San Diego home affordability analysis by a non-expert (Mesa: condo, mortgage)

[Cardiff Kook]

Originally Posted by loveautumn

25% of monthly income for housing is way low in SD. Realistically, 35-40% and some pay more than that. And rents are rising here a lot.

Are we talking net or gross income?

[The Flying Dutchman]

Both.

[Cardiff Kook]

my mortgage is 29% of gross household income and I still like a pauper sometimes

[hitman619]

I'm about to dish out some, "Tough Love" in Here.
I'm Getting really Tired of these threads. Yes, San Diego housing is high, and yes it will continue to stay high.
If you think this is Bad Try NYC, SF Bay Area. I subscribe to the Principles of,"Crawl before you walk".
Either Buy a Condo of some sort, or rent and save your damn money for a down payment
Buying in Owning a home in San Diego Is not easy, but it is doable. If it was easy, every Bum would want to come here.
If you want cheap housing mixed with sunshine, and unattainable women Move to Florida

[1AngryTaxPayer]

The mortgage payment for a 550,000 dollar house with 50,000 down will be $2,533.43. It's that simple. Add in your property tax, gas and electric/sewer/water and you are easily looking at 3300-3500 a month to live here.

So, for now if we use the benchmark of 3 grand a Month to get by here then it'll be the number I'm telling people from now on.

[kettlepot]

Originally Posted by 1AngryTaxPayer

If you want to stay here and not rent you need to forget the typical "dream home". Condos, roommates/live with family, family parks, or inland. It just depends on how bad you want it.

That's what people need to understand. The typical family home in San Diego is not going to be a 3/2 on a 1/10th acre lot. In New York City most homes in the outer boroughs are now what New Yorkers call "two-family" homes, and what everyone else calls a duplex. Duplex, Fourplex, Condo, Row House, Town House - anything that allows for more people to live on a smaller piece of land. It's the land that's expensive.

The $225k calculated by the OP can get you a condominium in many areas of the City.

And no first time home buyer in San Diego limits housing costs to 25%. The 38% max allowed by the lenders is typical.

[Pedro2000]

Originally Posted by kettlepot

That's what people need to understand. The typical family home in San Diego is not going to be a 3/2 on a 1/10th acre lot. In New York City most homes in the outer boroughs are now what New Yorkers call "two-family" homes, and what everyone else calls a duplex. Duplex, Fourplex, Condo, Row House, Town House - anything that allows for more people to live on a smaller piece of land. It's the land that's expensive.

The $225k calculated by the OP can get you a condominium in many areas of the City.

And no first time home buyer in San Diego limits housing costs to 25%. The 38% max allowed by the lenders is typical.

The average cost of a 2Bedroom anything in SD is almost $400K. So yeah you can find a 1 bedroom condo for $225K in some places, but how many people are coming to SD looking to buy a 1 Bedroom condo? A 25 year old would only do that if they had wealthy parents, most others are still paying big bucks on student loans and not making much money at their first job out of college.

It is also why it's a dumb argument for somebody to leave elsewhere and move into a 1-2 Bedroom condo that costs $300-400K. And the argument that it might go up is meaningless unless it's just an investment property. Otherwise that $300K condo that becomes a $800K condo means you need to buy an $800K condo after you sold yours. Not much of a profit in that case, more like an even swap. Now if you bought a $300K condo, sold it for $800K and moved to Nebraska and bought something big for $300K or less, huge profit. But nobody ever makes that argument.

Just because it's san diego, doesn't mean it's a smart decision. People like to make up stories for whatever reason. It's an expensive place to live without having any of the jobs to actually back up the cost. If somebody is fine with making $100K, and rarely ever more spending almost 50 percent of their income on rent/mortgage, not having a ton of opportunity for growth in most careers, and having a smaller place, it has some of the best weather and things to do in the world. But people who pretend this isn't the case, like a few on this forum, are why lots of people wind up lost when they do move here and can't understand how the 'vacation' turned out to be no so much of a vacation.

[LuvSouthOC]

Originally Posted by hitman619

I'm about to dish out some, "Tough Love" in Here.
I'm Getting really Tired of these threads. Yes, San Diego housing is high, and yes it will continue to stay high.
If you think this is Bad Try NYC, SF Bay Area. I subscribe to the Principles of,"Crawl before you walk".
Either Buy a Condo of some sort, or rent and save your damn money for a down payment
Buying in Owning a home in San Diego Is not easy, but it is doable. If it was easy, every Bum would want to come here.
If you want cheap housing mixed with sunshine, and unattainable women Move to Florida

Very funny and witty. Omg was that well said.

[elchevere]

When you talk Florida and cheap housing, trust you are excluding many desirable areas on the Atlantic coast such as Miami Beach, Palm Beach, Bal Harbour, Boca Raton, Sunny Isles, Etc and Brickell and Coral Gables (on the bay)...agree with inland (such as Talahassee, Orlando...ugggh), parts of the Keys, most of the West Coast, north of Jupiter and the Redneck Riviera as being affordable but you couldn't pay me to live there.

Other than that, agree with most of what you said--though the Latinas, many hot, in greater Miami do go for stable white guys with jobs. The hot Russians?--well they're another story altogether. The hot white chicks in Broward and Palm Beach Counties?...better drive, at minimum, a Porsche (and, no, Boxster doesn't qualify). Elsewhere?--as long as you have all your front teeth and a Nascar cap, you're golden.

[Bluefox]

Originally Posted by 1AngryTaxPayer

The mortgage payment for a 550,000 dollar house with 50,000 down will be $2,533.43. It's that simple. Add in your property tax, gas and electric/sewer/water and you are easily looking at 3300-3500 a month to live here.

So, for now if we use the benchmark of 3 grand a Month to get by here then it'll be the number I'm telling people from now on.

And you know what's really awful? That's the average rent for a 1BR APARTMENT in SF. So I suppose it could definitely be worse depending on your perspective.