and cause the bubbles that are so prolific in California (and other places).[/quote]
CAR, “affordable housing” IS available to purchase in the form of all the distressed “starter” and “lower-mid-grade” homes in the SD County SFR market. But “short sellers” or institutional sellers of these types of properties can rarely get a serious offer from a FTB (usually Gen Y or youngest Gen X). Why is this? Because, today’s typical FTB can’t envision themselves using THAT kitchen or THOSE bathrooms. The “curb appeal” sucks (due to weeds, trash, broken concrete, wildly overgrown gardens, etc). And the WORST part is … there’s a HOLE where the dishwasher is supposed to be! (“Is that a mousetrap under there?”) They just can’t see the forest for the trees … and can’t POSSIBLY imagine what the property would look like cleaned up, with the needed repairs and replacements. And they have NO IDEA how much it would all cost and CAN’T IMAGINE doing any of the manual labor themselves. It’s completely overwhelming, that is, for the prospective buyers that ACTUALLY MAKE AN APPT to see the inside. If it is tenant occupied, the problems with the listing are all the more daunting for them. And the bigger the lot (for their kids/dog to play), the MORE BACKBREAKING WORK the property appears to need.
There has been a “sea change” in the values of the “=<38 yo homebuyer" since about 2000. This buyer is a typical a FT buyer or is still shopping in that market or slightly above (the typical "flipper" market) due to having to deed away or sell their former property in a divorce action. Even if just ONE of two buyers (wanting to take title as joint tenants or tenants in common) can't stomach the distressed "fixer listing," the couple WON'T BUY IT.
It didn't used to be like this in SD. It wasn't uncommon at all for buyers aged 21-35 to buy even heavy fixers, move mattresses in on the floor, a portable radio with speakers, a portable TV with a dairy crate to sit in on, a ladder and all kinds of tools (and baby/child stuff if they had kids)! If they had more stuff than that, they stored it in the garage or in outbuilding(s) in the backyard for a few months and got to work ... yes females and new moms, too 🙂 The lucky ones called in relatives to help.
These talented and deep-pocketed flipper-teams are providing buyers inventory to consider and are helping to raise potential nearby sellers' property values which have been unfairly undervalued in recent years (so they will eventually be more inclined to list). Without them, these properties would continue to be eyesores, even if all the Joe6p-buyers in the county bought them all up.
There is a fmr REO near me, bought over two years ago by a family of 5 (for half the price it sold for in 2006). The new owners have since managed to replace just half of the leaky windows (and half of the window frames of the ones they did replace), put sheets in all of them, douse the front yard several times with gasoline (in attempt to clean up the straggling bermuda, lol), stack all their broken concrete on the side of the driveway, plant two 3′ (now dead) trees (“growing” in gasoline, lol), perform half the needed stucco repair, contract half the needed concrete work, paint half the house (currently, 2 sides are one color and 2 sides are another color). I can’t even list here all the stuff that still needs to be done to it … and this is only on the outside!
Hence …. the flipper teams you’re seeing today … who promptly grind all the dead stumps the day after closing and then throw up plastic picket fences and “substandard” sod the next weekend. When they are done ~30 days later, the property looks “charming,” clean and useful enough for today’s FTB (without much cash) to buy and begin living in right away.
