Goodbye to San Diego

[an]

Mira Mesa

75,000 residents

12 houses for sale

[svelte]

Saw this while driving the other day and couldn’t help but think of this thread.   Unfortunately about a half-hour after this photo an idiot driver wiped out the car I was in.  Worst accident I’ve ever been in.

[svelte]

Glad you’re happy EP.  That’s what really counts.  Not what anyone else thinks.

[EconProf]

Svelte, sorry to hear about your accident.  I hope it wasn’t with that St. George truck in your picture.  No injuries I hope.

sdr, thanks for the lengthy response.

And I am not surprised with your data showing a lot of people moving to St. George from the Salt Lake City area.  Probably motivated by our better winter weather and, like us, the small city ambience as opposed to big city atmosphere and costs.  And, one can add to that their smog, a problem due to their terrain and prevailing winds.

When we meet newcomers, which is quite common in Brio, our new development, our first question is where are you from.  The most common answer is usually a big CA coastal city.  The second is somewhere in Utah.  Seldom is it the Midwest, and never the big cities of the east coast, who are reportedly moving to Florida.

I have often said here that San Diego is the best west coast city if one wants to live near the ocean, which may be why SD gets so many people in your area from the LA and Bay area.  When I taught economics long ago at SDSU, on the first day of class I would sometimes ask where the students were they were from.  When I mentioned “the San Francisco area”, a third of the hands would shoot up.  I suspect they wanted to get away from Mom and Dad, still pay in-state tuition, and party-on in Surf City, USA.

San Diego was quite liveable then, with decent schools, normal RE prices, good government, and Proposition 13 taxes.  So we rode the growing RE appreciating rental market until landlording became more attractive than teaching.  But age and CA’s deteriorating trends made us look elsewhere.  (OK, sdr, the capital gains we enjoyed were a factor too).

What deteriorating trends?  An increasingly expensive and dysfunctional government, crazy environmental rules, homelessness, poor schools, high taxes, traffic congestion, a stasi-like one-party government (reparations anyone?), and no likelihood these trends would change.

So moving to St. George which my son and family had also picked seemed like a natural.  And given that CA was losing population and St. George growing exponentially, it seemed like a better location for my RE investments, a bet that has paid off.

sdr, you can point to the amenities of your ritzy neighborhood and count the cranes to predict the future of RE trends, but I am a numbers guy, and we all know CA has been losing population at an increasing rate, and cities like Phoenix, Vegas, Austin are gaining those people.  Thus my prediction that RE prices will follow.  And contrary to what you are seeing in your unique neighborhood, they are high-income, high tax-bracket techies who learned from COVID they can work from home and don’t have to endure the long commutes of previous years.  As you know, AZ and UT have low income taxes, and NV and Texas have none.

So the flight from CA continues, and lately even San Diego has recently lost population.  As for some high income LA and San Francisco choosing to move to a more attractive CA coastal city like SD, this is no surprise.  It is the least dirty shirt in the closet.

 

[sdrealtor]

Speaking of ritzy neighborhoods, let me make a wild guess. Brio is a ritzy neighborhood for Saint George isn’t it! That would explain why your neighbors are former Californians and why you have such a biased perspective of where people came from. Take that same straw poll in a less ritzy part of SG and I’d wager there are a lot less former Coastal Californians

[sdrealtor]

Yet you conveniently ignore my numbers showing falling prices and rising inventory in SG relative to SD by a large margin. SH shows down 16% yoy while SD is only 3%

If you look at the data for places you mentioned it is turning down. There are already signs of trouble in Phoenix, Vegas, Boise, Nashville and Austin relative to here. But I guess you only like the data that fits your skewed version of the world.

[sdrealtor]

Phoenix -9%,

Vegas -6%,

Boise -14%

Austin -16%

Nashville -2% but inventory skyrocketing

and of course Saint George -16%

[sdrealtor]

And for a numbers guy you posted nothing but personal opinions. 🤷🏻‍♂️🤦🏻‍♂️

[EconProf]

sdr:  you want numbers instead of personal opinions?  OK, let’s start with your numbers.

You claim that I live in a relatively ritzy neighborhood for St. George.  Yes, a true statement.  As I said previously, we paid $550,000 3 years ago and it is now worth about $825,000, which is below YOUR number of $1 million plus for a mediocre house in Mira Mesa.  A million dollars here will get you a real luxury house with view far better than mine.

As for St. George having a lot of houses for sale, true, but let’s remember that St. George has a relatively young population with lot of children (2/3 Mormon) who move a lot into larger houses.  And, you are correct that we have a lot of building going one here, thus the larger inventory of homes for sale.

Yes, the big cities you mention that have received the fleeing Californians are tapering off, I suspect because of the jump in interest rates.  But please, Mr. numbers guy, clarify what your numbers are suggesting–certainly not a population decline.

[sdrealtor]

Exactly. The reason you are surrounded by Californians is because you are in the ritzy neighborhood. You are looking through skewed glasses. The folks coming from other places aren’t moving into your neighborhood

3 years ago I sold a house in my neighborhood for 900k and today it’s worth about 1.8 so you are falling further behind. And you’ve fallen a lot more since last Spring too!

As an Econ prof I shouldn’t not have to lecture about the balance of supply and demand😂. You have tons more supply than my town with less people and a lot more being built. An independent eye would appreciate the better investment

As for what $1m gets you? Here it gets you extraordinarily valuable land. An asset that appreciates. A good analogy is we are driving Ford pickups and parking them in ocean view parking lots. There it gets you a nicer house on land of little value. A house is a rapidly depreciating asset. A good analogy is your thinking you are living the high life driving a Mercedes S class but you are parking it in a sink hole! So who is the real conservative here? Whose the political conservative and who is actually living a prudent conservative financial life? Enjoy your ride pimp daddy!

[sdrealtor]

One last thing. You paid $550 but how much more did you have to spend pimping your ride with windows treatments, landscaping, appliances, paint and more. Bet that was another 50-100k you’re leaving out

 

[gzz]

Just looked at St George on zillow. Seems basically the same price as Rancho San Diego and similar newish “near-exurban” parts of San Diego County. Maybe St George is 10-20% less.

My commute from here to my old house in OB is 22 minutes. Same for my office in Bay Park.

I think RSD will appreciate more because St G seems to be priced well above construction costs, and there seems to be a lot of developable land around it on almost all sides.

 

[gzz]

The high end houses in St George look kinda ugly and desolate due to lack of mature landscaping.

There’s significantly less greenery than high end homes in Phoenix or East County. I looked at every listing in the 5/4 5000+ sq ft .5+ acre bracket and not a single big lush shade tree!

[gzz]

“Bet that was another 50-100k you’re leaving out”

Every high end St G place I looked at was turnkey and had tasteful interiors.

[sdrealtor]

He bought new construction . The guy that goes first adds all those nice things after buying an empty shell albeit a nice new one

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