Originally Posted by froze
...My brother in law (my father in-laws favorite) was "given" at about half the going rate, a house they owned as a rental for $150,000 about 10 years ago when he got married and it STILL takes both of their incomes to pay for the house! And 3 years ago (last time I checked) that house located in 2 blocks north from downtown Goleta is worth $580,000 and it's cracker box of a house! If you know that area you know what I'm talking about.
Yuck! That entire area should be leveled! Those places are digusting!
Yeah, it's unfortunate that wages have not kept up with inflation at all in the past several decades. Average income in this area is actually down about -20-25% as far as purchasing power compared to 10-years ago. Yet the cost of housing has increased at 50-100% over inflation. The party scene's completey dead, there's no Happy Hours anywhere, no one's out after work. Due to the dot.com boom and the celebrities moving in, it's driven the price out of range for most people, especially the natives. Tremendous disparity between income and cost-of-living, so not much has changed, eh? The rates of homeowner-occupied housing as gone from 40% down to 20%. That means rentals have gone from 60 to 80% of the properties out there. Similar thing happened up in Silicon Valley where I grew up.
But that's only in the highly-desirable places to live. There's plenty of areas in the mid-west and south where property-prices have been stagnant for decades. Many areas in Texas haven't appreciated much in the past couple of decades. I guess the trick is to earn loads of money in Silicon Valley or some high-income area. Live a meager existence like a student and tuck most of your income away. Then retire to another area with a much lower cost-of-living. Heck, I'm eyeing some little tropical islands in the S.Pacific even.. makes Mexico look expensive!
