Good nieghborhoods in coastal towns: HB / CM / LB etc.

[Vascodagama]

Parts of Long Beach can be rough, lots of crime. I would not want to have fun in Long Beach except in the Harbor area which is huge.

Huntington Beach has a good nightlife area near the pier/downtown area. There are many nice nightlife areas in Orange County including Anaheim/Disneyland area.

[EscapeCalifornia]

Originally Posted by poplocal

HOA fee's are maintenance fee's which are on top of the mortgage or rental payment?

Up here the general rule (which is obvious) is, older buildings are cheaper to rent and buy but have a higher maintenance fee (on top of the monthly rent/mortgage payment) - newer buildings more expensive to buy/rent but lower maintenance fee's. example: a 30 y/old building may have fee's of up to $400 p/month, new buildings (1 - 5 y/olds) approx. up to $150.- per month. (depending on square footage and location) -- and actually any maintanence fee's are built into the rent for rentals, it's only an additional cost when buying.

I did speak to a realtor about those properties noted above, and yes they did say that they are on leased land with a 30 year lease and this is why the prices are cheaper. I didn't get around to asking - if you were to buy outright, or finish payments before the end of the lease - what happens at the end of the lease exactly??? (if the owners sell the land - you lose everything you paid into it ??)

We don't have a lot of condo buildings around here. The vast majority are 30+ year old complexes consisting of multiple two story wood framed buildings. They're basically cheap apartments that you buy. Expect to pay $200-300/mo HOA in addition to your mortgage. The HOA charge may include insurance, trash, cable TV. The crappy part is that if your dues don't cover some major expense like putting on a new roof, they can send you a big fat special assessment which could run into the thousands.

If you rent a condo from an owner, the HOA charge is just included with the rent.

Yes, theoretically if your land's lease expired and weren't renewed, you'd be out a lot of money as your "ownership" which is basically air space, would have no value.