More on Cost of Buying A Home in San Diego

[RosieSD]

Originally Posted by snpdragr

This article is great with a lot of quantitative numbers and detail. The paragraph that stuck out for me was:



I'm somewhat ambivalent about the housing problem here. Yes it would be nice to have more affordable options , but at the same time people complain bitterly about traffic and overcrowding. San Diego traffic is not bad (in my opinion) and I would hate to see it approach LA or SF levels. On the other hand, maybe that could be avoided with a good public transit option.

Good point, Snpdragon. I remember the 1980s when the influx of newcomers was much higher, due partially to the fact that home prices here weren't yet overblown. Now, we have much worse water issues, not to mention traffic, so controlling growth a bit is probably not a bad thing. On the other hand, I already live here and own a home here, so that's easy for me to say.

[BavtoSD]

I just wanted to chime in regarding the costs. While this thread is primarily about the real estate, I thought it would be interesting to provide some info on the COL. The Chapwood index, checking the costs of the 500 most frequently bought items, shows how drastically costs have risen in the past few years. The top 8 cities are all in CA, with San Diego being 5th, right after San Francisco and actually before LA.
Chapwood Index - The Real Cost of Living Increase Index Vs Consumer Price Index - Founded by Ed Butowsky

[snpdragr]

I'm pretty sure the above link to chapwood is spam.

The chapwood site reports average yearly inflation rate of 12% for san diego. I think its total BS like the shadowstats site that purported to show the "real inflation". In fact, I would call it junk science.

CPI methodology is public (http://www.bls.gov/opub/hom/pdf/homch17.pdf) and no credible economist or academic researcher has any serious issue with it. The CPI figures are also independently corrobated by the MIT Billion Prices project which reports very similar inflation numbers.

Finally, I've lived in San Jose for many years (the city that Chapwood claims has the highest annual inflation rate at 13.2%) and carefully tracked every dollar of my spending. There's no way inflation is anywhere near the number claimed by Chapwood.

[BavtoSD]

snpdragr, no, it's not spam. I wanted to provide additional context to the cost of living in San Diego, taking into consideration products each of us regularly buy.

[snpdragr]

The chapwood inflation numbers are ridiculously misleading and not representative of anything other than a desire to tell a sky is falling story.

For a better read on local inflation in san diego, use the BLS numbers for san diego which run about 2%:

http://www.bls.gov/regions/west/news...o_20160120.pdf

see also

Yep, prices really are rising faster in San Diego | SanDiegoUnionTribune.com

If your budget doesn't mirror the average consumer, you can look at the individual components to get a better estimate for your own situation.

[JohnSoCal]

It is true that prices for groceries etc. have increased more in San Diego than most other places.

In the 70's, San Diego had the lowest food prices in the country. When Gemco closed prices increased a lot. San Diego now has relatively high prices.

However Chapwood is absurd.

[hitman619]

LOLOLOL
The sKY
The Sky is Falling, Game Over man!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dsx2vdn7gpY

[ziadawad]

You can find decent apartments for around 400k in Carmel Mountain (92128). Carmel mountain is a part of Poway Unified School District, which is really solid in terms of academics. Owning an actual house is much more expensive, but for someone who wouldn't mind living in an apartment, it isn't as at all bad. What can really hurt people are the HOA fees. I've seen apartments where people pay up towards 450 a month for HOA fees alone.

[oddstray]

Originally Posted by ziadawad

You can find decent apartments for around 400k in Carmel Mountain (92128). Carmel mountain is a part of Poway Unified School District, which is really solid in terms of academics. Owning an actual house is much more expensive, but for someone who wouldn't mind living in an apartment, it isn't as at all bad. What can really hurt people are the HOA fees. I've seen apartments where people pay up towards 450 a month for HOA fees alone.

Just a nit.

That's Carmel Mountain *Ranch*. There is a geographic feature named Carmel Mountain. It's located on Del Mar Mesa.

(In 2007 I switched on the TV to hear the newscaster talking about wildfire in Carmel Mountain. 'Oh, s***', thought I - 'did the wildfire jump over us? )