Small Town California

[desmond]

Living (renting) up here in the Pine Mountian Club Community has told me two things, never live permanently where it snows, and never live in a lower end retirement/2nd home (vacation) community. I would say 30% of the homes up here are permanent residents, some are vacation homes that most people never visit, the balance are sitting vacant with stickers on the windows. Here are the local stats:

Year Median Price /Apx. No. Sold
2006 $290,000 117
2007 $299,500 113
2008 $212,500 113
2009 $165,000 159
2010 $133,628 187
2011 $123,000 196

I would like to stay one more year if I can talk my wife into it.

[sdrealtor]

Makes perfect sense that 2nd homes owned by the marginally qualified would be the first to get bailed on. At that rate you could probably buy 1/2 the town in another year. Any sense as to what % of those sales are RE/short sales? All of them?

[desmond]

Cue the music from Deliverance:

160 were foreclosures. The local high school is losing students (money) the board voted last year to cutout all sports programs, they were saved by the booster club for now. The guy one street up has now turned his dirt driveway and front yard into a engine repair yard. I keep buying more ammo. Pick your retirement home carefully.

[sdrealtor]

Almost time to load up the toy hauler

[desmond]

You mean the 5′ x 8′ Zieman trailer, I am not in the toy hauler group.

[briansd1]

What attracted you to this town?

[desmond]

It is a beautiful area, the house we rent is awesome and only $1500/month. My wife and I both work from the home. Our two kids are out of the house (we sold in 2005 and have rented since) and I like to be adventurous. We lived for a 1 1/2 years in a pool house located in Hope Ranch in Santa Barbara before moving here. My wife thinks I’m crazy but we get along better now than ever before. I’m not sure what will be next.

[desmond]

One more thing, each place that we have moved to we watched crumble. The first was Valencia, 91354, were some newly built townhomes that sold for $600K they started dropping when we moved in in 2005 and now most are in foreclosure or on the market for under 300k. Then we moved to another neighborhood in 91355, homes started being vacated and we noticed extended families moving back home. Even the “exclusive” Hope Ranch in Santa Barbara,93110, was turning sour when we moved out.

[bearishgurl]

[quote=desmond]One more thing, each place that we have moved to we watched crumble. The first was Valencia, 91354, were some newly built townhomes that sold for $600K they started dropping when we moved in in 2005 and now most are in foreclosure or on the market for under 300k. Then we moved to another neighborhood in 91355, homes started being vacated and we noticed extended families moving back home. Even the “exclusive” Hope Ranch in Santa Barbara,93110, was turning sour when we moved out.[/quote]

desmond, this is unfortunate but just be thankful you were only renters.

If you don’t mind, I’d just like to ask you:

“In hindsight, would you attribute the ‘crumbling’ of these areas to unnecessary ‘urban sprawl’ and available ‘easy-qualifying’ to buy into them at the time?”

[no_such_reality]

LOL, Valencia is hardly crumbling. It’s just as Agrestic as it has ever been.

Like all areas, it has its over extended owners.

[sdrealtor]

Desmond
You are the Grim Reaper taking down one community after another. Better you should crawl back in the hatch and push that button

[desmond]

In 2005 I had no idea why prices were skyrockiting, I sold only on the reason that I thought how many people were left that could actually afford my house? I did not know that credit had anything to do with it. Now that I look back it was the “easy qualifying” that did home prices in. Valencia is still a great place to raise your kids and live in, it is the home values that have crumbled.

[Author]

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