Just to echo what TG has said – I’ve been in the Temecula/Murrieta market for about 8 months now and I’m finally closing escrow next week. Based on all of the doom and gloom on the bubble blogs, I placed low ball offers on over 20 places in hopes of picking up a deal. Outbid. Every. Single. Time. I finally picked up a place I love, but had to get in an offer within an hour of it being listed, and offering 10k over list. I’m still coming in at only 2.8x income, so I’m not too concerned about having to bid up a bit. Like I’ve said in a few other threads, the brown lawns are gone and the people moving in now are folks that can actually afford their mortgages.
Now commercial RE is hurting a bunch out here, but Temecula is well positioned to create a lot of new jobs when the economy improves. I took a drive around the industrial parts of town today and am amazed at the amount of recent, high quality offices. The land is cheap, infrastructure is excellent, good schools, low crime and an educated workforce that can afford to buy in the area on a decent salary. Combine that with high quality office space and the area becomes a good candidate for a strong amount of job growth moving forward (5-10 yrs). City planners aren’t idiots and know the future of the area isn’t in more housing, it’s in jobs.
As far as housing, I’d be very worried if decent places weren’t being picked up quickly and if we had the whole section 8 trend going on out here, but we’ve thankfully avoided that.
