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bearishgurl
Participantsdsurfer, how big is your lot (in Encinitas)? Since you are in the family-growing-and-raising stage, I don’t see you being able to stay in your (coveted) Encinitas if you later decide to sell and then shop for a larger house in the future. I see you having to shop in a lesser-desirable community such as PQ, Poway or Esco or the various new developments in SD County’s “lizardland” where you will pay MR into oblivion if you wish to remain in SD North County.
If your lot is adequate for it, it is cheaper to add-on to your present house than move, IMO. I don’t know what part of Encinitas you live in but if your lot is over 7500 sf and you do not have intermittent train noise, then I feel you will be able to recoup the cost of a major remodel or addition in your sales price when or if you decide to retire elsewhere.
Participant[quote=new to SD] . . . I completely own that I followed the loan agreement and own the fact that I deserve a drop in my FICO[/quote]
You’re damned straight you do.
new to SD, you seem to be able to save money these days at a pretty rapid clip. Why don’t you just wait another 3-4 years until you have the funds to make all-cash offers instead of trying to borrow someone else’s (very expensive to you) money.
In doing so, your odds will increase exponentially that you will actually be able to consummate a successful deal, given that your three “choice” areas you aspire to shop in are among the highest-priced and most coveted areas to live in SD County 🙂
GOOD LUCK!
Participant[quote=new to SD]I will tell you my logic when I followed my loan contract and avoid the moral decision
My past mortgage was 6% fixed and I could not get a refinance because it was underwater.
Today with my bad credit I will pay 10% or 11%. This is 4% over my old loan. This will cost me an extra $20,000 to $25,000 a year but it is tax deductible.
After a 40% tax benefit that cost me $12,000 to $15,000 after tax more per year. It would take 8 -10 years to make up for the $120,000 negative equity
I feel I will be able to refinance in two years for another 6% mortgage.
I can get 11% today but hoping for 9% or 10%.[/quote]
new to SD, you stated your former SM home has already risen in value $80K in the 11 months (September 2012) since you claim you closed your “voluntary short sale.”
Why do you think it would take another 8-10 years to regain another $120K in value?
Either your former neighborhood is “booming” right now or you sold your former home at a huge (artificial) discount (far below build-cost since SEH is relatively new). This makes one wonder if your agent even marketed your home on the MLS over the mandatory one minute at midnight, while they printed out the listing for your lender to show that they “marketed it” and then subsequently slid a relative’s ultra-low offer through to your (out-of-state?) lender with fraudulent “recent sold comps” from a (lower-priced) adjacent area in order to get them to accept it.
I suspect a little of both has taken place here.
In the MEANTIME, you’ve apparently managed to save $175K – $300K? for a new downpayment for a home with a purchase price of up to $1M after a SS of just 11 months ago and expect to now find a lender who is willing to loan you a jumbo or jumbo-conforming mortgage.
new to SD, I’m just wondering here how much of your new downpayment was saved while you were “squatting” mortgage-free to “qualify” yourself for a “voluntary” deeply-discounted short sale … on the backs of your neighbor’s values, of course.
You state here you “strategically defaulted” because you could not refinance out of 6% mortgage because you were underwater. Now you have no problem with taking on a higher mortgage at 9-11% (if offered to you, likely with I/O and a balloon pymt, a hefty and lengthy prepayment penalty, 4-5 pts up front and a host of garbage charges). Let us examine why you now want to borrow MORE money than the amount you defaulted on in SM? Could it be because you think you now deserve to “upgrade” your lifestyle to a “better” community?
[quote=new to SD]We also have been waiting to buy and are new to SD. We are looking but there is not much available.
Are there any areas in Encinitas, Rancho sante fe or Carmel Valley that have 1 acre that you would recommend?[/quote]
http://piggington.com/bought_after_waiting_8_years#comment-220517
Do I have this correct, new to SD?
I’m curious as to how long you thought it would take to raise your FICO score up past 600 after your “strategic” SS?
