Just to give people on DU some perspective on California real estate

[XemaSab]

Go to www.realtor.com.

For area enter in the zip code 93103.

Enter in single family houses.

Yes, the cheapest house in my zip code really *IS* 600K.

And no, I can't afford that.

[Selatius]

1. Nowadays, 1,000,000 net worth is nothing to boast of.

It's nothing. This isn't like 1907 where a dollar could buy you something.

[wtmusic]

2. Listed at $600K

but dropping like a rock.

[bananas]

4. "Like A Rock" Words and music by Bob Seger

http://www.lyricsfreak.com/b/bob+seger/like+a+rock_20021948.html

Words and music by bob seger

Stood there boldly
Sweatin in the sun
Felt like a million
Felt like number one
The height of summer
Id never felt that strong
Like a rock

I was eighteen
Didnt have a care
Working for peanuts
Not a dime to spare
But I was lean and
Solid everywhere
Like a rock

My hands were steady
My eyes were clear and bright
My walk had purpose
My steps were quick and light
And I held firmly
To what I felt was right
Like a rock

Like a rock, I was strong as I could be
Like a rock, nothin ever got to me
Like a rock, I was something to see
Like a rock

And I stood arrow straight
Unencumbered by the weight
Of all these hustlers and their schemes
I stood proud, I stood tall
High above it all
I still believed in my dreams

Twenty years now
Whered they go?
Twenty years
I dont know
Sit and I wonder sometimes
Where theyve gone

And sometimes late at night
When Im bathed in the firelight
The moon comes callin a ghostly white
And I recall
Recall

Like a rock. standin arrow straight
Like a rock, chargin from the gate
Like a rock, carryin the weight
Like a rock

Lihe a rock, the sun upon my skin
Like a rock, hard against the wind
Like a rock, I see myself again
Like a rock

[wicket]

22. I love that song & I love Bob

:hi:

[bananas]

3. k&r thanks. nt

[bridgit]

5. location, location, location...

[Auggie]

6. Well that is Santa Barbara, one of the best places in the world to live

[bridgit]

7. they certainly think it is there's little doubt about that...

some nice horse country i'll give the area that

[tinrobot]

8. I own a house here and I can't afford that.

I bought my house in Southern California 10 years ago. Prices have quadrupled since then, but so have property taxes, so I can't afford to sell this house and buy another of similar value. I'm stuck in this little house until I decide to leave th state, and that's not going to happen for a long time.

[Hekate]

9. No kidding. We bought 24 years ago in 91730,& inflation quickly took us to a point where we never...

...could afford to buy again in this town. Our friends and family are here, and gods know it's gorgeous, but if we ever sell we will have to move far away. The price of homes bears little resemblance to wages, and the houses in my tract are very middle class at 1500 to 2000 sq ft, 3 or 4 BR, 2 BA. No McMansions in my neighborhood. Yet the going price these days is astronomical.

Hekate

[SoCalDem]

15. We paid 82K in 1981, and could NEVER afford this dump now

:) It;s your basic Kaufman & Broad tract house (about 2k sq ft) with a basic square yard front & back.. 4 bedroom (shitty kitchen) and even in the downturn we are in, a neighbor's 3 bedroom sold last month for $402K..

Big F'n Deal.. we cannot move, even if we wnated to because of our ages and the cost of a replacement house..so we have to stay put until my husband retires in 4-5 more years..

Frankly, I would prefer to have the "old town" back and have the house worth less. When we moved here there was ONE traffic light in town and the population was under 30K.. It;s now OVER 150K and it takes 45 minutes to get to Riverside (11 miles away)..

[Hekate]

25. My MA sis is looking for a farm in upstate NY. She's zeroing in on one that is SO overpriced at....

...$240K that she's going to wait for the seller to come to his senses. It's 20 acres, South-facing, has a well, etc etc etc. Sounds like Paradise, which is why she and her husband want to semi-retire there and grow their own salads and chickens. Of course there's the matter of 5 feet of snow a year (not all at once! she says) which is kind of a drawback for someone like me.

