Biggest Mistakes People Make When Moving to San Diego California
What are the top mistakes people make when moving to San Diego and how to avoid them? 1. Using Unreliable Sources The first mistake is when you’re renting or buying a home is using unreliable sources like realtor.com or Zillow. They’re not always exactly up to date. Sometimes the information might be old. You might want to go look at a home, but after all, it’s actually not available anymore, or maybe the pricing’s off, things like that. Make sure you’re connecting with a local real estate agent that can connect you with our portal and give you real time, accurate information. You can go into our portal and save the homes you like. You can favorite it and we can see what homes you like, and then we can help craft what types of homes you’re looking at in most interested in. We always want to make sure you have the most current, accurate information when you’re looking for a home. 2. Using New Sources like Facebook or Craigslist Secondly, if you are renting or buying pattern related to this is using new sources like Facebook or Craigslist to find a rental or even potentially a home. These are oftentimes not real, they’re scams. They’re going to try to get you to buy or rent the home sight unseen, give a security deposit, and then you’re out the money. Always work with a trusted agent and professional that will help navigate these problems before you. 3. Being Too Confident And thirdly, being too confident about whether you’re going to rent or buy first. Sometimes there’s pros to renting first. It allows you to get to know a neighborhood, all the amenities around it. See if you really like it, and maybe you want to move somewhere else, maybe if you have some uncertainty in your job, not sure how long you’re going to be there, maybe renting as a way to get into the market and find out if we really are going to be staying in San Diego before you buy. 4. Can I make Lowball offers? The next one is asking, do I have to pay full price for a home? Sometimes there are instances where the home has sat from the market for a very long time, and maybe you can low ball, but that is very uncommon. Typically the homes that you’re probably going to be most interested in are moving very quickly off the market. Typically, what happens is a home is going to get listed during the week on a Wednesday or Thursday or Friday, and is probably going to be sold by that Monday or Tuesday. Going in and trying to offer under ask price is usually not a winning strategy. Now you have lots of winning strategies that can help you win without necessarily over paying for the home, but trying to go in and low ball and offer right on the gate, there’s not going to be a winning strategy. 5. Trying to Perfectly Time the Market Another mistake is trying to perfectly time the market and whether that’s during certain seasons or just the overall housing economy. A lot of times I’ll hear, I’m just waiting till the market cools off. Well, those people that I’ve talked to years ago now, they’re still waiting and they’ve lost out on 30%+ appreciation in the market. Trying to overly time the market can be very detrimental to you actually ever getting into a home and starting to build wealth for yourself. The other thing is to look at seasonality of buying a home. Sometimes it can make sense to wait for certain seasons to buy a home in. Typically during the holidays, it can kind of cool off a little bit. There can be little windows of time where you can get in, but also there aren’t going to be nearly as many homes available during that time as well. In fact, when I’m creating this blog right now, there are only 1600 homes available in the whole county of San Diego and that’s extremely low inventory. A year ago, we were at 3000 homes, which was considered very low at the time and a year before that was 5,000 homes, which was also, it will come up as we head into the spring season. But sometimes binder the holidays, there can be fewer homes and because there’s less people shopping, you might get a deal. 6. Not Getting Pre-qualified or Pre-approved Another mistake people make is not getting pre-qualified or pre-approved before going to shop for homes. It’s one thing to go look at one home and say, “Hey, am I actually interested in buying a home right now?” But if you’re serious about buying a home, especially if you’re relocating out here, you really need to be pre-approved through a lender. You want to work with a reputable lender that can close the deal quickly and make sure you’re fully pre-approved before you start shopping for homes. Oftentimes you actually have to show a pre approval letter and proof of funds before even being able to go and look at a home. A lot of homeowners don’t want lots of people coming through their home unless they’re highly qualified to purchase a home. The best thing to do is connect with a great local lender. I have connections for you that will fully pre-approve you and make sure you’re 100% ready to go. And they’ll guarantee that you will close on time and we can go shop for homes together. 7. Shopping by Real Estate Signs Another way that people shop for homes is shopping by real estate signs. Basically driving by and seeing real estate signs and saying, “Hey, I want to go look at that house and calling the listing agent and seeing if they can see the house.” Well, oftentimes the house isn’t available. Real estate agents leave their signs up during the entire transaction and oftentimes even afterwards because it’s great marketing for that agent. And sometimes the house isn’t even available. It’s often under escrow and you’re calling and just kind of wasting your time. Don’t just drive around neighborhoods, looking for real estate signs. Make sure you’re using a portal like what I can provide you to find homes for you that are actually fitting what you’re looking for. And then let’s make a list and go look at homes together. 