Lots of high-end RE going up in smoke. Lots of money to repurchase/rebuild. Earthquakes, fires, whatever - Californians never leave.
I did. Although I wasn't from there originally but I spent nearly 20 years there. I really don't miss the impersonal culture out there. My wife and I have made more contacts here in CO in 6 mos than in 20 years in CA. It is not for everyone.
Yeah, we have a lot of Californians coming to Utah too. Mostly because they could sell their $2MM house and get 3 just like it here. In any case, this couldn't have happened at a better time for them. It's too bad that devastation is so good for the economy.
Not in a national context, but it is a very big deal on a local scale. We are likely talking more than 1500 houses. Most people can't simply pick up an move somewhere else. They just have to find another place to live in the same general area. San Diego was amongst the worst effected by the housing slump. This is a very big deal to them. They will no longer have any housing surplus.
Stock your compassion for others is heartwarming. You really need to grow up, money isn't everything.
With regards to investing and life in general I try to look at things from a purely analytical perspective without letting emotion and humanism get in the way too much. Everything has a cause and effect which can be quantified. The structure of the universe is based on numerics. If you're looking for truth and answeres open a math book.
you're all blowing this out of proportion. an area like san diego metro has hundreds of thousands of housing units. the fire has destroyed a few hundred. you think that a 0.08% reduction in housing units will have any affect on prices? if so, it won't last more than a month. as for insurance claims, the insurance companies have their formulas for estimating rebuilding costs. those costs are related to labor and materials, not land value. even though housing prices have dropped in s.d., building costs generally rise with inflation.
I am in San Diego at the moment. Ash is falling on my car and lawn furniture, but no real worry here (right next to the ocean). Will people leave due to this? In a word, NO. They knew that Cal is a disaster waiting to happen before they moved here. Yeah, it shakes a bit, and sometimes burns, but the weather is bloody perfect, people are nice, and the econ usually leads. The fires will have zero effect on prices. Besides, when it is all finished, maybe 2k will burn down. Compared to the population, that is nothing.