Welcome to City-Data.com Forum!
U.S. CitiesCity-Data Forum Index
Go Back   City-Data Forum > U.S. Forums > California > San Diego
 [Register]
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
View detailed profile (Advanced) or search
site with Google Custom Search

Search Forums  (Advanced)
Reply Start New Thread
 
Old 08-03-2014, 07:22 PM
 
11 posts, read 13,855 times
Reputation: 14

Advertisements

Hi
I am moving to San Diego with my two sons (9 weeks and 3 years.) I don't know anything about San Diego. I am moving there because my sister just moved there and will work/live downtown. I need some advice please since I am moving with my two very young sons. I am looking to buy a house around $300,000. I am hoping to find a safe and nice neighborhood where my kids can play outside with other kids. Does that exist still? I am also hoping to find nice parks near by and good schools for them. I am hispanic and their father is white. So my kids are mixed and I'm hoping to find a diverse community for them as well. Eventually I will look for a job teaching and hopefully where we live would be close to schools with a large ESL population because my license is in ESL. We also love eating natural foods and frequent grocery stores such as trader joes or whole foods, and would love yoga studios nearby and perhaps a nice library for the kids. Does anybody have any ideas where I can start looking. I will be traveling to San Diego in October to start looking for houses. Thank you so much anybody who can help me!!!!
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message

 
Old 08-03-2014, 09:09 PM
 
Location: San Diego, CA
813 posts, read 1,264,684 times
Reputation: 916
I would encourage you to go on any of the real estate sites and put in that budget. I am not trying to sound negative, but you will not find a house anywhere here at that budget. San Diego real estate is very very expensive.

You may want to consider trying to rent for a year or two here, so you can get a feel for the area and different neighborhoods.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 08-03-2014, 09:43 PM
 
11 posts, read 13,855 times
Reputation: 14
wow! okay. What about $400,000 RainbowHope?
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 08-03-2014, 09:52 PM
 
11 posts, read 13,855 times
Reputation: 14
I have looked in trulia and since I don't know anything about San Diego I did find some around that budget of $300-400 but I don't know about the neighborhoods to avoid. The ones I find in my budget are in 92105(Gateway) or 92105(Webster) Are these not nice areas??
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 08-03-2014, 10:04 PM
 
Location: Hookerville, formerly in Tweakerville
15,109 posts, read 32,123,578 times
Reputation: 9689
They're lower income areas. Post the addresses for comments.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 08-04-2014, 07:33 AM
 
3,035 posts, read 14,389,712 times
Reputation: 914
The nicest and most family oriented areas based on collective opinions have been discussed numerous times here on the forum.

In addition, the finances challenges associated with these more desirable areas have also been discussed at great length and you are coming in just below entry level.

So if 300K is your budget, I would pick one of the following paths:

1.
2 Bedroom Condo in 92127/92128/92129/92131 that may need some updating or that is located close to the freeway. This will feel like apartment living, but all of these areas will offer some options. Keep in mind that this is the very bottom of the price range, so it will be very competitive and you wont have much time to 'fall in love' with anything.

2.
Rent in one of the more desirable areas on the coast or inland. Most of the time you can rent about 2x more house than you can afford to buy. We are hitting 2005 price peaks, so I'm not sure how much higher median home costs can climb beyond where they are today.

3.
Try an area like Mira Mesa, Escondido or San Marcos which is not as nice as some of the others inland, but is still pretty nice nonetheless. Even here, 300K is going to be a challenge for anything other than condo living.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 08-04-2014, 08:27 AM
 
Location: Hookerville, formerly in Tweakerville
15,109 posts, read 32,123,578 times
Reputation: 9689
But the OP wants an ESL area, and those don't qualify.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 08-04-2014, 10:37 AM
 
Location: 92037
4,630 posts, read 10,232,264 times
Reputation: 1955
Quote:
Originally Posted by epaz View Post
Hi
I am moving to San Diego with my two sons (9 weeks and 3 years.) I don't know anything about San Diego. I am moving there because my sister just moved there and will work/live downtown. I need some advice please since I am moving with my two very young sons. I am looking to buy a house around $300,000. I am hoping to find a safe and nice neighborhood where my kids can play outside with other kids. Does that exist still? I am also hoping to find nice parks near by and good schools for them. I am hispanic and their father is white. So my kids are mixed and I'm hoping to find a diverse community for them as well. Eventually I will look for a job teaching and hopefully where we live would be close to schools with a large ESL population because my license is in ESL. We also love eating natural foods and frequent grocery stores such as trader joes or whole foods, and would love yoga studios nearby and perhaps a nice library for the kids. Does anybody have any ideas where I can start looking. I will be traveling to San Diego in October to start looking for houses. Thank you so much anybody who can help me!!!!
Based on your post, please do not come here fresh looking to buy a house, rent first. San Diego is a brutal market in the 300k range and not like a lot of other cities you can move to and have the expectation that it affords a decent middle class lifestyle to raise a family in.

The sub 400k market is not for the meek either. In fact this was just reported
A time-tested signal of weakness in the housing market is flashing yellow. Page 1 of 3 | UTSanDiego.com

Get to know the areas and the schools while renting to see if buying truly makes sense for you out here. Renting in a great school district might be worth it especially if you are unsure how long you plan to stay.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 08-04-2014, 12:14 PM
 
11 posts, read 13,855 times
Reputation: 14
Thank you so much everyone It makes sense to me that renting is the better way to go. I think we will go that route and would want to rent somewhere where we might want to buy eventually. As I was discussing with my family it might be best for us to combine the money from the sale of our two houses. Which would make our range around 600K. I am not necessarily looking for an ESL area to live in. I realize these tend to be lower income areas which might not be "ideal" for us our family. I would probably commute tops 20 minutes to a school with a high ESL population if I happen to find a job teaching in one.

With that in mind, I am hoping to start researching the best areas to look for houses to rent. So we would be now looking with a budget of 600K and for an area for children to grow up in that has some diversity and would allow one to stay in the area to find "healthy/organic" food, parks for kids, yoga and other health minded activities for adults. Is there such an area? Or do people go downtown to find most of their activities? I will try to look through old forum posts. I feel that I have and can't seem to find exactly what I'm looking for. I will keep looking
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 08-04-2014, 01:01 PM
 
3,035 posts, read 14,389,712 times
Reputation: 914
Escondido and San Marcos would qualify as ESL friendly areas.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.

Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.


Reply
Please update this thread with any new information or opinions. This open thread is still read by thousands of people, so we encourage all additional points of view.

Quick Reply
Message:


Settings
X
Data:
Loading data...
Based on 2000-2020 data
Loading data...

123
Hide US histogram


Over $104,000 in prizes was already given out to active posters on our forum and additional giveaways are planned!

Go Back   City-Data Forum > U.S. Forums > California > San Diego

All times are GMT -6.

© 2005-2024, Advameg, Inc. · Please obey Forum Rules · Terms of Use and Privacy Policy · Bug Bounty

City-Data.com - Contact Us - Archive 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37 - Top