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bearishgurl
Participant[quote=Jim the Realtor]But the demand is here – people keep coming. Sellers can get what the last guy got.
The overwhelming #1 fact: People who have lived here a while don’t want to leave. At any price.[/quote]
JTR is correct, except I don’t believe the present and future defaulters (doesn’t matter the reason) will be given a “free pass” to squat for 30 months or more (like what happened between 2007 and 2012). I’m currently seeing some 40-year mod deals made in 2010/11 which aren’t going to end well for the trustor-homedebtors in question. Borrowers who got roped into these deals due to “squatting too long” and wanting to keep the status quo (mostly for their kids) are now slowly coming to the realization that their 1st TD lender is the one who is going to win at this game …. certainly NOT THEM!
The SD residents that will be okay without a well-paying job will be those who have paid off the mortgage on their principal residence or have the ability to do so anytime they so desire.
However you slice it, SD was never meant to be a town where one “strikes it rich” on a W-2 job. I DO BELIEVE it will eventually become the land of retirees, real estate “heirs” paying a pittance in property taxes as well as otherwise self-sufficient residents who are business owners or 100% of their income is passive (they don’t hold a local W-2 job).
SD’s service workers are/will reside with established relatives or in Section 8 units (or MX and commute every workday).
In some zip codes, the above is has been the main demographic for at least the last 20 years.
ParticipantI agree with everyone, lifeisgood. There are more than enough US citizens graduating with Bachelor’s Degrees in US colleges to fill the available openings (except possibly for the “niche” openings that flu mentioned here).
I was simply pointing out that I can see where a US-born person observing typical college students and workers on the ground who are in engineering fields could get the idea that “foreigners” are taking up too much space in both US universities and employment billets at coveted firms.
It’s an innocent observation but one needs to really dig deeper, be connected to a CA university oneself, be a hiring/employment “insider,” like flu (or one of my kids who is in HR for a firm in SV) or simply live within a highly multicultural environment where you know your neighbors well to realize that you can’t judge a person’s citizenship (or even race/nationality sometimes) solely by their appearance or surname.
Too many H1-B’s in the workforce (in relation to qualified and available US citizens) may be true for “Gen X” in some fields (abt 38-51 yrs old, as flu referred to as being trained in the ’90’s and the physicians I referred to earlier). But I don’t think it is true for millennials. I used to think CA public universities offered too many slots to foreign students but I no longer believe that about the CSU (the verdict is still out on the UC). I think the CSU strives mightily to admit as many qualified freshmen as it possibly can but there are simply too many CA-resident applicants that ARE highly qualified, so they can only pick some (after leaving slots open for their “service area applicants” under agreement with their school districts). After freshman year and during/after sophomore year, many “service-area applicants” admitted to a CSU under less-stringent admission criteria DO end up dropping out due to failure to progress (academic problems). University IS hard for a freshman, especially for a student from a disadvantaged family. This process of elimination leaves open slots for transfer applicants from CC with AA-T and AS-T (qualified Associate Degrees) who will be entering the same degree programs as the failed undergrads vacated.
Participant[quote=dumbrenter][quote=lifeisgood]
What kind of graduates are they pumping out? What are you getting at? I’m assuming that they are pumping out engineers. Am I wrong? We have many problems with immigration. I’m just bringing up one. We can site many examples of abuse and talk about this countries demise till we’re blue in the face. I was recently introduced to the H1-B process and started doing a little research. I saw it as a problem that deserved hearing other peoples opinions on. I chose to bring it up here so that I could speak to highly intelligent educated people. By no means am I saying that this is my only immigration concern. I might be one of the few that is hanging onto the hope that this country can become great again.
[/quote]You say you are doing research, I gave you the best possible path to go observe for yourself. Why assume what they are “pumping out” when you can go see for yourself? If the student body looked ((ahem)) “american” and then they looked very different at qcom, you can make the argument that qcom is going out of their way to hire H1-Bs. If not, you will realize that the problem is not qcom… the problem is not enough american kids are going thru the engineering schools. Unfortunately, in this great country of yours, you cannot force them to go to an engineering school.
