California real estate prices, how do you stand it? (to rent, neighborhood)

[Mr_Geek]

The option of having beaches, mountains, and desert nearby is the expensive part. Whether you utilize them daily, weekly, monthly, yearly doesn't change the cost of living near them and having the option to go at anytime. To some it's priceless.

[jm1982]

Originally Posted by AnthonyJ34

$800/month is nothing to sneeze at. The inflated So. Cal rents have conditioned some folks into believing that paying high rent or relatively high-ish rent is the norm. Basic accommodation should not cost that much money. But unfortunately, it does cost a fair amount of money, especially in So. Cal. Landlords are making bank, and many renters are getting reamed.

Yeah I agree that $800 month is a considerable amount even especially since housing is just one expense .
Between basic expenses like housing , car and food there isn't much left . Which is what the article points out too
This is why we are also seeing lots of businesses changing , either catering to the lowest income levels or high income levels .

[Chowhound]

Originally Posted by gentlearts

It seems like most of the TV shows about real estate are based in California. Right now, I'm watching a young couple with 4 kids and a $750k budget looking for a house. All three choices are total dumps with cheap finishes, 1 bathroom, no yard, and on noisy highways. How did this happen and why do Californians put up with this?

It seems to me. if people refused to pay these prices, the prices would come down.

It's sickening is what it is and I'm a Ca native. As soon as my situation allows, I'm going to sell my place and go grab something somewhere else for MUCH cheaper.

I was watching that show fixer upper, the husband and wife team where they show buyers properties to buy and for them to renovate. This house from the 70's, list price was 250, they got it for 190, put 120 k into it.

They turned this blah house of 3200 hundred feet on an acre of land with a view of a lake, this couple spent 310k and the new appraised value of the home went to 315k, so they are up 5k have this beautiful house, I mean just stunning for 310k.

My condo which is a fraction of the size and no where near that nice with no land around right now is selling for about 320k, based on the comps around here, and that number is low, I've seen some of the comps got toward 360K.

We've owned the place for 15 yrs and have a shyload of equity, I'm shaking my head right now and saying why the F I'm I sitting here, traffic, crowds, crappy schools, they are running this state into the ground. Why the hell am I here. If it weren't for just a couple of issues regarding family I'd have been gone.

[Chowhound]

Originally Posted by jm1982

Yeah that's true . I do think people are unaware of what's available in some other large cities that don't have the same recognition as L.A or NYC

It's also hard for people to change in general and to change where they live is probably one of the biggest changes . People get emotionally attached to the cities or town they live in and the physical buildings they live in as well

I agree, this "LA has everything" thing doesn't resonate with me, I don't care about all of the touristy crappy, lived here my whole life and I avoid most of the tourist LA things.


All I need is a concert/sports venue's, decent restaurants and maybe some smaller local theater if I want to see plays.


Most other metro areas have all of that.


I don't care about the you "can ski in the morning and go to the beach in the afternoon" thing that some people say.


The cons outweigh the pro's for me

[GO JACKETS]

Originally Posted by JakeDog

Honestly, it's harder to find good jobs in other less pricey desirable parts of the country. I could get a similar paying job in SF (MORE expensive), NY (MORE expensive), DC (about the same), Seattle (about the same for a reasonable commute). Alternatively, I'd love to live in Colorado or Oregon, but the job market is far more competitive and there are generally much lower salaries- plus if a company goes out of business or you lose your job it is unlikely you will find many good paying jobs. Even slightly less desirable markets like Arizona have a much tighter job market. Dallas/Houston/Charlotte/Atlanta have decent job markets and lower housing costs, but they are not Colorado or Oregon in terms of desirability. Plus utility costs in the South can be very high. In short, many people living in California pay for the housing until they retire and move some where else unless they make a killing and want to stay near the coast. I'd say the same is true of NY and DC.

I think too many people overlook this. If your company closes in LA/OC you generally have a lot of options to find other work. If you are in most cities in the US there are only a couple major employers. If one of them leaves you get a flood of skilled employees that the market can't soak up.

[DabOnEm]

Originally Posted by AnthonyJ34

I can see that view. But I often times think that the whole 'there is nothing much to do' aspect of living out of state gets overblown. Large metro areas like OKC or Tulsa or Austin or St. Louis or Indianapolis have just about anything you could find in the LA Metro area, save for the ocean and mountains. You have theatres, museums, galleries, clubs, etc. Granted, you may not have the same selection, as in the LA area we are saturated with extracurricular options, but many other metro areas have plenty to offer. And many people don't avail themselves of even a fraction of what LA has to offer yet many of those same people act as if living in a different part of the country is going to sabotage their nightlife or social calendar, giving them nothing to do besides watching the grass grow and hanging out at Dairy Queen. I think it often has more to do with simply having a thousand possible things to do and places to go, even if one only regularly does a handful of things or regularly travels to only a few local places here and there. It's the knowing that you have all these options, just in case. I'm sure the 'nothing to do factor' applies to many places, but I do think it gets attributed unfairly as being the reality of living in many larger metro areas in other states.

