What $485K buys you in Westminster, CA (near LA)

[SoCalDem]

It's a Crime

by ERNEST L. KIM

Thursday, 05 January 2006


Even in the county’s toughest neighborhoods, we couldn’t find cheap housing

Guided by what we thought was a real estate rule—a force as invariable as, say, gravity—we figured we’d find cheap homes in Orange County’s lousiest neighborhoods. We were wrong. Guided by the FBI’s Crime in the United States 2004 report, we found the highest crime-rate areas in Orange County, searched real estate listings on Realtor.com and selected lower-priced single-family homes in each city. Then we examined specific FBI crime numbers for each—and realized next week, we’ll still be living with our parents. Even if it kills us.


other photos and sales pictches at the link below

http://www.ocweekly.com/the-news/news/it%27s-a-crime_2006-01-05.html


WESTMINSTER $485,000
1 bed/1 bath built in 1941
14185 Hammon Place
527 sf
5,400 sf lot
The sun-bleached tar roof and faded, peeling paint scream “rustic” or “mature” or “antediluvian.” It arouses your inner Ty Pennington—through a megaphone, of course. This very unpolished gem is a once-proud reminder of the era when stucco-covered, mass-produced tract homes were the wave of the future/the wave of the future/the wave of the future (sorry) and when murder happened to other people. Fewest killings we found! Overhead, you also get a high concentration of power lines, which is great for, um, well, yeah . . . gotta go!

[insane_cratic_gal]

1. there is a show called flip it

one of those TLC home improvement shows. You buy a house fix it up and then try to sell it for a profit.

I couldn't believe the prices of houses in CA (most of the show seems to be filmed there) 400k to 500k for just crap houses! Who can afford that! and why would you spend half a million dollars on it?!!

/boogle

[SoCalDem]

3. Our bonus room has more than 547 sq.ft. (I think)

That "house" is a detatched-studio apartment with its own roof :)

[LizW]

6. I watched that one time

It was a nightmare. The guy bought a house that had belonged to a doctor who got killed in a car crash. It had been empty for several years. The renovation would have sent any normal person away screaming. There were HUGE rats living all in the walls of the house, and so much mold and mildew that the whole demolition crew got sick and couldn't continue. It was unbelievable.

[Yavin4]

33. No One Would Buy Such A House Except for Speculators

We live in an economy based almost entirely on speculation, cheap debt, and massive borrowing.

[hatrack]

2. Gee, makes me want to move there!

Right after I stake my homestead claim on the surface of the sun.

[Roland99]

4. Here's what that will buy in Louisville, KY.

http://realtor.com/Prop/1048802255?lnksrc=00045


That's in the subdivision next to where I used to live (although my house was a bit less than 1/2 the price of this one when I sold it)

[Poll_Blind]

19. Holy crap that's a beautiful home! n/t

PB

[Roland99]

31. Drove by it on Sunday taking my daughter's friend home.

Nice-looking indeed!

[Jara sang]

5. They are banking on that place becoming gentrified.

Which it probably will be.

[Initech]

7. $500K for a house not bigger than my car?

Damn, no wonder I cant afford a place in Orange County!

[karlrschneider]

10. I'm not sure I could afford a CAR in Orange Co. !!11!!!1

:evilgrin:

[WLKjr]

8. A once burned down building in Dayton I work in

that had apartments, now has a couple of apartments and two businesses. The place is not level and could use some massive renovating.


The guy that owns it wants 1.2 million. It's been on the market a while and I feel that it will be for even longer.

[karlrschneider]

9. Amazing. We bought a 1700 sq ft house on 2 acres lakeshore

with a 30 x 40 steel shop bldg & a horse barn for 18,000 4 years ago. We could probably get 30K now if we were inclined to sell. We ain't. ;-)

[SoCalDem]

13. Find us one like it..

:) What state are you in? When my husband retires, we will have to leave CA in order to LIVE :)

[shanti]

15. yeah, but

i don't see too many people racing to move to oklahoma...:)

[Art_from_Ark]

44. They were certainly racing to move there

back in 1893

[karlrschneider]

45. Well, if you ignore the fundies and the rednecks it's a pretty decent plac

to live actually. We live on a really nice lake and there are a lot more Democrats around here than conventional wisdom would lead one to believe.
Here's some info

http://www.okcbusiness.com/news/news_view.asp?newsid=6151

[LibDemAlways]

11. Here's another POS So. Cal. house.....

Check out the pricetag and the complete lack of a single redeeming feature. I live a few minutes from this dump.

http://realtor.com/FindHome/HomeListing.asp?snum=11&locallnk=yes&frm=byzip&mnbed=0&mnbath=0&mnprice=0&mxprice=99999999&js=off&pgnum=2&fid=so&mnsqft=&mls=xmls&areaid=91360&typ=1%2C+2%2C+4&poe=realtor&zp=91360&sbint=&vtsort=&sid=05F52C559C86C&snumxlid=1053882276&lnksrc=00002


If I had sold my spacious, fairly new home elsewhere in the country for, say, $400K, and moved to California, thinking ok, I'll go an extra hundred grand to get something nice, after my first encounter with a realtor I'd be on the first plane back to whereever it was I came from.

