moving to palmdale, ca - questions (Los Angeles, Santa Clarita: lawyer, home, neighborhoods)

[DeserTBoB]

Originally Posted by tommylori2001

R U SERIOUS....I am moving to lancaster in 2 weeks and NO ONE has anything good to say about the place on these threads IS IT REALLY THAT BAD? or.......Are the people saying it ...people who do not like people with alot of kids,people who don't have a lot of money,african americans etc.... or is the crime really high....

"Serious crime" is up over 30% in Lancaster, and up over 100% in Palmdale in just a single year. Those are statistics, not "opinions." Ask any deputy sheriff...you'll get an earful.

Originally Posted by tommylori2001

So I'm really confused and need an honest opinion on the area..Is it like every other city or is it really extremely dangerous something to run from help please!!!! My husband makes good money I have alota kids I'm not racist and I'm from ny.

If you can go elsewhere, do so. You've read my posts, and I'm not kidding...the place is bad. Others on here have indicted there are better, peripheral locations that are much better. Read the posts and you'll quickly see what the recommendations are.

Investing in Lancaster/Palmdale realty now is a bad investment for now. Prices have topped out and are still falling. This cycle existed for ten years in the 1990s, with homes depreciating as much as 35% and not appreciating again until the "sub prime" mortgage fiasco started up. With the sub prime lenders now on the skids and such loans no longer available to generally unqualified buyers, prices will continue to fall. Prices in the LA basin, where it takes almost a million to get a decent house, are again slowly rising, but since the source of flim-flam loans to undeserving buyers that target "low budget" housing, such as found in the Antelope Valley, has been cut off, I wouldn't bet that Antelope Valley real estate will start appreciating anytime soon. If you "go long" on investing in a house out here (15+ years) you'll make out, but short term? Bad investment.

Foreclosures are happening all around the area in record numbers now, and that also happened when the market collapsed in the early '90s. Be forewarned...don't invest in a turkey!

[yolo]

Originally Posted by tommylori2001

R U SERIOUS....I am moving to lancaster in 2 weeks and NO ONE has anything good to say about the place on these threads IS IT REALLY THAT BAD? or.......Are the people saying it ...people who do not like people with alot of kids,people who don't have a lot of money,african americans etc.... or is the crime really high....because just because u are all those things does not make it a bad place..So I'm really confused and need an honest opinion on the area..Is it like every other city or is it really extremely dangerous something to run from help please!!!! My husband makes good money I have alota kids I'm not racist and I'm from ny.

My posts were not calling it a bad place. I actually posted facts that things are better than many post about the area. Look to other cities and they get the same responses of problems. People complain about the bad and that gets the most attention. Kind of like the media blowing things out of proportion. I have been in Palmdale since 1990. The place has grown and continues to grow. There have always been problems and always will be just like any other city. Your odds of being affected by it are slim to none. You can live in fear or live life to the fullest. We each have a choice. Which one will you chose?

My business is located in Pacoima. It is "supposed" to be a really bad place but I have never experienced any burglary or robbery since 1980 (year business opened). I have suppliers in Compton (another "ghetto") and Long Beach that I go to and pick up merchandise from and I have yet to be car jacked or held up if I stop somewhere and eat lunch or get gas in those areas. In case anyone is wondering, I am white.

[yolo]

Originally Posted by DeserTBoB

"Serious crime" is up over 30% in Lancaster, and up over 100% in Palmdale in just a single year. Those are statistics, not "opinions." Ask any deputy sheriff...you'll get an earful.



If you can go elsewhere, do so. You've read my posts, and I'm not kidding...the place is bad. Others on here have indicted there are better, peripheral locations that are much better. Read the posts and you'll quickly see what the recommendations are.

Investing in Lancaster/Palmdale realty now is a bad investment for now. Prices have topped out and are still falling. This cycle existed for ten years in the 1990s, with homes depreciating as much as 35% and not appreciating again until the "sub prime" mortgage fiasco started up. With the sub prime lenders now on the skids and such loans no longer available to generally unqualified buyers, prices will continue to fall. Prices in the LA basin, where it takes almost a million to get a decent house, are again slowly rising, but since the source of flim-flam loans to undeserving buyers that target "low budget" housing, such as found in the Antelope Valley, has been cut off, I wouldn't bet that Antelope Valley real estate will start appreciating anytime soon. If you "go long" on investing in a house out here (15+ years) you'll make out, but short term? Bad investment.

