How do you people do it?! (Orange, Newport Coast: for sale, foreclose, lease)

[EscapeCalifornia]

Originally Posted by GumbyGirl

I'm always amazed at how many people are moving to this state. Ten years ago I could understand it, but with real estate costing as much as it does, nowadays only high paid executives can afford to move here. The original poster was right... there are plenty other nice parts of this country to live in, that are more affordable.

Welcome to the two class society that SoCal is becoming.

[canibeyou]

I really can't explain how we (my husband and I did it)... I don't do math.

We bought our home 4 years ago. Regular, normal loan (nothing odd or funny or empty promising involved). Put a regular amount down and our mortgage is cheaper than any rents I've seen (well under $1000 a month). All of our cars we paid for with cash, so no car payments; no payments on any toys either, meaning we paid cash for things like our motorcycles, etc. I retired 5 years ago, at the age of 33 and therefore we live on one income and have plenty of money to take vacations all the time, etc.( and money for addictions like Ebay! There has to be some knd of supprt group for this addiction! LOL!) And, NO, my husband doesn't work a high paying job. We have no credit card debt (if we want something, we pay cash; no cash means we don't get it!). The only bills we owe are a mortgage and regular bills like electric, gas, water... things like that. We really hate owing money to anyone. We've contimplated moving out of California, but I've lived here all my life (3rd generation So. Cali.) and my fear would be not finding a place we like as much as where we are now, and we simply couldn't afford to buy back into California. Heck, we couldn't afford to buy our own home we're in now if it was on the market.

Anyhow, I honestly don't know how we do it (I don't really pay much attention to money. I spend X amount a week on groceries and fun stuff), but we do.. and we do it very well, apparently. I'm baffled by how many others can't. I guess you could say, we don't fit the stereotype of the typical Californian who's in way over their heads?!?!?

[EscapeCalifornia]

Well if you mortgage is under $1000/mo, I don't think this thread really applies. Try buying a 1st house or even a condo today and only paying $1000/mo.

[canibeyou]

This IS our first home. Rented an apt. before we ever owned anything.
I guess I was just trying to point out that it can be done. And without a stupid no interest loan; your parents buying you a home; being extremly wealthy, buying 10 years ago; and whatever other myths seem to always come up in threads like this.

Do we live in OC? Nope. We live in a rural area of So.Cal. Do we live in a regular neighborhood? No, we live in a house on acerage (and, no, not the desert, LOL!); do we live in a traffic congested area? Nope. 15 cars on the road is "rush hour". We gave all of that up (used to live in LA County) in order to be able to buy a home. Sometimes, you have to leave LA or OC in order to obtain what it is you really want, if it's home ownership you're seeking.

Guess you're right... this thread doesn't apply. My apologies. Sorry for my intrusion.

[Ultrarunner]

Thanks for posting... great story!!

[LANVIN]

Because the better parts of Orange County are desirable places to live, just like many other places across the country. A lot of professionals living in these areas.

For example, in Manhattan. The average price to buy a one bedroom apartment in the better areas is nearly $1,000,000+, three bedrooms: $5,000,000+. I went and looked at a 600 sq ft. studio apartment listed for $1,100,000 the other day.

At least you people get larger houses for $1,000,000. Not a tiny box. You have it easy.

[msn2310]

I too am baffled at how a lot of people can afford to live in SoCal? With homes starting in the $500-$600k range and fairly high property taxes you have to have a very large income to live comfortably unless you have a spare $250k laying around as a down payment. From what I have seen, jobs do not pay that great out there unless you are in a very specialized professional field.

While I do not live in SoCal (always have wanted to except for the whole cost of living thing) I do know a few people who grew up in Orange County and sometimes it's sad to see that they are grown adults with good jobs and are very responsible yet they still live at home with their parents because they cannot afford even basic housing that is not 75 miles away from where they work. Sure they could rent something but then how do you save up enough money for a down payment on a $600k house??

[canibeyou]

Originally Posted by Ultrarunner

Thanks for posting... great story!!

Thank you. I'm not trying to brag or anything and admittedly, I am horrible at math, so I'm not the bill payer. I know what they run and that we can afford them.. but in no way am I one to ask mathematical advise. But every once in a while, is it so wrong to hear that someone is making it work?
I originally joined this forum because we've been contemplating moving out of California. Having lived here all my life, I'm really scared about leaving, hating where we move and wanting to come back. Like I said before, we probably couldn't afford to move back. Then again, I could go back to work. But we were trying for that brass ring of buying a home with cash and therefore knocking out another bill (no mortgage).

I DO understand many people need to live close (or at least reasonably close) to where they work (my husband has a 24 mile commute each way,and coming upon 3 cars either way on that commute is a "busy day") and that is where horrible Catch22's come into play. Affording close to your work, in bigger cities looks to be next to impossible. And the amount homes cost in the other areas is something that would make it so I couldn't sleep well at night over.

[killer2021]

We bought before the boom occured and pay 1k/month for a 3bed/2bath house. The home is valued at 600k now, we paid 115k. We make 50k for a family of four however when we first bought we made around 80k but we have had some job losses in the family and had to cut back. That pretty much sums it up. If you check the cost of living calculators the biggest expense is housing and it far out weights all the other expenses. If you can get a cheap home then you can make it, otherwise, good luck.

[sliverbox]

"We bought our home 4 years ago. Regular, normal loan (nothing"

Exactly.If we were talking about this 4 years ago, then I too would be able to do the exact same as you did, which is buy and have a normal mortgage. What happened 4 years ago isn't very pertinent to the conversation at hand since the prices went up more than 300% in 3 years.

Me and my wife are sort of like you and your husband. We're old fashioned, we save most of our income, and live frugally. I still drive a old truck with 230,000 miles on it. We both have good jobs that pays us into the six figures. At the rate we are saving, we could probably put a down payment on a home here in another 2-3 years. But instead we are looking to buy a piece of property in another state( I'm not mentioning which one) outright- lock-stock-and barrel.

I've lived all over the country and I have never lived in a place where there are so many stressed-out, unhappy people. There's more to life besides money, expensive houses, and working your rear off for things.

It makes me sad to see the middle class here get pretty much run over. You can't run a country without a middle class, and eventually this will catch up with the economy.