[raptorduck]

sdceller, that is about the rent we would plan on paying if we decide not to buy just yet. We figure $1 for ever square foot and we would need at least a 5k sf house to rent an older house RSF. When I lived in Del Mar 10 years ago, my roomate and I paid $4,500/month for an 1,800 sf house on 10th Street (well worth it!).

Yes, as the other folks here have indicated, that is a lot lower than a mortgage, even with a large down.

[raptorduck]

Good points Fearful. I do remember the marine layer when I lived in Del Mar and know that Cielo also gets clouds. Everything is relative. I have never been to Seattle on a sunny day and I have been there a lot. In the east, every day seemed cloudy, until I went to Seattle. In the Bay Area, every day seemed sunny, until I went to San Diego.

You are also correct that when you can afford more homes, decisions get tougher. Now I would not say I an afford 99% of RSF, more like 60% seems to be the case for me in my price range, but up here I don’t have that problem. There are 3 homes in my price range for sale that I would even remotely be interested and not one of them is any where as nice as the worst home out of the 34 homes we will have already viewed in 3 trips to SD by this Monday. All 34 were/are nice and 20 of them very nice with at least a half dozen dream homes to me.

If the worse one of them were up here, we would probably go, “wow, that is a dream house.” Your standards change. And the “dream” homes we saw down there just don’t exist up here (at least where we would look). The ones just below that would be $10 million plus homes here (at least where we woudl look).

That is simply because 6,000-8,000 sf homes are so rare on the Penninsula that they can sell for a serious premium. The lowest priced 6k sf home I saw in Los Altos Hills was a new developer home that was very poor quality and shoddy workmanship on 1 acre that was selling for $5 million, and that was after 3 price drops! I viewed it because the price seemd so dirt cheap for the square footage? It was a Mediteranian so easy to compare to RSF houses I saw. Not even close in quality and it was a big box rectangle and no pool and sparse landscaping AND right next to (I mean glued to) loud Highway 280 (just jump over the fence and get run over at 80mph).

There are very high quality built homes in LAH and the Bay Area of course, but not at that price range. The nicest one I saw in LAH in the Mediteranian style was well done, but not as nice as most I saw in RSF as to details. But it was much much higher quality that the 6k sf house above. It was 4,600sf and selling for $4.4 million, right at the top of my range.

[raptorduck]

Anyone from Cielo care to plug the area? It seems to have taken some good hits here from commentators. We saw some very nice, albeit McMansionish houses there. A few of the views made us want to ignore its isolation and the whole commute thing, not to mention the McMansion feeling.

[raptorduck]

25 Reasons why I love San Diego.

25. I grew up in Connecticut.
24. I hate the cold.
23. I hate clouds, of any kind. Even nice clouds. They just bug me.
22. Not much for rolling hills comprising 99% elm trees, comprising 99% of a state.
21. Never been into Tudors, Cape Cod, Craftsmen, French country, or country architectual styles.
20. I have lived in Florida.
19. I hate humid tropical weather.
18. Not a big fan of hurricanes and thundershowers so dense you have to pull over immediately to avoide geting clobbered on the interstate.
17. Not much for flat, flat, flat countryside where the highest point is a highway overpass.
16. Not much into Plantation or Victorian architecture.
15. I live in the Bay Area
14. Not into weather warm enough to dress down for, but too cold to dress down for.
13. Not into beaches you can only look at unless you want to freaze to death, get eaten by a Great White, or be pulled to your death by a rip current.
12. Not into Ranch Style Homes at all.
11. $3.5-$4.5 mil will get me 3,500-4,500 sf of 50 year old never updated Ranch home in an area that people here think as bling, unless they have been to La Jolla, RSF, Beverly Hills, or Bakersfield.
10. I have lived in San Diego.
9. I love warm and dry weather with ocean breezes.
8. I love beaches you can actually swim in.
7. I love palm trees and tropical flora.
6. I love 320 sunny days a year or whaterver it is.
5. I love diverse landscape.
4. I love Spanish Mediteranian, Spanish Revival, Spanish Colonial, Spanish Mission, Spanish Hacienda, and Tuscan architecture.
3. I served our country there
2. I met my wife there and married her there.
1. My wife says we must move back to SD.