Foreclosures are happening all around the area in record numbers now, and that also happened when the market collapsed in the early '90s. Be forewarned...don't invest in a turkey!

DeserTBoB, Palmdale crime is actually down 4.8% '05 to '06, not up 100%. Where do you get your info? Crime is down 42.5% since 1991.

You are also totally wrong on record foreclosures in Palmdale. There are 25 total that I could find in Palmdale. Comparable sized cities like Santa Clarita has 19, Corona has 66, Lancaster has 41, Rancho Cucamonga has 17, San Bernardino has 28. Seems like average to me relative to the whole market.

Do you live in fear or let fear guide you? Do you not get on an airplane for fear of getting hijacked? Pretty lousy way to live imo.

As far as investing in the area, it might not be such a bad idea. I heard talk of the possibility of an inland port being set up in the AV. They want to get all the trucks off of the freeways that head out from the port in Long Beach. Everything would be moved by train from Long Beach to the AV and then the trucks would leave from here with the loads with access to I-5 and I-15 from new freeways. If this happens, it's self explanatory? The AV is really the only place with buildable land to make it happen and that is still in Los Angeles County. It's really not doom and gloom.

[tommylori2001]

Thank You for your post yolo..I feel a little better

[DeserTBoB]

Originally Posted by yolo

DeserTBoB, Palmdale crime is actually down 4.8% '05 to '06, not up 100%. Where do you get your info? Crime is down 42.5% since 1991.

Los Angeles Times, Antelope Valley Press, Los Angeles County Sheriff's Office. Crime DOWN since 1991?? What are you, a realtor? That's a complete fabrication. You prove it to me. Meanwhile, I can collect links to all the facts I'll need to support my contention about a 30% crime rate rise between '05 and '06 in Lancaster, and a 100% rise in Palmdale during the same period. By the way, a realtor's association is NOT a credible source on crime stats.

Originally Posted by yolo

You are also totally wrong on record foreclosures in Palmdale. There are 25 total that I could find in Palmdale. Comparable sized cities like Santa Clarita has 19, Corona has 66, Lancaster has 41, Rancho Cucamonga has 17, San Bernardino has 28. Seems like average to me relative to the whole market.

The foreclosure bomb is just now beginning to explode. My friends there say two just happened on their street in the last two weeks. The financial press is chock full of stories about the sub-prime lender meltdown. Do you live in a bubble?

Originally Posted by yolo

Do you live in fear or let fear guide you? Do you not get on an airplane for fear of getting hijacked? Pretty lousy way to live imo.

There was another "apologist" who was trying to varnish the facts in here and hasn't shown up again. Is that you again?

Originally Posted by yolo

As far as investing in the area, it might not be such a bad idea. I heard talk of the possibility of an inland port being set up in the AV. They want to get all the trucks off of the freeways that head out from the port in Long Beach. Everything would be moved by train from Long Beach to the AV and then the trucks would leave from here with the loads with access to I-5 and I-15 from new freeways.

This is another cheesy Antonovich political ploy, the DUMBEST idea to come out of his long, undistinguished tenure as one of LA county's least effective supervisors. The idea of loading containers on a train, making a short haul to that place and then putting them on fuel inefficient TRUCKS, ruining taxpayer paid highways, is absolutely ludicrous. If they're loaded onto container flats at the harbor, and they're bound for interstate destinations, then they should STAY on trains. "Inland harbor," indeed...another idea from a political hack trying to curry favor from local speculators. Look behind this idea a bit, and I'd wager you'll find a LOT of political funding flowing from Union Pacific, who wants a site similar to what BNSF has in San Bernardino, but built with their own funding from the old yard facilities there off of Mt. Vernon Avenue. UP is probably trying to grease Antonovich's skids to get the taxpayers to build a similar facility for them. This is a REALLY dumb idea, and one that smells strongly of political cronyism, but I'd expect nothing less from Antonovich.

Originally Posted by yolo

If this happens, it's self explanatory? The AV is really the only place with buildable land to make it happen and that is still in Los Angeles County. It's really not doom and gloom.

It's not going to happen, because the very idea is horrendously stupid in an age when air pollution and fuel guzzling are obsolete concepts. Container flats are twice as fuel efficient as any truck...why would we want to encourage guzzling more distillate-class fuel and adding to an already bad air quality problem down there? Typical Republican, that Antonovich. Remember when he skewered Baxter Ward over the train issue? Guess who was right in the long run...Ward! Metrolink now has several trains a day on the very route that Antonovich used as a campaign ploy to run Ward out of office! Michael Antonovich is not qualified to propose any idea having to do with transportation, let alone an "inland harbor."

