He rents an apartment a block from the beach, and he’s an attorney and cannot work as a contractor. The rent is about the same as the mortgage payment + land lease fee, but has the advantage of reducing his taxes. He’s frugal, very frugal, and his rent is around $2K/month, so the purpose of this is to reduce his taxes. He doesn’t like paying so much to Uncle Sam. Anyway, I have been passing all this info on to him, and he has decided to just wait, i.e. hold off on making any purchase right now.
By the way, someone told me today that a 1150 sq ft apartment off Carmel Mountain Road is $1900/month. She said the recent condo conversions have reduced apartment availability, pushing up the price.
