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My point being, most high-income, upwardly mobile homeowners who can afford 500-600k homes will choose to pay a little bit more to buy into an area where the neighbors look like them, i.e. Scripps Ranch.
Scripps Ranch is not Poway. Two totally different housing stock and demographic. Scripps Ranch median household income is $118k, much much more than Poway. In Scripps Ranch, for $500-600k, you can probably get a townhouse or smaller, while in Mira Mesa, you can get a much larger house with land and possibly canyon view. It also depend on where you work as well. Not everyone wants to put up with the traffic. So, there's a distinction on where high-income (upper middle class) wants to live, and they're not all the same. As I just shown, there are more upper middle class families in Mira Mesa than Poway. It might also be to your surprise but there are only ~5700 household in Scripps Ranch that fall under the upper middle class HHI bracket defined by Wikipedia. So, as a total amount, Mira Mesa has more upper middle class families than both Poway and Scripps Ranch. But Mira Mesa also have a lot more lower middle class as well, since Mira Mesa have a lot more apartments.
As for the definition of middle class, here's what Wikipedia define Middle Class: American middle class - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia ($95-140k HHI). By that definition, you're correct, Mira Mesa on average is lower middle @88k. But then Poway barely crack into the middle class @$102k. However, both areas have people in the upper middle class as well. Mira Mesa have ~6000 upper middle class households, while Poway have ~5600 upper middle class household. Keep in mind that although as a percentage, Mira Mesa's upper middle class household is only 26% while Poway is @35%, Poway has a much lower amount of households, so in reality, there are more upper middle class living in Mira Mesa than Poway.
These stats belie simple observation and common sense. Perhaps Mira Mesa has a high household income because you have so many multi-family households with 4, 6, 8 working adults in the same house? A simple visual inspection will show you that many, many homes in Mira Mesa are unkept. Very, very few people would ever believe that Mira Mesa is higher income, wealthier, or nicer than Scripps or (the nice parts of) Poway.
I'm not trying to put down where you live, but if someone from halfway across the country is trying to get a sense to what a place is, just tell the truth. You are correct it is up and coming (I agree Qualcomm will eventually help gentrify it) but right now, today, it is mostly a low-income, working class area with lots of ratty homes and apartments. Yes there are some nice homes and nice neighborhoods but overall that's simply not what it is.
No shame in that, 80% of San Diego is the same and I live in almost exactly the same type of area too, and that's just part of getting a foothold in this crazy real estate market when you aren't making a super-high income. in fact for us, buying into this area was one of the best financial decisions we could have ever made.
And you are right that CA is different - it has no real middle class and much higher poverty, the net effect being that housing demand in nicer areas is so high that it skews everything upward. So the standard of living is lower, and the so-called middle class in CA is poorer relative to other major cities. So if you define it by an HHI number, I define it by a standard a living that is usually pretty obvious by casual observation.
These stats belie simple observation and common sense. Perhaps Mira Mesa has a high household income because you have so many multi-family households with 4, 6, 8 working adults in the same house? A simple visual inspection will show you that many, many homes in Mira Mesa are unkept. Very, very few people would ever believe that Mira Mesa is higher income, wealthier, or nicer than Scripps or Poway.
I'm not trying to put down where you live, but if someone from halfway across the country is trying to get a sense to what a place is, just tell the truth. You are correct it is up and coming (I agree Qualcomm will eventually help gentrify it) but right now, today, it is mostly a low-income, working class area with lots of ratty homes and apartments. No shame in that, I live in almost exactly the same type of area too.
I think that's where you're confused about upper middle class and un-kept houses. I think what you're seeing is just different cultural values. I've shown data to back up my point and disprove yours. I'm talking about income and class status based on income, not how well kept the houses area. If you're talking about how well kept the houses are, I'm 100% in agreement with you. But you're talking about income and class status. I've shown data to prove there are more upper middle class families living in Mira Mesa than either Poway or Scripps Ranch.
I think the key difference is the demographics and how they deal with their money. I know two families in my area with HHI income between husband + wife that's >$200k. Not only that, they have investments properties throughout SD and money invested in local small/medium size business as well. One family sent all 4 of their kids to Bishops for school. Guess what, they're original owners of their house in Mira Mesa. Their house is extremely unkept. Just by looking at their house (inside and out), you would have no idea that they're well into the upper middle class. They're both driving old 1990s Toyota Corolla and Camry. I think that's the type of upper middle class that Mira Mesa has, the quieter upper middle class who don't show their wealth.
So, yes, I am telling the complete truth and backing it up by both data and anecdotal evidence. It's just simply a cultural difference. Which is why Mira Mesa look un-kept and run down (I agree with you 100%), yet still have more upper middle class than either Poway or Scripps Ranch. I guess you and I are both right. Mira Mesa is mostly lower middle class (not low income, there's a difference), since it does have a lot of apartments and it originally catered to lower middle class. However, there are also large amount of upper middle class in there too. More than both Poway and Scripps Ranch. BTW, I don't take shame in saying that a lot of Mira Mesa's houses are un-kept. I just want to point out that just because they're un-kept doesn't mean they're not upper middle class family.