8. Not Fully Understanding the Type of Construction and Age of Homes Another mistake sometimes people make is not fully understanding the type of construction and particularly age of homes in certain neighborhoods of San Diego. There are neighborhoods in San Diego that are significantly older than others. Homes in the uptown neighborhood, such as North Park, University Heights, Normal Heights, South Park, Kensington, those types of areas are going to be much older homes. And there can be issues that come along with those. Search all homes in Uptown area of San Diego When you’re buying those homes, you really want to make sure that either of those issues have been taken care of. The number one issue for some of these older homes is foundations. If they’re 80 to a 100 years old, oftentimes the foundations they’re certainly unreinforced and there might be issues. And those can cause major damage and costs to repair oftentimes in the magnitude of $50,000 to a $100,000. You really want to make sure that either you’re okay with that, you’re ready to take on that project or that it’s already done. ` Another issue, sometimes it comes up in these older homes is cast iron pipes for the sewer. So again, you want to make sure that perhaps those have been replaced, especially from the house out to the main line, the city is responsible for that. Or at least relined, that’s also another option is to reline the cast iron pipes. Oftentimes tree roots, get into those pipes and break them. And they just corrode cause they get rusted and they break down and cause problems. Those can be very expensive to fix somewhere between $8,000 to $20,000, depending on what it is. And as you get into the older homes and the plumbing and the electrical, oftentimes you’re going to want to start looking for homes that have upgraded all that plumbing and electrical. Some of these old homes have old knob and tube wiring. You really want to try to stay away from that and get into more modern, actual electrical panels and breakers and modern wiring as well as modern plumbing, whether that’s copper plumbing or plastic piping with pecs, things like that that are much more modern, durable, and are not going to cause water leaks in your home. Now again, if you’re okay with those things and you’re willing to take on those repairs, just be prepared to pay for those after the fact. 9. Thinking You’re going to have a Basement for extra Living or Storage space. Something to keep in mind in San Diego is that we really don’t have basements here. Every once in a while, if you have a home that’s built on a hill and we do have a lot of hills here in San Diego, it’s very rugged terrain here in San Diego, which is a really great unique feature of San Diego with the canyons and valleys we have. Sometimes if you’re having a house on a hill, you might have a walkout basement, but otherwise, generally speaking, a lot of these homes are built on mesas, no three flat areas of San Diego, and they’re not going to have a basement, they’re either slab on grade or a raised foundation, which might give you 18 inches to 24 inches of clearance to run plumbing underneath there and wiring that kind of thing. But there’s not going to be any basement. So if you’re expecting to have a lot of extra storage space or to be able to build out a whole living room area, you’re just really not going to have that in San Diego so keep that in mind when you’re looking to relocate out here from another area of the country. 10. Thinking You’re Going to Have to Buy Appliances If you’re moving from another area where typically the appliances are not sold with the home, rest assured that’s actually fairly common practice here in San Diego. It still needs to be specifically asked for it negotiated, but that is normally what happens. Those appliances come with the sale of the home. Every once in a while the seller might say, “Hey, I want to take the refrigerator or the washer dryer.” Typically those are all included on the dishwasher, the range, the oven, all those things are typically included. So rest assured you can save yourself the money and pretty much counting the appliances being included. I’ve heard of instances in other states where the agent didn’t ask for that and the buyer showed up and there were no appliances, no refrigerator, no stove. And it was moved across the country. Those are typically included and we’ll make sure that those were included for you. 11. Assuming That Cash Will Always Win Another mistake people sometimes make is just assuming that cash will always win whether that’s you being a cash buyer or concerned about being beat out by a cash offer. What happens oftentimes with cash offers is that people assume cash is always king. And so they’ll come in and make low ball offers. Or if the market’s super hot and home prices are appreciating rapidly and its homes are selling for over-asked price, which is what’s happening right now, they’ll come in and say, I’m just going to offer the “ask price” and that’s it. And then the cash offer gets beat by $50,000 or $100,000. There’s a lot of ways to craft an offer to win if you’re a competing against a cash offer. And even if you are a cash offer, there’s still a lot of things you want to do to be very competitive, whether that’s offering shorter escrow terms or rent back to the seller, different things like that. The big thing is to have the agent pick up the phone, to find out what is important to the