Anyone live near Oakland?

[miles otoole]

What will you do when you buy a place for 550,000 and in 3 years it's worth 300,000. Think it won't happen? Just wait for mortgage rates to go through the roof and watch as real estate values plummet. It happened in the late 80's. It happened to the stock market in the early 00's. Combine that with the huge budget deficit in CA and it's inevitable for the perfect storm to arrive.

Either way, be careful. The weather's perfect, but..............

 

[pa56pa]

"The cost of living is outrageous I simply don't know to this day why people still relocate there."

I'd say the same thing if I lived in LA... that place is a zoo... the SF bay area however, does have a different appeal to many... could be culture and diversity, urban/city living with access to the outdoors, great weather, etc. Portland is great and affordable, but it's not adventurous and magical ... it's a great place to raise a family though. There's a reason why it's expensive to live in the bay area, different for each individual, but someone said it earlier, it's difficult to leave.... to find cheap housing in CA, go to Fresno.. lol.

 

[Sir Humpalot]

I think Portland is where San Francisco was 15 years ago. There are many economically priced locations in pdx with the potential of a skyrocketing market. If you can stand the cold weather in winter and an easy commute to oakland, then i would choose to live in pdx. Alaska has many (5 or 6) flights a day from pdx to oak.

Many people on this thread are right about california, it is second to none as far as weather, lifestyle, activities, and culture goes. You definitely pay the price for housing and dont forget gas. I would not move to phx only because i cant stand the heat. I dont know how people survive there

 

[need2AV8]

Did some "neighborhood shopping" in the bay area just 3 yrs ago. Loved prices in Brentwood, Discovery Bay, Antioch, Pittsburg. However, they were all too far away for the daily commute to OAK. I've settled in Concord - love everything but the prices. If I were looking for the 2 hr commute you refer to - Antioch would be my choice. Without traffic 40-45 mins/with traffic 2 hrs or less.

 

[TheDogsBollocks]

The only things further that I would like to add in SkiMoguls consideration of relocation is that the weather at Portland is considerably better than Chicago's year round. When comparing Oregon to California there is nothing you can do in the bay area lifestyle and culture wise that cannot be also achieved in Portland.

As mentioned in a previous post, for raising families there is no comparison!

 

[FearlessFreep]

Northern California, Oregon, Washington. Doesn't get any better than that. Those that live here in the Pacific Northwest know that. As far as an urban area goes I don't think that you can do better than the Bay Area. The East Bay is sort of a bargain as a fair amount of people feel that they have to live in "The City" (San Francisco) to really have the true Bay Area experience. The East Bay is not as crowded, expensive, there is parking available, weather is a bit more sunny (further away from the fog), and there are more open parks and nature areas readily accessable and San Francisco is very easily accessible. It's great, when I am home and jump on the bike for a ride in the morning I will occasionally be VFR On Top, looking down at the soft blanket of fog covering the 'City & Bay.

Portland is nice, Seattle too, though it rains an awful lot from what I hear.

Been spending some time in Anchorage. It's pretty nice though I certainly don't find the winter that appealing, mostly the long nights is the biggest deterrent. Summer is gorgeous if you can wade through all the tourists. Oh, and real estate prices up there are only slightly less expensive than the Bay Area though admittedly you get more for your money. You will be paying more for utilities though the winter. Commuting must be a bear out of there.

 

[pa56pa]

"If I were looking for the 2 hr commute you refer to - Antioch would be my choice. Without traffic 40-45 mins/with traffic 2 hrs or less."

It's all relative... Antioch is cheap by CA standards... my friend just bought a 2000 s.f. home (fixer) just above $400K. For those coming from the midwest, this can be a sticker shocker as it can buy you ALOT more elsewhere...

Someone else mentioned the cycle of RE properties are bound to come back down, once interest rates go back up. It's a special case in the bay area... it has not and probably will not be affected by it... It's THAT desirable. Case in point: 4 yrs ago, RE was already outrageous, especially in the Silicon Valley... when the dot com economy burst, it created a stagnancy in the RE market. In fact, the LA market continued to rise, as well as the rest of the country, except for the bay area... only to be followed by another RE boom, thus the "auction" and "overbidding" type buying continued, and will probably continue to occur for a while, but prices will not be significantly low enough to allow affordability. It is strongly influenced by alot of Pacific and Asian money... and just to give you an idea of how it is to buy a property in Asia... it's rarely mortgaged... they pay in CASH... tough to compete with that especially if the future of China's economy continues to be very bright, so will the price of housing on the West Coast, as well as the major cities in the East coast. It has been that way for the past decade, and will continue to be that way unless a major catastrophe occurs... i.e. another major earthquake, terrorist strikes, etc.

 

[kwijybo]

Try Sonoma County

My wife grew up in the Russian River Valley (Between Santa Rosa and the Coast). Homes are cheaper there than in the East Bay and you can still get to OAK (non-rush hour) in just a little over an hour. There is just a wee bit more culture there than in Fresno or Livermore. And if you are bored...well, the local wine is good.

 

[MachPi]

It wasn't that long ago in the Bay (well, practically: Vacaville) that housing costs were falling through the floor, so don't think it can't happen again. I know; I bought in '94 at the eye-popping (for then) price of 175k. Two years later when we got stationed in Germany, houses in the neighborhood were going for 130 and 140k, and going down.

We were lucky; we held onto the house the entire time we were in Germany...had a guy from our squadron move right in as we moved out, and who bought his own house only a month or two before we came back. Other guys in the squadron weren't so lucky, and took baths selling their houses.

By 2000, the house had finally gotten back up to the value that we bought it at. In 2002, we sold at double the price we originally paid.

Mainly what I'm saying is that, if you're speculating, or if you may not stay in the Bay very long, you could get badly burned. But if you're going to be in the house for awhile, you should be okay whether the market goes up or down in the short run, because long-term, it'll go up.


FWIW, we were looking in the Clear Lake area (about 2 hrs north of the Bay) for a place before we decided to split the state, and the prices were much more reasonable up there. We could've gotten 40 acres and built a house for the price our 2000 sqft sardine box with the postage-stamp sized yard sold for in VVille.


Heh heh; people who say that the prices won't come down again now remind me of the people who said we were in a 'new paradigm' in 2000 and the Dow was going to break 5000.

 

[Dave Benjamin]

What about Benicia?