[radwriter0555]

24. That's another tear-down.... lol

Amazing, isn't it?

[serryjw]

12. My brother sold his house

2 years ago in N. Hollywood and it was 2500 sq feet for $300K. Not a great neighborhood but alot better than this. He also had a pool/separate spa/ separate play room and 1 bedroom cottage for income property

[LibDemAlways]

17. Today that property would

sell for around 600K. Condos in No. Hollywood are over half a million, and the Valley is reasonable compared to the West Side.

[serryjw]

40. A few years makes that much difference?

I have been out of LA for 20 years but my brother sold his home 5 years ago NOT 2!

[LibDemAlways]

41. Yep. a few years does make that much difference.

I had my house on the market briefly back in 2001. We were asking $350K - which was the going rate at that time for a 3 and 2 in our neighborhood. We had several offers, but our circumstances changed and we decided to stay put. Anyhow, homes like ours are now on the market for over $700K. It's incredible.

[serryjw]

42. How does anyone afford that?

It is gotten so silly. Even apts are ridiculous. How much do you need to make for a $700K house? Where is it? What's unfortunate is even IF you can afford it, you will never really own it...just make monthly payments and die before it is paid off. I see homes around Denver for 'low 700,000' and think the same thing

[northzax]

14. here's what 489 will buy you in my zip code

http://www.realtor.com/Prop/1052139067



yes, that would be a two bedroom, ground floor condo.

[progressivebydesign]

27. 880 sq. ft.? That's just wrong. n/t

[Kellanved]

29. Here it would buy a 250m² inner-city loft

in mint condition.
?1136288374000
:shrug:

Or a big villa in the outskirts.
http://www.immobilienscout24.de/files/basic01/630/A/37/34697190/B

[bobbieinok]

37. 2nd link doesn't work

Hinweis - Fehler 404
Die gewünschte Seite konnte leider nicht gefunden werden

[Kellanved]

38. oh

It was supposed to lead here, but it was just an example: I entered 430,000 as price into a real-estate search engine and got several thousand results.

[NNN0LHI]

16. Here is what $310,000 buys in my subdivision

http://www.realtor.com/FindHome/HomeListing.asp?snum=26&locallnk=yes&frm=byzip&mnbed=0&mnbath=0&mnprice=0&mxprice=500000&js=off&pgnum=3&fid=so&mnsqft=&mls=xmls&areaid=60940&typ=1%2C+2%2C+4&poe=realtor&zp=60940&sbint=&vtsort=&sid=05F53B739595C&snumxlid=1054562904&lnksrc=00001

[ProfessorGAC]

20. Same Over By Me, Too, Don.

But, drive 40 miles north and the same thing the OP described will be found.
The Professor

[AllegroRondo]

18. $500K in my zip code

buys a 5 bedroom, 4 bath two story with 2 acres of land.

[progressivebydesign]

26. 500k in my area

Can get you a 3,000 sq ft+ home, new, on an acre.. less than two miles in each direction from water. And we live on the West Coast.

[ObaMania]

21. It's a f#@king crime, isn't it?

The American Dream compliments of G*W*B and our filthy, corrupt gubmint.

[Mutley]

22. Here are some of what that kind of money buys in and around Baltimore, MD

http://www.realtor.com/FindHome/HomeListings.asp?locallnk=yes&frm=bymap&mnbed=0&mnbath=0&mnprice=450000&mxprice=500000&js=off&fid=so&mnsqft=&mls=xmls&areaid=123&typ=1%2C+2%2C+4&poe=realtor&ct=Baltimore&st=MD&presort=sbint&sid=05F5E39310F5C&sbint=1&sblo=1&pgnum=9

Could be better, but not as bad as SoCal! :scared:

[radwriter0555]

23. Well it's near the Pacific Ocean, and the lot is good sized. Depending on

the zoning, you could possibly demo the building and put up to 3 units on the place, or put up a 2000 sf home. That would cost you an additional $140K.

A contractor could really make bank on a 5 year investment with that property.

There is nothing listed on the MLS for under $600K.

