Does anyone want to move out of the Bay Area (San Francisco: environment, relocate)

[movingfromseattle]

Originally Posted by sliverbox

Ultrarunner,In essence, there no longer exists a first time home buyer market. Of course the market can't survive without first time buyers for long, hence the start of what looks like a downward cycle of depreciation. Perhaps once prices come back to a level that is acceptable,people can do as you did and buy up over time.

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A friend of mine who lives there, told me to wait a year or so before buying. I am thinking he had good advice. Safety and a decent neighborhood, is my ultimate goal for buying. I wish to make sure the neighborhood I buy in, has a long history of being good and will remain so.
A friend of mine here in Seattle is from Oakland. He was raised there. The crime rate is up so high from what he can remember. He and his wife misses the bay area though. I havent been there yet, but I am so looking forward to my first time in a state I swore I would never live in. LOL Never say never.

[NewToCA]

The SF Bay Area isn't the only market where teachers can't buy homes. Just looking at the east coast, they can't afford anything decent in metropolitan New York City, Boston or Washington DC either.

There is a reason these cities have high real estate costs, perceptions of being desirable. If you don't enjoy the unique attributes offered by these areas, then obviously you shouldn't stay there and suffer the higher costs.

I didn't like Washington DC, and agree that I would rather give up their attributes and live somewhere less expensive. However, I would gladly suffer the higher cost of the SF Bay Area.

[sliverbox]

The SF Bay Area isn't the only market where teachers can't buy homes. Just looking at the east coast, they can't afford anything decent in metropolitan New York City, Boston or Washington DC either.

Yes... I think most anyone will agree that the East and West coasts are expensive. For some reason, people from the "coasts" fail to recognize that the 90% of the country they flyover criss-crossing the country is affordable.No- they aren't cheap because they are inferior either. Surely people don't live in NYC for the weather do they?

The "coasts" are expensive because they are the most populated and suffer from the lack of available funds to upgrade their infrastructures to deal with their populations. Up until recently, they also paid more and almost made up for the cost differences. Not now. For some reason, it seems that people in this country assume that something more expensive must surely be better.

[NewToCA]

You have much more land in the middle of the country, but less access to major water (except the very cold Great Lake region).

I don't think the costs were established via any process other than economic markets. The demand creates the cost. It is why Philly isn't as expensive as Boston, and why Baltimore or Richmond aren't as expensive as Washington DC. When prices exceed demand, you get the downturns or corrections, as is now occurring.

Fewer folks choose to live between the coasts than land available, so the cost remains suppressed (as opposed to the cities mentioned in my prior posting).

[Ultrarunner]

Yes, the East Bay Market has changed a lot over the years and especially in Oakland.

As a young single man who had just paid my way through State working 2 part-time jobs, I was able to save $15K and should have been able to qualify for a loan to buy a nice $60 to 70K home in San Leandro or Hayward. You could say that I am frugal since I still have my 1972 Plymouth Valiant that I bought in college for $300 so many years ago.

Three Lenders turned me down because I did not have the required years of steady employment at a wage high enough to meet their income ratios... The only mortgage Broker I went to asked me point blank if I was a drug dealer because of the down-payment money I had saved working only part-time jobs in High School and College.

Anyway, I was completely frustrated and said the Hell with it. Oakland was the one place I could afford to buy for CASH. I took my "Down Payment" money and paid cash for my first house... NO Mortgage, NO Bank Fees, No Termite Clearances and VERY LOW Property taxes, which remain low today.

In 1983, lender's typically required 20% down (25% for "Certain Areas") and interest rates could be as much as 15%. Lenders did just about anything they could to RED LINE so called undesirable neighborhoods... things like requiring a new certificate of occupancy for Flatland Oakland property, New Electrical Services as a loan condition and good luck trying to find a Insurance Company!

The other thing that was different, without exaggeration, almost every East Oakland Flat Land neighborhood had at least one boarded-up, vacant home. I would walk past one on my way to High School.

There were so many vacant homes in Oakland that the City had a program where you could buy a City owned abandoned home for $1 if you agreed to LIVE IN the home for 5 years and make improvements. I did not qualify because I was single and the program was targeted for families.

Silverbox is right when he said the market is different. I can show you homes around 98th ave that the city sold for $1 and are selling for $450k today.

Was it easy...NO. Would my friends visit after dark... NO, but we all are lucky in this country in that we have choices.

I was lucky because I bought in a neighborhood with a lot of Older Homeowners who took me under their collective wings. By the way, I am white and all of my neighbors were black and now many are from Mexico.

A lot has been said about today's housing market and I don't deny any of it. I do have a problem with people thinking that the time they live in is the worst time ever and no one else has ever gone through it before.

In late 2005 there was a small Home on Havenscourt district of Oakland that sold for $255K... 2 BR 1BA with Garage. The house was clean and decent and had a new roof. I suggested it to several of my co-workers for their "Struggling Children" hopelessly priced out of the housing market. None of them even bothered to take a look... I guess it is easier to complain about the market instead of doing something about it.

And it was not easy for my Black Neighbors when they bought in the 1950's... the same neighborhoods, with the abandoned city owned homes, all had DEED RESTRICTIONS prohibiting the sale to anyone of a "COLORED RACE"

The question of whether you stay in California is one of choice based on individual priorities. Millions of people live in the Bay Area. Every decision has it's pros and cons... There will always be some people willing to sacrifice more than others and this is not a bad thing... many of the contributors here have done so... such as Tallysmom.

[sliverbox]

you have much more land in the middle of the country, but less access to major water (except the very cold Great Lake region).