seller do we can craft a winning strategy and then offer and get your offer accepted. In fact we can turn you into a cash buyer through one of our programs 12. Things To Consider in Rural Areas When buying in rural areas, there can be a couple of things to consider that you may not be aware of.The number one thing is fire insurance. In certain rural areas of San Diego County, like Jamul, Alpine, Crest, Descanso, Santa Isabel, Julian; areas like these, there are going to be requirements for fire hazard insurance, because these are considered high fire hazard areas and it can be quite expensive. Oftentimes adding $3,000 to $4,000 a year to your insurance payment that you wouldn’t have through buying in the city. Search all rural homes in San Diego with 1 acre or more. The second thing to keep in mind is if you’re buying in rural areas, you’re oftentimes going to be on septic instead of public sewer. And oftentimes you’re going to be on well water instead of public water, not all the time, but those are certain things to keep in mind. There’s pros and cons to both. And they’re not going to have an ongoing monthly bill with having public water and public sewer, but you are going to have occasional maintenance expenses with maintaining that septic system and perhaps that well. If you are looking to buy in a rural area and you’re looking to dig a well, just remember that costs are extremely expensive. And so related to that, oftentimes people are saying, “Hey, I just want to buy vacant land and build!” Building’s very expensive right now here in California in particular. And you really need to look at the utilities that are on that land. If all the utilities are there, that’s going to really reduce your costs. But if you don’t have septic dug, you don’t have a well dug, you don’t have gas or electricity run, you’re going to have to plan for all those extra costs to develop that land. 13. Expecting to Get a Pool When Moving to San Diego Another thing that people often expect is that they’re going to get a pool when they moved to San Diego, they think of beautiful, sunny San Diego weather all the time and “I have to have a pool. It’s going to be nice and warm and I get to use this all year round.” The fact of the matter is there are certainly are a fair amount of homes with pools, but actually the majority of homes in San Diego do not have pools. Search all homes with Pools in San Diego But if you’re looking for a home, just be prepared to pay a little bit more for that home, especially as you get coastal, you’re going to be paying quite a bit more. And if you’re in East county that does get really warm out there, you may really want to have a pool. And if it doesn’t, perhaps the lot size might be large enough where you can always add a pool in later. There is some cost of course for that, but don’t get overly hung up on making sure that you have to have a pool. There might be options for you to add one in later or just be prepared to pay a little bit more for it. Those are the top mistakes and things to keep in mind when moving to San Diego. Curtis Chism, Realtor858-281-2568 | Mobilemailto:info@sandiegohomes.ioChism Team | DRE #02105113brokered by eXp Realty | DRE #01878277
Read MoreHow Much Does it Cost to Live in Santee California
You’re thinking about moving to Santee, California, a suburb of San Diego, one of the more affordable areas of San Diego. But what are the costs that you need to know about before making that move to Santee? Watch this video or read on to find out everything there is to know about the cost of living in Santee, California. Home Prices & Mortgage Payments First, let’s take a look at the median price of the home in Santee compared to the county of San Diego. The median price right now in the City of Santee is $820,000. That might sound like a lot; however, the median price at the moment in the county is $1 million. It’s actually $180,000 cheaper in Santee than the rest of the county, on average. What that means is that the average mortgage cost, if you’re putting 20% down at 5.5% interest is going to be right around $4,700 per month. That’s figuring property taxes and insurance compare that to a $1 million mortgage payment at the same terms. And you’re looking at about $5,700 a month. So it’s about $1,000 a month cheaper living in Santee, than you’ve got elsewhere in the county. Search all homes for sale in Santee, California Property Taxes That being said, there are some things you need to think about when you get into the different costs, of course. In California, we are limited to 1% property tax of the purchase price of the home. That is because of a proposition called Prop 13 that went into effect a number of years ago. That limits property taxes to 1%. There are a lot of politicians trying to get that overturned so they can make more money off of you. But hopefully that doesn’t happen. What the government can do is they can raise those property taxes by 2% per year, every single year.Let’s just say you had a $1 million property, that means you’re paying about $10,000 a year in property taxes. They can raise the property taxes by 2% of that 10,000 per year. About $200 a year that it will go up every single year. The great thing is they can’t reassess that property value. If the home appreciates in value and it goes to $1.5 million, they’re not going to get reassessed at that $1.5 million. It’s just that 2% per year that it’s going to go up.However, if you add on a second story or add on an extra bedroom, they can come and reassess at that time and you will start paying more in property taxes. A lot of people will try to avoid that and add unpermitted additions or converted garage illegally, that kind of