Why California Home Prices are So High (Los Angeles, San Francisco: rent, house)

[Tex?Il?]

By Randal O'Toole

This article appeared in the North County Times on November 3, 2007.

Thanks to land-use planning and regulation, California has the least-affordable housing in the nation. The most affordable housing market in California is less affordable than 90 percent of the other housing markets in the U.S. These high prices impose hardships on low- and middle-income families and discourage employers from locating in the state.

Under the mantra of “stopping sprawl,” urban planners have crammed nearly 95 percent of Californians into just 5.1 percent of the state’s land area. The nation’s three densest urban areas, and 11 of the 20 densest urban areas, are all in California. Thanks to urban-growth boundaries, greenbelts and other planning restrictions, the average California urbanite lives in communities that are 80 percent denser than in the rest of the country.

In addition to extraordinarily high housing prices, this density drives up business costs, taxes and traffic congestion.

Yes, yes, yes!!

This is why I love California! Some people are willing to downsize their living quarters from a one bedroom to a studio (or super-commute for a SFH or combination of both). No other place in the country offers the amenities of a major metro area, but one that blends with public land, nature, and outdoor pursuits in a way that give ultimate access to both.

I love, love, love it, and the abundance of national parks, rec areas, national forests, in the mountains, canyons and deserts, etc. all with different scenery, natural features, etc. etc. makes the area feel so less crowded, because I have access to wilderness.

Places that are covered in working agriculture, working ranches or other private rural land with a strong second amendment and protective private property rights are the states that feel boxed in and claustrophic because I can't hike and explore on the weekends.

Having said that, I would absolutely see the possibility of relocating to a state that has a lower housing costs, but my top places would be the Denver-Boulder area of Colorado or northern New Mexico. I don't have a strong attraction to anywhere east of there.

[socalspliffmaster]

lol as if. its expensive cuz everyone wants to live here. Ventura county is so nice compared to LA, Orange, and the Inland Empire because we have green belts and space between our "crammed" suburban cities.

[JeffSanDimas]

Originally Posted by SOON2BNSURPRISE

I actually took the time to read the OP's post. I hadn't earlier but i had some time on my hands.

I don't even consider myself middle class and we own a home. We do make over $100,000 a year but that is not a middle class lifestyle anymore. You need to be in the $200,000 range to hit middle class around here.

The entire post forgets the fact that many will pay off their homes, live in them, and not care what prices are doing. I am working on that right now. I have friends that are doing the same and many that have done it allready and are living in homes that are paid off. I have a co-worker that has 2 homes that are paid off in Ventura. They have two kids and hope to leave each a home. Not that it will matter, both of their kids allready bought a home in the area.

$200k is middle class? Maybe in the Hollywood Hills or Malibu.

After all is said and done my family brings in about $80k per year and pays a mortgage on a home in eastern LA county (San Dimas), paid for a car and tuition for all three of his kids, and my mom is a stay at home mom.


The trick is Camrys not Beemers, and living in boring suburbia instead of some trendy area by the water. California is more expensive than Iowa, but it's only not doable if you have to live in Santa Monica or Pacific Heights or La Jolla or you're not willing to commute. It's not that big of a deal to live in the IE and commute, what's pushing me away more than prices is taxes and the general "Big Brother" ethos in California.

[SOON2BNSURPRISE]

Originally Posted by JeffSanDimas

$200k is middle class? Maybe in the Hollywood Hills or Malibu.

After all is said and done my family brings in about $80k per year and pays a mortgage on a home in eastern LA county (San Dimas), paid for a car and tuition for all three of his kids, and my mom is a stay at home mom.


The trick is Camrys not Beemers, and living in boring suburbia instead of some trendy area by the water. California is more expensive than Iowa, but it's only not doable if you have to live in Santa Monica or Pacific Heights or La Jolla or you're not willing to commute. It's not that big of a deal to live in the IE and commute, what's pushing me away more than prices is taxes and the general "Big Brother" ethos in California.

You are saying that you can live on $80,000 a year in San Dimas correct? You didn't say how to do that in Oxnard. My wife and I make over $120,000 a year and are far from middle class. We drive a 2011 Honda Accord and a 2003 Chevy Astro. We hope the astro makes it another 10 years when the kids will be out of school. Tell me how you can live a middle class life in Oxnard on less than $200,000? This is the coast between Santa Barbara and Malibu. A cheap 50+ year old home that needs a lot of work will set you back $450,000 in my neighborhood. A newer home built in 2000 to 2006 will set you back $600,000 or so. You try doing it on $80,000 because I don't see it happening.

[mysticaltyger]

Originally Posted by nightlysparrow

An 8-year old op ed piece?

Anyway, people want to live by the ocean. That's why people cram the coast.

Ok, here's a more updated piece that says the essentially the same thing:

The New Class Warfare by Joel Kotkin, City Journal Spring 2012

....today’s progressives regard with suspicion any growth that requires the use of land and natural resources. Where old-fashioned progressives embraced both conservation and the expansion of public parks, the new green movement advocates a reduced human “footprint” and opposes cars, “sprawl,” and even human reproduction.

[Cabernetkev]

California is the mecca for the higher paying jobs in the nation. That is why 99 percent of traveler nurses want to come here. They can not make the same pay in their home states. The engineering jobs are here as well. Many of the engineers hired are from India, as well as Doctors. It is the foreigners that have driven up land home values.

[Winston Smith]

Originally Posted by Cabernetkev

California is the mecca for the higher paying jobs in the nation. That is why 99 percent of traveler nurses want to come here. They can not make the same pay in their home states. The engineering jobs are here as well. Many of the engineers hired are from India, as well as Doctors. It is the foreigners that have driven up land home values.

My understanding about traveling nurses is that job protections for them are strong in California. Employers in California cannot get away with some of the unscrupulous practices that go on in other states, i.e. nurses having to complete reports on their own time, and so on.

[Brandon Graves]

Originally Posted by socalspliffmaster

lol as if. its expensive cuz everyone wants to live here. Ventura county is so nice compared to LA, Orange, and the Inland Empire because we have green belts and space between our "crammed" suburban cities.

And the Coachella Valley is nice compared to LA because we have green (well, more like brown/tan, some green still) belts and space between our "crammed" suburban cities, too.

The IE still has plenty of vast open spaces of vacant land in some areas.

Also, why reply on a thread that first started three years ago?

[SOON2BNSURPRISE]

I am going to reply to this three year old thread. A lot has changed in three years. In my last post I mentioned that a home in my neighborhood would set you back $450,000. Since that time home prices have gone up further. On my street since that time the last three homes have sold for over $500,000 with the highest at $529,000. A block away in the same track, same homes, all built by the same developer way back in 1962 a home sold for over $545,000 a few months ago. Around the corner from us is a home on the market for $569,900.

My wife has been tempted to sell and move to another place. I had been tempted in the past to do the same thing. When you have the equity to pay cash for a new home somewhere else it gets tempting.

Several things keep us here. First we love living in the area. We already own and are not paying the insane rents. ($1,850 for a 2 bedroom unfurnished apartment?) We have great jobs that we love. My wife could quit her job today and we would still be making over $100,000. a year. Sweet isn't it.

[ryanthegoldengod]

And with all the disadvantages it goes on anyway.....am I the only one who thinks it's real estate that actually pulls the stings of society? Maybe feudalism never really ended?