Why do that when you can get into student debt and get a liberal arts degree that is practically useless for many tech employers?
Ever seen an H1-B in liberal arts? You don’t because that “specialty” has a glut of americans…[/quote]dumbrenter, see my post, above. I believe that, among millenials in CA (up to age 35 or so) a very large portion of students (and possibly tech workers, as well) who don’t “look” ((ahem)) too “american” to an observer actually ARE American in that they were born in the US and did, in fact, attend CA public and/or private schools from K-12. Perhaps their mothers still dress in the traditional dress of their home country and both of their parents are legal immigrants, or more likely, now American citizens, but I DO believe CA universities ARE churning out mostly “American-citizen” engineering graduates.
The $64M question here is, What does a typical (millenial) American citizen look like today?
This dialog reminds me of the (ignorant) general public claiming that South (SD) County schools have an overwhelmingly predominately “Hispanic” student population (btw, “Hispanics” are actually Caucasians). This public perception is based upon student-recorded designations when they take their STAR, CAHSEE and other mandatory exams which rate their school performance in comparison with other area schools of the same age group (ie elem, middle and high school). The more students of a “protected class” a district has, the more eligible Federal funds they receive for special programs, equipment and such. As a class of students sit down for their mandatory annual testing at all relevant grade levels, they are counseled by their teachers to claim a race or nationality that they “most identify with” and told that if they have Hispanic relatives and/or a Hispanic surname, they can check the bubble “Hispanic.” However, I can tell you from my long “boots on the ground” experience that a very large percentage (over 40% in some schools) of South County students with Hispanic-sounding surnames (and/or with surnames ending in z) are overtly Caucasian. A much smaller percentage of Hispanic-students-on-paper are overtly African American. For example, an individual can have ONE grandparent who is just one-half Hispanic (out of four grandparents) and have a Hispanic surname but are actually 1/8 Hispanic (or less). This phenomenon is truer for American millenials than for any generation preceding them.
You can’t always judge a young person’s citizenship (or even race/Nationality in some instances), by their appearance or surname.
ParticipantHere are my thoughts on the comments below and I agree with all, except that I feel that one could easily “misconstrue” students’ and employees’ citizenship status based upon their appearance alone.
[quote=lifeisgood] In SD alone there are two Engineering schools pumping out graduates every year….[/quote]
[quote=deadzone]What lifisgood is pointing out, correctly in my opinion, is that it is bullshit to believe the U.S. does not pump out enough engineering grads who are US citizens. There is no evidence to support this.[/quote]
[quote=dumbrenter]If you really want to educate yourself and not “believe”, you could take a short drive to SDSU or UCSD, park by the engineering school and look at who is there. It will become very clear to you (in less than 15 mins) about the ‘kinds’ of graduates being pumped out of there. They do not look too dissimilar from what you will see when you park yourself by Scranton Rd. Then, hopefully, you will ask yourself the more relevant question: Why are engineering schools not “pumping out” enough americans ?
And if you think that is bad, park yourself by the business schools and watch!….[/quote]My youngest kid is currently attending a CSU located out of county majoring in Bus Admin (Acct option). When I went to freshman orientation last summer, I spoke with several other parents of incoming freshman during the various activities we went through all day. The vast majority of these freshman were admitted to the School of Engineering, one of the schools which this particular campus is noted for. It was obvious to me that almost all of these parents had at one time no doubt been on student-visas to attend university in the US and H-1B themselves (their kids were born in the US). At least 10 out of the roughly 12-13 parents I spoke to throughout the day resided in the SF bay area and despite their sons having HS GPAs of 3.9+ and a dozen or more AP credits, they weren’t accepted to any UC or CSU they applied to within a 100 mile radius of home! SJSU was a first choice for several of them but they were all turned down for admission. My kid’s school was at or near the bottom of their choices out of the 4-10 campuses they applied to but in early April 2014, ended up granting hundreds of late rolling freshman admissions declaring several majors, accepting this group after they were rejected left and right in NorCal. For a data point, even though these kids admitted to engineering school were overwhelmingly of East Indian/Pakistani descent, they were actually born in the US. It is possible that East Indian families push their kids to go into Engineering. I have NO IDEA how many African American, Caucasian (incl Hispanic) or Asian kids were granted admission to the School of Engineering but I feel whatever the percentage of each of these groups is, it may not reflect the population of that age group as a whole, due to kids of East Indian descent taking up so many of the billets.