thing. Because they’re trying to avoid that property tax, but it’s not best when you go to resell that house. Each city around San Diego, and Santee is no exception, has their own little extra bonds they passed. The voters pass that can raise the property taxes. Property Tax in Santee is actually about 1.19%. And that’s because of local bonds that have been passed such as sewer bonds to help pay for infrastructure in the city of Santee. San Diego is just over 1.2%, so slightly cheaper in Santee but effectively about the same as the actual city of San Diego. Something else you need to keep in mind about property taxes in Santee and in the county of San Diego, is there something called a Supplemental Property Taxes. This is a surprise bill that everyone gets 6 to 12 months after they buy their house. And that’s an extra tax bill on your property taxes. And the reason for this, a little bit complicated, I’m not going to go into every little detail about it right now, but what you need to know is when you buy your house at say $1 million, if that house was purchased originally at $600,000, it was a $400,000 Delta there. When you go and pay your property taxes upfront in your escrow, they’re basing it off of that old property value, your property tax that you’re paying in escrow. If you have an impound account, then your lender is going to factor that and you’re going to be paying every month the correct property tax value. However, you got to make up the difference in that $1 million to $600,000, that $400,000. They’re going to tax you at that 1% prorated based on where it falls in the fiscal years. If you bought the house halfway through the fiscal year, they’re going to say, okay, we’re going to take that $400,000 and multiply it by 0.5, $200,000 times 1%, $2,000 tax bill. A little complicated, but don’t be surprised when you get that bill six months down the road, you got to pay $2,000 to $3,000 more and you originally had to pay. And I get that call a lot from clients going, “Hey, what happened?” I try to make sure now that really explain that to people up front, don’t be surprised you might get a tax bill down the road. The other thing about property taxes is sometimes there can be Mello-Roos an addition to the property taxes. It’s paid with the property taxes and that is for some of the new build communities, they will have this additional fee or tax called Mello-Roos. That’s paid with your property taxes. Most of the communities in Santee do not have Mello-Roos. However, the Weston Community in Santee definitely does have Mello-Roos. It’s about $125 per month, about $1,400 to $1,500 per year. And of course, there’s going to be an HOA with this particular community as well, around $300 per month. Even though you’re buying a single family home, you’re still looking at around $425 extra in Mello-Roos and HOA fees. Depending on where you’re buying in Santee or elsewhere in San Diego, there could be Mello-Roos, especially if it’s a new built community. Income Tax The other thing here of course is income taxes. This is statewide whether or not you live in the city of Santee or elsewhere, but we do have marginal tax brackets here in California. If you make between $61,000-$312,000 per year, you’re going to be in the marginal tax bracket of 9.3%. If you make more than that, our top tax bracket is just over 12% per year. That’s state income tax and then of course you have federal tax as well. Sales Tax The other thing we got here is sales tax. The county of San Diego has a base sales tax rate and then each city can kind of add to it, etc. In Santee it’s 7.75% right now. That’s actually the same as the city of San Diego. Anything you’re going to be buying, anything except for groceries, you’re going to be paying 7.75%. For groceries, you actually do not pay sales tax at all. Utility Bills to Consider When Living in Santee Let’s take a look at utilities and what it costs for you to just live your life and have your home and run your gas and electric and your water and your internet, all those sorts of things. Gas & Electricity Costs The gas and electric company here is called SDGE or San Diego Gas & Electric. It is owned by Sempra Energy and it is the most profitable division in all of Sempra Energy. Why is that? Because they charge us the highest rates. Get used to shelling out quite a bit for gas and electric in particular. In the city of Santee, it is warmer out there. The average temperature is right around 75° versus 70° in the city of San Diego. We can get hot in the summer, it can often be in the 90s°, sometimes above a 100° in the summertime. And if you live in the valley of Santee, it’s going to get quite a bit warmer than if you live up on the hill. The temperature may be similar, but you get a good breeze if you live up on the hills of Santee. You can lower your energy costs that way. However, if you’re running your AC a lot, expect to be paying somewhere in the neighborhood of $300-$500 a month for sure! It could be more depending on how inefficient that air conditioner is or how inefficient your home is. If you really want to make sure that the home you’re buying or if it doesn’t to make sure we’re putting this soon is energy efficient upgrades like dual pane windows, insulating your attic, insulating your walls, and making sure that your home is as energy efficient as possible to save on that gas and electric bill. If it is very energy efficient, you might be paying less, maybe $200-$250 a month. And again, if you run an AC a lot, which I tend to do in the summertime, then you’re going to be paying more. In the winter, it can get a little cold in Santee. You might kick that heat on every once in a while. That’s going to