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Strategies & Market Trends : The Residential Real Estate Crash Index -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Don Green who wrote (45217)	11/29/2005 12:38:18 PM
From: charlotte_sometimes	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 306849

I lived in North Park in the early 70's and all of the houses around were from the 1920's. But I can imagine they now sell in the high $700K. I am curious if a lot of those very old small homes are being bought and ripped down and new homes built or many there are zoning restrictions that really limit that. North Park is where my dad was (33rd St). The zoning that we had would have allowed for our house to be ripped down. We wouldn't have done it because our taxes would have increased on the house part of the property. Maybe $3000 a year instead of $300. Plus people love fixing up the old houses because they have "character". One person on our house rebuilt and did it nicely. There won't be any McMansions there because the lots are mostly small - dad's was 40x100 - and they have strict limits on height and how far your house must be from the lot lines. By the way, I'm not down on my dad. I love both my parents and have learned good lessons from both. Dad saved and saved for retirement, denying himself a lot of enjoyment along the way. He had a heart attack the year after he retired and died after a 10 year battle with dementia, heart disease and diabetes. He never got the chance to enjoy his retirement. My mother has "seized the day" and bought what she wanted that she could afford, but that has made her retirement egg a lot less than what she would like. I'm trying to learn a happy medium between the two. As a quick introduction, I've lurked here for awhile but not posted. My husband and I lived in Temecula, CA during the big appreciation years of 2002-2004. Then we moved to the Bay Area and couldn't believe the ridiculous prices. I knew things were out of control when a not so great place like Livermore had 1200sq ft 1950's houses on very little land for $600k+. We rented for a year and finally got a job transfer to Austin where we are now finally living in a nice house at a reasonable price (or will be as soon as it's finished building). California is nice, but in the days of the Big Box stores, everything we need is here and it's beautiful in the Hill Country. If we are lucky, we might see a bit of appreciation here, but if not, we are resigned to being priced out of California forever.