Does this house seem kind of expensive to you?

[PasadenaTrudy]

I live in the warped universe of SoCal. No, I'll never buy a house here! This is the only reality I know having lived here my entire life. I know this must be the exception to the rule, no?

http://www.redfin.com/CA/South-Pasadena/1728-Oak-St-91030/home/7007777

[Boom Sound 416]

1. Location location location

On Manhattan island real estate is over 1,000 per sq ft.

[Lurks Often]

2. There are houses nearby even more expensive

and only slightly larger if you go to the bottom of the page of your link

[Johonny]

3. Nope house prices are insane.

You pay so much for so little. I've never been tempted to buy here.

[pipi_k]

4. OMG!!!

About the same size as my house (although I have 8.25 acres of land too), which is currently valued at around $157,000 on Zillow.

Highest valuation was about $240,000 back in the early 2000's


But then, I'm in the middle of the woods where nobody wants to live

[Tikki]

5. Looks pretty good to me...no work needed, looks like it has a small guest house or granny flat..

and a nice yard and foliage and trees.

What I don't know is what the neighborhood/area is like for that house and what
the comparables are in that area.

Depends how badly I wanted in that neighborhood if I'd pay that price.

Tikki
We, also, have homes that age and condition at those prices in certain areas of Ventura County.
It truly is location, location, location..

[eissa]

6. Beautifully maintained, nice curb appeal, highly desireable area

Yeah, it's high, but not surprising given that location.

[MindPilot]

7. You've lived in SoCal all your life and you only just noticed that real estate is expensive?

[PasadenaTrudy]

9. Uh no

I think it's gotten more out of control lately.

[oldandhappy]

8. Yes, Pasadena. Location is everything.

Totally remodeled. Beautiful. Probably a good price for the neighborhood. I could never consider it! I hear/read about things such as this and I think there is a lot of money out there in spite of the continuing low and un employment stats. Recently visited in NYC and was stunned at the rents advertised there. I am grateful for the very reasonable way of living in my senior mobile home park.

[PasadenaTrudy]

11. Not in Pasadena

It's in the city of South Pasadena. People pay for the school district here. Glad I'm childfree.

[oldandhappy]

12. oops!

[rock]

10. Well even for California it does appear excessively steep

Does it have an ocean view?

[Politicalboi]

29. LOL!

More like the 110 freeway. No ocean for miles.

[haele]

13. Looks like the house my uncle bought in that same area for $35K in 1995.

Probably the same developer, but in Temple City instead of So. Pasadena.
Nice remodel job. Hope it was also properly renovated and retro-fitted; those WWII/post-war developments are pretty much at the end of their "lifespan", and there's a lot of expensive work that needs to be done to the foundations, plumbing, and electrical to keep them going another 50+ years.
One of our old neighbor passed last year and the houses around here were from a 1952 development; the "flipper" did a real nice job making the house look great (rather like the one in the ad) for sale eight months ago, but the new owners are already complaining about cracks in the brand new tile and drywall, a couple of the old outlets need to be replaced, the bathtub plumbing "just rotted out and sprung a leak" (sure, sure...liquid weld can only hold so long on those galvanized pipes) and he now needs to decide if he wants to replace the old galvanized plumbing for newer copper...
Oh, and the foundation isn't straight (the land around here is old fill), it seems to be sinking on one side - where the old carpeting was replaced by the new tile throughout...
Heck, we watched them flip it. The only major renovation they did was replace the roof, because they added a skylight and blew out the wall between the front room and the kitchen/kitchenette, add a slab patio in the back, and improve the sucky porch that was there before...everything else was cosmetic.
No foundation work, no electricians, no plumbers under the house; the only plumber they had in was to "update the bathrooms and kitchen".

Haele

[MattBaggins]

41. Do they not have inspectors where you live?

They got ripped off. Need lemon laws for houses.

[mnhtnbb]

14. Uh, yes.

My uncle sold his 4 BR, 2 1/2 BA--3200 sq ft house on Linda Vista 4 years ago for $1.25 M on a lot with a view of the Rose Bowl.
Built in 1923, also had a 2 car garage and accessory garage apt. The kitchen and baths were old--not updated--they'd
lived in it for 30+ years.

At the time I wondered whether he had listed it too low, but it does look like prices have zoomed again in the last
4 years in the area.

[seabeyond]

15. wow. that would sell 140, 150 here. maybe 160 in the more upscale streets, not neighborhood. lol.

cute house.

[Beaverhausen]

16. I have friends who have bought in the outlying areas

Such as Canyon Country (far away but they got a gorgeous house for less than half of this one) and in Leimert Park (nice big house in an iffy but developing neighborhood.)

But yes, real estate is ridiculous around here. Why I rent.

[Vinca]

17. That's just bizarre to me. In my neck of the woods - Southern VT/NH -

(a very nice area) it would be $750,000 less. Who can afford to live in southern California??? It's a shame I can't airlift my house there and sell if for a few million dollars.

[Skidmore]

18. Our last home was similar to that, albeit

with no granite counters. Bought it for $56K, made improvements over the ten years we lived there, and sold it for $85K. It was recently on the market at $95K.

[polichick]

19. Very expensive. I love CA but real estate is so high there...

That house would cost about half a million less in most of the states where I've bought houses.

[MuseRider]

20. You can buy 5000 sq feet here for less than that.

Amazing.

