Report: California has nation's least affordable homes

San Francisco Business Times ^ | 1/7/05 | SF Business Times

[lainde]

bttt

[onyx]

Weather is the least of my concerns.
A lovely, historic, Southern town can't
be beat, IMHO.

[onyx]

Interesting.
San Diego #52...
that why we're exiting.

[IrishRainy]

Yeah, but there are a lot of us conservative refugees from SoCal, and we're doing our part to keep Arizona a red state!

[Alia]

No, Cyborg -- it's not fake. I just sold a house resembling Martin's photo; for almost as much, in CA, in August. Three generations of immigrants are now living in my old home; neighbors tell me they are good people, maintain the place -- and three generations are working hard to JUST make the mortgage on the house I sold. They are glad they have it, no doubts. I'm now living in a mansion in North Carolina (mansion, to me); We can actually get lost in our home here.

Loving it.

[bwteim]

Is a hurricane magnet something like a tornado attractor ? ;)

[onyx]

I have gladly given up the often times polluted,
and always crowded beaches of San Diego,
for a marvelous 122 year old Victorian on the bluffs
overlooking the "ole mighty and muddy Mississip."

[IrishRainy]

I'm sorry, but Tucson is...well, Tucson!

Full of liberals and just plain yucky!

Okay, I'm a Sundevil fan so I'm only half-kidding.

[bwteim]

"No way!!!"


No, believe it or not, 'tis true!

See
http://www.flkeysmls.com/cust_srchsfh.idc?mls=523983&sqlargs=(523983,M,,0)


$ 560,000 Mobile Home
Price:$ 560,000.00
Type: Mobile Home
MLS #:523983
Status: Active
Addr:CORAL DR
Beds/Baths:4 / 1
Key: SADDLEBUNCH
Year Built: 1968
Rented: No Exclusive
Waterfront: No
Side: Ocean
Waterfront: No Waterfront
Waterview:No Waterview

[IrishRainy]

LOL at the air conditioning comment! I just stay indoors most of the time from May to September, and of course I have to have a pool to cool off in. Otherwise, Arizona is great!

[Alia]

Bingo! My dad, in CA, in a phone conversation days ago said the mood for the young in CA is: despair. "There is no future in CA for them". It's part of the reason we moved; there's no way our grown children could afford to live near us in CA (and own their own home).

[IrishRainy]

You have to get acclimated to the heat! I felt like that my first summer, but you DO get used to it. Now, when I go back to California, the humidity is suffocating to me. And I lived there for 35 years!

[bwteim]

"I hope to be in the real estate business when all these homes crash"


February 2005 Money magazine has an interesting article:
"Think Your House is a Safe Investment?" Page 70 by Robert Shiller, who wrote Irrational Exuberance in March 2000, on tech-stock bubble.

[Alia]

You are exactly right, Joe, about the temps in CA. My dad will never move for exactly that reason: The weather. The temperatures. But I share some trivia here: In my new location in NC? Folks seems to live longer -- even tho the weather is more extreme than is in CA. Obits reveal ages like 90s and 100+. I'm not sure I understand it. But thus far, I think folks live longer here because the stress threshold is less than it is in CA.

[cgbg]

Interesting list.

I left California years ago since the prices were out of sight then and I like privacy and land (and I like to let my dogs run free). :-)

[cgbg]

People in California are house poor and live way beyond their means.

I used to live there.

Now I have to suffer through cold winters--but my view of my land to the horizon makes up for it. :-)

[JasonC]

Um, duh. Not remotely news.

[JasonC]

Not fake. People pay for the weather. Young married 2 earner families with ~150-200k combined income live in places like that or not much better. The nicer places are owned by people who bought 10-15 years earlier.

The reason this doesn't happen in other places - can't - is builders can make houses for 150k that put that to shame. In AZ, they do. But AZ doesn't have the ocean, Hollywood, Silicon valley, Pacific port access, or the moderate-all-year coastal climate. In fact, as soon as you leave the coastal ranges for the central valley, the summers get very hot and the surroundings smell like feedlots, and real estate prices plummet.

Students rent places that cost $2000 a month, and deal with it by living 4 to an apartment...

[Timeout]

More Santa Barbara nonsense. When I moved there in 1989, I balked at paying $350,000 for a 1-BR condo (complete with termites). I was part of the mass migration out of the state in 1994. Guess I was a little shortsighted.

Property Features

* Single Family Property
* Area: East of State
* Year Built: 1920
* 2 total bedroom(s)
* 1 total bath(s)
* Interior features: Carpet, Dining area, Tile flrs * Exterior features: Sidewalk, Storage/out-building(s)
* Approximate lot is 32x68
* Approximately 0.05 acre(s)

$745,000

Wow! 1/20th of an acre....32 x 68! Talk about "postage stamps". And it has sidewalks! And an "out-building"...is that the bathroom?

This is so absurd, I can't even fathom it.

[cyborg]

Yep! ;o)