[quote=livinincali]… Most of the sales in the past 3-4 years are all cash investors (30-40%), FHA/VA (30-40)%, and then traditional 20% down loans (maybe 20ish%)…[/quote]
livinincali, I think the “buying pool” in SD County in the last four years was a little stronger than you make it out to be here. I agree with the ~40% cash-buyer part, but do not agree that they were all “investors.” A percentage of this category of buyers – I’ll take a stab at it and say 8% (or 20% of cash purch) paid all cash for a personal residence.
With the other two categories, I think the answer lies somewhere in the middle. I personally know a few people who purchased a residence in SD County in the last four years and they put 25-80% down. Not everyone wants an 80% mortgage. A lot of people who know they will just work a few more years take out a 15 yr mortgage which will yield only as much MID tax writeoff for their current and projected taxable income as they know they will need in the coming years and not a penny more. For a lot of these people, that magic number is somewhere between a $5K and $12K annual interest writeoff. Beyond that size of mortgage, they’re just throwing money away on interest. At the time of retirement from their W-2 job, they typically plan to pay their mortgage balance off and remain in the property or sell their residence and move elsewhere.
So my rough (educated) guess is that the SD County buyer pool in the last ~4 years is comprised of 40% all-cash purchasers, 30% FHA/VA purchasers and 30% conventional purchasers of which 25% (83% of conv purch) put 20-80% down and 5% (17% of conv purch) put <20% down and used PMI.