We built a large custom house on our farm for less than that! (don't give me crap please, I would never have built large out here but my husband is tied to large and expensive impressive shit, he grew up like that and he was moving out to my farm, not exactly his ideal, it was my trade off to finally not have to drive out here twice a day)

I don't know how anyone can own with prices like that.

It is awfully cute though.

[steve2470]

21. I believe it

The housing prices are why I chose not to move to urban or suburban California.

[theHandpuppet]

22. Or for the price of their bathroom...

You could buy this where I live:
http://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-detail/606-Winchester-Ave_Martinsburg_WV_25401_M48994-75481?row=18&source=web

[Hekate]

23. LOL. I think your fellow DUers have answered your question. If you want better prices, try Ventura.

We live in Goleta, next door to Santa Barbara, and prices have been nuts here forever. Ventura, only 45 minutes' drive from us and still coastal, is a lot less expensive. However the feel is different in many ways -- not bad, just really different.

Or Buellton; you can get a big new house for a lot less in Buellton, and though it's become a bedroom community, there is no "there" there.

The question of buying a home is very personal. If you can rent more affordably and don't want the stress of owning, keep renting. But in our area rents are sky-high to match the houses, and your "reward" for being a good tenant is having your rent go up annually anyway.

Anyway, as I said it's a personal choice. Just don't overextend yourself too much if/when you do decide to buy.

What made me LOL about the replies to your OP was how many of the DUers who replied actually got it. Still, you have plenty of sympathy from those who live a thousand miles from the coast.

[upaloopa]

30. I live in Vandenberg Village

We bought our house in 2011 for $350k now it is worth over $450k. The rents are up because so many people lost their house in the real estate bust and now rent. Plus so many foreclosed homes were bought by investors who now rent them and package the rents as securities just like they did with sub prime loans.
We are going to sell and use the gain to buy a smaller house just before I retire in about a year and a half. We are grateful to have jobs and be able to make mortgage payments in this economy.

[PasadenaTrudy]

32. Thanks!

I got some good chuckles too

[Hekate]

36. The equivalent in SB is "a San Roque charmer," which is Realtor-speak for teensy and pricey...

...just like the one you shared with us.

[LibDemAlways]

37. My daughter is a UCSB student who rents in IV.

Landlords there are terribly greedy and very slow to do any maintenance. She and her roommate share an unfurnished, tiny one bedroom with only water and trash collection included for 1375/mo -cheap by IV standards. Add in electric, gas, internet and they are at $1500. Highway robbery.

The whole Santa Barbara area is ridiculously expensive. Would be great if area salaries kept up, but they don't.

[Tikki]

44. We live in Ventura County and our residential income property just appraised..

for $750,000.
One home is under 800 sq feet and the other under 1,200 sq feet.

It's about their location and the size of the land they sit on.

The Tikkis

[Buns_of_Fire]

24. A pedestal sink and no bidet in the bathroom? How gauche!

But the garage DOES have an automatic door opener, so I guess it all evens out in the end.

That said, it's really a nice little house. That extra $750,000 or so is just the surtax for it being located in Pasadena. After I win the lottery, I may give them a call. But is there room on the property for a car elevator?

[Cali_Democrat]

25. Definitely

For just a little over 1300 sq ft?

[dsc]

26. insane

assuming 20 percent down and a 3 percent rate, you still have a 3920 a month mortgage. Again that would be assuming 180000 in down payment.

[JI7]

27. location matters and it looks like the homes in this area are about the same , you can probably

get a place maybe a few blocks or even a 1-2 miles away for maybe a few hundred thousand less.

this looks like it might be a few blocks of the most expensive homes in that area.

[JustAnotherGen]

28. Yeah

In that condition in a town like Princeton it would probably go $250 to $300.

[itsrobert]

31. That's in Pasedena where two scientist live together in a shitty apartment

Where the elevator doesn't even work. It must be real expensive there. On the other hand, another tenant in the same building affords rent off her job at the Cheesecake Factory.

[MattBaggins]

42. Bazinga

[elleng]

33. Yes, but I'm in the DC area.

Sold our house in DC for a similar amount in '08. now about 100 years old, 3 stories + unfinished basement, 4 bedrooms, 2 1/2 baths, 2d floor unfinished porch, eat-in kitchen width of house, laundry room on 1st floor, pocket doors separate dining room from living room, hard-wood floors, chestnut stairway, first floor wrap-around porch, back yard deck, separate 'coach house' garage in rear, 1/3 acre lot, old trees, established neighborhood in NW DC, east (less expensive) side of Rock Creek Park. DAMN I wish we hadn't sold it!

edit: and we bought it in '85 for $179,000.

[PasadenaTrudy]

34. A studio apt.

out in Santa Monica 4 blocks from the beach is $2K a month now...Something is wrong with this country.

[liberal N proud]

35. As long as people are willing to pay

Prices will be insane.

[PasadenaTrudy]

38. True dat

[LibDemAlways]

39. So Cal in general is ridiculous, but certain areas are

beyond all reason. In the tony suburb of Palos Verdes, a friend's totally beat up old house was sold recently when her elderly mother died. An investor paid $750k for the lot, tore down the old eyesore, bulit a standard 3+2 and quickly sold it for the full asking price of $1.7 million. The property taxes alone woud be killer. How people can afford it is beyond me.

[pnwmom]

40. Kind of?

I imagine it does to anyone who doesn't live in that area of SoCal or the Silicon valley/

[IcyPeas]

43. it doesn't even have a pool?