Help. Potentially illegal rent hike. unique rent control/utilities question. (San Diego: renter, crime)

[V8 Vega]

I'd sure rather have a starter home in the north east valley, Sylmar, Arleta, Mission Hills, San Fernando etc even Pacoima than be a renter anywhere.
You're going to want to retire someday.

[SOON2BNSURPRISE]

Originally Posted by V8 Vega

I'd sure rather have a starter home in the north east valley, Sylmar, Arleta, Mission Hills, San Fernando etc even Pacoima than be a renter anywhere.
You're going to want to retire someday.

Very true. One thing to consider though is that even if you don't have a home of your own you should be funding your retirement account with or without a home. Where I work the employer matched 1/2% for every 1% we put in up to 6%. I am thinking a 10% minimum for someone working and try to build that up to at least 20% of your income or get it up to the maximum amount aloud. I think for a 401K that would be $18,000 a year. Maybe more.

[jacktravern]

Originally Posted by jm1982

Most likely Lake Balboa, but Lake Balboa is not too bad. I know people that have lived there for years and all the houses are pretty well kept etc. Lot's of older people.

At $490,000 i'm guessing it was on a busy street and relatively small but still.

Lake Balboa is not an awful place per say, but for one, they try to boost real estate there by pushing its proximity to Encino. 2) From experience it is home to arguably the worst middle school in the Valley. And the kids from that neighborhood obviously make up that school. They roam the streets at some point. Also, its one of those areas where even though home prices have increased, the apartments in the area still have very light qualifications (poor credit, low income) That can create quality of life issues. I saw it first hand living in El Sereno and The Rampart district. Thats the big problem those homes in the Southern parts of LA (Inglewood, COmpton) still experience despite out of control home prices. Horrible apartment blocks.

Originally Posted by V8 Vega

I'd sure rather have a starter home in the north east valley, Sylmar, Arleta, Mission Hills, San Fernando etc even Pacoima than be a renter anywhere.
You're going to want to retire someday.

Thats you. Everybody's different. I work in those areas and occasionally have to make stops to the stores, restaurants ect and have occasionally visited friends. As someone over 40 I would probably elect to sleep in my car first by the beach. In my early mid 20's, I wasn't quite as particular.

[LoveMeSomeSFVHouses]

Originally Posted by jacktravern

It's kind of tricky to say "Victory and WHite Oak", because that is literally the border line where Encino ends and Lake Balboa begins. SO wa sthat house on the Encino side or Lake Balboa?

If Encino, I gotta believe its a huge fixer upper and probably 2 bedrooms.

It's actually the corner of Encino/Reseda/Lake Balboa. Reseda is the northwest corner, Lake Balboa takes the northeast. You can barely find condos in Encino for under $500K but that's not part of the point.... regardless which of those 3 cities it was (Reseda) it was still a great pocket of houses on all 4 corners of that intersection in a respectable pocket and not in the heart of Pacoima. And still a 3 bedroom SFH under $500K. If it were on the Encino side it would've been $700K minimum. It's amazing what crossing the road can do sometimes.

[LoveMeSomeSFVHouses]

Originally Posted by jacktravern

Lake Balboa is not an awful place per say, but for one, they try to boost real estate there by pushing its proximity to Encino. 2) From experience it is home to arguably the worst middle school in the Valley. And the kids from that neighborhood obviously make up that school. They roam the streets at some point. Also, its one of those areas where even though home prices have increased, the apartments in the area still have very light qualifications (poor credit, low income) That can create quality of life issues. I saw it first hand living in El Sereno and The Rampart district. Thats the big problem those homes in the Southern parts of LA (Inglewood, COmpton) still experience despite out of control home prices. Horrible apartment blocks.

Have you been to that intersection recently? It's probably the nicest part of Lake Balboa/Reseda. Is it perfect? No of course not. We're talking an entry price point and not million dollar+ homes here (which can still come with some of the issues outlined above). But it's definitely a respectable part of the valley - and the point still stands that it is doable to find a decent hood in an entry price point and buy versus rent IF someone wanted to and were ready to.

[jacktravern]

Originally Posted by LoveMeSomeSFVHouses

It's actually the corner of Encino/Reseda/Lake Balboa. Reseda is the northwest corner, Lake Balboa takes the northeast. You can barely find condos in Encino for under $500K but that's not part of the point.....

If there was no "Point" you would've said Lake Balboa outright. And yes, i drive past there literally everyday to work.

