[quote=earlyretirement]Yeah Flu. I guess we’ve just heard so many years after the bubble burst about all the negative equity in San Diego County that you get stuck into thinking about that side of it.
My buddy that lives in Lemon Grove mentioned that many of the people there are older and have owned their houses forever and long since paid off. Same as in parts of Point Loma and other neighborhoods.
Property here in San Diego used to be affordable. I just figured that more people played the home equity ATM machine game.
No, I didn’t see a breakdown of SFH’s, condos, etc. I assume it’s countywide.[/quote]
ER, for the longtime-resident over-55 crowd in CA, it wasn’t worth it for a lot of them to keep moving up to a bigger house. They felt they would have been eventually taxed out of it. The reason there are so many paid-off homes is because the assessment on them is so low.
If a long-owned CA property is only assessed at $34K this year, next year it will be assessed at $34,680. $346.80 would represent the annual “ad valoream” portion of their tax (acc to Prop 13) plus fees for local services and voter approved bonds. Their TOTAL TAX BILL for the year is likely $385 to $420!
IOW, 2% from “almost nothing” = “almost nothing” 🙂
In addition, most of LG (your “buddy’s” town) has awesome long lots, many with 80+ yo trees!
If I had the good fortune of owning a CA property in a coastal county with these benefits attached to it, I would never give it up. Why would anyone? It doesn’t matter how much money you have. If you don’t want to live there year around anymore, buy a vacation home in another county/state! Or go live in your RV part of the year.
The “home equity ATM machine game” was played primarily by Gen X-ers and very late boomers (born ~1962 or after).
Boomers and generations prior to them don’t have the same values as X-ers and beyond, thus their daily needs and wants aren’t as great unless they are actually “wealthy.” IOW, the older generations are more used to and inclined to live within their means.