How often does the average person go to the opera, or the ballet, or to various art galleries and symposiums? Even if quite regularly, those things do exist in other areas, even in relatively high numbers.

Don't know about that. Those areas are a lot smaller than LA. You have to go to the Houston/DFW/Atlanta tier of cities to not lose too much in amenities when leaving a big city like LA for a cheaper alternative. There are people in the three areas I named that wpuld never live in an OKC or Tulsa or Kansas City because those cities are too small and offer a lot less than where they came from.

[gentlearts]

Originally Posted by Chowhound

It's sickening is what it is and I'm a Ca native. As soon as my situation allows, I'm going to sell my place and go grab something somewhere else for MUCH cheaper.

I was watching that show fixer upper, the husband and wife team where they show buyers properties to buy and for them to renovate. This house from the 70's, list price was 250, they got it for 190, put 120 k into it.

They turned this blah house of 3200 hundred feet on an acre of land with a view of a lake, this couple spent 310k and the new appraised value of the home went to 315k, so they are up 5k have this beautiful house, I mean just stunning for 310k.

My condo which is a fraction of the size and no where near that nice with no land around right now is selling for about 320k, based on the comps around here, and that number is low, I've seen some of the comps got toward 360K.

We've owned the place for 15 yrs and have a shyload of equity, I'm shaking my head right now and saying why the F I'm I sitting here, traffic, crowds, crappy schools, they are running this state into the ground. Why the hell am I here. If it weren't for just a couple of issues regarding family I'd have been gone.

Come towards the light, Chowhound....

I enjoy Fixer Upper for just that reason. The property values are relatable to most of America.

[sourdough]

Originally Posted by Chowhound

I agree, this "LA has everything" thing doesn't resonate with me, I don't care about all of the touristy crappy, lived here my whole life and I avoid most of the tourist LA things.


All I need is a concert/sports venue's, decent restaurants and maybe some smaller local theater if I want to see plays.


Most other metro areas have all of that.


I don't care about the you "can ski in the morning and go to the beach in the afternoon" thing that some people say.


The cons outweigh the pro's for me

All very good reasons to move on and get happy.

[Jonesie14]

How did my family stand it? We left SoCal and moved to Texas

[harhar]

Personally, for us it's jobs, family/friends and (built in) child care. Not to mention being 3rd generation Californian and weather. If we leave, our jobs would pay less or be non-existent, we wouldn't have any friends and would have to pay even more for child care.

Plus as a native, who lives on the outskirts of LA/North OC I feel that people think LA is just Downtown and the Valley for some reason and don't recognize that there is much more to LA and the Socal region to that.

In a couple of years I hope not to spend more than 650k on a house here; ideally it would be considerably under 600k. I hope to have 20% down at that point. It will be a 3/4 bd, 2 bath house on a 1/4 acre lot. Granted more and more people may find out about the area and will decide to move here too, but I think that's still going to take a while.

And that's the thing, it takes a lot of income and financial discipline. Some people have lucked out, gained inheritance, or just started saving earlier. Others take the less savory route of lower % down, interest only loans, or just more creative loans (which are coming back BTW).

Interesting cases in socal real estate:

My friends neighbor inherited their house. I knew it was suspicious when they (a young couple) had a stay at home mom and the husband worked in contracted maintenance. They have expensive trucks and toys, and that just doesn't happen. I'm not jealous in the slightest; just pointing out that these are some of the situations that come up and seem out of place.

Another time, my wife and I were at breakfast and overheard (because they were talking loud) about how they wanted to sell their house...and were looking at buying something close to a "mil." However throughout the conversation they admitted to the other party, they were 100% house poor. They were essentially living a "baller" lifestyle on a shoestring.
---

Although these are anecdotal, I would have thought people would have seen the last 10 years and say, hey, let's not make the same mistakes of 2008 all over again...but I think that might happen. One bad ressession and a lot of these people are out of here.

Now that I'm firmly off track, I'll just say that my wife and I absolutely love California, and we're never going to leave unless something drastic or major happens, in which case I think and/or hope we will be prepared for.