I do think we're both right and have to agree to disagree on the nuance. To me class is mostly a cultural distinction, with income as a component. Upper middle class people do not live 4 families to a house and have dead landscaping in a trashed neighborhood. Immigrant families with low educational attainment and career options do that. Combining 4 low incomes to make 100k+ is still low income. And if the variance of neighborhood is so great that 3 blocks away from nice homes you have dumpy ones, the question is just why buy there vs. anywhere else? Only one reason: it's cheap and central.
The exception, I think, is people like me (and maybe you) who are a bit creative and subversive and are willing to live in a lower-class area to gain a superior financial position later in life. Very few people like that these days IMO. Vast majority will rent a 2k/mo luxury apartment until they can buy the 800k tract home or move away to TX, WA, AZ, CO, etc. to live the lifestyle they feel they deserve.
I do think we're both right and have to agree to disagree on the nuance. To me class is mostly a cultural distinction, with income as a component. Upper middle class people do not live 4 families to a house and have dead landscaping in a trashed neighborhood. Immigrant families with low educational attainment and career options do that. Combining 4 low incomes to make 100k+ is still low income. I don't need stats to tell me that. And if the variance of neighborhood is so great that 3 blocks away from nice homes you have dumpy ones, the question is just why buy there vs. anywhere else? Only one reason: it's cheap. People do it in Kensington or SF, Manhattan because those areas are full of other amenities that make them attractive, like nice homes and nice retail, lots of jobs, etc.
The exception, I think, is people like me (and maybe you) who are a bit creative and subversive and are willing to live in a lower-class area to gain a superior financial position later in life. Very few people like that these days IMO. Vast majority will rent a 2k/mo luxury apartment until they can buy the 800k tract home or move away to TX, WA, AZ, CO, etc. to live the lifestyle they feel they deserve.
I wasn't talking about 4 families living in 1 house to make 100k+ household income. I was giving examples of married couple, combined, making over $200k. That's what I was referring to as upper middle class, not 4 families making $50k each pair living in the same house.
Lets be clear, you and I agree that upper middle class people do not live 4 families to a single home. So you can stop bringing that up as an example to prove your point. We're talking strictly single family living in a single house.
Again, like I said, that's the cultural difference that you're not understanding. You might think think upper middle class people do not want to live in an area with dead landscaping. But I'm trying to tell you that I have 2 examples of upper middle class couples, whose house have no landscape or dead landscape and the exterior of their house hasn't been significantly upgrade for 30+ years. These couples are not lowly educated and they have networth that's far exceed most of us. I just told you one of those couple sent all 4 of their kids to Bishops for school. That's $20-25k/year for 6 years. That's $480k on the low side for all 4 going to Bishops from 6th grade to 12th grade. That's not counting the money they spent on private school from K-5th grade. The other couple own a part of a company that have over 300 employees.
So, you have to understand that everyone spend money differently and you shouldn't judge the book by its cover. Just because their houses are well manicured doesn't mean the owners have very much in their nest egg. The flip side of that is, just because some one's house looks run down (or old) and have no landscape does not mean they don't have a loaded nest egg. People buy houses in an area that fits their personality as well as their wants and needs. You might think you're the exception by buying well below your means to build up your nest egg. I'm trying to tell you that it's really not that uncommon in certain community.
I think what you meant to say is, very few boomers and younger who are born here would live below their means. I know many immigrants who are just like that and I'm pretty sure many who experience the great depression behave that way too. When you're exposed to extreme poverty, you tend to hoard money, so you'll never go back to that extreme poverty again.
And if the variance of neighborhood is so great that 3 blocks away from nice homes you have dumpy ones, the question is just why buy there vs. anywhere else? Only one reason: it's cheap and central.
Another would be no HOA, no MR, cooler weather, that was what they can afford 30+ years ago when they were starting out in their career, you don't care what other people do with their house because you don't like it when other people tell you how you should maintain your own house, being close to family trump well manicured lawn, etc. I'm sure I can think of a few others, but these are a few quick ones I can think of.
Money can't buy class. If you can't be bothered to keep up your home, you're not very classy. You can always rip out a dead lawn and put rocks on it, a lot of people can't even seem to be bothered to do that, I'd hate to see what the inside of their homes look like.
Money can't buy class. If you can't be bothered to keep up your home, you're not very classy. You can always rip out a dead lawn and put rocks on it, a lot of people can't even seem to be bothered to do that, I'd hate to see what the inside of their homes look like.
That's where we'll just agree to disagree. To me, Class = money (net worth specifically, not just income). Someone who has no saving but have a manicured lawn is no where near upper middle class, even if they make $200k/year. I think it's much more classier to have no landscape and donate $50k to charity instead of putting in $50k to have a nice landscape. I could careless what the inside of their homes look like. I would much rather see what their inside of their hearts look like.
Money can't buy class. If you can't be bothered to keep up your home, you're not very classy. You can always rip out a dead lawn and put rocks on it, a lot of people can't even seem to be bothered to do that, I'd hate to see what the inside of their homes look like.
I just reread this, have you been talking about classy the whole time and not class? If you are, then you're 100% correct, Mira Mesa is definitely not a classy neighborhood. Which is why it's priced that way. If it's classy like Del Sur for example, I can see price being a lot higher than it currently is.
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