It is not just the tech field that H-1B workers dominate. Over the last 25 years, the medical field (incl biotech) has EXPLODED with (originally, but now citizens) H-1B physicians, surgeons and researchers. I saw this among cardiologists in SD when one of my relatives was hospitalized here for about 10 days while visiting me in the mid-nineties.
For the past four weeks, I’ve been doing some nationwide medical research for a (very athletic non-smoking, non-drinking) friend who was diagnosed with Stage 4 pancreatic cancer in June and given just weeks/few months to live (as of today, he is still alive but hospitalized). I’ve been reading a lot of medical journal articles, physician bios and watching videos of surgeries. Unfortunately, he will be the 4th person in my life who will succumb to this dreadful disease, so I know what to expect and basically what’s worked in the past and what doesn’t work. I was/am desperate to determine if he is qualified for any surgery at all which will prolong his life by at least one year after surgery.
In reading and watching online, it was very clear to me that over 90% of the most distinguished and talented gastrointestinal surgeons in this country were at one time very likely on a student visa to attend university in the US and H1-B themselves. This particular specialty of surgeons perform the most difficult, lengthy and risky surgery on the planet! Overwhelmingly, these surgeons, from renowned cancer centers all over the country were of East Indian and Pakistani origin (with north African incl middle eastern, eastern European and South American mixed in). Almost all of them still had thick accents but their English was very understandable.
I have no idea if enough US born medical students have been/are majoring in gastroenterology over the past 30 years or why some medical fields attract so many foreigners. The surgeons I researched online appeared to me to be age 35-60 with the smallest age group 50-60 years old.
btw, dumbrenter, most of my kid’s fellow business majors appear to me to be Asian (primarily Filipino and Chinese with Caucasian/Hispanic following closely behind).
I do believe that it is VERY DIFFICULT for a HS senior of any race in CA today who has a 3.0 to 3.9 GPA to get admitted to a CA public university as a freshman (even to those “armpit” campuses of UC Merced, Fresno State and CSU Bakersfield)! In addition, the qualification bar is set quite a bit higher for UC/CSU admission for OOS and OOC applicants, and of course, they pay the “full freight” to attend (and no doubt bring up the campus graduation rate due to their higher qualifications at entrance). I don’t agree that the UC/CSU systems are “bursting at the seams” but that each campus offers admissions to the most qualified first (apart from their agreements with local school districts). And if the most qualified just so happen to be from OOS or OOC, that’s all the more money they can collect!
A handful of campuses (5-6 CSU campuses) do make a special outreach effort to offer admissions to “service-area” freshman applicants for select majors … those whose parents reside within commuting distance of campus (miles vary by campus). These applicants need a GPA of just 3.0 and can have a little lower SAT score than a general in-state applicant. They may need some math or English remedial work which must be completed on campus during the summer after HS graduation. My kid’s campus is one which honors their agreements with local HS districts in this fashion but these campuses are in the minority.
I really don’t think “foreigners” are taking up too many billets at the CSU but they may be at the UC (which is more competitive to get into) … I don’t know. I think that some ethnic groups/cultures who are actually American citizens push engineering and medical careers on their children from a young age and that is why the preponderance of “foreign-looking” engineers, physicians and nurses. It may be that not enough people born in the USA are deciding to go into these fields or not enough children of US-born parents are going into these fields. I don’t think that H1-B workers are being paid less than their co-worker who was born in the US.
I know when I went to college in the mid ’70’s, my campus was full of returning US born Vietnam vets (in all majors) and a several hundred mostly Iranian (engineering) students … all male and completely cash-funded by parents for OOC tuition. (I DO think many of them returned to their home country after graduation). But I don’t recall being aware of H1-B’s holding so many jobs in the US until the early/mid ’90’s. Today, a typical “Iranian” student is likely US born to possibly immigrant parents so a “foreign-appearing” college student in the US today is very likely not “foreign” at all!