[quote=new to SD]Will this lender lend to a FICO score below 600? I had a short sale and it is taking longer than planned to get my score up[/quote]
http://piggington.com/please_help_refi_question#comment-231896
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This is the just the type of “entitlement mentality” that gets the many thousands of successful longtime homeowners’ blood boiling.
Participantnew to SD, there are probably a few lenders out there to serve you but you wouldn’t want the terms.
You won’t get much sympathy here. Obviously, you could have afforded to “hang on” until the value of your property in SM “righted itself.”
It is the thousands of “solvent” homedebtors like yourself who were the direct cause of severely plummeting home values in recent years for your more prudent homeowner-counterpart who kept their noses to the grindstone and didn’t overbuy and/or overborrow.
I think you would be much better off continuing to rent for another 2-4 years than to find a “shark” to finance your next home purchase.
Every action has a consequence as you now realize.
Participant[quote=CDMA ENG][quote=CA renter]
And I may be wrong, but weren’t you part of the group who liked to refer to BG and I as the “anvil sisters,” because we have differing points of view — with both of us having worked in the public sector. And if I’m misguided, please clarify things for me so that I can get a better understanding of privatization and how it will save taxpayers money **in the real world** (vague theories and opinions don’t count). I follow these things very closely, and have never seen any evidence to support your claims, but you seem to think that you know more about it than I do…so please show us the evidence that supports your claims.[/quote]Nope… Not me… I am not in that group. I think you are quite reasonable in most other areas. I will make no bones about the fact I think BG is nerotic. I don’t like her and never have. But you do get a bit zealous, when discussing unions, and your mind is not open on this subject…
I am quite capable of being a jerk… This is just not that time.
Missed that bit of theater when they called you Anvil sister… funny though…
CE[/quote]Uhh, I believe it IS “that time.”
And I believe CE to be overly paranoid and borderline delusional … due to a variety of issues he has previously admitted to here … so take his posts with a grain of salt, folks…
Participant[quote=SD Realtor]Hmmm… Several cities I have rentals in out of state have private trash collection. Seems like there is not an explosion of prices.[/quote]Actually, Republic now picks up our trash in Chula Vista. They bought Allied Waste, who bought Laidlaw several years earlier. They pick up EVERYONE’s trash in the incorporated area. For the 39 gallon TRASH bin, 90 gal recycle bin and 90 gal yard waste bin, they charge ~$29 bimonthly. HOWEVER, in the UNINCorporated areas (the closest one being ~3 blocks away), they charge over $72 for the same (bimonthly) service. This tells me that the CITY was and is subsidizing Republic (and earlier, Allied Waste and Laidlaw) for trash pickup. However, the charge does not appear on our tax bills as it does in some county unincorporated areas. This tells me it is subsidized by the CITY’s general fund (partly derived from “Teeter funds” which are property taxes confiscated by the state and later returned to the cities and counties from whence they came.
Even though Republic (and its predecessors’) main office is located at the Otay Landfill in Chula Vista, we are now required to send our bimonthly payments to Phoenix (snail mail only).
Go figure that one out. Is it a monopoly? I would say YES! Is it “unionized?” No. There is no “People’s Ordinance” in place in the City of Chula Vista and the collectors are NOT “civil servants.”
Hence, except for comm’l RE and large apt bldgs (who can choose their trash p/u provider), SFR and 2-4 unit owners cannot “choose” their provider in the incorporated area.
I would venture that SD East County cities have the same type of “contract” with EDCO (of Lemon Grove).
Folks, “privatization” doesn’t always work out the way the “free-market” proponents think it “ought to.”
In SD County, for all practical purposes, in the incorporated cities outside of the City of SD, residential trash collection is NOT a “free market” and never will be.
So get that silly notion out of your over-thinking heads.
Participant[quote=flyer]Actually, the lifestyle FlyerInHi described is probably perfect for some people–so, IMO, and as another poster mentioned–no judgement call can really be made on who has a “better life.”
