Love it — the first sentence is even bush-league: “This gated home *is has* all the upgrades.”

Ummm….. write much?

THERE WILL BE BLOOD.

I was priced out of Costa Mesa 5 years ago. The place I was renting was for sale. It was an apartment, 1 bedroom, nothing special, with a gorgeous view of the 55 freeway on one side and a barrio on the other. I could hardly afford the rent. I am/was an IT Manager which earns a decent living usually. I had Just moved from Maui where I was renting a beach front condo for $100 less. Once I got settled into my new place and Job, I looked around at moving into something a little more permanent, realizing that it wasn’t realistic for me to do so. Turns out all of my co-workers were sliding by on credit cards to get by. I decided, Costa Mesa, was priced as if it had the word “Beach” after it, was not affordable, the traffic made my 15 mile commute unbearable.
I lasted a mere 6 months as the prices started to rise sharply. as the years went by, I thought I had missed the boat as some of my old co-workers who were living on credit had seemed to have made a big investment on their homes, that seemed to have been paying off.
I moved to back to Hawaii and have never looked back. My home now is very nice and cheaper than anything in Costa Mesa. In Hawaii, I get what I paid for, a beautiful view, etc., etc. and I walk to work (5 minutes).

Costa Mesa (”Beach”), what a joke, it is SO over inflated now.

In 1989, my dad bought a house in Miami Florida about similar size with about 3 times as much property for about 120 grand. I know that was nearly 20 years ago, but come on! A million for that thing?!

Do you know that there are still areas in Washington State that you can buy an acre of property for 50 grand? Of course, there’s no house and development, but still.

This appears to be a growing trend and it’s not hard to see why. You buy a house in ‘02, refi in ‘05, sink the money back into the house in ‘06, then watch the whole thing go in smoke in ‘08.

“Prestigious” neighborhood of Mesa Verde? It’s a mediocre craphole, actually. The nice neighborhoods of Costa Mesa, such as they are, are on the south/east side of Newport Blvd.

And what’s interesting is that I’ve been seeing listings for halfway decent looking houses on the good side, in the same price range as what this fool in Mesa Verde is asking for today. No wonder he hasn’t sold yet.

P.S. I love the cheap-ass metal fence/gate with absolutely zero curb appeal. Very typical of that side of Costa Mesa actually. Incredible that they think this is worth $600k+, let alone over a million. In a normal market, they’d be lucky to get $300k, which is apparently what they bought it for at the peak of the LAST housing bubble.

Question for those on this site:
I live in Canada and was hoping to buy a southern CA property as a second home (it has been a brutal winter here). I can spend around $300,000 and was thinking condo because we won’t be there very much and want the improved security. I have two young kids, so I would like a nice neighbourhood. I’ve looked from Santa Barbera to San Diego. It’s hard to tell which neighbourhoods are nice and whether the listing prices are still overblown. Any suggestions of where we should look? My wife likes the ocean, but I’m told anything near the ocean is $500k+. Also, any ideas of when to start looking? From what I read, the worst is still to come this year. Thanks.

TEVANS, don’t buy in SoCal now. Prices are falling by the week. The areas farther from the coast are falling very fast–the nicest areas are seeming to hold steady (asking prices are still high, hard to say what actual selling prices are). Since it’s a second home, I’d suggest you put off the purchase until this fall, at the earliest.
Areas near good schools are usually low-crime and better maintained. So even though you may not be interested in the schools, you might check out the various school districts, although for the largest district (there are quite a few school districts in the county), you’d need to break it down by schools. You can check which high schools have the highest SAT scores, for example.
Another thing to consider is that within about 3 miles of the coast, the weather is always fairly cool. And very overcast in the early summer–it’s called “June gloom” but it starts in May. Farther away the climate quickly becomes much hotter and dryer, but also sunnier.
Best of luck!

Price just dropped another 50k to $548k.

Has anyone else seen Mr. Mortgage’s videos on YouTube?

Here is a link to his newest foreclosure analysis (April Foreclosure Report) from ForeclosureRadar.com.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LCW4A0ACDKM

Here is a link to all of his video analysis of the mortgage market.
http://www.youtube.com/profile.....ti&p=r

This guy is awesome, a must see!

Rich, let us know what you think after watching these…

I see this all the time on bubble blogs. Sometimes its relevant and sometimes the property was just priced too high.

Read more of my annoyingly “optimistic” thoughts at my Santa Monica Real Estate Web-site:
Santa Monica Real Estate