If L.A. Sucks Why is housing expensive (Los Angeles, San Diego: credit, debt)

[montevista1]

L.A. has alot of wealthy business owners, entrepeneurs, realtors, lawyers etc. If you are not one of them, then life is a struggle here. The above people are raising the real estate prices.

My question is at what point do people ask the question is a house in a bad area really worth 600K, why am I living in L.A. when I can move somewhere else and improve my quality of life.

Is living in L.A. worth the struggle?

The middle class move to IE and Palmdale, the illegals and wealthy stay making L.A. a third world country.

If you are rich and can send your child to a private school live in million dollar house then there is no better place than L.A. if you make less than 100K then your life is a struggle!

[deeptrance]

Originally Posted by montevista1

L.A. has alot of wealthy business owners, entrepeneurs, realtors, lawyers etc. If you are not one of them, then life is a struggle here. The above people are raising the real estate prices.

My question is at what point do people ask the question is a house in a bad area really worth 600K, why am I living in L.A. when I can move somewhere else and improve my quality of life.

Of course you have the choice to move away if you want.

There are tens of thousands of previously-impoverished immigrants who bought supposedly overpriced houses, and the appreciation on their homes made them wealthy. Is this a great country or what?

But seriously, it's better to pay $600K for a house that goes up in value by 30% in a few years than it is to buy a place for $200K that goes up 10% in that same period of time. Southern California has a very large Hispanic middle and upper-middle class partly due to their hard work, savings, and investments in appreciating assets such as SoCal real estate and businesses. That "overpriced" piece of real estate today is going to be even more "overpriced" in a few years. If you can afford to own it, you can make money while enjoying the benefits of home-ownership. I personally think the prices are outrageous and wouldn't pay them myself, but I'm one guy, I'm not the market. It's the market that dictates prices.

[montevista1]

If anyone thinks LA's home prices will go up like they did in the past 10yrs in the next couple of years they are crazy.

Prices here will drop, they do not make any sense. People will lose their homes due to their crazy loans and lifestyle.

[deeptrance]

Originally Posted by montevista1

If anyone thinks LA's home prices will go up like they did in the past 10yrs in the next couple of years they are crazy.

Prices here will drop, they do not make any sense. People will lose their homes due to their crazy loans and lifestyle.

I love these comments. I believe someone (well, thousands of people) said the exact same thing back around 1989, just as California's boom was going bust.

Never under-estimate California's ability to bounce back. It's the single most desired place on earth for a majority of our fellow earthlings, and it doesn't matter what you or I think about the place. They want in, they'll do whatever they can to live there. Sure, your comments will seem accurate for the next couple years at least. But stand back after that. Unless a massive earthquake, economic depression, or other disaster occurs, CA will bounce right back and people will make oodles of money from those over-priced properties. There is only one Coastal California, there are over 6 billion people on the planet, and about 3 billion of them wish they could live in California.

[Need_affordable_home]

Originally Posted by deeptrance

I love these comments. I believe someone (well, thousands of people) said the exact same thing back around 1989, just as California's boom was going bust.

Never under-estimate California's ability to bounce back. It's the single most desired place on earth for a majority of our fellow earthlings, and it doesn't matter what you or I think about the place. They want in, they'll do whatever they can to live there. Sure, your comments will seem accurate for the next couple years at least. But stand back after that. Unless a massive earthquake, economic depression, or other disaster occurs, CA will bounce right back and people will make oodles of money from those over-priced properties. There is only one Coastal California, there are over 6 billion people on the planet, and about 3 billion of them wish they could live in California.

Im sure theres more desirable places on earth besides CA. What about some tropical paradise in one of those islands near the equator on earth? What about a big city in Europe or England like London? What about NYC having the highest prices in USA, even higher than CA? As for earthquake, theres a big one due someday and will be one every few decades. 3 billion wishing they could live in CA? I dont know about that

[YahYouBetcha]

Originally Posted by deeptrance

But greed? That one I don't get...

let's take a look the history of California (i took a course on it this summer. great stuff! ) here lies the answer:

California quickly became a state because of the Gold Rush of 1849.
the poor migrated to California hoping to strike it rich. but many failed, and were left poorer and in worse shape.
flash forward to the 1910's, where movie stars first became popular. people started people coming to California to live, hoping to become famous someday.
it's because of the "California Dream,"-- still alive today-- attracting new generations of hopefuls with the intentions of finding success in this idyllic paradise.

also note that during the Great Depression, foreigners were shipped out of LA because they were taking all the white people's jobs.

other factors are SoCal's perfect weather, no humidity, and the variety of climates/terrains within close proximity. you've got beach, desert, mountains etc all within a few hours of each other.
i've started spending my summers in LA because i have family & friends in the area. don't get me wrong.. i love LA's weather but quite frankly i could never see myself living in LA year-round because i enjoy my snow

[deeptrance]

Originally Posted by YahYouBetcha

let's take a look the history of California (i took a course on it this summer. great stuff! ) here lies the answer:

I read your "answer" and don't see how it differs in general from all of human history in most locations. People try to get their needs met and they try to be where they can strike it rich (whatever that means to them.) To label that as "greed" is to say nothing at all about why California is expensive. California has a lot to offer, North Dakota doesn't, hence one is more expensive than the other. I don't see why we have to judge a person as "greedy" for wanting to have a better life...

