June 27, 2006

I have a friend who bought a $700,000 1-bedroom loft in San Diego last summer because..


He thought it'd make him popular with the ladies. I told him not only would he lose his shirt with depreciation, but he'd be so house-poor even if he became the San Diego Don Juan, he wouldn't be able to afford to take a date out to dinner

A year later, he's weirded out that he still doesn't have any neighbors (the units were bought by flippers), the wine and cheese parties and hot models promised in the marketing materials didn't materialize, his interest-only payment combined with the condo association fee is killing him, and he's thinking of getting out and renting.

This has to be happening around the world. Oh, the photo above is from Toll Brothers. Of couse.

26 comments:

Anonymous said...

the massive speculatory bubble and its ugly consenquence, the Real Estate bubble are near the end!!!!

I would see that your friend sold that sucker ASAP, if he waits to this fall, it will go for much much less.

Anonymous said...

Chula wanna...North Park...Colered town...El Cajon Blvd...say is the boulevard still swinging with street walkers, hookers and the like?

David said...

700K for a 1br loft! OUCH!

Anonymous said...

Jiminy christmas, for 700K he could have imported half the puss in russia and spent the next 20 years laying pipe to some of the most beautiful women in the world. Instead he gets to be dick teased for a couple of hours until the golddiggers figure out he has no money then wander home to pull his pud in an over valued shoe box. Oh well, at least it's a short walk home from the lamplight district! Nice going loser!

Anonymous said...

proof positive that san diego is WAY overrated and WAY overpriced. the prices match NY, with far fewer amenities. just another example of another fool that drank the kool-aide.

Anonymous said...

i guess the people in SD are a little sensitive. the reference to kool-aide is back from the 80's in jonestown. remember all the people that died because someone told them to drink kool-aide. geesh. btw, i am not from NY nor do i live there. just wanted to make a point that it is insane to pay $1000/sq ft to live in san diego. NY, london, tokyo, paris, OK, but san diego. be serious. it is a nice place, but not at that price.

Anonymous said...

I have lived in downtown San Diego for the past ten years and knew that all the speculation,and lifestyle claims where pure hype.I am now watching all of the empty condos not selling and predict that they will turn into tommorows tenaments.The Gaslamp area is rapidly turning into a yuppie ghetto.

Anonymous said...

I am always amused by how people in San Diego think their city is the best, and that LA is a dump. I have spent too much time in both places, and they're both dumps. One is just bigger with more democrats. The other has a serious Canada complex. It wants to be taken seriously, but really never will other than by the people that already live there. But still, $700,000 for a one-bedroom is beyond delusional.

Anonymous said...

Why would you care where I live? We're talking about San Diego, which is where you obviously live. The better question is why is it that people think their real estate in San Diego is worth $1000 per square foot? The simple answer is that it is not. Those prices are for deserved, world-class cities, which sorry for you, San Diego is simply not.

Anonymous said...

Free San Diego condos for everyone!!!

Anonymous said...

San Diego is ok, but kind of an overgrown suburb. . .

I live in Little Italy (LaVita) and really like the neighborhood. . .can walk to Italian Deli's, and just returned from the Aircraft Museum at Balboa park - walked! (although it IS 90 today). . .I was born in Cleveland I(not THERE is a dump) went to college in Manhattan, and lived in San Francisco, and then East Bay whitebread suburb of Walnut Creek, so I have something to judge SD by. . .it isn't NY, nor does it pretend to be - just a nice quiet city with a good climate, and lots of military to keep prices down a bit - if you shop on the south side - National City, etc. NOT out at Fashion Valley. There are too many condos built, and being built, so prices will remain low for a long long time. . .all real estate markets are local, so suburban communities with good schools will probably not see much more than a 10% drop. . .but way far suburbs like Temecula (Riverside County) will probably drop like a rock with $3.50 gas!

Anonymous said...

Anon - I am glad you like San Diego and that that is your home. Your statistics are meaningless to me. I don't choose a destination because of a corporate name on some ubiquitous building, or some subjective college ranking. Totally meaningless. See the post about "Canada" complex, since you prove, yet again, that you want so badly for others to believe what you believe. Sad. The original post, again, is to challenge the silly belief that real estate is worth $1000 per square foot in a desert basin surrounded by foggy, cold ocean. Odd, but I still don't get it. Oh, and your beaches are cold and dirty. Aloha.