Ask Antonovich about it sometime, when he's getting into one of his taxpayer paid Cadillacs. Kudos to Steve Lopez of the Times for outing that little excess along with other malfeasances by Antonovich. It's time to run this empty suit out of office once and for all time.

[yolo]

Got it from the AV Press and the Sheriff's website on actual crime stats. No I am not a realtor, just a resident since 1990. Why do you think there is an alterior motive.

Yes the foreclosure bomb is just starting to explode, but it is not exclusive to the AV as you pointed out before. That is why I listed surrounding areas with similar size to show that they are similar.

I'm not into the politics so I have no idea about backdoor dealings of Antonovich, nor do I care to take one person's opinion on allegations of scandals. We can find a conspiracy theory for just about anything.

You have put down every single public and private official mentioned or that you have mentioned. Is there anyone you like? Sounds more like you have a lot of sour grapes and other issues. Sorry elections didn't go your way or for your candidate or whatever the reason for your total negativity is.

Better not get into your car because you have a higher chance to not make it out of it alive than being a victim of violent crime in Palmdale.

In today's Valley Press ( http://www.avpress.com/n/27/0327_s2.hts (broken link) ) it says " Violent crimes in Lancaster jumped from 1,186 in 2005 to 1,274 in 2006, according to the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department. Property crimes increased from 4,777 in 2005 to 5,073 in 2006." It's a far cry from the 30% (more like around 6.5%) you lead to believe and like I said, the Palmdale figure is 4.8% lower 05 to 06. This was in a Valley Press article a few weeks ago.

[sue-z]

The inland truck port is just the latest in a long line of proposals to develop the Palmdale "airport" land. (I am assuming that airport land is where the port would be located??) The airport has been "in the works, coming any day now" since 1964! Ain't here yet unless you count the mini part time terminal (aptly named) that from time to time has seen small scale commuter shuttles that last briefly with heavy subsidies before going under from lack of use.I am still waiting for the hundreds and hundreds of commercial airliners that were supposed to be landing here daily since the last century when it was going to be an "International Airport".
Over the years some of the ideas floated to profit from agriculture use of the huge amount of vacant airport land included growing pistachios, planting a "forest" for wood pulp,growing gourds and Christmas trees, the current sod farming, our much loved sewer ponds, growing hay with reclaimed sewer water and probably a bunch of others I have forgotten...Not too lucrative maybe for thousands of acres of land that has been sitting there for decades.The scary thing is that a truck "port" could actually happen, not because it makes any sense but because nature (and developers) abhor a vaccuum and all that tasty land is just sitting there.... If the truck port should actually happen what do you suppose will be the impact on the 14, on 138, with all those trucks coming and going?? Oh wait, we're building the bypass on Ave P-8, lets see we've been building that since, oh maybe, the early '80's?? What about the air quality, all those diesel fumes? The noise? Does anyone really want to live near this?? Oh yeah, the new jobs, I forgot about that too, hmmm wonder who will be getting all those new jobs??? Maybe if the truck port doesn't happen we could rent out the land to FEMA to store trailers,they might last for decades in our desert climate! I can't help but be cynical after hearing all this hype for so many years from the local movers and shakers. Eventually something WILL happen with the Palmdale airport land, they may actually make it a small scale peripheral airport but no way is it ever going to replace LAX.I can also see the excess land being surplused and sold for even more cookie cutter houses some day?? Re the housing market here, cycles of boom and bust are the norm here. Happened going way back to the first settlers who bailed out of Palmdale when a big drought hit the "promised land", sort of like the big drought we are in the midst of now. Happened several times during aerospace downturns when the economy was totally dependent on that. During the real estate crash in the 90's property values here went down by a much as 50% and we were the "foreclosure capitol" of the US, no joke! You couldn't have moved a house during that time with a whole convoy of starving realtors. Could it happen again? Dunno. All those peops from LA gotta live somewhere...
Straying way OT here but bottom line, Palmdale/Lancaster is not a great place to live, and if anyone is counting on the short term housing market and/or projects like the proposed truck port to improve quality of life here they may be in for a big disappointment? sue-z

[yolo]