I don't think the costs were established via any process other than economic markets. The demand creates the cost. It is why Philly isn't as expensive as Boston, and why Baltimore or Richmond aren't as expensive as Washington DC. When prices exceed demand, you get the downturns or corrections, as is now occurring.

Fewer folks choose to live between the coasts than land available, so the cost remains suppressed (as opposed to the cities mentioned in my prior posting).

In reference to water, I can't think of a worse situation than exists in CA and NV. The water supply comes hundreds of miles through viaducts. When major droughts come, water has to be rationed. The whole system is very precarious. On the other hand, much of the Southeast recieves water via a complex system setup by TVA. A system of dams, rivers, lakes, and hydroelectric plants provide an almost unending local supply of water. Plus it actually rains reliably.

The demand for costs in areas ebbs an flows in a very fluid fashion. Costs and migration patterns are jurisdicted by economic forces.For example, the " rust belt" states like MI, OH, PA, and parts of upstate NY were the economic powerhouses of the 20th century. Immigrants and workers from all over the country moved to these regions, the population grew, and the cost of living went up as a result, but kept in check with economic fundamentals matched my salary. As we have seen for years now, these areas are now losing jobs, people, money, and infrastructural support.

Just like the former industrialized sections of the country, so too did people move to California and the West Coast for economic opportunities. The same predictable pattern occurred, with rising populations, cost, and so on.

The big problem I see with the "coasts" is that they turned away from economics based in industry and more towards an economy based on non-capital producing endeavors; mainly housing and the subsequent money extracted from paper profits: refinancing and so on.. the "house ATM" So in my opinion, these regions are in a precarious situation where too much reliance has been focussed on housing.

There is an economist named Michael Hudson. His latest study called:"The New Road to Serfdom" I would reccomend reading this in full. Very interesting perspective on the US housing situation- particularly on the coats. I think much what he says applies to places like NY, CA, MA, and FL.

Also- you should look at where the biggest growth and domestic migration patterns are occurring. You might be surprised that " flyover land" has some of the fastest growing cities in the country. That and their average age is significantly younger than that of CA and NY. More like 25-30 somethings. It doesn't take a genius to figure out why this is happening. Could it be because many are kind of fed up with paying too much to live on the coasts?

Now I realize most SF lovers will blindly defend the reason for doing" whatever it takes" to pay for a house here. But I think the numbers you'll find- the people moving away and so on speaks louder than words.

[NewToCA]

I agree with much of your sentiment Silverbox, but think that the folks who want to leave generally have one of two situations, either they are planning for or approaching retirement age (within 10 years) and are looking to cut costs and pull out their home equity gains for investment, or have difficulty living as they want within the cost parameters of the region.

Not sure what your source was for population growth, but most of the information I have seen shows the midwest is lagging behind the West and South:

http://www.factmonster.com/ipka/A0764220.html

[sliverbox]

Indeed, the Midwest is lagging very far behind. These are those aforementioned rust belt states that formerly had economies heavily based in manufacturing. They have not made the transition towards a modern economy as well as other places.

The states with high numbers of new residents and overall economic, industrial growth include: TX, AZ, NC, GA, TN, AZ, and WA. The last 2 were inundated with CA ex-pats pretty heavily so they got pricey pretty quick. TX is simply massive and has lots of cities that in some ways at least topically have similarities to some major CA cities: Austin, Dallas, and Corpus Christi. NC has a robust tech economy these days in the tech triangle region: Raleigh,Durahm, and Chapel Hill. Atlanta gained more people per capita than any other major city. It gained close to 500,000 people in 5 years. It is also the youngest city in the US with the avg age somewhere around 25. The pattern with these places are that they are affordable, growing, less congested, and depending on how you look at it- more advantageous to business due to less economic and environmental restrictions along with less taxation. In fact many states now offer tax incentives to companies willing to relocate there.

I suppose the point I was trying to make is that despite having healthy economies, the more traditional areas in the east and west coasts are losing many bright minds and future families for a totally different set of circumstances, which is the fact that they no longer easily provide the "american dream" while other areas do. Unless the coasts can somehow end the cycle of rampant booms and busts, I don't see this shift changing.

It is in California's best interest to encourage affordability.

[riesdad]

Just a general observation and a specific point. Generally, everyone's right- you choose to live where you want for your reasons. (If everyone chose for the same reason, 'twould be a boring world, no?) For quality of life, you can't beat the hyperactive city. For economy, you can't beat the desolate wasteland.

But people's lives change, as others have noted. For me, divorce and retirement mean a vast cut in income. Thus I'm looking for a place where I can live more modestly and will have to give up the Starbucks-on-every-corner big city, the coffeehouse and multi-cultural intellectual stimulation. And, like others have done, to make my own way with fewer amenties.

I'm stuck in a cleft- I refinanced when the bubble had not burst, and my huge equity is dwindling. Zillow says my house has lost over $100K since last August.

[sliverbox]

Just a general observation and a specific point. Generally, everyone's right- you choose to live where you want for your reasons. (If everyone chose for the same reason, 'twould be a boring world, no?) For quality of life, you can't beat the hyperactive city. For economy, you can't beat the desolate wasteland.

Very mature observations. As for someone like myself who has lived all over the country, I came to the conclusion that people are essentially the same everywhere. You can meet people from all different backgrounds and opinions no matter where you go here. Just be glad you live in a country where if you decide the cost of living is too much, you can move to a cheaper region with most of the same amenities. That isn't the case so much in places like the UK where prices are way worse and leave newcomers with few choices unless they want to move out of the country.

I think it boils down to scenery, which becoming less and less important to me with each passing day.