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smfj
ParticipantAs a long time Piggington (who left SD in April), just want to send my best wishes and hope that you are all ok. Way to reminiscent of 4 years ago. Take care.
ParticipantUnfortunately, i think the issues are pretty much going to be everywhere.
I agree that the issues are everywhere, it’s just the extent that’s different. I’m in Charlotte, NC after 6 years in NYC/SD (grew up in smaller NC city), and yeah, it’s different here. I hear people talk about how materialistic people are here, and I want to tell them, yeah, go live in So Cal for a few years and let me know if you still feel that way.
However, I do think good parents always struggle with the backlash of placing restrictions on their children- whether it’s not letting your kid have a cell phone or not letting your kid watch certain TV shows or what have you. I know I gave my parents grief about it. But, I hope that they feel it was worth it, because I certainly appreciate them for raising me the way that they did.
I really commend you parents that teach your kids about boundaries. They’ll thank you one day when they’re happy, healthy, financially-stable adults.
ParticipantUnfortunately, i think the issues are pretty much going to be everywhere.
I agree that the issues are everywhere, it’s just the extent that’s different. I’m in Charlotte, NC after 6 years in NYC/SD (grew up in smaller NC city), and yeah, it’s different here. I hear people talk about how materialistic people are here, and I want to tell them, yeah, go live in So Cal for a few years and let me know if you still feel that way.
However, I do think good parents always struggle with the backlash of placing restrictions on their children- whether it’s not letting your kid have a cell phone or not letting your kid watch certain TV shows or what have you. I know I gave my parents grief about it. But, I hope that they feel it was worth it, because I certainly appreciate them for raising me the way that they did.
I really commend you parents that teach your kids about boundaries. They’ll thank you one day when they’re happy, healthy, financially-stable adults.
Participantnot a bad idea. but i’m not sure people here are ready for that.
(then again, san diego wasn’t ready for piggington two years ago, but look at it now!)
Participant4plexowner, you know, when i first read your comment i thought, he lives in charlotte too? because we have something called the center city development group or something to that effect and they keep talking about how x many more people will live in downtown charlotte in x years.
i left uptown bubble today to go to target. it takes about 10 minutes to get to wide open underdeveloped spaces. i don’t think they’ll ever be able to claim that we’re running out of land here.
ParticipantAnd on this subject…
Wall Street Journal
Where Home Prices Are Hot Now
Despite a National Downturn, Some Markets That Missed
The Housing Boom Are Thriving; Fleeing Florida for Charlotte
By DEAN TREFTZ
May 9, 2007; Page D1The housing news isn’t all grim. Even as prices sag nationwide, there are several cities in the country where home values are climbing smartly.
Portland, Ore., Boise, Idaho, Seattle, Salt Lake City, Houston, Austin, and Charlotte and Raleigh, N.C., are among the cities bucking the national trend. Homes’ appreciation there between the fourth quarters of 2005 and 2006 far exceeded the national average of 5.9%, according to the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight. In some markets, like Boise and Seattle, the appreciation jumped well into the double digits.
“All real estate is local, despite the headlines,” says Lawrence Yun, the senior economist for the National Association of Realtors. Nationwide, the median existing-home price fell 1.3%, to $212,800 in February from $215,700 in February 2006, according to preliminary NAR statistics.
There’s no single secret of these cities’ apparent success, but many of them missed the housing boom of the past five years. From 2001 to 2005, annual appreciation in these cities was between 2% and 5%, far slower than the 7% to 12% national average, according to the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight. (OFHEO calculates appreciation based on repeat sales or refinancings of the same single-family properties.) Now, prices are playing catch-up.
Most of the cities also have one or more strong industries to drive their economies — colleges and technology in Raleigh, banks in Charlotte, energy in Houston and aerospace in Seattle. And all have education levels above the national average.
These cities emerged from the last recession later than most of the country for various reasons, including the lagging technology, aviation and energy industries, says Mark Zandi, CEO of Moody’s Economy.com. Now, their economies are strong and housing prices are still perceived as affordable, luring buyers into the market. For instance, the median sales price for a single-family home in the area of Austin-Round Rock, Texas, is $173,700, according to the National Association of Realtors, compared with $371,200 in the Miami-Fort Lauderdale-Miami Beach area.