[raptorduck]

Rule #4, no bidding wars, period. RSF and surrounding areas is an embarrasment of riches for very very nice homes. We did like the house, but rules is rules. I just think it a big mistake to bid on a house with more than one bid in this market, particularly if there is a large inventory of the kind of houses we want. RSF is nothing but the kind of houses we want.

If that were up here in the Bay Area, maybe perhaps I would consider . . . . never mind, not here either. Not in this market, no way. We may be looking for a house to retire in, but if my wife falls for the pool boy and we get divorced I need to make sure my half of equity is enough to hire the People’s lawyer.

[raptorduck]

Thanks to everyone for their very insightful comments. They were very helpful.

An interesting note. We decided to look a second time at one of the houses in FBR that has been on the market for a very long time (140+ days) and had only had one offer prior to us reviewing it. When we contacted seller’s agent, she indicated that there were two offers that had just come in that day, but would show it to us anwyay. Amazing coincedence.

I immediately told my agent to pull that house from our list and indicate to seller’s agent we were not interested in it any more and move on. If what seller’s agent said is true, which is somewhat suspect, there is no need for us to get into a bidding war in this market anyway. Interesting coincidence though.

[raptorduck]

Theory on why SD prices have dropped so much. No lock boxes in RSF. Now up here, I looked for a while in places like Los Altos Hills and Atherton, which are more expensive than RSF. I looked in the same price range and even let my broker show me a $15 million home I would never or could never buy. In all cases they were on lock boxes and she could show them to me any time.

In RSF everything is by appointment. If the listing agent is out of town, (as is the case for two homes we wanted to tour) you don’t get to look at the house. For out of town buyers that may mean you never considered tht house. How does that help the seller? If folks are having trouble finding buyers in RSF and houses are staying on the market 100+ days, seems to me you would want to maximize the chances of potential buyers actually seeing your property. Just my two cent.

[raptorduck]

I suppose I should not move to a dessert if I like palm trees so much.

[raptorduck]

Testing the commute to Cielo and Del Mar Meadows this weekend. I will drive from CV to Cielo in the middle of rush hour, which should be the worst commute of all our options. What has us still looking at Cielo is the views and the low prices for what you can get. One house we are looking at we should be able to get $1 million below what it was listed for last year!

We are now looking at a house at Del Mar Meadows, which I now understand is right next to the place we looked at before, Meadows Del Mar (how confusing!). I know that commute is a snap, but commute is not the #1 priority as the worst commute (Cielo) is still 3 times shorter than my current one.

Anyone have an answer for my Santaluz landscaping restriction question from earlier?

[raptorduck]

In terms of Fairbanks, we have seen a number of very nice houses in our price range, albeit on the higher side of it. There are some smaller/more dated ones we also saw that we could update or expand (assuming it is permitted)that were around $3 mil or less.

Comps for the past 6 months show pretty steady drops in FBR and sales prices about 90%+ of asking. While we prefer to buy at least a 10 yr house and preferbly a 20 yr house, you never know what life brings so we always want to maximize appreciation where possible. But this is not a flip situation and we are not looking for a “transition” home either.

I suppose if a year from now we have still not bought anything, we could consider renting until we do. But until then, we don’t need to move, just to rent, although your idea of renting and getting a feel for the area is a very good one.

I should note that I have lived in SD before for short periods (1 year each time). Once in the military on base and also in Del Mar (10th street) and Carmel Valley so I have a good feel for those areas. My last stint there was 10 yrs ago and my frame of mind so different back then (i.e. single bachelor life) that my prior experience in SD is utterly useless to me as a family man now. I am not lookig for cool, active, busy places to party any more and be seen, but rather quiet places to peacfully raise a family and grow old gracefully. That is probably why I never noticed RSF really when I lived there before.