[fairweathergolfer]

deeptrance posted:

I love these comments. I believe someone (well, thousands of people) said the exact same thing back around 1989, just as California's boom was going bust.

Never under-estimate California's ability to bounce back. It's the single most desired place on earth for a majority of our fellow earthlings, and it doesn't matter what you or I think about the place. They want in, they'll do whatever they can to live there. Sure, your comments will seem accurate for the next couple years at least. But stand back after that. Unless a massive earthquake, economic depression, or other disaster occurs, CA will bounce right back and people will make oodles of money from those over-priced properties. There is only one Coastal California, there are over 6 billion people on the planet, and about 3 billion of them wish they could live in California.

I think this touches a bit on my post in the thread asking if any who has left has missed it and is coming back. I talk about how this place is just too amazing weather wise etc to have it completely bust. But that is one woman's opinion that sees the beauty every single day. I suppose one forgets or maybe some have never experienced the benefits of this area at all that are commenting. But the pluses can't be denied and some never replicated.

[deeptrance]

Originally Posted by fairweathergolfer

I talk about how this place is just too amazing weather wise etc to have it completely bust. But that is one woman's opinion that sees the beauty every single day. I suppose one forgets or maybe some have never experienced the benefits of this area at all that are commenting. But the pluses can't be denied and some never replicated.

Amen to all of that. If anything, California's destiny is to climb to heights that civilization has rarely experienced. (I'm stepping out on a limb here so I hope nobody is wielding a chain saw )

There is simply no place on earth like CA. It's so easy to bash it, but the fact is that it's growing a lot and is expensive because people want to live there so desperately! It's not greed, it's not a conspiracy, it's the fact that CA has attributes (and mystique) that make it the most coveted land on the planet.

Earlier, Need_Affordable_Home (may I call you "need shorter name"? ) was saying that other places might be more desired, giving examples such as Paris or a tropical island "paradise." The survey I quoted from saying that most people wanted to move to Los Angeles was conducted largely in "paradise" locations such as Tahiti, Fiji, and other South Pacific islands. Truth be told, those places are extremely isolated and limited in terms of what you can do with your life. Sure, you think "lying on a beach in paradise all day" sounds great, but why do you come home? Because lying on a beach all day in paradise is BORING.

We want the excitement and diversity offered by a city like Los Angeles. And that city, in spite of all the dire predictions of it becoming hell on earth, is probably going to go through repeated cycles of re-birth as a Mecca for whatever its latest offerings happen to be. It's the City of Angels, the City of Dreams, the paradise climate, access to every type of land form and every culture and quite a variety of micro environments with their own unique climates.

I spent most of my 50 years hating Los Angeles with a passion, that's where I'm coming from. These days when I arrive there I think "This is hell" and after about 3 hours of interactions with people who speak 50 different languages I start to open my mind to it and realize that it's one of the most amazingly diverse, interesting, challenging and opportunity-rich places on earth. Yeah, it's not easy to live there if you're not enjoying it or if you're struggling to pay your mortgage or rent. Yeah, it will be hit by more earthquakes. Such is life. Wherever you go, tragedy will follow and you cannot predict when it will strike. Small towns of innocent good Christian folks in the Texas panhandle saw their entire towns burn to the ground during the past year. Paradise islands suddenly become piles of ash when their central volcano wakes up and smothers them. And need I remind people of the most horrific natural disaster in history, the Tsunami that killed 300,000 people in "paradise" locations? There are problems everywhere, but few places offer as much as California does. If I had money to bet on pricing 1,000 years from now, I'd bet California wins hands-down over any place on earth.

[marilyn220]

Originally Posted by deeptrance

I spent most of my 50 years hating Los Angeles with a passion, that's where I'm coming from. These days when I arrive there I think "This is hell" and after about 3 hours of interactions with people who speak 50 different languages I start to open my mind to it and realize that it's one of the most amazingly diverse, interesting, challenging and opportunity-rich places on earth.

Is this all it took? For you to be around 50 different foreigners to show how "diverse" the city is?

You know? As I read many of the posts from people on this board, it's quite evident (please correct me if I'm wrong) that many of you are white people that have never had social interaction with people outside of your "communities" and that this "diverse" thing is new to you. That's sad. Fortunately, I have and am so blessed to have been around people from all backgrounds for practically my whole life. The only difference was that even though they were all of different races everyone was AMERICAN first and whatever their culture was second. In NYC, I went to school and worked with black, white (i.e., italian, irish, polish, etc.), Puerto Rican and West Indians. All of the "newer" ethnic groups that are there now (i.e, Domicans, Asians, Indians, Pakistanis, Middle Easterners, Africans, etc.) came within the past twenty years. They're okay, but they're American SECOND and what their culture is FIRST and that bothers me.

Moderator cut: Implied racism