In 1990 my parents sold their home in Diamond Bar, CA for a huge profit from what they paid for it in 79 I think. They moved us out to Temecula, bought a nice Ranch style custom home on 1 acre in a nice area of the city. I think they paid about $350k for it at the time. I remember in 95 it was worth about $250k after my dad put another $100k into a patio, landscape, and other upgrades. At one point it was about 33% off of what we paid though. It probably didn’t start going up significantly until 1997 though. I think we weathered the price decline better then all the tract homes, I think they were hit harder.
They complained about it a bit, but since the mortgage was only $1400 per month at the time(I think they had combined income of about $90K), and the fact that they made decent money on the first house, kept them from whinnying too much. Since then they have refied the house to a 15 year, and it will be paid off in 2 years. It’s currently worth about $700k, if my parents would perform the needed upgrades and updates, it could easily be worth $950k.