I’m going to say it again here, folks … the competition for a CA public university slot is ultra-competitive for CA high school seniors today! Make sure your kid doesn’t drop the ball in HS and applies TIMELY to multiple campuses in each system AND DECLARES A MAJOR FOR EACH AND EVERY CAMPUS THEY APPLY TO!
It’s a crapshoot.
Participant[quote=livinincali][quote=bearishgurl]
So for those who live in areas with many paid-off homes, it should be some consolation to know that your neighbor who paid off their $45K to $150K mortgage years ago likely did so after a lot of blood, sweat and tears. It was no easier for a homeowner to attempt to pay off $97K at 9-14% than it is to attempt to pay off $417K at 3-4% today, especially when factoring in the lower salaries of previous decades.[/quote]That would be false. From 1980 to about 1995-2000 there was significant salary growth for you average working person. For example median household income went from 17K in 1980 to 33K in 1990 in san diego. So take a 70K mortgage at 10% in 1980 and the payments is 614/mo or about 40% of your income. That’s a lot initially but 10 years later that 600/mon payments was about 22% of you take home salary. Today there isn’t much expectation for real salary growth and if there were to be the case it’s unlikely rates would remain low.
San Diego may continue to become more unaffordable for the working citizens of the city but only if there’s significant migration of wealthier people into the city.[/quote]
Your calculations are way off and not based upon reality, livinincali. SD County homebuyers putting 10% down and taking out a $70K mortgage in 1980 (for a $77K purchase) faced buying in zip codes that *you* likely would not, sorry to say. I purchased a 2/1/1 (each side) duplex in that same era for just over $73K and it was off 47th Street in SE SD (total <1900 sf). By 1981/82, sub-1000 sf dry-rotted crapshacks in OB were listed from $88K to $97K, while the prevailing fixed mortgage interest rate soared to over 15%!
In 1980, the prevailing fixed mortgage interest rate was 11.78 to 13.15%, NOT 10%, as you posted. 10% fixed-rate mortgages did not prevail until mid-1986. here are the rate changes of that area coinciding with their respective Fed announcements:
1986
Announcement Date/Index Month/ Index Value
13-Jan-87 Dec-86 9.29
12-Dec-86 Nov-86 9.48
12-Nov-86 Oct-86 9.59
14-Oct-86 Sep-86 9.71
11-Sep-86 Aug-86 9.88
11-Aug-86 Jul-86 9.88
11-Jul-86 Jun-86 9.83
11-Jun-86 May-86 9.8
12-May-86 Apr-86 10
10-Apr-86 Mar-86 10.24
12-Mar-86 Feb-86 10.46
10-Feb-86 Jan-86 10.41982
Announcement Date/Index Month/ Index Value
12-Jan-83 Dec-82 13.44
14-Dec-82 Nov-82 13.74
13-Nov-82 Oct-82 14.37
13-Oct-82 Sep-82 14.71
13-Sep-82 Aug-82 15.03
12-Aug-82 Jul-82 14.96
13-Jul-82 Jun-82 15.01
11-Jun-82 May-82 15.57
12-May-82 Apr-82 15.39
12-Apr-82 Mar-82 15.07
12-Mar-82 Feb-82 15.22
12-Feb-82 Jan-82 15.371981
Announcement Date/Index Month/ Index Value
12-Jan-82 Dec-8 15.53
14-Dec-81 Nov-81 15.8
12-Nov-81 Oct-81 15.47
13-Oct-81 Sep-81 15.38
14-Sep-81 Aug-81 15.03
12-Aug-81 Jul-81 14.77
13-Jul-81 Jun-81 14.4
10-Jun-81 May-81 14.19
12-May-81 Apr-81 13.99
10-Apr-81 Mar-81 13.91
12-Mar-81 Feb-81 13.73
11-Feb-81 Jan-81 13.241980
Announcement Date/Index Month/ Index Value13-Jan-81 Dec-80 13.15
11-Dec-80 Nov-80 12.85
10-Nov-80 Oct-80 12.31
10-Oct-80 Sep-80 12
11-Sep-80 Aug-8 11.89
11-Aug-80 Jul-80 12.23
11-Jul-80 Jun-80 12.88
11-Jun-80 May-80 13.74
21-May-80 Apr-80 13.21
7-May-80 Mar-80 12.56
7-Apr-80 Feb-80 12.3
3-Apr-80 Jan-80 11.78see: http://www.erate.com/mortgage_rates_history.htm
(scroll down for historical conventional fixed rates)
The devil is in the details …
It doesn’t matter about perceived “wage growth” when determining a (mortgaged) SD homeowner’s accepted present lifestyle. It only matters what their income was at the time they signed up to pay the mortgage note they agreed to take on. I feel that many homeowners today (esp first-timers) take on way too much mortgage debt than is wise for their families because they can’t possibly fathom themselves living in what they perceive as a “starter home” or in a “working-class area” or both, G@d forbid! Yes, these new millennial homeowners may have banked upon (perceived) “wage growth” in SD County at the time of taking out their huge mortgages, which, historically speaking, has not EVER kept up with the rest of the nation’s coastal markets and never will, IMO.
