Is this reasonable? Won $2 million in lotto, looking to purchase Irvine condo in cash.

[CSD610]

Originally Posted by E46driver

Hello all,

Last year I won $2 million in the New York lottery and I realize how lucky I am! I'm looking for advice on where you think the best place to buy a condo would be for someone thats not so liberal and doesn't like being the "minority" if you know what I mean...being a 28 year old professional white guy. As much as I love Newport Coast and Laguna Hills/Beach..I just don't think it is that smart to blow over 50% of the cash I have left after taxes on a small place and then have to worry about paying taxes and fees.

I've hated the weather in NY after living there and Pennsylvania my entire life so I'm glad I didn't buy anything there...but where I'm from -- 500,000 gets you a NICE house with a yard and relatively low taxes per year. Not so much here!


Here is some basic info to start:

-Moved to Irvine 3 years ago. Summered in Long Island with my parents the following year and subsequently won this money in that summer. Got 1,526,000 after taxes. Paid off student loans, credit cards, bought an $80,000 Mercedes convertible and some clothes and then shut down the spending and invested wisely. Have a little more than 1.45 left total if you count everything.

-Working as a .NET software engineer in Irvine for the past year making $85,000 salary. I was making 60k when I first moved here and it was barely cutting it -- I had started racking up credit cards to the tune of about $15,000 over the course of a year just trying to "live" and still have a decent life. Which is why I summered in New York in the first place and quit my original job...to live with my parents or 3 months, do side freelance jobs and pay that crap down some.

- Max price is around $450,000 - $600,000 for a nice condo (is that spending too much???). Decided to pay with cash and get it over with as much as I'd rather invest the money and make more than I'm paying for a mortgage. I just have a bad feeling I'll get into some bad spending habits again and over 10 years will go through that money and still owe a crapload on the place.

Anyway, I love OC the most after living in LA for 6 months. All that traffic and so many mexican/asian people up there just made me throw in the towel. I realize there is a lot of that down here too, but not nearly as bad in the nicer areas suich as where I'm currently renting. I am really trying to find where it is not so liberal, is the most white, and has a ton of tech job opportunities since I eventually want to get to a Senior position making over $100,000 a year. Since I'm a total weather fanatic, northcal just doesnt work even though thats where all the tech market is. I will say, I do like spending money and having nice things..I have nice furniture and all that stuff and my car...but its because I can really appreciate finer things. Of course, I want to fit in wherever I go but I don't exactly like all that snobby and fake/pretentious mommy & daddy money stuff that you see so much around Newport.

Thanks so much for any advice!

Buy an island that way no neighbors, no "unacceptable" people for you to not want to be around.
Start your own tech company, work from home, no need for a vehicle either unless you want to build roads and drive around your own island.

[E46driver]

Originally Posted by CSD610

Buy an island that way no neighbors, no "unacceptable" people for you to not want to be around.
Start your own tech company, work from home, no need for a vehicle either unless you want to build roads and drive around your own island.

Okay thanks. I don't have a problem with people if they speak perfect english, but I'm tired of dealing with foreigners that have been in the country for a couple of years and never took classes and you have to repeat stuff fifteen times over to get the point across. I have an asian boss now and he is cool as hell, in fact we routinely go out and get hammered at the bar on the weekends. But then again, he was born in this country and speaks great. Technically though, nobody is my boss because I'm a 1099 contractor. I just do the work I have to do and leave every day. I dont have to be nice to anyone.


Ragnar, thanks I appreciate your points you have made. And the state gives to everyone with their socialist crap so I don't feel the need to do it. I used to all the time, and of course every once in a while I hand a homeless guy 20 bucks. But I'm not going to donate thousands of dollars a year when so many people are on all kinds of government handouts.

Anyway -- I am really not sure about WHERE to buy a condo in OC is the question. Just trying to figure out a good balance of cost and good area. I don't like kids and dont ever plan on having them so don't care about schools which is nice. Forget about all the technical jargon for now. I've made up my mind to just pay for it outright because I don't trust myself...I've always had the "live for today" notion.

[scgali]

Maybe a beach town like Huntington would be fun. There are lots of nice condos there very close to (walking distance) the beach and Main St. I'm not too sure on prices though since last time I looked at those was in '02.
Most of inland OC will be boring if you don't plan on having kids since it's lots of families with suburban vibe. Personally I would stick with the beach cities.

This shows some nice condos:

Real Estate in Huntington Beach, CA

[DinsdalePirahna]

We live less than a mile off the beach. Nice friendly condo community, with a proactive HOA. units have been selling for about 400k-450K. Walk to Beach, Harbor and Shops. Easy Bike ride to Downtown.

and as I have said before, be careful if the property seems like a deal (less than 300K): its probably on leased land.