I guess our story is similar to yours JES. We lived
in a premier neighborhood in Encinitas and essentially gave
our house away late ’03 before the massive runup. By
mid ’04 we had enough of trying to buy back in
and headed to Chapel Hill NC.
Luckily we bought in at a fairly decent time for this area
and have done well on our new house. It wasn’t cheap
(450k) but we have an acre smack dab in the middle of
Chapel Hill, 3400 ft on one level, and can
walk to Whole Foods and soon a new Trader Joes.
Like you our biggest problem is no family. The second
biggest problem is mosquitos. Other than that we love
it here. The beaches are actually quite nice (Kure
especially) and remind me of old school Encinitas.
The weather is actually not quite as bad as what you are
probably led to believe. The spring and fall are really
quite nice. The winters are mild and the summers well
there’s the problem … but hey summers are visiting
folks in San Diego right?
The schools are excellent and well this is a premier
college town so there is a lot to do.
If we do move back
it would probably be to North Poway which I think is kind
of an underrated area on this board. The location isn’t
perfect but at least you can get some privacy, schools,
views and fairly funky housing stock. One thing is for
sure I couldn’t do the damn tract home thing again.
