This is how I can afford to own a home in L.A. (living in, moving)
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Thank you for being a REAL person who is courteous and actually answered my questions and actually thought about them!! I would give you 100 reps if I could .
You're welcome and thanks for the nice comments. Feel free to give me a rep any time .
People may not always agree with me, and that's ok. But I'm not one of those posters who just goes off half cocked without thinking things through and/or having facts to back up what I say (at least most of the time, anyway).
As for your beef with the other folks, I don't know what that's about. But try to let it roll off your back. I know from posting here a lot that certain posters can really get under your skin after a while...but that's life. Don't let it drive you nuts 'cause life is too short.
Well, uh, yeah you did. Did you not read your own quote that I was responding to where you mentioned the OP must have been one of the last "liar loans"? Duh.
Actually what I posted was:
Quote:
Originally Posted by JohnG72
Well OP not exactly living.
They are paying more than 50% of their take-home on the mortgage, or were one of the very last liar loans or exotic mortgages.
Not exactly an unreasonable assumption considering home price was 5x income. One or the other, and quickly established that it was the former.
I had a comment left for Fontucky that was directed to both you and her I had deleted earlier because I thought it was too rude and condescending on my part. Now I realized I was entirely in my right to do so. I tried you to give you a rep because I actually agreed with what you said. Now I understand that you are just plain rude and disrespectful without reason. I asked a question that was not even directed towards you but towards the general Californian and you responded with some type of attitude that I didn't understand. I gave you a rep out of the kindness of my own heart even though I didn't have to. I told you I understood where you were coming from because I did and I was trying to be nice and understanding.
Really? Shall I share the rep comment you left so everyone can see how you "actually agreed with me" and what "the kindness of your own heart" looks like?
"My goodness. Excuse me for asking! Inquiring minds just like to know! -- allenk"
If that represents agreement and kindness in your world, I can't imagine what snottiness sounds like! Oh wait -- here comes the rest of your post. I guess now I do know what snottiness sounds like.
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Originally Posted by allenk893
But your still being disrespectful and demeaning in the process and I still don't know why.
My dear young man, I have not once been disrespectful towards you. I have attempted to disabuse you of your false notions. Your initial post, to which I first replied, stated:
"Why do people in LA waste all their money and time on trying to own a $600,000 home when they could get a bigger, nicer, newer home in one of the safer Bay Area cities in a subdivision on rolling hills for $300,000??! That's something I will NEVER understand. LA is so congested, full of crime, hella expensive, smog filled, rude and plastic people, but yet folk will work themselves to death trying to own property there. For what reason? You don't even have to even move out of state to own a nice home in either San Diego or the Bay."
You don't find that disrespectful and demeaning to those of us who have chosen to live in the Los Angeles area? The declaration that we are "wasting all our money" and that we are "rude and plastic people" isn't disrespectful?
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Originally Posted by allenk893
I believe that you are trying to spark a fight perhaps because this board is dead and that is what you like to do to stir up some action and controversy. I don't know. I don't know you but that is what it seems like. Fontucky as well. There's a reason why I don't like Californians. Because you people are as plastic as can be and then your rude as all hell to everyone that isn't like you and shares your materialistic point of view on life.
Wow, indeed! So by suggesting that you might consider not judging others, you believe I am trying to spark a fight?
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Originally Posted by allenk893
I really love it how some of you don't even look through my profile and how I have helped HUNDREDS of people move to California since I joined C-D back in 2008 by mere observation and education on California real estate. I am NOT uninformed by no means whatsoever. I was so informed about the real estate of California that I schooled YOU (an LA resident) on home prices you had no clue about. Yes, this southern Texas hillbilly (sarcasm).
There is no need to scour your profile to respond to an uneducated and wrong impression about our state or those of us who live in it. But if you want to believe you have "schooled" us, by all means, go right on believing that.
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Originally Posted by allenk893
As for you Jill61, I would suggest you learn to get an attitude adjustment. Especially for a woman of your advanced years. It's really unbecoming and classless on your part to appear so vicious and nasty. Almost reminiscent to a 17th century witch.
So you call me rude and plastic, I suggest you not be so quick to judge others, now you call me classless and a witch, but it is I who am in need of an attitude adjustment.
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Originally Posted by allenk893
And another thing, you better watch out because I heard California's gonna fall into the sea one of these days. Of course right after it's flooded by the tsunami that's coming for ya. I would hate to see you have the nerve to be rude and disrespectful to others and to only pay for it later. You know what they say. What goes around, comes around.
Is this intended to be some sort of threat? What a delightful young man you are!
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Originally Posted by allenk893
Those sound like good honest questions to me!! I was asking them in an effort to learn and understand. Otherwise I wouldn't have asked in the first place.
And you have the nerve to try to say that I was passing judgement on others and I wasn't making an conscience effort to understand even AFTER I repped you?!! That's an outright lie!! You just know what I asked was legitimate questions about the cons of living in LA close to your job that you never thought of and didn't want to think about.