Personally, we’ve lived and visited enough places to know we want our home base to remain in San Diego, with extended travel elsewhere. We have many friends who have purchased properties elsewhere, living in two or more places, and most have ended up coming back home to CA.
They are very glad they kept their homes here–especially as they got older and couldn’t, or did not want to travel as much–so I’ve seen both sides of this equation.
All of us are only here for a relatively short time, so, again, IMO, the main thing is to love life–wherever you choose live![/quote]
Agree flyer, especially on the points you made on this thread (in so many words):
-It’s wise for a longtime CA coastal-county resident-retiree to keep their principal residence (as a rental?) if they decide to try out another locale to retire in as it could prove to be very difficult to impossible to “buy it back” on a later date if they should decide the grass wasn’t greener at the new locale and wish to return to coastal CA.
-Every retiree has their own view of what they want their retirement to be like and what is feasible and not feasible for them;
-Life is too short to waste your time living in an area you are not happy in. This applies to all ages;
-and, if one’s health should decline, their options for and desire for travel and adventure could be permanently curtailed, thus the need for a home base they are happy with.
Like you, more than 75% of the time I travel I stay with friends or relatives or combination of both. I often “move houses” every 2-3 days. I prefer this to staying in hotels and it’s not really about the money. As Pigg ER has posted here a few times, it’s about having the comforts of a real home to stay in while being able to visit my loved ones on their home turf and even ride their horses and ride around in their “vintage” restored cars! Almost everyone I stay with has a guest room ready and waiting for me 🙂
In return, I bring discounted 6-packs of assorted CA wines from Vons to share and give away (the same wines are nearly triple the cost there … that is, if you can even find them as grocers are not permitted to sell liquor in the states I frequent) and the liquor stores are closed on Sunday :=0
Participant[quote=The-Shoveler]Actually it’s about 15/18 miles (as a crow flies) depending on where you are to the coast, I have gotten to the beach in 35 minutes sometimes from TV.[/quote]
Ama-a-a-azing, shoveler. In the late 90’s, early ’00’s, I kept seeing articles in the U/T (about overbuilding in Riv Co) stating that Moreno Valley was 60+ mi one way to work (LA area?) for most of its dwellers. Is that 60 mi round trip or 60 mi one way?
Participant[quote=The-Shoveler]You left out the casino, They have penny machines where you can spend the better part of a day on just a few dollars.
I actually won about 6 dollars off one of the machines once.[/quote]Yeah, and the thick cig smoke from the “smoking section” comes out of the ceiling vents in the non-smoking section to pollute ALL patrons’ air.
Gawd, I can’t stand casinos.
Participant[quote=UCGal][quote=bearishgurl]
In other words, while shopping CA, you had much higher standards for a retirement home than you did in HI or France.
[/quote]
Wow – I read the same threads from Jazzman, and did not reach the same conclusion. I have no way of judging whether he had higher standards in one place or the other.… Nor do you.
I will say that he bought *different* homes in HI and France, than he was looking at in Santa Barbara… but that doesn’t mean he was applying lower standards to those homes. Just that he found homes that fit his needs and made him want to purchase in those locations. . . .[/quote]
Uhh, except … he DID apply lower standards to his retirement home search after he decided to give up his home search in CA. He decided he wanted TWO homes for the same investment he was willing to make for ONE residence in CA.
Jazzman states here that he is now purchasing a ~2000 sf home in France which not only does not appear to have a garage big enough to park in, it is located approx 117 miles (188 kms) from the coast.
http://www.distance-calculator.co.uk/distances-for-arcachon-to-sarlat_la_caneda.htm
In addition, he purchased a condo (1300-1400 sf? … IIRC, he posted the size somewhere but can’t recall) last year on or near a beach on the island of Maui, HI, USA.