While I often drove through RSF on weekends on my motorcycle back then, I never did so on weekdays and never really went into neighborhoods or knew much about the area. I had never been to FBR or even knew where it was, although now I realize I often drove near it. What has impressed me the most about FBR is not just the very nice homes, but how consistantly well manicured they all are. We do also like guarded gated communities for the added actual/or artificial security.

[raptorduck]

Sure we could rent, but we don’t like to pack and move so only want to do it once. We can stay where we are and hold out for at least another 12 months if needed. Since we are not desperate, we will only buy when we find the perfect house at a price that will provide some protection against further declines.

My current commute is 24 miles and 1-1.5 hrs in Bay Area gridlock! That is what I am trying to improve upon. Seems I am looking at under 1/2 hr from RSF to CV through some very pretty roads. Anything is better than 5 lanes of herds of metal.

[raptorduck]

Thanks. I will ask my agent about those. I think we saw a house in Del Mar Country Club. Is it near RSF Farms? It was gated, but w/o a guard. I did notice this week that Santaluz is Poway school district, but those seem pretty good as well.

One thing my agent told me about Santaluz is that they prefer drought resistant landscaping. Looking at pictures it looks kind of like a dessert. The houses look great, but we prefer lush tropical landscaping and not dessert terrain. Are there CC&R’s in Santaluz that would prevent us from planting palm trees and putting in more grass?

FBR is our preference, but finding the right house in our price range is another story. It is the views that have us still thinking about Cielo. Prices are lower too. We are not looking to spend as much as we can afford just because we can. We are looking for the best house for our family in those areas at the right price for that particular house.

[raptorduck]

Thank you for your comment on FBR. Interesting that you prefer North Gate. We toured houses in both. Seems to me NG is slightly older. I found the homes in South Gate more striking and we are preferring it over North Gate, although that is really splitting hairs. NG has the equestrian center, large lake, and club we noticed. Both are amazing. There is nothing remotely as nice as FBR in the Bay Area IMHO.

I don’t play golf, but we would want to join a club for the non-golfing things. I always hear, however, that homes along the fairway etc are worth more and appreciate more. We toured one next to the Del Mar golf course (which, was not in Del Mar?).

The commute sounds not so good. When we have been there on the weekend, traffic has been light compared to bay area mountain weekend traffic. I will be there Friday and maybe we should drive those commutes during rush hour to see.

We think it is best for our family because we can buy much larger homes in RSF and the lots are big. We have a large extended family that will be visiting often and we plan on 6 children of our own (3 so far). That is the criteria. We liked the privacy/seclusion of RSF, country type setting, while still being only a few miles from the beach. While we thought Del Mar was gorgeous, particularly west of Camino Del Mar, it was too dense for our needs and the homes smaller than we prefer. When we looked at schools, CV schools actually seemed a little better than RSF schools, but both were pretty comprable to the schools our kids are in up here. There is always private school.

[raptorduck]

Thanks for your comments. Unfortunately, I don’t have unlimited funds. Although I can spend up to $4.5 million, I prefer to spend $3.5 million or less and pay a fair amount below asking in this market. That does not get you all that much in the nice parts of the Bay Area, not much at all. It gets you about 1/2 of what you can get in RSF.

For the record, while I recently owned an Aston Martin, I don’t own a Benteley, although I reserve the right to buy one if it fits in RSF. 😉

Del Mar Mesa? I think the Del Mar Medows/Grand Del Mar house we toured was in Del Mar Mesa? I thought it was overpriced for what you got compared to other houses I saw down there and the houses too close to eachother. The lot was about the right size though. Our minimum preference is 1 acre.

Traffic is one concern, particularly from Cielo. All one lane roades I noticed in RSF. I commute in off hours, so my bigger concern is for my wife when she is taking the kids places in RSF, going shopping, to the mall etc. We nixed La Jolla primarily due to traffic getting in and out. We nixed Del Mar because you get so much less sf/lot for the $$, although in some cases, the view/beach proximity had us really thinking. We need a large house on a large lot as we are a large family.

Speaking of which, where do people buy their groceries or go to the mall if they live in FBR, Cielo, Santaluz etc?

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