San Diego’s Housing Market Among Least Affordable In U.S. (foreclosure, mortgage)

[NYSD1995]

Originally Posted by shmoov_groovzsd

I was wondering about the move uppers myself. Roughly long how long do you think they would have had to have been paying a mortgage to move up at this point?

No one who bought in the last 5-7yrs in SD, but if they are coming from a lower cost region which didn't get the boom and bust or didn't sell during the boom years they could reasonably walk into a deal with 100k+

[MovingAloha]

Originally Posted by shmoov_groovzsd

How did these units rank up with the other tracts in the area that were built during the boom?

About on par? I noticed for some of the newer places (not in CV) the quality of the materials has been dropped considerably. I only assume its to drop the costs down.

Sorry for the delay in responding. I found the quality pretty good, but there is little to no yard. The homes built by MacMillan are decent with a little more land, but also approx $75k more as well.

[wall st kid]

Originally Posted by elcajones

That's nothing new. San Diego Is and has been a very expensive place to live.

LA is way more expensive i believe.

[blauskies]

Salaries in San Diego tend to suck even in tech work, reminds me a lot of South Florida without the high taxes. There is a few exceptions but overall employers have the same sunshine tax mindset, I see positions requiring a BS in Engineering, 10 years of experience and a long list of requirements paying $60-75K, a few are up to $100K, but take out the income tax and higher COL for rent and you would have to really sacrifice a lot to live in the San Diego area. Personally the Bay Area has more to offer in work and salaries are much better, but not by much after deducting the COL.

[shmoov_groovzsd]

Looks like the FHA is backing former defaulters and giving them loans...granted they qualify.
FHA gives those who defaulted on homes another chance - latimes.com

[Clevelandgal]

While not an FHA gal, I used them as a bench mark of community health when considering condos. If a complex is not FHA approved,avoid. Im not saying FHA approval means its a good investment, but if it is NOT FHA approved it probably is not a healthy condo community. The only limitation they have that is total crap is the over 4 stories issue. All the other stuff (foreclosures, law suits, late condo fees and renter to owner ratio) are solid indicators of community health.

[cy_flembeck]

Originally Posted by westcoastbabe

**huge sigh****The tradeoffs and the price we pay just to live in sunny San Diego, CA**....But ya know what, I would take it in a heartbeat.....Personally it would be therapeutic as h#ll..I personally I don';t see any of you guys rushing to move to Charlotte, NC....And ya know what, I absolutely don't blame u.

Are you ever going to actually leave Charlotte and move somewhere else or are you going to continue to bash it on a multitude of forums for the next 10 years? There are a lot of people moving to Charlotte from all over the country and find that it provides a terrific quality of life.

Sometimes the grass is brown because you aren't watering your own lawn. With that said, I don't blame you for wanting to get out of a city that you have lived in for your entire life, I could never stay in one place that long.

I love San Diego and have lived there twice but make no mistake, it has a separate set of challenges. I was fortunate to make a decent living there but I can tell you, being middle aged and just getting by financially in SD is not very appealing to a lot of people.

I hope you find your Shangri-La and when you do, you actually move there.

[blauskies]

I have been to Charlotte a few times, not bad if you can take the pollen count and pine straw. Houses and rents are dirt cheap but the income tax is high at 7.75% over $60K and the salaries tend to be lower for a lot of professional level jobs. No beach and no mountains unless you drive west to Asheville.

[earlyretirement]

Originally Posted by shmoov_groovzsd

Looks like the FHA is backing former defaulters and giving them loans...granted they qualify.
FHA gives those who defaulted on homes another chance - latimes.com

Yeah, I saw that. Totally crazy, IMHO to give people like that mortgages again so soon after they defaulted. Also, I personally think it's a horrible idea to only allow 3.5% down payments.

And the FHA is running a big deficit of probably tens of billions of dollars. Not really surprised to hear the FHA needs a bailout now. We'll see tomorrow just how bad it is.

FHA capital reserves exhausted, audit says: WSJ - Yahoo! Finance

[shmoov_groovzsd]

Originally Posted by earlyretirement

Yeah, I saw that. Totally crazy, IMHO to give people like that mortgages again so soon after they defaulted. Also, I personally think it's a horrible idea to only allow 3.5% down payments.

And the FHA is running a big deficit of probably tens of billions of dollars. Not really surprised to hear the FHA needs a bailout now. We'll see tomorrow just how bad it is.

FHA capital reserves exhausted, audit says: WSJ - Yahoo! Finance

Double edged sword. Get people in houses for little money down in a job market that is recovering. Or just hope that people have 20% down, with crappy credit scores or cash buyers.
I think there would have been unintended consequences of the latter like an outrageous and lopsided rental market where a new breed of would be investors show up. Or neighborhoods going to crap because of the ratio of defaulted homes to owner occupied.
Unfortunately no easy answer but some risks that in hindsight are just slowing the bleeding.

"The FHA is required by law to maintain reserves equal to 2% of its total loan guarantees. It breached that level three years ago, and last year its reserves stood at 0.2% of all loan guarantees. The capital-reserve ratio in the latest report stands at -1.4%. It isn't projected to turn positive until 2014, and it isn't projected to return to the 2% level until 2017."

FHA Takes Steps to Avert Taxpayer Injection - WSJ.com