So many Northeasterners who moved to Florida have resettled in the Charlotte area in recent years — both workers and retirees — that Henry Scala and others in Charlotte refer to them as “halfbacks.”
The influx may have helped Mr. Scala when he moved across town in January. “I was faced with selling this house in theoretically a down market,” the 36-year resident of Charlotte says. “But there was no down market in Charlotte.” Charlotte-area house prices grew 9.09% from the fourth quarter of 2005 to the fourth quarter of 2006 — the fastest appreciation the metro area has seen since 1982, according to OFHEO. Mr. Scala got his $800,000 asking price in four days.
Today’s declining prices nationwide are in part the result of an earlier explosion of short-term investors in Florida, California and other booming markets. Recently, both investors and long-term homeowners have been cashing in or cutting losses in formerly hot markets and settling in areas that avoided the boom, such as the Carolinas, parts of Georgia and Tennessee, areas of Texas, the Western mountain states and the Pacific Northwest.
“We’re cutting and running,” jokes Mark Hoover, 47 years old. Mr. Hoover and his wife, Melissa, 35, are both in the mortgage business, and they are moving from Florida to Austin to work for PRO-30, a mortgage lender based in Novato, Calif. But the Hoovers’ move hasn’t been easy. Their vacation home in Wellington, Fla., near West Palm Beach, has been on the market since October with a price tag of about $900,000, and their $1 million-to-$1.5 million primary home outside Fort Lauderdale, Fla., has sat since February.
Now, the Hoovers are ready for stable, low-cost, “homey” Austin, where houses appreciated at a steady 6.7% annual rate between the fourth quarters of 2004 and 2005, even as Fort Lauderdale’s prices skyrocketed more than 30% before dropping off recently. The Hoovers recently paid about $400,000 for a home on five acres outside Austin and have plans to move in the next two months.
The growth of Portland, Salt Lake City, Boise and Seattle can be attributed in part to an influx of former Californians and people opting out of slumping Las Vegas or Phoenix. The trend may have created smaller echo booms — especially in Boise and Salt Lake City — which have slowed in the past several months, with each city experiencing a slow winter. Other areas, too, have experienced faster-than-average appreciation, including the New York City borough of Manhattan and New Orleans.
While some worry that a new group of cities could face a boom-and-bust cycle, local real-estate agents and economists predict stable growth for the near future. Since the cities have strong economies and builders, lenders and investors are increasingly cautious, homes are less likely to become extremely overvalued than in booming markets in the first half of the decade.
Mr. Yun of the National Association of Realtors predicts prices nationally will bottom out sometime this summer. Mr. Zandi, of Moody’s Economy.com, isn’t so sanguine. “I’d be shocked if [prices stop depreciating] this summer; it’s more likely next summer,” he says.
Laura Chung, an interior decorator who recently moved to Portland, Ore., from Cambridge, Mass., sees the strong market as the ultimate stress reliever. Mrs. Chung, and her husband, Eric, are considering sprucing up their new home and selling it if they find a house more to their liking — a prospect that wasn’t so simple back in Cambridge. “It’s not this perpetual worry that we’re not going to sell” the 2,500-square-foot house, she says. While Mrs. Chung’s move to Portland had nothing to do with the housing prices, they “definitely ease the wallet a little.”
After sitting on the market from June to December 2006, the Chungs’ 1,200-square-foot Cambridge, Mass. townhouse condominium sold for $70,000 less than the asking price. “The number of condos in our price point was at some record high,” Mrs. Chung says.
To attract a buyer, their real-estate agent suggested purchasing a flat-screen TV and including it in the price of the house. When the home finally sold, the buyer didn’t want the TV.
ParticipantSince we’re on the topic of Cardiff real estate… I live in the big apartment complex in Cardiff and have wondered about the three houses they built on top of each other by our entrance (Carol View Dr.). I’ve always thought it was a little bizarre that they have the driveway to these places letting out into our entrance (which can get pretty backed up because of the gate). Any information on these, sdrealtor?
Participantthat’s certainly the first time i’ve seen cpa appended to a name in a home for sale ad. too funny. i don’t even have it on my business card.
