Crack houses on beach in SD (San Diego: for sale, real estate market, apartment)

[typical_guinea_pig]

I live in MN but I love reading the CA forums and enjoying hearing you folks have to say about my favorite state. A recent thread mentioned a "crack house on the beach with police tape and chalk outlines" for 400k, or something like that. Anyway, this seems so weird to me. Beach property is always in such high demand, why would a city let utter squalor ruin such prime real estate? (San Quentin on the bay is another thing that causes me to scratch my head)

I am thinking that I obviously don't understand the situation. I just love the beach so much (grew up in southern CA) and know that most people live in CA because they love the weather and the water, so why are there such trashy, drug infested areas near the beach? I would think the city would condemn the dilapidated properties, or sell to someone who will fix it up and be house proud.

Somebody please explain to me. Is it really that bad near the water? Does anyone from there think it's strange for beach property to be valued so little? (I realize it's probably not ON the water, but still...near the water, still so highly valued, no?)

Help me understand this perplexing (to me in MN) scenario!

Joanna

[mewzikguy]

That is extremely rare - - most of us have never heard of it- seen it. Remember that So Cal does attract some strange types. . . just walk around some areas of San Fran. and LA. And SD has had a migration of transient freaks the last 5 years as well. . . but nowhere like SF.

[dhe]

I think the OP is assuming that a "crack house" is some broken down pile of junk filled with and surrounded by unsavory people. That is a stereotype that often is not reality here in SD.

[typical_guinea_pig]

The post I was referring to was on the "Is San Diego overpriced". Even though I realize the OP could mean just a junky house, I was still shocked that a house on the beach in most ANY condition would be $400k, based on what I see for sale when I look up real estate.

California peeps (and many of us in other states) love their coast and so when I read what the OP wrote, and nobody else seemed to be saying "Where the heck is there a house on the beach for $400k", I thought, "well, maybe I really am not understanding the CA real estate market".

Here in the Twin Cities, we have plenty of junky areas, but houses near or on nice bodies of water (not the drainage ponds that some people pretend are lakes), those places always stay at a premium and do not ever get junky. I was just in disbelief that San Diego would let beach/near beach become so rundown.

My father always loved San Diego and said it had the best weather of all of CA. Glad to hear it's not really like that on the beach, so decrepit that nobody would want it. ALTHOUGH, if it is, and, you know, none of ya'all want it, I'll come down and scoop it up at that price :-)

Joanna

[Sassberto]

Don't get your picture of California from TV or City-Data - you'll find it tends to be very skewed. Crack houses on the beach is not a regular occurrance.

While it is true that there are many run-down areas in the beach cities, there are also extremely upscale beach cities. Generally speaking there are a few reasons for this:

- The beach cities tend to be the older parts of the city, more dense
- much beach housing stock was built as rental cottages, never intended to be a permanent residence - they were really weekend / vacation homes for the people who lived further inland
- many of the older beach cities have close proximity to industrial or transportation infrastructure which reduces property values somewhat.
- the general trend in most beach cities is to tear down the old beach shacks and build new luxury condos

[typical_guinea_pig]

But, let me ask you this...even in a run down area, wouldn't even an empty lot on the beach go for much much more than $400K? I am sure you are right about the skewed views :-) And I also am thinking that probably the OP was neither from CA nor had ever been looking at CA real estate. But what made me think OP was serious was that nobody responded as in "what the heck are you talking about".

Joanna

[caliguy92832]

I know this guy who rents an apartment in Pacific Beach. Up in the attic he would grow pot plants and then sell them for extra income. He had a whole pot garden with sophisicated lights and everything.