add to your bill during the winter time, but it doesn’t get super, super cold. But it can get cold at night during certain seasons. In January, it can get into the 30s° at night, there can be frost on the ground so you’re going to kick that heater on and you’re going to pay a little bit more during the winter months for gas. Water & Sewer Costs The Water District in Santee is called the Padre Dam Municipal Water District. You’re going to be paying probably about a $100-$150 a month. That’s going to include your sewer in that as well. Now, if you have a lot of irrigation, you’ve got a grass you want to water, you’ve got a pool. There’s a lot of pools in Santee cause those get warm. You’re probably going to be paying more like $200-$250 a month for your water. Internet The other big thing nowadays that we always need to talk about is internet. Internet is basically like gas, electricity, and water nowadays, you need it to run your life. There are a few different internet providers in Santee. There’s basically Cox Communications and AT&T. Between the two, I’d go with the AT&T in most areas in Santee, not all. You got to plug in the address that you’re looking to buy. You can get fiber internet, you can get 1gbps internet upload- download for about $80 a month via AT&T. Again, not everywhere has it. You need to check specifically your address. Actually now they have 2gbps and 5gbps that you can get. That’s probably a bit excessive. I used to have fiber internet when I lived in another part of San Diego. Where I live now, doesn’t have it. And I really, really miss the fiber internet. It makes a huge difference in your upload, download speeds and how fast your computer runs and all that kind of thing. The other option is Cox Communications. They do offer broadband 1gbps download, but it never really hit that at all. And your upload speed is limited about 25mbps. I’s actually pretty slow and it’s very, very inconsistent as well, fluctuates quite a bit. It gets rather frustrating if you’re trying to stream a lot or upload things, that kind of thing. If you can do it, get AT&T fiber internet, that’s $80 a month versus about $120 a month for Cox for a similar but less quality service. Transportation Now let’s talk about transportation costs around Santee. Your main mode of transportation in Santee is going to be the car. It is East County, San Diego. You’re about 15 to 20 minutes into the actual city of San Diego. From Santee, just over the hill, over the 52, you could be in Kearny Mesa. That’s only about 12 minutes away. If you’re trying to get to Downtown San Diego it’s a solid 20-minute drive. The average San Diegan drives about 12,000 miles per year. In Santee you’re probably going to be driving a little bit more than that because you are a little bit more remote outside of the actual city of San Diego. However, right now gas prices are about $6 per gallon in San Diego. Probably going to go up at at 12,000 miles a year with an average MPG of 25 miles per gallon. You’re going to be spending right around $3,000 per year for commuting from Santee. It might be a little more because of a little bit longer commute times. The other option if you work in Downtown, you can take the trolley. The trolley does run from Santee all the way out into or other way into Downtown San Diego. The thing is it’s kind of slow. It’s going to take you close to an hour to get to Downtown from Santee. When I lived in Santee I did work Downtown and I really want to take the trolley, but I just could not spend an extra 2 hours of commute just on the trolley to get to and from work. And then I’d have to get to and from the trolley as well. You’re looking at 5 minutes to the trolley, etc., like the 2 hours and 20 minutes round trip essentially is what it would take to commute from Santee to Downtown. I’d rather drive. I left early for work. I used to be in construction, I’d go Downtown and work Downtown, I’d be there in 20 minutes. On the way home, it would take me longer. There’d be traffic. However, there’s a couple routes to get home. It usually takes me 25 to 30 minutes to get home. From Downtown you can take the 52 to get back into Santee, or you can take the 94 to the 125 to get into Santee. You just need to look at Google Maps and see how traffic is and save some time that way. If you were to get a trolley pass, you’re going to be spending about a $100 a month on that trolley pass. Pool Maintenance and Bug Control Now just a couple other costs to think about if you’re moving into Santee, you might have a pool because a lot of homes have a pool there. You could maintain that yourself. You might cost you $40-$50 a month in chemicals, or you probably want to hire a pool maintenance guy. And that’s probably going to run you about $120-$150 a month right now for a pool maintenance. And then in some areas of Santee, there can be a lot of bugs, especially ants. When we lived in Santee, we would spray for ants about every 6 months. They would spray and it would keep the ants away for about $120 every 6 months, maybe $150 depending on who you hire. Spray for ants and keep those ants away from your house. That’s all the costs of living in Santee, California. Let me know what you think about the crazy cost of living here in Santee and in San Diego. Curtis Chism, Realtor858-281-2568 | Mobilemailto:info@sandiegohomes.ioChism Team | DRE #02105113brokered by eXp Realty | DRE #01878277
