I am new to this blog, reading it for the past couple of weeks but I think you have a great one here. I have also been reading Ben Jones’ Housing Bubble Blog and the Bubble Market Inventory Tracker (for comedic value, there are few RE blogs that rival it). This topic spurred me to register to tell my story.
I’m in the USAF, have been for 23 years and I’m 40 y/o. Been married for 14 years (has it been that long already?) and have two great kids ages 9 and 6. I plan on retiring from the AF next summer (2008) and we are faced with a dilemma as to what to do next. I’ll have two graduate degrees (MBA from low-level school and MA in Comm Mgmt from USC). I’m a communications officer and my job prospects are good when I retire, can probably expect a salary of $120K+ if I stay in SoCal and go the consulting route. My wife is an educator also with two graduate degrees in education, but for the last 9 years has been a stay-at-home Mom, which has now become “Stay-at-the-school” Mom as she is constantly there volunteering. Anyways, we have great educations, my income currently is @$108K and when we retire we’ll see about $40K gross a year in the form of my military retirement check. Conceiveably, we’ll have about $160K in income. We have about $80K we can get at (from savings, investments, etc). We’ve been investing in a Florida Pre-Paid college plan for the kids and will pay off 4-yrs of education for both kids in 2009 (total of $60K includes tuition, dorms and fees for 4-yr university in Florida for both kids). My wife is a SDSU grad and we love SD, have family here, etc, etc. We will not be staying in SoCal when we retire.
One major factor nobody here has addressed is the quality of the services we receive for our tax dollars in California. Schools are simply unacceptable and that is, next to affordability, the biggest factor in many young family’s decision making. Why would I spend $500-600K on a house that needs $100K in repairs in order to send my kids to some of the worst schools in the nation. Unless you live in the Poway Unified School District or perhaps Carlsbad, Torrey Pines or Coronado, your kid is being short-changed educationally. Especially in SD and LA, our kids are not getting the attention they should be due to illegal immigration (I won’t make that my topic though…promise) and those kids taking a disproportionate amount of the teaching time in the classroom. Nothing against them, I love the work ethic and desire to succeed in all immigrants, but it drains the system. We will be taking our money elsewhere and many of my friends are the same. In a recent transition class here in LA of military officers leaving the AF in the next year, in a class of 25 of us only about 3 were staying in SoCal. Everyone else is leaving because of the factors I mentioned above. Regarding affordability, I laugh at those folks driving the big SUVs and BMWs who we know are likely living on borrowed money and time. Older values like saving money and only buying what you can afford are out the window thanks to credit card companies and recently mortgage companies. If you think I’m wrong, tell me so, but I’m here to tell you we are likely looking at the next greatest recession since the depression. Personal deficit spending is going to catch up to us eventually.
So what are we (my family) going to do? As of right now, our plan is to put all of our stuff into long-term storage and move to Hawaii for one year. We will rent a small place in the middle of Oahu (Mililani…best elementary school on island) and I’ll work part time and with my retirement check we’ll cover expenses. Notice I’m not trying to go nuts saving more cash for a house? That’s because I have enough for a sizable down payment for a moderately sized(2500 sq. ft), nice home in most areas that have good public school systems. The one-year in Hawaii will allow the market to settle down and then we’ll make our move and I’ll get a real job. We may spend more than one year in Hawaii, just depends on the market. Hawaii was chosen because my family loves it there and after following me around for 15 years, my wife deserves it. I’m not unhappy with it either, plan on finally learning how to play that damn guitar my wife bought me last year!!!
