I think a lot of people are willing to compromise on the location, to some extent, but want all the bling.
People often have a choice of buying a nice, big, new house in Murietta (and having a long commute), or buying a small home or lot for even less in the bad parts of SD County, and then adding on/upgrading/building something more to their liking. This way, they can get the house they want with a much shorter commute, even if it’s not in a “nice” area.
You’d be surprised at how many people really don’t mind living in neighborhoods that are a bit “gritty,” especially if they don’t have kids. A youngish, DINK couple (or older, empty-nesters) might like the proximity to an urban center, and would be willing to live in a “less desirable” neighborhood (at a much lower price than more “desirable” neighborhoods) in order to have the conveniences of urban living nearby.
Just based on my personal, anecdotal observations, it’s the people with kids who are most concerned about living in “safe” neighborhoods with good schools. Truth is, most of these “safe, family-friendly” neighborhoods are completely uninspiring and painfully boring for people without kids. In our (safe, desirable) area, for instance, good luck if you want any kind of night life. This is the land of minivans and SUVs. It is dead after 8:00 p.m. Hardly a place most single/childless people would want to live.
One more observation…just anecdotal, but when I see these large “mansions” being built in the middle of the ghetto, it’s often a family from another country (maybe Iran, Pakistan, Eastern Europe, etc.). They might have different ideas about what’s desirable, and they might not have the same biases that American-born (or Asian?) people do. To them, these neighborhoods might look like Del Mar, when compared to where they came from. For example, when my mother first immigrated to L.A., she lived near Echo Park (a very bad neighborhood), but she saw the gorgeous, older architecture and clawfoot bathtubs (a luxury!), and to her, it was a very desirable place to live. Different people from different cultures value different things.