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You’re thinking about moving to San Diego and you want to know everything there is to know about South Park in San Diego? This is near and dear to my heart. I lived there for 4 years, and then I lived in the community North Park right next to it for about 8 years as well. I love South Park. I know it like the back of my hand and I’m super excited to share it with you. Where is South Park located? A lot of people don’t know where South Park is located. It’s kind of been discovered lately and people do know where it is a little bit more now. When I lived there, no one knew where it was and the way I describe it, do you know where North Park is or South Park is south of North Park. Sound pretty simple, right? But that’s the case. It is south of North Park. It’s bordered by Balboa Park and by the huge San Diego golf course as well. You’ve got North Park to the north and basically there’s a canyon that runs through that splits North Park and South Park called Switzer Canyon. Basically once you get past the south of that canyon, and especially once you get to Juniper Street, then you’re into South Park and South Park then runs down into Golden Hill. And basically right when you get to about A street, B street, that starts to become Golden Hill. Search all homes for sale in South Park, San Diego. You also have the 15 freeway to the east that borders it. And then the 94 to the south really is the final border of South Park. But that starts getting into Golden Hill and we will touch on Golden Hill and North Park a little bit just because they do border South Park. Now there’s also a really cool community called the Burlingame that we’ll touch on as well. And that’s technically North Park, but a lot of people really do consider that to be South Park. The main road through South Park is 30th street. That is the main drag that’s where most of the shops are located. There’s homes on there as well. But there’s also a lot of homes kind of located out from there, not too many shops located throughout South Park. They’re all right on 30th Street. Now there was a brewery located here. They’ve actually since been bought and relocated to Colorado called Green Flash Brewing. And they actually made a beer called 30th Street Pale Ale because there are so many bars on 30th street in South Park, but also up in North Park as well. And a lot of craft beer bars. They made a beer specifically for 30th Street Pale Ale, which is really a fantastic craft beer. Now the interesting thing about 30th street is it actually kind of jig jogs a little bit through south part. As we’re coming south and you hit Grape Street, you would actually have to turn right, s west and then head south again on 30th Street. You go right and then left and then you’re back on 30th street. And then it jogs back over at A street and then becomes 30th Street again. That stretch between Grape and A street is actually Fern Street. It’s kind of weird how the road, it kind of jig jogs and it changes names to Fern Street. You have to move over to 30th street. It’s kind of weird, but if you live there, you just get used to it, not a big deal at all. There’s some really, really great restaurants and bars here in South Park. Some of them have unfortunately closed due to essentially COVID Hamilton’s Tavern, Grant’s Deli and Del Sur were fantastic restaurants that are no longer there anymore. However, there’s still some great restaurants and bars in particular, The Station. It has really, really fantastic hamburgers. You can get beef hamburgers, and you can get Turkey burgers that are really, really tasty and they have great tater tots as well. Definitely check out The Station and they have great craft beer and of course, wine. Whistle Stop Bar -they have no food, but they have craft beer and cocktails, and it’s a live music and comedy venue right there on 30th Street and Juniper. 30th and Juniperis also kind of the main intersection in South Park as well. A lot of the shops are kind of located right there. You’ve got a really great Italian restaurant right there with good pizza called Mazara. A new brewery just moved in at this intersection. They’re actually in the North Park/Normal Heights area up the street on 30th street and that’s Fall Brewing. They have a tasting room that they have opened up in South Park as well, right there on 30th and Juniper. Now a little bit more to the south, you’ve got a really, really fantastic Italian restaurant that is absolutely top notch, Buona Forchetta. This is the Buona Forchetta original location. It now has multiple locations in Coronado, Liberty Station in Point Loma and up the coast and Encinitas, but this is where they started. They actually took over an old house and converted it into a tiny little restaurant. And that’s how it started, they only had maybe 20 seats in the restaurant. But over time they expanded into the patio. They have a very large, enclosed patio. They can roll down the sides. If there’s weather going on, if it’s raining or if it’s cold, they can put the heat lamps on. And most of the space now is actually outdoors, but they have absolutely fantastic Italian food. The pizzas are out of this world. They have Neapolitan style pizzas that are absolutely fantastic. Once you order them, they actually come out really, really fast because they have this quick cooking wood-burning stove. They’ve actually imported directly from Italy. I think they paid something like $65,000 for this a while ago, probably 6 to 8 years ago or more. In today’s dollars, probably more like a $100,000 with the way inflation’s going, but definitely worth checking out is Buona Forchetta. Right across the street is a vegan restaurant called Kindred. It has great vegan food, but they’re also really, really well known for their craft cocktail. Definitely worth checking out Kindred. And then another great restaurant right up the street is called The Rose Wine Pub. Really great food and of course, wine and