The old 1 bed in San Diego are old crap built cheaply.
Most property built in the past 40 years is junque, built cheaply. I know someone who bought a 90s tract house in Phoenix and had to jackhammer the slab because they had run water pipes through it without any conduit or easy means of replacing them, and a pipe started leaking after 10 years. Fun times.
If anything, the older properties in SD are less complex and are thus easier to maintain than a newer condo with multiple baths and appliance hookups. And a lot of the initial defects like brittle PEX plumbing were fixed 15 years ago, since they showed up and they practically had to fix them.