Correct me if I’m wrong here, Jazzman, but weren’t you looking in the $750K to $1M range in your choice CA coastal cities for a single-family principal residence to retire in? Weren’t all of your first choice cities and areas in CA which you were shopping in situated within five miles of the coast?
Three of the areas on your list (Marin County, Palo Alto? and Santa Barbara) were (and are) epicenters of the original environmental movement on the west coast of the USA. For example, smoking is banned in almost all public places in and out of doors in Santa Barbara proper. No franchises (incl big box stores) or comm’l signage larger than about six feet in diameter and no higher than about 25 ft are have EVER been allowed in the coastal cities of Marin County (incl the bayfront cities of Sausalito and Tiburon).
There are several other CA coastal cities and adjoining enclaves with similarly strict regulations.
This type of regulation doesn’t come cheap. Pristine environment? SURE! Undisturbed open space and protected wetlands? In abundance! It takes an astute city council who understands the far-reaching ramifications of their decisions to realize the gravity of their positions of land stewards of some of the finest coastal land in the world. Unlike the sellout SD city and county officials in prior years and decades (they’re only now beginning to get a clue), officials in other choice CA coastal jurisdictions have ALWAYS been fully cognizant of the ramifications of their votes on the many ordinances before them and managed to vote in the very best interest of the environment of their respective cities and constituents.
These very exclusive areas are the same areas where Jazzman posted he was shopping in between 2010 and 2012.
I have stated repeatedly here that there is nothing wrong with deciding not to purchase a retirement home in any of them, instead deciding to retire elsewhere. Last time I looked, this was a free country and free world.
Again, folks, you get exactly what you pay for in this life. Sometimes you get lucky, but with RE, more often than not, that “luck” was caused from HARD WORK, creating “sweat equity.”
If you will indulge me, Jazzman, I just have a few questions for you:
Did you place offers on any condos in CA?
Did you place offers on any homes without garages or with a (substandard) one-car garage in CA?
Did you place offers on any properties situated over 100 miles from the coast in CA? How about 30 miles from the coast?
In brief, what were the approximate sizes (sf) of the houses you placed offers on in CA?
Thank you in advance of your responses, Jazzman. BTW, the country or farm? house you are buying in France is very pretty as are the photos of surrounding areas you posted 🙂
Your answers should clear up any confusion in this regard so I will “rest my case.”
LOL, Flyer_in_High, is your “Temecula” suggestion supposed to be a tongue-in-cheek depiction of what Jazzman could have purchased there (65-70 mi from the coast) for approx $488,110??
Participant[quote=FormerSanDiegan] . . . it is interesting to compare the trade-offs one can make between say a SFR in coastal So Cal versus 1,2, or even 3 properties scattered about various places. You could even consider a more rural SO Cal spot… say a place in SLO plus the place in France or Hawaii …[/quote]
FSD, I think I suggested Ojai to Jazzman as an alternative to pricey SB in the first thread I pulled up. I don’t recall but either he didn’t find anything he liked there or didn’t want to compromise from SB. Again, nothing wrong with his choice not to.
I thought the “trade-off” subject was interesting as well. In coastal CA (especially the coveted locales of Jazzman’s preference), a RE buyer is paying for past, present and future govm’t regulation in addition to the availability of multiple local public services. Hence, the relatively high cost for what a buyer can get. Even if a “shack” (by Jazzman’s standards) rests on a coastal or near-coastal lot in these areas, you can’t take away its location. It is what it is.
Without that regulation and level of available services, we have the TX panhandle, eastern OK, southern MO, northern LA, central and south FL or the WY plains, among many other US locales to choose from for your RE shopping pleasure :=D
You get what you pay for in this life. If you don’t want to live with regulation and think you don’t need too many services, try shopping in some of the above locales and see what is on offer and for how much. While shopping, don’t become too impressed with online listing photos. GO THERE AND SEE ALL OF IT … THE WHOLE ENVIRONMENT … IN PERSON! And don’t forget to add in the cost of running utilities for 12 months per year 🙂
Participant[quote=no_such_reality]Maybe down in SD, up in OC, a beach sh*thole is $2000/month and anything nice is pushing three.