The quality of life is just fine in the AV. I grew up and lived in Northridge/Granada Hills in the San Fernando Valley for most of my life. When I moved to Palmdale at age 21 in 1990 I bought my own house. It was at the high and it crashed bad for a decade. It crashed all over SoCal too. Anyway, I like to live in the AV because of the quality of life. For me, it was nice being close to several great fishing lakes like Lake Elizabeth, Littlerock Dam, Jackson Lake, miles of aqueduct, Big Rock creek. I used to drive up all the time from the San Fernando Valley to these spots before moving to Palmdale. All of our dirtbike and quad riding spots were up in the AV. I am only miles from them now and take my kids almost every weekend. Love to jet ski too. The AV is in close proximity to Pyramid Lake, Silverwood Lake and Lake Isabella (a little further out). Snowskiing and snowboarding is very close too at Mt. High, another place I frequented before moving to Palmdale. All this is practically in my backyard now.

There is plenty of shopping, restaurants (more are needed because they are always full, lol), lots of sports for the kids to participate in, I have great neighbors, great church I attend etc. Actually what I find funny is that our relatives love to come to shop here. They live in Tarzana and Burbank. They actually like our stores and selection better than their local stores (which are the same but they find ours cleaner and not so picked through on merchandise).

I'm just trying to give a different perspective. Is it the best place to live, No? Is it the worst palce, No? Can you have a good life in the AV, Yes? Can you have a miserable life, Yes? It's all what you make it in the end.

[midnightbirdgirl]

If you stick to the West side of Palmdale or Lancaster, it is not worse than anything else in California...come on Southern California has high crime, to pin it all on Lancaster/Plamdale is just stupid!!
Yolo is right.
The statistics you have been given are as skewed as I have seen!!

MBG

[DeserTBoB]

Originally Posted by midnightbirdgirl

Yolo is right..

No, s/he's not.

Originally Posted by midnightbirdgirl

[The statistics you have been given are as skewed as I have seen!!

No they're not.

Do some perfunctory research of the LA Times' archives and the AV Press. If you're a Times subscriber, you can do some pretty thorough research on a lot of their material. However, the AV Press only makes a weeks' worth of their output available on line, so you have to do your research the "old fashioned way"...paper.

Go back to my original post. I said "SERIOUS CRIME", not all crime. The AV Press reported right in its headline, "Serious crime up 100% in Palmdale". "Serious crime" deletes all the misdemeanors and other petty but annoying crimes that people in the Antelope Valley were used to when tweekers were the main criminal element...stolen lawn mowers, tools, anything not nailed down...but nothing of felony class value. The Mojave Chapter of the Vagos motorcycle club was responsible for a lot of the felony GTA (usually hapless bike riders out in the desert getting their Harley stolen at gunpoint...LOTS of those) and the junkies would do "smash 'n grabs" of car stereos.

The new crime wave that has hit this area due to the import of "ghettoids" into the area due to Section 8 and being closer to relatives in our local prisons is of a much more dangerous felonious nature, as the article explained. You're obviously not liking what you're seeing and are trying to bend facts to your will. That won't fly.

I cannot repost the articles in here without express consent of the copyright owners, of course, but I'll slip a little bit by putting a few lines of an LA Times article by former "community prosecutor" Richard Faussett here to give you a flavor for how the crime has turned from nuisance to dangerous:

"[Lopez-Reynaga], a member of a Pacoima gang, was shouting the area code for the San Fernando Valley, while the shooter, a member of a Palmdale gang, allegedly shouted the area code for the Antelope Valley, [Frank Merriman] said.

"The last gang slaying occurred Dec. 5, when unidentified gang members shot and killed alleged gang member Jonte Stewart, 20, as he stood on a front porch in Palmdale, Merriman said. Three others were injured by the gunfire.

"Many residents were awakened to the gang problem in November, when members of a fledgling street gang brutally beat a man picking up his child from a private Christian school in Lancaster, punching his 13-year-old daughter in the face when she asked them to stop. Authorities said the attack was part of the gang's effort to establish control over the neighborhood. Three men and a juvenile were arrested and charged with criminal threats, assault and vandalism. All had moved to the Antelope Valley from South Los Angeles within the last two or three years, [David Berger] said."

Above quote ©2004, Tribune Publishing, Inc.

Now you go do some semi-scholarly RESEARCH before blowing your mouth off on something of which you have no clue. And next time you post, lay off the bold and italics...it makes you look like you're yelling all the time.