ParticipantI’ve said many times that I’ll be p*&sed off if the government bails out the morons who have gotten themselves into debt that’s way over their heads. It’s just not fair to those of us who’ve worked hard to save money and live within our means.
That being said… The Charlotte Observer did an excellent series on the high foreclosure rate there, which I read with interest, not only because I am a Piggington, but I am moving there in exactly one week.
In Charlotte, the majority of homes facing foreclosure, it appears, are the on the lower-end pricing wise – in the $100k range. My first thought was, how do you go into foreclosure on a $100k house? But reading on, I realized that a lot of these people worked close-to-minimum-wage jobs (minimum wage is much lower in NC, by the way), and had been convinced by realtors and mortgage brokers that they couldn’t afford not to buy into the “American Dream.” And that’s not really fair either.
But how do you decide who’s a moron who, as RottedOak said, “failed to do their own due diligence” and who are, as littlelady described, “less educated folks”? There’s probably a thin line, and therefore it’s tough to help the latter without helping the former.
I’m a strong believer in taking responsibility for one’s actions, pretty much a fiscal conservative, and never thought I would say something like this. But there is some social responsibility to those that have been flat-out wronged. And by that, I mean not a total bail out, as no one learns anything from that, but a six-month moratorium on foreclosures for home owners actually living in their homes and of a certain income level, would be reasonable. My guess is that a lot of these people would be willing to work to keep their homes, as opposed to investors willing to walk away from the loan and move on to the next get-rich-quick scheme.
ParticipantBuyerWillEPB, you’re so right. Friends elsewhere think every day’s vacation for me since I live in SD… and while there’s no denying it’s a beautiful place, I spend a lot more time overlooking the fabulous El Camino Real in Carlsbad from my office window than anything else. And the year-round beautiful weather? On most winter days I have no idea whether it’s 65 or 35 degrees outside since I rarely make it out of the office.
February 8, 2007 at 1:13 PM in reply to: Considering Buying in Temecula – Can’t afford OC – ??? #44970ParticipantDuring my two years lurking around this site, I’ve gotten the itch to buy from time to time for emotional reasons (yes, I’m female, and yes, I’d love to decorate). But then I look at the hard facts and realize it’s ridiculous. There’s no way I can buy anywhere for what I pay in rent (particularly when you include ALL costs of ownership, such as insurance, repairs…). And, by the way, never let someone convince you that you need the tax deduction – the tax deduction only comes into play when you’re looking at the cost of ownership; you should never spend money for the sake of a tax deduction. Plus, I get to live less than a mile from the ocean in a place I love – not in an inland subdivision like a lot of my home owner friends. And I’m saving money that I can put towards a down payment when the market is more reasonable.
And, speaking of paint – even if you’re technically not allowed to paint, you can still paint, and then either repaint or pay the charge when you move, and you’re probably still better off.
Living in New York for a while, a city full of life-long renters, taught me that not owning a place doesn’t have to make it less of a home. There are plenty of creative ways to decorate a rental- maybe you can convince your wife to see it as a fun challenge.
Participantoh, but I do enjoy the fact that I have only once turned on a heater since I’ve been here (this weekend) and I’ve never had to dig my car out of the snow
ParticipantThis is an interesting report on salaries for comparable positions in various metros: http://charlotte.bizjournals.com/edit_special/47.html
Not surprisingly, SD beats out NY only for engineers, pharmacists, and secondary school administrators (worth noting though that posh school districts outside the city, such as Bronxville, pay much, much more than in the city).
When I moved here three years ago from Westchester County, NY, I expected it would be cheaper to live here, but quickly found that was not the case. Assuming one works in the city, lives in a suburb, and commutes by train, you’re typically looking at a pretty drastic pay cut, similar housing costs, and increased commuting costs (even my car insurance premium increased) to move here. Income taxes are higher (assuming you weren’t paying city income tax), food is more expensive, sales tax is higher in some cases…
ParticipantIt’s still, to day, more expensive to live in NY, SF, Boston, than it is here in San Diego.
Of course it is. Salaries are significantly higher as well (SF and NY, at least; I’d imagine Boston as well), so I don’t see that changing any time soon.
Not to say they’re not inflated markets, but comparing major cities to San Diego isn’t exactly comparing apples to apples.
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