[quote=sdrealtor]Not exactly all of what i was thinking but some of it and certainly another valid POV. I was also referring to the fact that when you drive around here the hilltop homes are plainly visible and dream about. Who doesnt drive down the 5 and prime view homes and dream about owning one? Who hasnt driven in LJ and thought would it be awesome if I had one of those killer view homes or walked on the beach in DM and thought it would be a dream to live on the sand?
Where ever you go in SD much of the prime RE sits high above everything in plain sight for all to see.[/quote]
sdr, these same “prime hills and sand” you speak of, all here since Baja CA was “discovered,” (maybe not always with interstates running alongside or beneath them to “showcase” the properties built on them), for the most part were completely built up between 1935 and 1960.
I recently addressed the “dreams” of these wishful drive-byers in:
In a nutshell, I stated that I felt that Gen-X-ers/Gen Y-ers wouldn’t have wanted to purchase those properties back when baby boomers purchased them for rehab in the late 70’s (when they were dryrotted 2/1/1’s and needed everything done to them). The drive-byers of today lament how unfair it is that these large well-designed properties are so expensive and a “normal” worker couldn’t purchase a “turnkey” property in that area so therefore the bottom of that market hasn’t hit yet and so is likely to come down in price.
They’re unaware that the rehabbing owner may have lived in 2-3 rooms (or a trailer on the property) for YEARS during its major gut/remodel job. They’re also unaware that while the rehabbing owner’s take-out loan was slowly being decimated, they may have been simultaneously duking it out with the city,county and/or coastal commission over all things major and minor on the project.
What I’m saying is that the expectations are far too high for relative newcomers to CA coastal counties who wish to purchase a primary residence. I don’t think they have always been this high, but possibly just in the last 20 yrs or so. Prior to say 1987 (the inception of the use of CFD’s in SD County), there weren’t as many new construction projects (outside of infill) for a RE buyer to choose from because the entire infrastructure (streets/sewer/storm drains/sidewalks/street lights, etc) had to be funded by a developer before they could break ground on their tracts. With the CFD’s now in place, the developers can just pass all this expense onto their buyers in the form of MR bonds.
Before the inception of MR (making the vast inventory of new construction available to the market), more buyers on every level were willing to purchase a property that needed work and work on it as time and $$ permitted. The older baby-boom generation, for the most part, DID NOT grow up in a large house with modern conveniences (i.e. they may have washed dishes by hand and used clotheslines) so was not expecting the same level of amenities when they became RE purchasers that today’s buyer is. Thus, it didn’t bother them to buy and live in the 2/1/1 dry-rotted fixer-upper in DM or LJ for years until it could be rehabbed.
Which begs the questions. Do most Piggs believe properties in prime locations in SD County should come down in price so as to be available to a first or second-time buyer who is a highish-earning worker with perhaps only =<30% downpayment? Should a middle-class or upper MC buyer be able to compete on a level playing field in these finite "niche" markets with mostly or all-cash buyers??
I've always thought of CA coastal RE as a "caste" system. In order to graduate to the next level or "caste," a buyer had to buy what they could afford first, then fix up and hold a few years, sell and move up a little and do the same. And so on.
If a first-time buyer buys their first property at $750K (ex: new construction), how are they going to recover enough profit to "move up" in the same coastal county? And how many years will it take them to do this? Do today's first-time buyers expect to "climb a RE ladder" to finally own a property in the area they have long dreamed of owning in?
Methinks that the general public doesn't care anymore about the "caste system" way of "buying RE in a certain order." They just feel if they have a "good job" they should be able to live exactly where and the way they want to RIGHT NOW. If they can't, there is something wrong with San Diego County. But almost no workers HAVE EVER been able to live in the location or the way they wanted to in SD County. The prime properties we all covet were purchased long, long ago and handed down thru a family, purchased prior to 1985 as a teardown, purchased (often in distress) by a licensed general contractor or frequently purchased by individuals with MOSTLY or ALL CASH.
It's the same today as it always has been, except that there are far fewer teardown opportunities available now. For the most part (without all these "short sales" and REO's in the mix), the RE resale system in CA works. Call it the Darwinism method if you will (it fits). If you are frustrated and don't want to do what it takes to purchase a property in SD Co that you would be happy owning and living in, then don't take your frustration out on the locale because you will find the same trade-offs present in EVERY locale you end up "escaping" to, to some degree.
