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Location: San Diego CA>Tijuana, BC>San Antonio, TX
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If anything, a good student from a not as fortunate school is more likely to get a scholarship than another rich brat from a well-to-do school district.
I'll tell you who isn't buying: young families like you. Because young families by the hundreds of thousands have wised up, have bolted from Southern California en mass, and continue to flee to states where you earn more, keep a lot more of what you earn, and have a markedly lower cost of living, putting a solid financial foundation beneath your family which rises exponentially as you pay off debt and build equity.
For the young families that do stay in San Diego and Southern California, they are in massive debt, living paycheck to paycheck. Nothing at all put away for retirement, investment, college education, etc. Be careful, or you will be on the same glidepath to house povertydom. Massive debt and empty bank accounts are your ghost of Christmas future if you buy into this madness. One job loss away from the food bank and EBT cards. But the weather is worth it, right? Right?
Also, it is abnormal two working professionals cannot buy a quality home for half a million bucks. You are working against the Federal Reserve and the FHA, who have flooded the credit market with trillions of dollars to artificially suppress interest rates, and allow jumbo loans with ridiculous 3% down payments. Rates fall, liquidity gushes, home prices rise to absurd levels -- artificially, of course.
Do not forget the lessons of 2006-2008, when the liquidity tide got washed out with Lehman Brothers' bankruptcy and AIG's implosion. What happened? San Diego housing got absolutely crushed, foreclosures and short sales everywhere. A big number of "homeowners," read LOANowners, still have not recovered, though admittedly all this money printing has boosted home prices in San Diego considerably.
Do yourself a big favor and get out. Get thee to a state where you will pay no income tax, itself a massive cash infusion to you. Avoid California's skyhigh fuel prices and gas taxes, among the highest in the nation. Rid yourself of the absurd cost of living here, again, one of the highest in the nation. Avoid Mello-Roos and San Diego's absurd HOA fees, twin bastardizations that suck money from your bank account every month.
There are many, many places across this large country where you can purchase a sizeable home with a nice amount of land for under $300k. And you can be quite a bit more thrifty than that, buying a nice little place for a fraction of what it will cost you in San Diego. These are places where jobs are good, schools are good, and you will pocket money hand-over-fist while quickly building equity in your home. And because you won't be paying a punitive state income tax and have a much lower cost of living, you can fund your retirement and fund your child's 529 plan. Your family will benefit enormously.
Read the forums for other states. Read the tales from California young family refugees, who were far more financially secure after moving the heck out of here, allowing them to sleep at night, giving them a nice cushion to weather the unexpected and allowing them economic freedom they never could have achieved here. San Diego: it's not for young families. Period.
This is not just a problem with California. It is Bernanke (and Greenspan) who created and continue to create a greater wealth disparity in US-- and it is Wall Street and their natural allies in the Republican Party whose zeal to destroy America's unions that also destroyed wage growth in America, making debt slavery the only option for most middle class and lower working class Americans.
By inflating the cost of everything but computer chips from 1983-present, and by working together to destroy wage growth in America for 80% of Americans, the forces of the rich 1% (or even 20%) have taken major steps to destroy America. Bernanke sees that America is being destroyed. He just refuses to take responsibility for it, blaming it on differing 'levels of education'. This man is not so stupid as that. He knows what he is doing. He is a politician after all.
America will have a civil war if this continues. Bernanke is the devil in the details. Ben Bernanke is ruining America. He needs to be stopped. He is a thief, by his own master's definition.
Scripps Ranch is not middle class. A more middle class area would be Mira Mesa or Tierrasanta. Even there, it's a little above average because of proximity to decent paying jobs.
In my opinion, 500K is enough for lower-end houses in middle class San Diego and should get you more than a condo (in non-coastal areas).
Here is a home in Poway that could fit your needs. Poway is the safest city in SD county and has great schools, parks, etc. It's also not too far from the golden triangle employment area (UCSD/sorrenty valley/miramar road/sorrento mesa). The area is not overwhelmingly diverse, but the school district has the largest asian population in the county...
After our 6th year living here and getting to know the neighborhoods, I have a gained some valuable insight into the RE market here.