Such was not the case when SD boomers, for example, were buying homes to raise their families in. Part of the reason for this is that boomers did not ever have very much new construction to choose from which wasn’t too far away from SD’s major workcenters of the era and SD County’s freeways were not as wide or numerous as they are today.
Livinincali, what the median household income in SD County today?
Participant[quote=spdrun]That’s just a laser diode. No.
What you need is something that feeds audio into the changer connector on your radio.
If you know the pinouts of the connector, you can build it yourself.[/quote]
Uhhhh, I took AC/DC current as an elective in college in 1976 and all I remember of it is “E-I-R,” which I couldn’t explain correctly to you today :=(
I think I may have a couple of neighbors who could assist me if I have already done the legwork and acquired a box that will work.
Meanwhile, I’ll have to get out at gas stations on the road and change my platters … which I’m used to doing.
Participant[quote=spdrun]If you have a CD changer, you can inject audio from a 3.5mm jack directly into the cable from the radio to changer. Figure out what the pinouts are, make a box that switches between the 3.5 mm jack and CD input.
That’s how you connect a music player — works much better than a cassette adapter.[/quote]
Okay, I’ll have to get the schematic of the back of my car’s Lexus Sound System online. If there is a way to do this, I’m sure those boxes exist somewhere. Progressive did some research for me also and couldn’t find a way, either, without possibly ripping out the (burl) dash and installing funky-looking aftermarket crap in there with a bright blue readout … yikes!
I’m no electronic guru. Could this possibly be the box that you’re talking about, spd? I found it on e-bay and put it on my “watch list”:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/121638026629?_trksid=p2055119.m1438.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT
The Pioneer CDX657 (6-disc) and CDX1257 (12 disc), both circa 1999 are compatible with my vehicle and wiring.
Participant[quote=spdrun]If you have a CD changer, you can feed audio from a 3.5mm jack directly into the cable from the radio to changer.
That’s how you connect a music player — works much better than a cassette adapter.[/quote]
Well the trunk mounted changer for my vehicle doesn’t have any jacks at all, nor does my “Pioneer for Lexus” portion of my dash.
Participant[quote=spdrun] . . . I much preferred the glassy, airy look of 80s and 90s cars.[/quote]
Me too. And they’re MUCH more “streamlined” looking. They don’t have 1.5 to 3 ft of their trunks cut off and a portion of the trunk shoved under the back seat resulting in less interior room for MORE $$$$, like the post-2000 sedans are built. This is true for nearly all makes and models.
One of the main problems with the interior of vehicles of this era which are still on the road is LED failure in the dash. However these problems can be fixed, either with piecemeal aftermarket parts or simply dropping a new (rebuilt) console into the dash (if most or all of the necessary gauges in the electronic dash went out).
