[quote=sdrealtor]An example of undervalued. When I moved here in 1996 I almost bought a shack at the corner of La Veta and Sylvia 2 blocks form Moonlight Beach. It was a 10,000 sq ft lot, two blocks from one of the nicest beaches in SD for $250,000. Best of all the lot was splitable. A liveable but shacklike beach cottage on a nice corner lot plus a buildable lot for $250K. That was a steal! It still haunts me.
I’m pretty sure the buyer split the lot and sold the back portion for what he paid for the whole thing a year or two later. A house built on the back portion sold for 600K in 1999. That owner tried to sell in 2005 between 1.5 and 2M but never did. He (the 1999 backlot home buyer) is still there. A couple years ago, the original buyer on the corner tore down the shack and built a beautiful beach house.[/quote]
Okay, my story about “the one that got away” happened during the last downturn. It was a foreclosure, almost an acre in Malibu on PCH (the west side). It was basically a compound with a 3/2 SFH, a duplex with a studio and a two-bedroom combo (IIRC), and an apartment building — designed to look like a castle — with 4-1/1 units. All this for a million dollars.
I will never forget it. We just couldn’t afford to swing it at the time, but knew it was one of the best deals we’d ever see. That was the biggest real estate regret of my life.
————————-
Anyway, there will always be great deals during the downturns, and this is no exception. I have yet to see those types of deals around here, so we are keeping our powder dry until something compelling comes up. Maybe we’ll never buy anything; but maybe our patience will pay off. Either way, I see more reasons to be bearish about housing than bullish, going forward. We saw the loosest money in the history of this country, and I don’t anticipate prices going above the levels we saw during the bubble…at least not unless our currency is destroyed (absolutely a possibility, BTW).
The next few years will be interesting. I think they’ve been pushing on a string and are about to run out of ammo. But that’s just me. 😉
