Tag: housing

Photo by Joe WilcoxOct 15, 202411:02 pm

San Diego is Scary Now

Seventeen years ago today, the Wilcox family relocated to San Diego from the Washington, DC-metro area. We came to care for my father-in-law, who would live another decade and pass away—age 95—in his own bed. He likely would have gone sooner and/or been confined to a nursing home otherwise.

My wife and I should have fled Communist California—and the slave mentality induced here—in 2017, soon after her dad died. But ongoing concerns about our only child kept us here longer. Our daughter’s brain injury, in March 2023, justified the financial hardship of staying. She survived—something unlikely had we, from a long distance, taken doctors’ advice to end life support rather than by being present choose to continue it.

Photo by Joe WilcoxSep 29, 20249:25 pm

Would You Want to Live Here?

As explained three days ago, apartment landlords are taking away tenant garages and converting them into residential rentals. The practice is rampant across San Diego County, including my neighborhood of University Heights.

Unsurprisingly, the alleys separating streets fill with parked cars, particularly late day into the evening hours. You lost your garage and can’t find a legal space, so you make do and hope to move before the parking police blast by writing tickets.

Photo by Joe WilcoxSep 26, 20249:09 pm

Say Goodbye to Your Garage Parking Space

When we relocated to San Diego nearly 17 years ago, most home garage renovations were illegal—meaning they had been done without proper permits, if any. The stated interior size revealed all: A 600-square-foot cottage would be obviously larger, because of the undocumented, unsanctioned expansion.

Oh, and the buyer inherited any liability. Imagine one consequence, where the city, county, or state issued fines or demanded the whole, ah, illegal project be torn out. For the short time my wife and I considered buying a home here, we stayed clear of such properties.

Photo by Joe WilcoxMay 15, 20249:57 pm

Pay More For Less

Take a good, long look at the Featured Image. This apartment building epitomizes how dramatically have rentals risen in San Diego over scant number of years. Something seems wrong here—and I mean more broadly. This place merely reflects a trend in explosive increases that feels funny—fixed, unnatural—for a typically dynamic capitalist market.

I’ll illustrate. In June 2021, a 1,000-square-foot flat listed for $1,495 monthly and presumably rented, since the listing was removed eight days later. Available now for $2,325, in the same building: 530-sq-foot studio. Oh, and Zillow estimates that if the larger unit was marketed today, the landlord should charge $3,063.

Photo by Joe WilcoxMay 10, 202410:15 pm

The Sleeper

I rarely photograph San Diego homeless, as a silent sign of respect. But, today, one gentlemen so surprised me that I felt compelled to take the shot—well, several. Walking East on Meade Ave., I saw him sleeping on the sidewalk across the way, where Mission cuts diagonally—think 45 degrees—from the intersection at Park Blvd.

The sleep mask is what intrigued me. He looked so unusually comfortable, lying on the cement, which was surprising, too. Foot and vehicular traffic is fairly brisk, and noisy, on a Friday afternoon; then there is the bus stop—a couple meters away, at most. Yet he looked so serene and lay motionless, but in an open space where homeless are otherwise uncommon.

Photo by Joe WilcoxMar 1, 202410:41 pm

What These Flowers Mean

The Featured Image is a memory marker. I shall explain. The grass on this property is rarely overgrown like this. But the woman responsible for tending things has lost the privilege of doing so. For reasons of protected privacy, I choose not to show the building.

One of my neighbors is in the process of losing her home. Supposedly she will be duly compensated, but what she wants is to stay in the neighborhood she knows and loves, living out her life in a house her grandmother once owned.

Photo by Joe WilcoxNov 26, 202310:10 pm

Live at Winslow?

Opening of the 379-unit apartment building—along Park Blvd between El Cajon and Meade—continues to reverberate across my neighborhood of University Heights and nearby Hillcrest and North Park. Winslow’s rentals reset the comparative market rate—a term that I loathe—that other landlords would use to charge their tenants, exiting or new, more.

Another impact is the building, which fills one full block and dramatically changes the character of that stretch of Park Blvd. The residential complex, and other newer multi-unit structures, also increase congestion and traffic—oh, let’s not forget competition for parking spots.

Photo by Joe WilcoxOct 20, 202310:08 pm

Now That’s Frightening

Welcome to another blast from the past. I captured the Feature Image on this date in 2012, using Galaxy Nexus, which was codeveloped by Google and Samsung and manufactured by the latter company. Vitals: f/2.75, ISO 50, 1/115 sec, 3.43mm; 3:40 p.m. PDT.

Location: Monroe, between Cleveland and Maryland, in University Heights. The property is good measurement of San Diego’s changing housing market. The place sold for $520,000 in June 2011. The family living there moved to a larger home and put this place on the market, where it went for $617,500 in September 2013.

Photo by Joe WilcoxOct 18, 202310:51 pm

The Most Unaffordable City

San Diego is too prestigious a place. In July 2023, rents exceeded San Francisco. Yikes! Last month, the median-selling price for residences (houses and more) topped $1 million. The city earns yet another distinction: U.S. News & World Report has crowned San Diego as “#1 in most expensive places to live”. Uh, yeah.

Los Angeles is second; broadly, California cities capture seven spots in the top ten. Oh joy. I marvel at how suddenly—catastrophically—was the transition from, quoting the motto, “America’s finest city” to America’s most unaffordable place to live. Four years ago, food, sundries, and housing cost so much less.

Photo by Joe WilcoxOct 15, 202310:25 pm

Sixteen Years Ago Today

On Oct. 15, 2007, the Wilcox family arrived in San Diego from the Washington, D.C.-metro area. Within days, I began to understand the character of Communist California Culture and regret relocating. But we came to assist my aged father-in-law, so that he might maintain freedom to live in his apartment, which he did until passing away there at age 95 in January 2017.

My wife and I talked about returning to the East Coast almost immediately after her dad’s death. But our only child (an adult, by then) was attached to Southern California, and she wasn’t ready for us to leave her. We stayed—or shall I say overstayed—our time here. San Diego has changed all too much in terrible ways—almost all brought about by state and/or local mandates.

Photo by Joe WilcoxSep 22, 202310:12 pm

The Winslow at Night

University Heights’ biggest, newest apartment complex—with 379 units—is anything but affordable housing. Rentals at the Winslow start at $2,400 for a 484-square-foot studio and go up to $5,945 for 1300-sq-ft apartment with two bedrooms and baths. San Diego officials propagate the myth that building more residences will decrease housing costs and therefore increase availability across lower income brackets.

But the opposite is reality: As newer complexes open, higher rents go with them, lifting the so-called “market rate” that other landlords watch as measure for what they charge their tenants. More is more, meaning rents rise with the new builds raised.

Photo by Joe WilcoxSep 12, 202310:46 pm

Housing’s New Selling High is a Low Blow for San Diego

In July 2017, when we were home shopping, I started to monitor—and occasionally write about—the local housing market. The next month, countywide, median price for a single-family residence reached $610,000, according to San Diego Association of Realtors. Fast-forward six years and $1,025,000 is median, according to SDAR, which released the data yesterday.

By my quick math, that’s a 68-percent increase, which makes homeownership an outstanding investment for anyone owning before SARS-CoV-2 (severe acute respiratory syndrome Coronavirus 2)/COVID-19 lockdowns in early 2020 or increased interest rates this year and last. For anyone else not fairly wealthy, the choices are rent, move, or live on the streets—something of an increasingly common lifestyle.