Believe it or not, a HUGE cottage industry exists for older vehicle parts, both hard parts and all manner of interior and exterior (body) parts. If an owner of an older-vehicle subscribes to online databases nationwide, it doesn’t take too long at all for almost anything their vehicle needs to become available for purchase and shipping … even something small but annoying like a stretched out seatbelt or one with a broken clip! Most salvaged or rebuilt hard parts have a 90-day or more guarantee and used/rebuilt engines/transmissions usually have a one-year guarantee. Most electronic parts out of major wrecking yards have been bench-tested prior to advertising for sale and have a 90-day guarantee.
I recently scored a 20-year-old trunk-mounted CD changer made by Pioneer for Toyota in excellent condition which was OEM for my vehicle on e-bay for $60. I had it installed by Progressive in SD and it is so awesome to have my music again! I didn’t have to pay for rewiring or destroy my vehicle’s factory dash and I can now play my platters on the road again 🙂
I haven’t been able to successfully find a way to play mp3s inside my car. Three different brands of audiocassette adapters all failed to work properly (even after cracking them open and tinkering with them), due to the auto-reverse feature of my cassette deck. I haven’t been able to find any direct way to play music from my phones (with active and inactive SIMS) inside my car.
There is always more than nine ways to skin a cat, folks. The bottom line is that older vehicles are much cheaper to operate and insure … yes, even with repairs factored in. I just outfitted mine with a set of 4 new comfy V-rated Michelins with a 3-yr alignment on Monday and then went home and applied for my $70 rebate. I am now ready to hit the road again!
ParticipantI want to repeat here again that the climate in SD County has NEVER been conducive to operating a single-earner household of 3 or more persons while simultaneously a homeowner with a mortgage plus all the other expenses which go along with homeownership.
The exception is if one of the owners “inherits” their residence from parents/grandparents or the “sole breadwinner-borrower” makes $200-$250K per year, depending on size of mortgage taken out.
This has ALWAYS BEEN the case in SD County so it should come as no surprise to those families affected by QC’s layoff who elected to “put all their eggs in one basket” . . . in my mind, a very unwise move in this day and age.
Because of the prevailing mortgage interest rates of different eras, it DOESN’T MATTER how much the household’s mortgage balance is/was as the higher or MUCH higher interest rate and lower wages of each previous era resulted in the same declination of standard of living as experienced today in single-income 3+ person households.
So for those who live in areas with many paid-off homes, it should be some consolation to know that your neighbor who paid off their $45K to $150K mortgage years ago likely did so after a lot of blood, sweat and tears. It was no easier for a homeowner to attempt to pay off $97K at 9-14% than it is to attempt to pay off $417K at 3-4% today, especially when factoring in the lower salaries of previous decades.
Participant[quote=flu]Well, we will find out this afternoon. I don’t think the bulk of the cuts, if anything major will come from San Diego. I think the bulk of the cuts will come from Bay Area and elsewhere.
They bought like 3 wireless connectivity companies (Atheros, CSR, and I forget some one before Atheros). There’s probably more than one team competing against each other doing the exact same thing. kinda like we were when our company bought 3 LTE companies…. We know how that ended. 🙁
I don’t think this will drastically impact SD housing market per se, since it seems like the SD professional market is now pretty well diversified. Biotech seems to be doing very well at this moment.
A lot of the engineering households that are already able to afford north county (which itself is a problem…affordability), for example, tend to be dual income households to begin with, most likely both professionals (particularly the asian and indian households). So the difference is that a $300-400k/year household goes to about around $200k/year household. There’s probably going to be some people that relocate out (single income households, that also has the bad luck of not being able to find something else), but then there’s still these influx of other buyers (foreign and domestic) that aren’t even tied to Qualcomm or engineering for that matter.
It sucks for the people impacted, but life goes on for everyone else.[/quote]
Agree with this whole post expect for one minor caveat. That is, housing unaffordability problems exist ALL OVER the county, not just in North County. It is just as far of a commute to QC from many points in North Coastal and North Inland County as it is from “affluent areas” in East and South County (SD affluent areas such as LJ, PL, MH and CV are situated closer to QC), thus QC employee-homeowners have always been spread out across the county, especially the more senior ones who joined QC long ago, when commuting was easier.
