SDR: Had a couple of conversations in Temecula yesterday during our Pop Warner game at Great Oaks HS (across from Pechanga). Bunch of different teams represented, some from all the way down in Poway.
The varying attitudes were pretty amazing. In discussing real estate with the Poway folks, the prevailing mentality is that while prices might fall a little, the market will come back.
The folks from Murrieta and Temecula, on the other hand, were shell shocked. Talked to a Murrieta coach who has been trying to unload his house due to an impending job transfer. His small neighborhood has no less than four houses that are now bank owned and three more heading into REO. One of his neighbors literally packed up the whole family and moved out over a weekend. This was a month ago, and the house is sitting vacant, with an overgrown and dying lawn and the pool stagnant. This guy said he had purchased his house back in 1999, so he had some equity to give, but he said the three offers he got were all some 20 to 30 percent below his lowest asking price, which is already down some $30k from his original list price. The look on this guy’s face was complete bewilderment.
Great Oaks HS sits next to the Wolf Creek development on Pechanga Parkway, which was a complete ghost town for the four and a half hours I was there.