Out at the peak said...

My friend bought a fancy car just to impress the girlfriend he already had.

She told him she is really attracted to men with nice cars. Thus he ran out and bought one. His car payment is more than his rent.

I like the 'economy' girls. They are sensible.

Anonymous said...

ppppsssssttttt....let you in on a little secret......Canada is the best place to live.

Anonymous said...

Poeple don't like to be told the truth. I'm RE agent and I do mortgage sometimes. I never kept a client because I always warned about those ARMS loans, and the high homes prices, but they never believed what I wast telling them..They are in trouble now..Go Figure.

Anonymous said...

If I wanted to get laid, i would have not had to 'buy'the 700k pad. You drive the whore bye a house in the hills being remodeled and tell her thats yours and meanwhile you are crashing at a friends apartment. You take her back to your apartment,
the g-string goes down south, bada bing you bang her, and that's it. You get laid minus spending 700k.

Anonymous said...

My buddy works for Qualcomm and swears San Diego will never go down...because of the weather and so everyone wants to live there. I told him that people have always paid a premium for those places for decades so why now the extreme spike in prices the last 5 years? He couldnt answer. The bottom line is San Diego has also shot up in price ridiculously as other cities in California. The problem is they think 'its different there'. They are in their own 'special' bubble. I have heard the same from Vegas people. Except they use the 'booming job market' there as reasoning for rising prices.

Anonymous said...

Kind of like SINKING every dime you have into a very expensive Red High Performance Sportscar for the 5 o'clock rush hour gridlock..only MUCH MUCH WORSE !

Anonymous said...

the problem with San Diego is the permenant rental class emerging in the next decade. Lets be honest, there is no hope of first time buyers ever buying squat in San Diego. We are already seeing more people leave San Diego than move here.

As this transient renter group moves from place to place there is not going to be any community to speak of. Crime and vandalism will go up and people will not maintain their landlord's property.

Unless your household makes $120k a year there is no such thing as a starter home unless people are willing to take on toxic mortgages. Those that do are further going to see their lifestyle decline.

Why watch all the renters around you going out and having a good time and you are stuck at home eating top ramen when you could move to another city like Austin or Albaquerque.

Anonymous said...

San Diego IS a world class city, just look at our airport.... oops.

Anonymous said...

San Diego is the most over priced market in the United States as of yesterday's PMI Mortgage report on the nation's real estate markets and has a 61% chance of decline:

http://tinyurl.com/myyh8

Go downtown and look how many empty condos are sitting around, more like 100% chance of a decline!

Anonymous said...

San Diego #1 in biotech? How did they come up with that. Pretty impressive if true as Boston has a hell of a lot of biotech.

Anonymous said...

Oh dear - I also am amused by those that can drive in 30 minutes to paradise, be it beaches, mountains, dunes, whatever. My guess is that 99% of the residents never do what was just described. People wear shorts in Chicago in January, too. We call them crazy. San Diego is just plain cold, dreary, overpriced, and it bit too full of itself. And according to most everyone else, the first city to see the serious fallout from the housing bubble. And that assessment comes from the REIC complex itself. I am guessing the "driver" in the post above has coffee every day with the other post that claims San Diego is number 1 in so many worthless categories. San Diego is number one in leading the charge for the collapse of real estate prices. Onward!

Anonymous said...

SittingPatty in SD..you are nothing more than a world clase cunt. Stop with the pretentious snob comments. SD will be the first card to collapse in this house. I hope you bought many years ago.

Anonymous said...

Seen the boom and the bust.. lived in San Diego for 50 years. Got a house and owe peanuts.. Thats what family roots are for; I thank my folks for settling here in the fifties. I guess I could move to Boulder, CO where the rules are posted every block and everyone is safe. But don't straddle your bike and walk with your toddler, or the beat cop will harass you for "riding your bike" in the prohibited area downtown. But it is safe I must say.

Anonymous said...

San Diego IS a world class city, just look at our airport.... oops.

Exactly, not like the rest. Our airport is just right for our world class city. Nothing like it compared to the cookie cutter so called world class cities.