California affordable housing at all time low (Watsonville: day care, student loan)

[neenee99]

Temecula is a nice community. you would be close to your brother but that really is the IE (inland empire) and not Los Angeles. You are closer to San Diego in Temecula. Also it gets really hot out there in the summer. If you want a temperate climate you will have to stay within about 25 miles of the ocean.

I live in Torrance and before that lived in So Redondo. I really don't think there is a much better place to live in So California if you want a relaxed laid back lifestyle, without all the LA-ness. it doesn't come cheap but you can find a nice place to rent if you really look.

[aggies07]

Since the weather is so perfect, and that is the be all end all to the world, all these california people who are moving out of there to Texas where the weather is supposedly the worst in the world should stay in califonia even if it means being homeless just for the "perfect weather".

[SantaCruzIsMyHome]

All the working class people I know live in San Jose(Campbell) or Watsonville... Watsonville is not a bad option at all... I actually like it a lot... although most Santa Cruz residents would turn their noses up at that comment (too many Mexicans for their taste)... Santa Cruzans like their homogeny...

Chris
Bohova Travel

Check out Watsonville real estate... It may be an option... and it's very close to Santa Cruz

[Jonah1979]

Originally Posted by hedgefundpirate

the cost of living in Los Angeles or anywhere else in California continues to climb.How do people do it? You would have to have two people earning quite a bit more than the national average in order to afford the high mortgage payments.My second question is why would anyone want too when you could move somewhere else with a better quality of life.Check out the article

LA Daily News - State's housing affordability at second-lowest level ever

Check this link out...

Risky home loans - MSN Money (http://moneycentral.msn.com/content/common/flash/riskyloans.asp - broken link)

[dtran103]

California has the fifth or 6th largest economy in the world, one time ahead of France. That's why people live here. The job market is excellent and varied.

[celticman]

Once again history seems to repeat itself. The rich are getting richer and screwing over everyone else. The working class and poor need to organize. Hopefully it does not get too violent this time!

[Jonah1979]

Dawn,

I hear ya on that one! My wife and I are thinking about moving to Florida and I can transfer and keep my same salary. Plus with no state income tax and lower housing costs it's almost a no-brainer for me...of course i grew up there. I'll need to take her to visit in the summer.

Originally Posted by DawnW

53K is very low to live almost anywhere these days!

In fact, we make right around 53K less here in NC than we did in CA. We still make plenty.

Dawn

[graffixjones]

Originally Posted by celticman

Once again history seems to repeat itself. The rich are getting richer and screwing over everyone else. The working class and poor need to organize. Hopefully it does not get too violent this time!

The interesting thing is that the working class used to be organized... it was called "Unionization".

But the rich business-owners convinced most people that unionization was "bad for the economy", because they actually had to pay a living wage to these people that were sacrificing a good portion of their lives to their employer.

To a lot of Californians, "Unions" are still a 4-letter word. Now that most of the unions are gone, the average wage has gotten lower and lower... so maybe they weren't so bad after all?

Heck, the way businessmen tell it, I'm amazed that there are any businesses left in the entire state. The interesting thing is that unions were "beneficial" to the economy, because people had more money to spend, and due to the multiplier effect (your average dollar gets spent 6 times before it makes it back to the bank) the state was better-off, not worse.

[Buyers advocate]

Home buyers...I am very very close to finishing up a pretty good sized document which could be called "How to avoid being screwed, glued and tattooed when buying a house". Way too many home buyers are. There is a tremendous amount of focus on the real estate 'industry' these last couple years by the government and many consumer advocate groups. The attention, in a nut shell is that the real estate industry is being charged with protecting the cash cow while harming home buyers in the process by not disclosing everything home buyers should be aware of.

It's turning out to be an easy enough to understand document. You'll see that what the Department of Justice, The Consumer Federation of America, scores of others, and myself are saying is that it apparently appears that the consumer information you should get but are not, is being intentionally kept from you in order to save the cash cow (everything in the document will be supported by direct links to the appropriate sources). Find out what the cash cow is to the industry. It'll be surprising how well it works to the detriment of home buyers.

If you take the time and read through the document...in my opinion you would be in the class of educated consumers in the top 1 or 2%. Yes, that's a huge jump from the average home buyer.

If you want a free copy of it email me and let me know what state you're in because different states have different ways of screwing with consumers and I'll send the appropriate material.

If you're a future home buyer and don't read the document...good luck. If you do read it...a sincere congratulations is in order for you, it's tremendously educational that few consumers ever wonder into. My email is scandal20052006@yahoo.com

[Oceangirl]

We are planning to sell our large home with accompanying land in the next few years. We will have made a 50 % increase in our homes value, not what we expected but we live in a very desirable area, this totally by accident since we came here for family really. It seems easier to downsize now than scale up. I still wish we could live in CA but most of our friends are moving up this way now to leave the high cost of living in CA. I want to know why it seems that once you make it to one rung of the raised bar the whole system seems to raise the bar again about 25 feet so to speak? I feel like a trained animal jumping through hoops of fire in this craziness.
One thing I do want to say, if you ever get ill and cannot work for several years your butt is toast. That is what has happened to us. I have been ill off and on for several years, having a hard time working and the doctors keep trying to find the problem. It is one of those hard to diagnos things and I just WISH they would get it figured out so I can get back to a normal working life.
Without a second inomce most people in CA would just drop over and lose everything. Don't ever think that you will always be healthy or perfect because you just may end up asking the doc why you feel so sick all time. Anything can happen, getting hit by a car can happen, I just lost a friend two months ago from an undiagnosed cancer and he didn't even know he was dying and bang, he was gone in 7 days of feeling terrible.
Being tired and fighting pain makes it hard to work. Thankfully my hubby has an ok job and we plan our finances very carefully and I can do light freelance work till they figure out the problem. We don't over spend or have kids to send to college.
Hopefully all of you here have some kind of insurance in case you cannot work for over a year.
Seems Americans are just one step away from bankruptcy if something goes wrong. Do we overspend? Take too many vacations or are we just stretched thin by life in general?
Something my hubby and I wonder is, how could his father have owned 3 homes all his life, send kids to college and left his wife with a good pension income after he passed? He was an electrician by trade, nothing more than blue collar. How is it today it is hard to own one house as a common tradesman? If two people don't work now we cannot buy anything much it seems. We are trying to figure this out, is anything different about this generation? My brother feels he just works and works and never seems to get ahead much, he lives in a manufactured home, best he could buy, he is college educated too. He doesn't over spend but does get a vacation every year. He yearns to be his own boss again but due to a serious back injury he had to give up his original trade and had to return to working for someone and start all over again.
If jobs are so great in LA why do folks live in apartments for the most part? And we came out of Santa Cruz, becuase we couldn't live in San Jose where we worked and then couldn't afford SC. Watsonville is a great area but I just checked the housing costs there too. $400K for a home of 700 sqfeet or less. Oh yeah, I could live in an RV with better amenities for that cost and guess what? I could travel in it too!!
Ah well we are lucky to have a home to sell and downsize from. I feel bad for the people I know stuck in apartments that have given up on ever owning a home.