a really relaxing atmosphere to go to. Like I said, I actually lived in South Park for about 4 years and I lived right on 30th Street. I lived in this old Victorian home that had been converted into an apartment sometime ago, I think there was 5 units in the apartment there and I paid super cheap rent. This was a while ago. I missed those days. I was paying $750 a month. Utilities included for a little one bedroom apartment. And it was really funky because it was converted the kitchen. You could tell it was actually built in a hallway at one point, it was very, very small. And then I lived there for about a year with my wife when she moved in with me after we got married and we had a wonderful time and great memories in this apartment, having people over at our little tiny apartment, but a really large porch. We would hang out on the porch a lot and then eventually bought her house in Santee and moved out. But the really cool thing about it, because it was so central, we could just walk right down to the local pubs and have a beer and have a great time. The other cool thing about South Park, it is super, super central in San Diego. It’s just a short drive or bike ride to Downtown, San Diego. What I would do when I was living in South Park and working Downtown building high rises as a construction project manager back then, I would typically ride my bike. I would get on my bike, I’d get in my work clothes and I would just ride my bike into work. And I wouldn’t even break a sweat because it was almost all downhill and just a couple miles away. And then I’d of course work all day. And then I would change into my riding gear to get home because then you have to get up some pretty steep hills to get back into South Park. And I would get my afternoon workout in. It’s also a really, really fantastic place to exercise. It’s all laid out on a grid in South Park. You kind of always know where you are and you can kind of map out your runs really well. I used to run a lot in South Park and you could run over to Balboa Park and run through the trails in Balboa Park as well, or run around the golf course. You do have to be careful because Pershing Road, which runs by the golf course is a very, very busy road. If you’re running on it, it’s a little bit dangerous, but there is a dirt path just off to the side of it. And it is protected by a guard rails. So you can run through there. You just got to be a little bit, a little more careful because you’re running on dirt. Don’t want to sprain your ankle, that kind of thing. As I said, it is right next to Balboa Park and specifically Morley Field, a really really cool place to spend time out. They have Frisbee golf there. They have tons and tons of tennis courts. They have a velodrome and huge grassy fields to exercise and have picnics in the park as well.And there’s a dog park in Morley Field as well, but the best dog park almost in San Diego is actually at the Grape Street Dog Park. It’s a really fantastic dog park. They maintain it really well. And all the locals from South Park go there and spend a lot of time there with their furry friends. There’s a really great school here in South Park as well called the Albert Einstein Academy. A lot of people send their kids to school here. There’s typically a long wait list to get in, but if you can get in, that’s definitely a top notch school to send your kids to. As I mentioned, it’s actually bordered by Golden Hill and then North Park as well to the north. So Golden Hill to the south, same zip code, 92102. And there’s a lot of similarities here, but Golden Hill, I would say has gentrified slower than South Park. There’s a lot more deals you can potentially get in Golden Hill. I personally really like Golden Hill, I have friends that lived there for quite a long time. Still have friends that live there. Really good restaurants here as well. You got Dark Horse Coffee, you have the Turf Supper Club, which is super cool. Actually go and cook your own steaks there. If that’s kind of your thing, which is really fun to do, and absolutely great cocktails there as well. And there’s a fantastic pizza restaurant called Luigi’s Pizza, New York style pizza. I definitely recommend getting a crime scene pizza, which is a ricotta cheese and sliced meatballs with marinara sauce, it’s delicious, not typically on the menu, but order it. All the main restaurants and bars are going to be right off 30th Street heading into North Park and then going down University and El Cajon Boulevard as well. The main difference between North Park and South Park, I would say is the number of condos versus single family homes and apartments. North Park is going to have a lot more condos and apartments than South Park does. In the 1960s and 1970s and even now, there were a lot of condos that were built. They’re tearing down a lot of these older homes and building large condo and apartment complexes that is starting to occur again with recent laws that have passed that are making it easier for developers to build without putting any parking in, into these new developments. That’s kind of a concern a lot of people have here in San Diego. You might be for it or you might be against it,. But they have taken out a tremendous amount of parking in the North Park area along 30th Street going down in the South Park to create bike lanes. And they’re allowing for developments to go in with no parking at all. What they’re trying to do is encourage people of course, to bike and walk instead of take a car. That sounds great in theory, but San Diego is so spread out. You really need a car to get around in San Diego. There is not great public transportation. We have the trolley, we have our bus system, but