This QC action speaks LOUDLY for having a dual-income household in SD …. MOST ESPECIALLY during the years one is attempting to raise minor children and give them a long-term, stable home.
Similar mass layoffs occurred in SD in the early nineties but they were mostly the fairly well-paying factory jobs of SEVERAL major local employers at one time, causing more widespread local layoffs. As I recall, these laid-off employees’ homes that flooded the market were listed by sellers who either retired in lieu of layoff and decided to relocate or by sellers who could no longer sustain themselves in the area after layoff (single-income households with minor children). The second type of seller is particularly (financially) vulnerable to layoffs … almost immediately to the point of relocation being a necessity for them. Yes, many single-family listings flooded the market at that time (I believe the worst year was in ’94) and I recall most of them were located in Clairemont, Allied Gardens, Linda Vista and all points south within SD and South County (Rohr Industries and Vulcan Rubber in South County were among the closing plants during this era).
Correction: the Vulcan Plant has apparently moved to Otay Mesa and is still in (limited) operation … my bad. I was referring to the power plant located on the bottom of SD’s bayfront, which employed several hundred local workers, including boilermakers making $27 – $37 hr. After closing over 20 years ago, it was finally demolished in 2013 with much aplomb:
http://articles.latimes.com/2013/feb/03/local/la-me-0203-power-plant-20130203
July 21, 2015 at 11:39 PM in reply to: Is staying below FHA loan limits a major factor for investors? #788104ParticipantKristopherSD, don’t decide to make offers in SD County based upon whether your “competition” (other buyers) are using FHA financing. The FHA programs were never in very wide use here. My area is full of flippers and I can tell you that they look at properties at all price points (well below $1M) if they think there is some profit in it. Sure, they’ll buy a fixer all cash for over $500K if they think they can quickly resell it for $750K but those deals are harder to find than the $300-$425K “bread and butter” house that will sell for $380-$525K). Flippers don’t necessarily sell to FHA buyers and would prefer not to, due to the fact that they often cut corners when doing quick facelifts in an attempt to cover up major flaws (even structural). The last thing flippers want to deal with is an FHA appraiser who is going to reject the property for a myriad of reasons. Just because a property is priced under the San Diego FHA loan limit does NOT mean that FHA is the predominant financing used in a given area or even that ONE seller in that area has accepted an FHA offer in the past several years!
I don’t think the use of FHA financing is very prevalent in La Mesa 91941 (east of Windsor Hill) or at all prevalent in 91942. It might be accepted in a handful of offers per year (3-6?) in the part of 91941 bordering Lemon Grove and SD College area. I believe that the eastern part of 91941 has a very high percentage of all-cash sales (50%+?). The reason is twofold. (1) The housing inventory in 91941 (eastern portion) averages out to over 70 years old and the FHA is particular when it comes to lending on older properties. And, (2) 91941 (eastern) is the most unique area of SD San Diego County, IMO. It has many period homes as well as many custom homes with expansive views situated higher up. This eclectic mix of “character” homes all in one small city can be found nowhere else in the county. Even down in the village, there are several notable “Mills Act” homes and the area (although hot in the summer) is extremely inviting and walkable with lines of 100+ year-old date trees.
In short, sellers in most of LM have much better offers to pick from than those of FHA buyers.
Allied Gardens is a flipper favorite playground due to uniformity of floor plans (fairly easy to predict rehab costs) and having lots of available community services for families (families with children are attracted to it for that reason and its close-in proximity to all SD has to offer). Honestly, it is much cheaper (in loan costs) to get a conventional loan to buy a single family home, the buyer closes much faster and it is a whole lot less headache due to FHA’s extremely high MIPs and the inability to get rid of it easily or timely.
Moderate and lower-income buyers who would have no choice but to buy a home using FHA financing (due to inability to save a reasonable downpayment) would NOT be shopping in La Mesa or Allied Gardens. They would be combing through slim pickings out in Lakeside, El Cajon, SE SD or Spring Valley or up in Riverside County duking it out on nearly every listing with buyers who aren’t using FHA financing.