Oh bless your heart, you repped me. How could I possibly continue to disabuse you of false notions about crime and smog and such. Such an offense! I don't know how you withstood it. And to think I made it to these "advanced years" without even thinking about any of the horrible things you wrongly believe about where I live.
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Originally Posted by allenk893
It happens all the time with my mom. She gets mad when I point out the obvious flaws of her plans and says I'm judging her when really I'm looking at the whole picture of things. I'm not sorry I go through life thinking about the pros and cons of my decisions that will effect me later on. That's just me. But don't you dare disrespect me in the process of your own failures and try to say I'm this/that when it's clearly you and your own inability to check your plans before you wreck them.
Hmm, last time I looked, I had no wrecked plans. Nor have I called you "this/that" anywhere throughout this entire thread.
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Originally Posted by allenk893
You said I was trying to play innocent? No one's trying to play innocent around here home girl. Who's scared of you? Are you kidding me?
Home girl? OMG, don't make me wet my Depends from laughter! BWAH!
But thank you for your "thoughtful" reply. I guess now I'll go ponder all the bad things about my home of the last 16 years (probably longer than you've been alive), and drown myself in my own sorrows. Or not.
Alright, take it easy you two. Geez, I go away for a few days and the kids wreck the house.
Since the questions have been raised:
1. I live 10 minutes from my job (in a car) and they supply me with a work truck. Yes, I drive all day and have to deal with L.A. traffic but that's what I get paid for so as long as I have a radio, air conditioning, heating and working wipers, I don't mind it.
2. My wife's job is the same distance in the opposite direction.
3. If we were somehow without personal cars, the orange (that's the bus) station is about a block away from where we live and the final stop is right in front of my wife's job. The final stop in the opposite direction is the NH subway station so, even if I don't feel like driving, I have the option of hopping on the bus to go wherever I need.
4. I am surrounded by grocery stores, mom and pop eateries, chain fast food joints and cloth napkin restaurants, chain or individually owned. There are appliance and car part stores galore and there is one major mall five minutes away while the other is ten minutes away in Northridge.
5. We had to call the cops a couple of months ago because we heard a noise as we came into our house. Eight squad cars showed up and it turned out to be a board game that fell off the top shelf of the closet.
6. The house is in good shape. Except for a couple of leaks and the usual maintennance I mentioned in my OP (the pool and yards), I haven't had to fix anything.
Like I said before, if renting works for you that's great. This thread was just supposed to be a positive response to the all the negativity about L.A. (and I guess CA in general) being so unaffordable.
As far as the folks who got upset because they were trying to compare living abroad or in other states, sorry for the offense but living in Germany doesn't compare when they don't have the same circumstances that I mentioned as reasons for my wife and I moving back to L.A. and we would never live in a place like Florida because I've heard that they are very intolerant towards black people there (and don't bring up Miami because I don't want to live anywhere that makes my wife feel alienated because she doesn't speak spanish).
Great to see the discussion still thriving but please don't let it get miopic.
Three years and 370K for a bank owned home that was on the market over a year. The original asking price was 540K and then the bubble burst. I'm not going to lie and say that we weren't lucky in the timing of our purchase but we also had to spend 20K to make the place liveable. I also made sure to get a 30 year fixed loan instead of an adjustable one like my realtor wanted to do.
It's also in the SFV and, though it's not the best neighborhood in the area, it's not even close to being the worst either. The street I live on is very diverse ethnically (and, yes, that means there are white people on it too) and everyone is very nice and neighborly for the most part. The worst thing that has happened is that I had to cuss out our local, self appointed, yard nazi but I've posted about that before.
You're right but it's also very doable if you do have kids. The trick is learning to say "no" to a kid and teaching them to be frugal as well. I know, I know, easier said than done since I don't have them but my wife and I also have been putting money away for a child and we're starting to "work" on it. Our bedrooms are already all furnished and we're not too proud to take hand-me-downs (as the bed and furniture in one of our bedrooms shows) so bring on the used onesies.
I'm not sure what attracts you to living in Los Angeles if you have to live like that. I don't see what is worth sacrificing that much. It isn't like California's quality of life is all that great, just as your lifestyle suggests. If I were you I would've moved on a long time ago. $75k a year in California would cause me to lose my mind, I'd be looking at Texas.
I'm not sure what attracts you to living in Los Angeles if you have to live like that. I don't see what is worth sacrificing that much. It isn't like California's quality of life is all that great, just as your lifestyle suggests. If I were you I would've moved on a long time ago. $75k a year in California would cause me to lose my mind, I'd be looking at Texas.
A post from a Winnetka poster in Illinois about a poster in Winnetka, CA.
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Originally Posted by fatmancomics
I live in Winnetka which is in the San Fernando Valley.
I'm not sure what attracts you to living in Los Angeles if you have to live like that. I don't see what is worth sacrificing that much. It isn't like California's quality of life is all that great, just as your lifestyle suggests. If I were you I would've moved on a long time ago. $75k a year in California would cause me to lose my mind, I'd be looking at Texas.
Hmmm, it sounds like things are working-out very well for the OP. To each his own, and he is managing his finances and accomplished quite a bit in a difficult housing market. Obviously, he wants to live in California, not Texas.
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