[quote=Nor-LA-SD-guy]TV More risky than SD ?? or a worse investment ??
Don’t know, at current price levels in both regions I would say there is less risk of losing your butt in say TV than most of SD IMO.
Also I think the percent of possible gain in the future is arguable.[/quote]
Nor-LA-SD-guy, the Temecula Valley (and Riverside Co. in general) are certainly cheaper than San Diego County for the same property types. I believe this is so for several reasons:
Along with San Bernardino County (SB), Riverside County (RIV) is generally a commuter county because there are not enough jobs to sustain the homeowning population there. Therefore the non-retired population living in those counties typically has to commute daily (up to 140 miles round trip) to a job. This takes valuable time away from daily life and severely impacts the quality of life for at least one family member and their spouse/children, if any.
These two counties suffer from excessive heat and air pollution (not entirely of their own making) due to being situated in inland valleys and surrounded on at least three sides by mtns. Mandatory air conditioning significantly adds to the cost of living for a few months per year.
Historically, RIV and SB Counties have plunged in value in all of the downturns we’ve had since the late seventies/early eighties. Whenever a RE downturn began (for instance ’81, ’91, ’06), RE in those counties was the first to fall and fell the most in value. In the mid-nineties, RE in SB County fell an average of 46% in value. The fall in prices has become VERY pronounced today due to massive overbuilding (in RIV Co.) since about ’98. The “draw” in this area was new and newer-built homes (mostly >2000 sf) which attracted retirees and young families who were “price sensitive” by necessity. Most of these families could have ACTUALLY FOUND housing for the same price in their “home” LA or Orange County communities of Lakewood, Downey, Corona, Anaheim, Tustin or SD county communities of Clairemont, Allied Gardens, etc. (to name a few) but were so “enamored” by the size of home that they could buy in RIV Co. for the same $$ that they couldn’t see their way clear to purchasing a “fixer” or “cosmetic fixer” in their own urban hometowns with expansion potential that would have kept its value much better in a severe downturn like what we have now.
This pervasive hunger for “new” and “bigger” left a lot of moderate and low-income families severely upside-down in recent years whereas I don’t think they would have been AS MUCH, if at all, upside-down had they purchased a more well-located (perhaps smaller/older) property in their original home communities instead.
It’s very simple why RIV and other areas are on the list posted by the OP. They are all INLAND AREAS comprised of socked-in valleys and high desert and, except for Las Vegas (which suffers from MASSIVE overbuilding) do not have large job centers of their own. This can never be fixed. Because of this, the RE values in these areas WILL ALWAYS be extremely sensitive to ANY economic downturns, however large or small.
The urban core of SD still has jobs, is NOT overbuilt (because the land is long gone) and does not have a need for air conditioning. For these reasons (as well as greatly reduced commute times) make its RE far more valuable and able to withstand downturns better than the inland “bedroom” communities mentioned in the OP, IMO.