I'd grab that baby in a hurry for a tear down, reinvestment.

[progressivebydesign]

25. Hey 10 years ago that would fetch 900k in the Silicon Valley.

Now it'd be higher. Prices are higher where people want to live.

[progressivebydesign]

28. Here's what 499k gets you in my area of the world:

http://www.johnlscott.com/PropertyDetail.aspx?GroupID=14625466&ListingID=10766903&Sort=0

Not a bad place!

[progressivebydesign]

30. And this is what 700k+ gets you were we used to live in Calif!

San Luis Obispo area, where we used to live (why we don't live there anymore): http://www.century21.com/buy/property_detail.aspx?teasers=property-detail-pic+Property+Detail+with+Pictures&tr_key=32274280&bSite=N

Nice weather. that's about the extent of it.

[JVS]

32. CA is too expensive

[Capn Sunshine]

34. I beg all of you, stop coming here

Until the demand ceases this price model will continue. It's always been this way. At one time, that house in Westminster was about
$ 12,000--- and a new Chevy cost $1900. Since those days, maybe
15,000,000 more people have moved here.

People keep moving here, and they all want to live proximate to business centers, and this drives demand. Deamnd is not high just because of emigrees. Gen. "Y", aka the "echo boom" ( born from 1976 - 1995) is at the beginnings of houshold formation stages.

According to Census data, over the past 10 years, housing permits have averaged about 1.63 million units per year — including multifamily units. Household formation has averaged 1.49 million families per year. Roughly 6-10% of the new home sales were for second homes (my guestimates- I could google up the numbers, it's right around there). According to most builder data around 350,000 units every year were "tear-downs." When this is taken into account, the "real" number of new homes is closer to 1.2 million, or 19% fewer than the average number of new households formed each year.

Waiting for prices to collapse before buying a home? I know folks who have been waiting since 2003. According to the Homeownership Alliance, new household formation, replacement demand and second-home demand will require about two million homes per year to be built over the next decade. This year, the number is likely to be around two million, the highest number since the 1970s — even as the number of households has grown by over 50% since 1975. Therefore, there is a large cumulative deficit in housing that will take years to correct even if annual housing starts continue at these record levels. This doesn't begin to approach whatever effect Katrina's destruction of hundreds of thousands of units will have on building supply costs next spring.


THIS is what is driving up prices. Oh, and add to the mix Baby Boomers at their peak wealth creation years, who help their kids out to buy, and in So Cal, a post-90's bust where builders couldn't get financed, and we have yet to make up for that several year lag in home units.

Then there's record low interest rates.

Bubble? Not really. Demand driven market? Oh yeah.

* disclaimer- I'm a Los Angeles based investment banker specializing in Mortgage securities in the Southwest.

[SoCalDem]

35. Wow.. I am glad to hear that our house price probably won;t tank

when we are ready to move down.. My husband has about 5 more year to work, and once he retires, we will be poor, and have to sell our house so we can pay cash for a manufactured house somewhere other than CA.. I was afraid that when we will need to sell, house prices would suck.. Every house we have bought was in a seller's market, and every house we have sold, was in a buyers' market:cry:.. We simply MUST get enough out of this house or we're on the street :scared:..

[driver8]

43. I hear you on that one! I live in So. Cal, also. Even though my

wife and I are saving money for retirement, I don't want to take a bath when I sell my house. I'm trying to convince her to sell it now and moving to Europe but she's not buying it.

Here is what $500,000 gets you in my neighborhood -- a 2BR/1BA House with less than 900 sq.feet.

[Generator]

36. I call it the sunshine tax

I do feel sorry for all those born there that can't ever afford to buy a house. But anybody that could choose to move and chooses instead to pay these prices I think is crazy. I know them-some of my husband's family. Yes, I could live (even in our ridiculously high at the moment housing market here in Portland) in a farm with 50 acres, in a mansion with a view of a lake or a mountain, but instead I'll just live in my family 3 bedroom 2000 sq foot house in San Jose instead. I think sunshine does some strange things to people. And it's been raining non-stop for weeks here but hah SHHH don't mention the summer. That's when it's supposed to be sunny anyway people-not all DAMN year.

[snooper2]

39. Amazing...

For that money, in my zip code, (Plano TX) here's some examples of what you can get...(I paid way less :) )

$400,000 3,499sq ft 4bed 3.5 bath


$409,000 4,277sq ft 5bed 4.5 bath


$495,000 Built in 1892 Historical/conservation district
Style: Victorian 2,616sq ft 2bed 3Bath

[KoKo]

46. Kick and Recoomend! n't

[bullwinkle428]

47. Here's what that money buys in my little town: