In both Chicago and Lauderdale I live on the beach so I guess in L.A. I'd want something a little different. One of my best friends from Chicago lives in Manhattan Beach and loves it though. This will only be a part of the year move and one thing that bothers me about being near the ocean is the lack of heat. Believe it or not one of the reasons I like Hollywood better than the Westside is because it's hotter. On the other hand I'm not a "Hollywood" type guy. Actually I'm Dude Lebowski.....
after living in FL I can confirm that upon my return to San Diego I froze my ass off until July. But, I like here so much more. I might just have to buy a little east.
I moved to Santa Barbara in 1980 and began trading in 81....all of the towns you are talking about (LA & suburbs)were a shit hole back then and they haven't gotten any better. More and more people crammed in, more traffic. Sorry but LA and all it's surrounding areas suck.
i'm in norte san diego. i did some work in santa barbara earleir this year...i have to say, even for a Socal native, the prices for a nice home in SB are not cheap. i spotted Pabst on PCH headed north
'Housing Rolling Downhill' is a more apt title for this thread. I've never seen anything like this, ever. This isn't a correction. This is so much more. I can buy $150k lots for $40k once the banks realize I have cash, and a friend of mine who happens to own a lumber yard (the irony, I know) just bought a newly built home that had been listed for 990k for 412k. It was just finished, and even with materials (most of them) and labor plummeting in price, you couldn't build this house for less than 700k. I have a relative who is scoping out lots on the Intercoastal in Florida and gearing up to prepare offers for as little as 40 cents on the dollar compared to transaction prices two years ago. He is not naive, and he will score some of those lots, because the people who bought are already under water, the taxes and insurance are killing them, and they can't afford to build the house they had planned to, now (nor get the construction loans). Cash is king.
Dude - I am renting in Carlsbad. I think Carlsbad has more of a marine layer than other parts of San Diego. So when I decide to buy it might be a little east like Poway. (schools) On the other hand, my income is improving and I am thinking west of the 5 may crack in half -- over the next few years. In which case I would deal with the marine layer. I just made myself laugh -- I used to deal with tech support and operation people in Chicago all the time. Nothing and I mean nothing would piss them off more than a guy in California saying Duuude you are wrong..... they simply could not fathom anyone from CA could say dude and understand networks or routers or accounting. I pointed this out to other guys in my office and then everyone did it. The funny thing was we had all stopped saying dude years earlier.