Our starter home was a 3BR/1 Bath house in Clairemont. It was old and small but reasonably well-maintained. Not a complete $hithole. My family (all in the Midwest) thought I was crazy to drop $160K on what would have been a $45K property back there. The house was definitely much less than we wanted, only one bathroom, which sucks, about 1100 square feet and the washer/dryer were outside. But it was what we could afford … with two professional salaries in technical fields. We bought in 1996, probably at the high point of home affordability in the last 3 decades in the area. The old affordability index (based on 30-year fixed, 20% down) was something like 40-50% in San Diego at that time.
(I hope this doesn’t sound too much like the old man saying “back when I was your age …”)
So, my point is … Even at the best time to buy a house in San Diego in the last twenty years, a SFR starter home was much less than desirable for relatively high-income dinks (no kids at that time). I hope this provides some perspective and that people don’t expect to be able to waltz in at the coming bottom in housing and buy their 2400 s.f. energy efficient coastal view dream home as their first house. (But perhaps those who cashed out in 2004-2006 will
