[SD Attorney]

Thanks SD Realtor,

Your comments are always insightful.

I haven’t done any type of mathematical analysis on this property, but I could sleep at night if I bought this property for $350,000.

That seems reasonable to me considering the neighborhood, condition/age of the house, and the way the market is heading.

If that house was in Minnesota, I would make an offer of $130,000 to $150,000. Based on that logic, is the premium to live in San Diego $500,000 (since the listed price is $640,000)??

From a lay person’s prospective, it seems like a big deal to me that the house is currently empty, and has been for some time. Obviously, someone is carrying the property, but they don’t have the luxury to take it off the market and continue to live in it while they wait for better times.

[SD Attorney]

What do you think a fair offer would be?

[SD Attorney]

Juice,

One more thing to think about. In the last two weeks in San Diego I went surfing, went to Tijuana, went hiking in Anza-Borrego, visited friends in LA, going to a photography exhibit tomorrow night, went to yoga class, ate incredible Thai food, went running on the beach in Del Mar, ate great Italian food in Little Italy, went to English Pub on Adams Avenue, ate dinner at Lei Lounge on Park Avenue, took a spanish language class and hit golf balls.

I am from the Midwest, so trust me when I say that in the Midwest your weekly excitement will be going to Applebee’s and watching American Idol. Plus, you will have to put on an extra 100 lbs just to fit in.

Trust me.

[SD Attorney]

gn – good post. I agree.

Being an attorney works like you say. You can work 80 hours a week, have little time to do things outside of work, but make big bucks. Or you can work 40 hours a week, have a great quality of life outside of work, but not make as much money.

The one great thing about being an attorney is that you have a HUGE network of people that you meet throughout your career. I have know a lot of attorney’s that have left the practice of law to enter into joint ventures with other business people and have done great.

If you have a law degree and a good business skills the sky is the limit.

[SD Attorney]

Juice,

Go to law school. Seriously. You will not regret it. You have the rest of your life to work. The longer that you put off law school, or any other graduate program, the harder it will be to break away from your routine and go back to school.

I am a young lawyer, work in San Diego, and have a JD from a top law school. You must face the reality that attorney jobs are extremely difficult to get in San Diego. Extremely. You will take a pay cut, unless you want to work at a large firm, but then you will have no time for your family. I have friends at large firms that often work from 4 am to 10 pm. Not for me.

I grew up in the midwest and know the value of a good education. When you are 80 years old and you look back at the fact that you missed out on a graduate degree because you wanted a larger down payment on a house???? Doesn’t that sound ridiculous.

Go to school. Your kids will be proud!

[SD Attorney]

Hey OC Scammer, sorry to hear about your situation. It sounds like you are doing the right thing and that your lawyer is giving you good advice.

Word to the wise: don’t post what you lawyer is recommending for you to do in such detail. Not a good idea. Have you ever heard of discovery?

[SD Attorney]

I am anxious to see the type of lawsuits that arise in the next few years. Here are the types I see:

1) Construction defects…along with the massive amount of building over the last 5 years came an abundance of shitty construction by untrained illegals.

2) Fraud and misrepresentation. Against RE “professionals”. This will be a big one and should have the RE p’s running scared and hiding assets.

3) Deficiency actions. self-explanatory.

4) Foreclosure actions.

5) Bankruptcy

It is a good time to be an attorney in SoCal. YIPEE!!!!!

[SD Attorney]

I feel sorry for the RE professionals that have paid their dues and made it through the various cycles only to be brought down by all the scam/sham RE professionals in this recent cycle.

I have to be honest, growing up in Minnesota, I never heard the term “investment property” or “flip”. People bought their homes to live in an establish their place in a community.

Southern California has fucked itself now. Nobody even wants to establish a community anymore here. The beach communities are full of college students and vacationers, and the other communities are full of greedy pigs checking “comparables” every day wondering if the time is right.

I think I will have to have a couple of beers tonight to calm down.

[SD Attorney]

Andrast I would have bought when I first moved here if I wasn’t a poor graduate student. I was living off student loans and the occasional parental supplement.

I am trying to see the big picture here. San Diego is not LA and it’s not San Francisco. I could go there and work my same job for about twice the salary. So why then, is housing more or less comparable. (Obviously there are differences, and yes SF is a little more expensive) It makes no sense.

p.s. my first night in Kensington, I saw two bums fighting over a bag with most likely some booze in it. One of the bums put the other in a sleeper hold and the guy started screaming.

[SD Attorney]

Yes, I read most of the posts, except ones that don’t deal with housing. I am an active Piggington reader. I am just throwing more reasons not to buy into the mix, aside from the standard ones, i.e. interest rates, surplus of homes, loans resetting, blah blah.

[SD Attorney]

Powayseller, I can be reached at 8582545077.

[SD Attorney]

I read Piggington’s daily and had to chime in when I saw this topic because I make a living off of it.

I spent 6 years as a carpenter in Minnesota and Colorado before moving to San Diego to practice law. I practice now in construction defect litigation and I couldn’t agree with you more regarding the quality of construction during the latest boom here. Shoddy at best.

Many of the major problems that could go wrong with your house are not visible to the naked eye. Southern California is full of fault lines and poor soil conditions, therefore if the soil settles underneath the pad your house is built on you are in for major problems. Cracked foundations/concrete/stucco/flooring. Windows and doors become off center, counter tops can crack, plumbing lines rupture, etc.

Often times builders cut corners when testing the soil conditions of the proposed homes. This is because soils engineering is very expensive and can take a long time to complete. When a builder should do soil borings in 100 locations to get a sampling of the development, they instead will choose to do 25. This is problematic in southern CA when the soil conditions can change dramatically over a very small range.

I don’t know what the ultimate factors are for prospective buyers to consider when assessing the manner in which their house was constructed. But, it helps to have a friend that is a builder or to ask the seller/builder every question you can think of.

Good luck.

[Author]

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