It's hard to convey the punchline about the price for anyone who doesn't live where I live. She went on and on with the description -- they've been looking for about a year, so I've followed the story -- but the way she talked about the price I was sure it had to be half a mill, even though you can hardly get a condo for that out here. So when I finally said, well what kind of price are we talking about and she said it was 240K, I literally felt the air go out of my lungs.

I told my son-in-law the story, punchline last, and sure enough he had the same "ooof" reaction. He and my daughter and grandchild are living in shared housing and probably always will if they stay here. My son followed his job to Las Vegas a couple of years ago, and bought a home within 6 months. I don't want the kids to have to move away, but that's the reality of a place where wages and the cost of housing bear no resemblance to each other.

Location, location, location.

And the vast majority of Californians are nowhere "rich".

Hekate

[PhD]

10. You should see the San Jose area

Where even dumps are listed at $1.5 million.

[Adsos Letter]

11. Thankyou XemaSab, for posting this brief but eloquent statement...

...we paid $150,000 for our home about 15 years ago, my wife and I together working our collective buns off...since then it has done about 5X...but it is only worth that if someone is willing to pay it; its increase has been fueled by the lunatic housing bubble here in California. And we could not afford this place now if we had to.

And it's in a subdivision, fer cryin' out loud...no Mc Mansions here...1750 sq. ft. of average construction...on a .3 acre lot.

[krispos42]

12. The problem is that people are flocking to the coasts

That's one problem.

The other is that all those tax cuts that Reagan/Bush tossed out to the rich enabled them to dabble extensively in the real-estate market, buying second, third, fourth, etc., homes as investment properties, which of course drives the prices up.

IIRC, in 2005 40% of all homes bought or sold were by/to people who already had a residence. Many were being bought and sold within a year, with the owner making 10 or 20% profit margins.

And despite the incredibly high prices, people are STILL flocking to coastal areas!

So the outrageous pricing will continue until get a progressive income tax back, to start reducing the percentage of the national wealth the top 1% owns.

[XemaSab]

13. Reducing the percentage of the wealth the top 1% owns won't be accomplished

with an increase in the income tax.

Other taxes, yes, but not an income tax.

But yeah, you make some good points.

[krispos42]

17. It would essentially halt their growth

and the tax cuts for the rest of us will help close the gap. Then, let the estate tax do its work.

We did it once, we can do it again.

We have to do it again to save our democracy.

[Selatius]

18. Why not reduce property taxes and levy an income tax on income derived from charging rent then?

If they want to make taxes more progressive, then shift the tax burden up the income ladder.

[krispos42]

23. Because that would help the poor!

And we can't have that in Bush's Ahmurrka, can we?!?!

[shanti]

20. no surprise there

people will ALWAYS flock to the coasts - it's the most desireable place to live and will continue to be the most expensive. :shrug:

[krispos42]

24. I know, but it's still the problem

Nearly every problem city-dwellers complain about can be solved my moving somewhere in the Midwest, yet the Midwest is emptying.

I guess it's part of the human condition.

[Beerboy]

14. Hundreds of billions in insurance,

I think they'll be alright in an up-coming election year.

[greenman3610]

16. we feel this even in the midwest

housing prices are generally reasonable here, but there
are enough transplants coming in from the coast to
distort the market.
These people come in having sold their old home for
half a million or a million, and immediately
want to plunk that down for what, in our
market, is a mega mansion.
the result is that builders are no longer
interested in putting up anything worth
less than 300,000, and the developing areas of
town are littered with these increasingly
unsaleable and poorly constructed
mac mansions.

[slackmaster]

19. My $600K house wasn't worth anywhere near $600K when I bought it

Twelve years ago, for $140K.

If I was a first-time buyer in the present market at my current salary, I would be SOL.

[Blue_In_AK]

21. My daughter who lives in Santa Monica

and her fiancee recently tried to buy a house in the LA area (she's been living in a tiny apartment), a small two-bedroom 1940's bungalow, which was marked DOWN to $700,000. Such a house here would have probably been $250,000 or so, if that much. Housing prices down there are scary.