You can forget about buying in an established neighborhood like Scripps Ranch. There are parts of Scripps Ranch in and around the High School that are all from the 70s and some 80s. I agree, there is nothing terribly special about it. Nice but not nothing special.
However, go south off of the Scripps Poway Pkway onto Pomerado Rd and you have clusters of some newer communities such as Stonebridge. As well off of Spring Canyon at the top of the hill and its a bit more upscale. The houses are packed together, but the neighborhood quality is quite nice. Expect to spend more than 800-900k+ minimum in these areas.
Personally, there are tons of other neighborhoods that you might be able to get in on that might give you a better value position for the long run such as Mira Mesa. Its changing quite a lot there and its proximity to white collar job centers in Sorrento Valley and UTC are HUGE benefits. The western portion of Mira Mesa (aka Sorrento Mesa) on the norther side of Mira Mesa Bl has homes that are comparable to those in Scripps Ranch.
I couldnt tell you much about the schools, but I am certain there has been a demographic switch since the past couple of decades in MIra Mesa.
Housing costs are skewed in many ways feels like playing musical chairs if you dont get in at the right time. Its just that we ( San Diego on the whole) suffers from tremendous swings. So when spikes of house purchases (early 90s, 70s) happen there is a tendency to leave crumbs on the table (like we are seeing now). Or you have to pay top dollar and push up higher.
Try to keep your options open. There are other very good school districts around the County if you are open to it.
After our 6th year living here and getting to know the neighborhoods, I have a gained some valuable insight into the RE market here.
You can forget about buying in an established neighborhood like Scripps Ranch. There are parts of Scripps Ranch in and around the High School that are all from the 70s and some 80s. I agree, there is nothing terribly special about it. Nice but not nothing special.
However, go south off of the Scripps Poway Pkway onto Pomerado Rd and you have clusters of some newer communities such as Stonebridge. As well off of Spring Canyon at the top of the hill and its a bit more upscale. The houses are packed together, but the neighborhood quality is quite nice. Expect to spend more than 800-900k+ minimum in these areas.
Personally, there are tons of other neighborhoods that you might be able to get in on that might give you a better value position for the long run such as Mira Mesa. Its changing quite a lot there and its proximity to white collar job centers in Sorrento Valley and UTC are HUGE benefits. The western portion of Mira Mesa (aka Sorrento Mesa) on the norther side of Mira Mesa Bl has homes that are comparable to those in Scripps Ranch.
I couldnt tell you much about the schools, but I am certain there has been a demographic switch since the past couple of decades in MIra Mesa.
Housing costs are skewed in many ways feels like playing musical chairs if you dont get in at the right time. Its just that we ( San Diego on the whole) suffers from tremendous swings. So when spikes of house purchases (early 90s, 70s) happen there is a tendency to leave crumbs on the table (like we are seeing now). Or you have to pay top dollar and push up higher.
Try to keep your options open. There are other very good school districts around the County if you are open to it.
You are correct. Mira Mesa is changing and continue to change going into the future with regards to demographics. Here's what the city planner expected in term of demographic shift in Mira Mesa: http://profilewarehouse.sandag.org/p...p92126fcst.pdf. When Mira was built, it was mainly catered to your average middle class blue collar family. However, since the mid/late 90s, with Qualcomm exploding, it has shifted Mira Mesa demographic to more white collar and also shift the median income up as well. If you look at the racial demographic change over the last 20 years, you'll see that the trend will only continue. I.E. more and more Asians are moving in while Whites are staying steady. They expect median house hold income to also move up from $60k to $96k (inflation adjusted) over the next 30 years. So, what that's saying is, they expect a lot of people who works on the West end of Mira Mesa to live in Mira Mesa, who are mostly white collar workers, displacing the blue collar workers who originally bought in Mira Mesa.
