[quote=flu]Cheap homes and high rent isn’t going to happen for the long term because cheap homes means people that would normally pay for high rent ends up buying, leaving you with people that can’t qualify to own or afford to own….
And I’m being more realistic. Short of some big event, I don’t think people who are “owners” these days are in a hurry to sell. They weathered a big meltdown, some bought more dirt cheap….There’s no panic, no itch to hurry up and sell…[/quote]
Absolutely agree with flu here. These are major reasons for the dearth of residential listings in many micro-areas in coastal CA counties. After we add props 58 and 193 into the mix (ability to legally “hand down” home to child/granchild free of reassessment on into perpetuity), we have a situation where hundreds (if not thousands) of established micro-areas in the state will have very little turnover as the years roll by. Why? There is absolutely no reason whatsoever for longtime owners to sell. When there is a “chronic shortage” of housing in a given “desireable” micro-area, it only means one thing. Upward pressure on prices, or, at the very least, a very stable market in which sellers do not need to budge on price because they can eventually get their price if it is in line with recent sold comps in the immediate area.
The big event which could change this market landscape will be nothing short of nuclear attack or tsumami hitting the CA coast. And without the residual radioactive fallout over a wide area, that change may only prove to be temporary.
Yes, many micro-areas of CA coastal counties are “immune” or “nearly immune” from the vagaries of mortgage interest rates and availability of nearby high-paying jobs. This will never change, folks.