And if you’re considering a condo/pud, most complexes in SD County have too many rentals in the mix for a unit in the complex to qualify for FHA financing.
In short, for buyers considering making FHA offers in SD County, good luck to them. They might have more luck in the outskirts of Kansas City. If you want to make conventional offers, then go right ahead and don’t worry about what your type of offers your competition is making. You only need to get an accepted offer on ONE property.
Also (in LM especially), if you think you will need $50K for rehab work, budget $100-$150K for sight-unseen surprises. For a fixer in Allied Gardens, budget $50-75K. In either case, plan to do all the work you possibly can yourself and only hire tradespeople when absolutely necessary.
Participant[quote=svelte]No longer our little secret.
. . . The company employs 31,000 workers worldwide, including more than 15,000 in San Diego. Two- thirds of its workers are engineers. Its last layoff occurred in December, when about 600 employees were let go.
In addition to San Diego, Qualcomm also has roughly 3,000 workers in the Bay Area from its 2011 acquisition of Wi-Fi chip maker Atheros. Other locations include Colorado, New England, North Carolina, New Jersey and Texas, as well as overseas.
The cuts are expected to occur across the board, impacting all business units. According to employees, the cuts have been characterized as a pruning but not a fundamental change in the way the company operates….
In the US alone, Qualcomm has 7 locations, including SD, which has the most employees (16K).
According to the article, QC’s roughly 4K in employee cuts will be worldwide. Assuming arguendo that they won’t cut employees in countries where wages are much lower than the US, 4K out of 31K employees is about 12% of its workforce. If the cuts are across the board, then 12% of its 16K SD workforce = 1920 employees. A handful of those employees also have other household members working at QC. So let’s say 1900 SD households are affected adversely by layoff (primary breadwinner of hshld). Let’s assume 75% of them are homeowners or 1425 of them. We should also assume that a large fraction of these layoffs could be forced retirements of longtime employees who may have their homes paid off or nearly paid off. A large fraction of the laid off employees may also have other household members working FT who are making just as much or more than they are.
Even if ~2500 employees are laid off in SD, I don’t think QC’s actions will cause cratering of property values, even in zip codes close to their HQ. I don’t believe that the majority of QC employees who are homeowners live in the same or an adjacent zip code as QC. Perhaps employees who are renters generally do but not homeowners. It didn’t always take as long as it does today to get to QC from various parts of the county. I feel that many/most? longtime homeowners who were in QC’s original groups of employees and have not yet retired actually never moved since their hire (or since they bought a home shortly after their hire) and still live in their original homes.
So I just don’t see where SD’s housing market will be affected at all by what happens at QC this year. I predict that whatever the effect of SD’s housing market in relation to whatever QC decides to do with its SD employees will be a drop in the bucket. At the very most, a few more listings may trickle on the market from lower-rung more newly-hired employees who can’t sustain themselves without their QC job … that is, from the laid off ones who are actually homeowners. That’s a good thing, isn’t it?
ParticipantYou can get a passport now with a special border crossing card for $30 or $60 more (can’t remember). I just renewed my passport which expired 18 years ago and just had to make an appt to bring my old one into the SD dtn office, fill out a form and meet a human officer briefly so he/she could see for themselves that I’m the same person. I signed a declaration under oath and paid the fees and rec’d the docs in the mail 8 days later.
The new docs are beautiful and fancy!
I guess those new border crossing cards (for MX/CAN) must vet a returning US citizen into the “ready” lane. I haven’t experimented with it yet.
Yeah, spdrun, I used to roam freely between Ensenada, Rosarito and Tijuana and the US almost weekly. But that was before 9/11 when it was possible to do so without docs. We even drove to La Paz a couple of times in an old Ford pickup with 3 gas tanks! (This was before it was paved all the way down there and “resort-like.”)
I don’t travel internationally but just mainly renewed so I can go “rescue” my kids (with a lawyer in tow, if necessary) if they become hospitalized or get in trouble or otherwise detained while out of the country. Their dad has a Sentri pass but has a wacky schedule and is often 1000 miles or more into MX for weeks at a time.
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