T L tl_@****com wrote:
I found your weblog just now. I’m curious to find out if you know why Oceanside has been hit so hard by the current market downturn seemingly harder than other areas?
Thanks,
TL
Hi TL,
Oceanside is really in line with the over all county wide average median price decline. Every community is unique. Oceanside has a very diverse housing market. There are about 40 different neighborhoods or identifiable demographic areas within the city housing market.
Here are some terms use to describe some of the neighborhoods, in some cases their actual names Oceanfront, The Old Town Site Downtown, South O, Ranch Del Oro, Mesa, Fire Mountain, The Front Gate, The Back Gate, Tri -City, Cloud Nine, The Valley, The East Side, Morro Hills, Hennie Hills, Peacock Hills, Jefferies Ranch, The Calles, Oceana, and the list goes on.
Housing prices in some of these areas are holding up rather well. Oceanfront is always in demand, and fetches the highest price. It’s been dinged but not crushed. In addition, because of the the baby boomer demographics, age 55+ communities are in demand holding their value.
The areas that are getting hit the hardest are the communities that had a large volume of sales from 1998 to 2005. These areas are typically mid to entry level priced that sold between $400K and $600K. During this period Oceanside had a large inventory of homes that fit the description.
From 1998 to 2005 the housing market was white hot with prices rising at double digit rates. Instead of putting on the brakes and allowing things to cool lending institutions actually relaxed their qualifying requirements adding fuel to the buying frenzy. Buyers could get +100% adjustable rate mortgages with easy qualifying. These and other easy to get loans are known as SUB-PRIME because the don’t meet traditional down payment, credit and income requirements. Many homeowners who had equity used their homes as cash cows to pay bills, buy cars or toys. The rest is history in the making. Loans adjusted and highly leveraged homeowners found they couldn’t afford the new higher payments. They also found there was no way to refinance out of the situation since prices stopped going up. FORECLOSURE and SUB-PRIME became a global household name.
The market correction was a natural cause and effect action that has repeated itself many times throughout history. This is where opportunity historically appears for those willing and able to take advantage.
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