they’re just not great. They take a really, really long time to get anywhere. And it’s just not a place like New York or Boston or San Francisco where you can get around a lot easier with public transportation. They’re trying to engineer it so that you’re kind of forced to take a bike and walk in there for a lot less parking it’s going in. It’s getting very, very difficult to park in North Park, and there’s a lot more condos and apartments there, mixed in with the single family homes. Traditionally the parking has been really, really tough, but it’s gotten a lot worse. If you’re buying a home there, you definitely want to make sure that you’re getting off street parking if you have a vehicle with you. In South Park, somewhat of an issue, there are some apartments, there are some condos, but for the most part, it’s single family homes. Parking is a lot more readily available in South Park. If you’re looking to get away from the crowds and the amount of people, South Park is the place to be. Much more walkable, in my opinion, than North Park actually is. And a lot more parking ironically as well and walkable because it’s such a small community that all the restaurants and bars are within 5 blocks of each other, and you don’t have to walk 10, 15 blocks to get there or take a bike like you would have to do in North Park. The homes in South Park, most of these are going to be Craftsmen style homes and Spanish style homes. Most of these homes were built in the 1920s. They are super, super charming, people absolutely love them. I absolutely love Craftsman style homes in particular. I also really like Spanish style. You’re going to find a lot of these homes here in South Park. You’re really not going to find too many Mid-century style homes. You will find some as you get more in the east part of South Park, but in the main part of South Park, they’re going to be all Craftsmen and Spanish style homes. A lot of 2 bedroom and 3 bedroom bungalow style, might find an occasional 4 bedroom, but they’re typically going to be 2 and 3 bedrooms, maybe 1 bath, maybe 2 bathrooms. And again, a lot of these are going to be older homes. There’s a lot to look out for in older homes specifically, you’re going to want to take a look at the foundations when they’re 80 to a 100 years old, they’re typically built without any reinforcement in the stem walls. It might be on a post and pier system. If it’s strapped, it’s perfectly fine. That means it’s been upgraded to modern seismic earthquake codes, but a lot of these have it. You’d really want to check them out, get an inspector in there to make sure that they’re good to go. And you might want to get a foundations expert in there if you’re finding any cracking in there as well. I’ve sold homes that are not reinforced, that are not strapped, and that’s just up to the buyer to ultimately strap them. If there’s no cracking and it’s just strapping, it’s really not a big deal. But if there’s settling that’s going on in the foundation, definitely needs to be taken care of and it can get expensive. A typical foundation could be anywhere from $5,000-$10,000 for something on the simple side of thing. Maybe just some strapping, not really dealing with any settling issue. But if you’re actually having to jack the home up and report concrete and reinforce it, it can be $75,000-$100,000. You really want to make sure you know what you’re getting yourself into when you’re buying these older homes. The other couple of things you want to take a look at with older homes is going to be electrical.Some of these homes have knob and tube wiring with fuses, as opposed to breakers. If they’re wired incorrectly, if they’re afraid, they can present a fire hazard, but oftentimes they function perfectly fine without any upgrades being done. But it’s something that ultimately you want to get done, or maybe, hopefully you’re buying a house that already has that done for you. Also, you want to take a look at the plumbing. Some of the plumbing is going to be older, especially the old cast iron plumbing or clay plumbing for the sewer system. Again, looking to make sure that that’s either been replaced or lined, or if it’s under the house, you definitely want to switch that out to ABS plumbing. Take a look at that when you’re buying these older homes. The home prices in a very rapidly rising home price environment right now here in San Diego, but generally speaking, most of these homes, the 2 bedroom, 3 bedroom Craftsman style homes, you’re going to be in the low $1 million range. If you take a look at the median price for 92102, it’s actually a little bit low, but that’s because it’s pulling in areas that are south of the 94 and a little bit Golden Hill, which are dragging that price down. Some of those areas aren’t quite as nice as South Park. And so the actual homes in South Park, if you’re looking for a Craftsmen or Spanish-style home, 2 bedroom, 3 bedroom, you’re pretty much in a $1-$1.2 million range. When you get into areas like Burlingame, is a really acute, cute pocket of South Park slash North Park. There is a really fantastic high school that a lot of people here in San Diego send their kids to, and that is San Augustine Catholic High School. And the homes here in Burlingame are larger, definitely in the 2,000 plus square foot range, potentially a little bit larger lots. And these homes going to be more in the $2 million plus range and is really hard to find a home for sale here. It’s possible, but they just don’t come up that frequently. Curtis Chism, Realtor858-281-2568 | Mobilemailto:info@sandiegohomes.ioChism Team | DRE #02105113brokered by eXp Realty | DRE #01878277
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