Schools in Mira Mesa is better on the West side vs the East side, with the dividing line at Camino Ruiz. Houses on the West side are also more expensive. The new development "Sorrento Heights", 2200-2500 sq-ft houses, are starting in the high $600k and go well into $700k with enough options and depending on the lot. Houses Sorrento Valley (which is essentially Mira Mesa, since your kids will go to Mira Mesa schools), along Sorrento Valley Blvd. west of Camino Santa Fe, are between $600-$1M ($2M+ if you consider those modern custom homes on Shaw Lopez Row, not sold at that price though). Mira Mesa High School is ranked 9 in term of API score, which puts it somewhere in the middle of all Poway HS. Challenger middle School, which serves the West end of Mira Mesa, also is rank 9. Same goes for the Elementary schools on the West side. They're also building a brand new $23M Elementary school on the South West quadrant of Mira Mesa, on the corner of Flanders and Parkdale. They're opening for 2015/2016 school year.
I feel your pain. My wife and I were in a similar situation up in LA a couple of years ago and ended up buying a home in a middle class area of what is generally considered a very nice area. We paid in excess of half a million dollars and similar homes are now selling in excess of $600k. I was recently considering a job change and SD was on my radar. My concern is that even if I am able to change jobs and make more money, it's still not enough to buy in SD, even with a nice return if we were to sell our current home. I guess it's nothing new, but I've come to the realization that to own a home and live nicer than middle class in the coastal counties of southern CA, a family must have household income in excess of $150k. Even with a household income of $120k, significant compromises need to be made (i.e. school quality, proximity to job centers, house condition, etc.).
Here is a home in Poway that could fit your needs. Poway is the safest city in SD county and has great schools, parks, etc. It's also not too far from the golden triangle employment area (UCSD/sorrenty valley/miramar road/sorrento mesa). The area is not overwhelmingly diverse, but the school district has the largest asian population in the county...
A little off topic, but the family and I toured this place a while back. Very odd, I was enticed by the low price per SQFT. It has a random sink or toilet in a closet, it is a total gut job. I know this is just an example, but the pickings are slim in Poway. Places stay on the market for only a couple weeks if they are even remotely desirable. To give you an idea we were set to look at 4 places on the day we visited Wanesta, set everything up on Thursday night for a Saturday showing. 1 was pending before we got a chance to view it. 2 others were pending within two days after we viewed it, and of course, Wanesta is still available.
A little off topic, but the family and I toured this place a while back. Very odd, I was enticed by the low price per SQFT. It has a random sink or toilet in a closet, it is a total gut job. I know this is just an example, but the pickings are slim in Poway. Places stay on the market for only a couple weeks if they are even remotely desirable. To give you an idea we were set to look at 4 places on the day we visited Wanesta, set everything up on Thursday night for a Saturday showing. 1 was pending before we got a chance to view it. 2 others were pending within two days after we viewed it, and of course, Wanesta is still available.
Another note on that property is that it doesn't seem to be in a bad location. Walking distance to Hileary Park and several businesses. We used to drive to that park all the time when my kids were toddlers.
When we bought our house around '98 it had been on the market more than 6 months, and it had been previously on the market and taken off after not selling. It needed many fix ups. 10 years later it is done.
Scripps Ranch is not middle class. A more middle class area would be Mira Mesa or Tierrasanta. Even there, it's a little above average because of proximity to decent paying jobs.
In my opinion, 500K is enough for lower-end houses in middle class San Diego and should get you more than a condo (in non-coastal areas).
Here is a home in Poway that could fit your needs. Poway is the safest city in SD county and has great schools, parks, etc. It's also not too far from the golden triangle employment area (UCSD/sorrenty valley/miramar road/sorrento mesa). The area is not overwhelmingly diverse, but the school district has the largest asian population in the county...
Another note on that property is that it doesn't seem to be in a bad location. Walking distance to Hileary Park and several businesses. We used to drive to that park all the time when my kids were toddlers.
When we bought our house around '98 it had been on the market more than 6 months, and it had been previously on the market and taken off after not selling. It needed many fix ups. 10 years later it is done.
If I had to do it over again I would do the same.
Agree with you there, it is on a very nice street. However, it is a gut job. The sunroom is actually a detriment, as it is dark and steals light from the house. It does not have a backyard, but a side yard. Some people may not like that.
If you had the money to reno, it could be a great place. Still the idea of paying half a million on something I would have to take down to the studs is something I cannot do. However, if I could get the Property Brothers to help, I would be in.
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