Shoveler, how many of those boomers will consume their house in retirement? For today’s generation of home buyers to replicate what happened, those $800K homes in Irvine will need to be ten million in 30 years. Maybe Cali will keep growing that way.
Personally, I think the boomers have simply benefited by the pig in python effect coupled with a happy timing of a real estate bubble currently being redriven by historically low interest rates. The next 30 years will be interesting as the boomers become net sellers.
There’s a reason most wealth managers look at assets outside of a primary residence. It’s in what you cited, they won’t sell, or more maybe, can’t sell. Can’t sell without massively changing their life, relocating usually out of the area. In effect, their house is a sunk cost.[/quote]
It’s just as you said, NSR. In retirement, there’s nothing wrong with housing being a “sunk cost.” I don’t see longtime CA boomer owners becoming “net sellers” en masse. Perhaps in other states they might, but not in CA.
Let me ask you, NSR. If you owned a home valued at, say, $500-$600K today which had been your principal residence for decades, you were approaching retirement or already retired and your annual property tax bill was currently $832 (incl voter-approved bonds), would YOU sell now? How about later? At what age would you sell it (assuming at all times you could still take care of yourself and live independently in it)?
Participant[quote=spdrun]What I don’t get is that you can still rent a small place near the beach for under a grand a month if you’re lucky. Drive a cheap, paid-off used car or even a motorbike. Food is cheaper than on the East Coast or in the inland West. No tolls on most freeways. Free beach access, no use fees in summer.
Really the 1000-lb gorilla in the room is health insurance, which is covered if you have a job that provides it, and will become a lot cheaper for freelancers under Obamacare.
Living in SD can be surprisingly cheap if you’re single or a couple w/o kids, especially given that the natural beauty of the area that isn’t replicated in a lot of parts of the US.[/quote]
Very insightful post, spdrun. All true. Kid expenses of every shape and form are the elephant in the room, here. Once kid expenses are over, a parent is finally back to focusing more on their own needs. I have mixed feelings on whether Obamacare will really work out as the PTB are saying it should. This great experiment is going to be interesting to watch, especially the first three years of it … that is, if it lasts that long.
Participant[quote=The-Shoveler] . . . Most the natives I know who have stayed have long since paid off their homes before retirement and you can’t get them to move. maybe I run with a small crowd however.
That is actually a big complaint in San Jose, Retiree’s don’t want to sell and move!!! LOL
The Natives I am talking about are boomer’s who originally bought their homes in the 80’s and 90’s and did not take all the equity out to buy new BMW’s (yes there are many believe it or not).[/quote]
All true, shoveler, except many boomers are still living in a home which they bought in the late ’60’s or early ’70’s for well under $50K. It’s not just SJ … ALL established areas of CA (except those which are grossly overbuilt) will continue to experience less sales listings into the future due to Props 13, 58 and 193 on the books. A CA homeowner, no matter WHAT their age, who is paying just a few hundred in property tax per year would be a fool to sell that “protected” property unless they were forced to move into a board and care facility and absolutely had no heirs who wanted the property for themselves.
It doesn’t matter WHERE the “protected” property is located. If the owner doesn’t want to live there themselves, they can rent it out and retain their ultra-low assessment for their lifetimes and continue to pass the property on to children and grandchildren.
The continuing shortage of listings in CA’s most established (read: generally most-coveted) areas will only result in higher prices in those areas … or at the very least, firmed-up prices in the event of a recession.
The vast majority of CA property owners who don’t have mortgages and also enjoy a very low tax bill have no incentive whatsoever to ever sell. They can’t safely invest the sales proceeds and earn much in this economic climate. It is more profitable for them to rent the property out and use that income to help with their living expenses, if needed, even if they have to hire a PM company to handle everything. It’s nearly all gravy to them 🙂
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