[quote=Jazzman]Many places around the world have always had expensive real estate. The difference is these are no longer isolated enclaves for the super rich, but have spread to middle class areas. You only need to check back over the last 10-20 years to see how much home prices have accelerated. It is frightening! Theories on number of sunshine hours, golf courses, haute cuisine establishments don’t really cut it, as I don’t think you can say SD is twice as good as Charlotte, and therefore should command twice the price…[/quote]
Jazzman, I don’t think SD County prices are due to a “bubble addiction.” Obviously, if an asking price is too high, a property will languish on the market and eventually be removed, unsold. TX and the Carolinas have BEAUTIFUL golf courses, sunshine and plenty of “haute cuisine” as does SD.
I’m not sure if SD County commands “twice the price” of Charlotte (NC) but if it does, it is because buyers are willing to pay “twice the price” to live here. As was discussed before, “worth” is subjective and in the eye of the beholder.
The reason SD County is not an “isolated enclave” is due to rampant urban sprawl over the last 20 years, IMO. Now that incoming buyers have all these “buying choices” in “urban-sprawl land,” SD’s best close-in neighborhoods have become “less desireable” to them. If this urban-sprawl was not allowed to take effect to the degree it did, it is VERY likely that new-homeowner money would instead have been used to revitalize SD’s close-in neighborhoods house by house and block by block.
States such as Washington have had strict moratoriums on “urban sprawl” around its cities for at least 20 years. Not only has it kept traffic down, this policy has served to keep its cities best neighborhoods grand, leafy, walkable, safe and full of educated high-earning residents.
This is what the voters wanted in WA so this is what they have. In doing this, their quality of life in the existing areas has remained high.
Due to the eventual decimation of incoming coffers to CA state and local governments in the last 20 years (as a byproduct of enacting Prop 13 and its progeny), cities and counties in CA have gone “hungry” and needed all the tax money new development could bring in for their daily operations, thus they sold out to developers. In doing so, they sold down the river EVERY existing resident’s quality of life.
Those beneficiaries of Prop 13 are using the exact same public services as the rest of the property owners in CA but are paying 1/6 to 1/12 of the taxes for that use. For this reason, Prop 13 needs to be repealed for all property owners but the original owners as of April 1978 who are still themselves residing in those same properties. These owners will eventually die and Prop 13 will become moot. Its premise was well-intentioned at the time but it turned out to be a BIG mistake for this heavily-populated border state.