[jm1982]

Originally Posted by jacktravern

Lake Balboa is not an awful place per say, but for one, they try to boost real estate there by pushing its proximity to Encino. 2) From experience it is home to arguably the worst middle school in the Valley. And the kids from that neighborhood obviously make up that school. They roam the streets at some point. Also, its one of those areas where even though home prices have increased, the apartments in the area still have very light qualifications (poor credit, low income) That can create quality of life issues. I saw it first hand living in El Sereno and The Rampart district. Thats the big problem those homes in the Southern parts of LA (Inglewood, COmpton) still experience despite out of control home prices. Horrible apartment blocks.



Thats you. Everybody's different. I work in those areas and occasionally have to make stops to the stores, restaurants ect and have occasionally visited friends. As someone over 40 I would probably elect to sleep in my car first by the beach. In my early mid 20's, I wasn't quite as particular.

Yeah I hear you regarding the low income apartment stuff. Several areas in the L.A area would be nicer if not for all the apartments.

I bought a house in hood area. But I wouldn't of wanted to live in an apartment in same area.

Unfortunately too much low income in an area creates ghettoness. Not PC to say..but we all know it's true.

Prices in L.A will increase even if the area stays ghetto though. Rising tide raises all boats in L.A

Not the same in other most other cities.

That being said if you live in Lake Balboa in a single family home area , not really much reason to be walking around the apartment blocks and stuff.

[Cloudwalker]

Your landlord needs to separate the two things. Under rent control, he can only legally raise the rent by 2% for utilities if he's paying the whole of the utility bill. Which in reality he is, but it seems your lease agreement also gives him written authority to charge you 60% of the overage above $500. The fact that he's choosing not to charge you doesn't mean he can just tag a bit extra on with the annual RSO rent increase.

If it were me, I would argue that he can annually increase the utilities portion by 2% or charge you the correct overage when it occurs (showing you the actual bills), but not both (if he's charging you the overage, he's not paying all the utilities and therefore can't make a 2% annual increase). There's no legal authority to bump up the annual utilities increase a little extra to cover increased use.

Ask him about getting separate meters. It's in everyone's interests (for him, tenants have no real incentive to control use when he's paying for it and for you, an annual 2% increase based on a high rent may well be overestimating the actual increase). Do you think that the cost of your utility usage went up $630 last year (2% of $3150)? Seems like overall you'd be better off paying for utilities separately.

[Larry Siegel]

Originally Posted by SOON2BNSURPRISE

If I was single I would not pay the $3,000 a month rent. I would take a two year time frame to live at work, work as much as I can, take showers at a fitness center, ect. At the end of the two year time frame I would have saved the $3,000 a month for a $72,000 down payment on a place, not including anything else that I might be able to save. I am thinking that if you spend $3,000 a month in rent then your making $9,000 a month. Save as much of that as you can and in two years have maybe $100,000 for a down payment on a place.

That is just me though.

You'd save for a house by becoming homeless? Seriously?

[sdlife619]

A little off topic here but who are the kinds of people buying all these 500-800k homes? What jobs are out there that are allowing these people to buy such overpriced shacks of crap?

What jobs pay $10-15,000 a month?

Surely not a whole lot especially here in SD where I live yet somehow some way potential buyers are having bidding wars, so I don’t know where these people are coming from that are allowing to purchase our homes here. One thought was a good amount of them have sold their old home from out of state to desperately move here, and use that money as a massive down payment.

It’s crazy, in my area there’s these little 1950’s houses that have been done up selling easily for $550,000 in a simpleton suburban neighborhood. My neighborhood used to be a strictly low middle-middle class, nothing fancy or great, but in the last several years it has turned into more upper middle class as the older people sell their homes and move out of state to retire. And the only people buying these homes, are either foreigners, other investors or wealthy types, not your local mailman. The days when a plumber or a carpenter owned a house in my neighborhood are rapidly disappearing. The working class or well to do blue collar men n woman that used to live here have either moved away or can’t even come close to being able to afford a house where I live nowadays.

Some houses up the hill from me are going for $850-900,000!!! I mean it’s effing insane!! I’m talking 1950’s-70’s homes that are very modest and aren’t that big in terms of square footage. Some have not even been fixed up. People are just plain STUPID as hell to drop so much money on a small house and in a neighborhood that isn’t hip, cool, or interesting. But as long as we have these idiots with lots of cash on them, they will continue to buy these houses that are obviously not worth the asking price, not even close!! We need people to finally wake up out of their daze and come back to reality and say “Yeah right, there’s no way I’m ever going to pay so much for such an old small house”. People need to resist and not buy until prices come down to sane levels again.

It’s totally sad and a scary sign of what’s coming as less and less people can afford to live in California’s most popular cities.