I certainly agree that the prime locations are all in older stock land (with their larger lots). I think for the folks who can afford those areas (mostly the coast for me), it’s a nice place to be at.
Back to my 30-something’s piggy’s way of thinking, I suppose my view of “land” is not what it used to be. In my younger days, I thought the same way as you do now valuing land and lot size over most things. Nowadays, my thinking is we bought a house to live in primarily. We live inside the house, we don’t spend that much time outside due to the reasons above…Also, not wanting to expand or make upgrades, if we needed more space or lot size, we’d probably just move. Path of least resistance as mentioned in another message earlier…Especially for folks who aren’t handy and have no interest in doing/learning that skill set. I’d be more at home fixing cars than home items.
Also, and maybe a big reason for my way of thinking is we probably will eventually move when we retire and when the kid is grown (maybe in 20-30 years)…Can’t predict the future, but that probably played a factor in our lot size decision.
I suppose similar to questions of do you really need a 3300 sqft home? Does someone really need a 10k-20k lot nowadays? Parks are everywhere within walking distance with bball courts, huge lawns, etc…
Times are certainly different now compared to just 20/30 years ago and 50 years ago as well. There were certainly less luxuries back then and I don’t think folks were as hard core when it came to kids, education, jobs, etc…A global economy is a race to the bottom in terms of cost for companies.
I’m surprised this hasn’t been posted about and discussed yet, but another reason for newer areas is updated construction within the area (San Bruno gas explosion). I also don’t like all those power lines that you see in a lot of the older developments…
“Experts say the nation’s 296,000 miles of onshore natural-gas lines routinely suffer breakdowns and failures.
More than 60 percent of the lines are 40 years old or older and almost half were installed in the 1950s and 1960s, according to a recent analysis by the Pipeline Safety Trust, a nonprofit advocacy group based in Bellingham, Wash.
Most of the older pipelines lack anticorrosion coatings that are prevalent in the industry today, said Carl Weimer, executive director of the trust, which was set up following a 1999 explosion that killed three people in Bellingham.
“The industry always says that if you take care of pipelines, they’ll last forever,” Weimer said. “But what we see over and over again is companies are not doing that and corrosion and other factors are causing failures.”
