What can you buy for $500K in San Diego?

And I mean a 3 bedroom or more single family house. $500K seems to be a critical cutoff. If you use Zillow you can see that on the map below. 

I set the filter for 3 bedrooms and less than $500,000 and got back 81 properties. That's a good number because it's small, but indicates were just above the threshold of impossible. 

(It's worth noting that the blank space near the bottom of map belongs to Chula Vista -36 properties not shown because they are not in San Diego limits.)

81 3 bedrooms < $500K:Courtesy Zillow

Many of these are some kind of pre-foreclosure or auction listing. Some are obvious outliers like the one in La Jolla that will never sell for under $500K.

But there are some real deals. Here's one:

6515 Springfield St

This Springfield property seems a bit weird. What the hell are these rectangular sections made from concrete and block?

 But I digress. You get the idea. Stay tuned.





Update: 3:20pm
I applied the same filter over at Redfin which doesn't supply all the extraneous Auctions.com and "preforeclosure" properties. By doing that  find 16 properties - all MLS listings. This is probably a better idea of how hard it is to find a 3 bedroom under $500K.

Is San Diego too Expensive?

I've lived in San Diego since 1979. Before that I lived in the Santa Barbara CA area (you want to know about expensive?). So San Diego seemed like a bargain comparatively.

But yeah, it seems like rents and home prices are getting beyond the reach of many who want to live here.

Look a the graph below of San Diego 1BR rent compared to a typical Midwestern city Cleveland OH. It's roughly a $1000 more per month to live in San Diego (rent).

source: Zillow

Now want a real shock? Compare home prices - same two cities. It's almost a factor of 10x. That's right! $68K for the average Cleveland house vs $674K in San Diego. 

Source Zillow

You know the jobs in San Diego don't pay 10x what they pay in Cleveland.  The other thing you might notice is that the Cleveland prices stay relatively flat over the years.. I don't know much about Cleveland but it's obviously a lot cheaper to live there. (Actually I grew up in Detroit so I have some idea).]

I haven't looked yet at any of the other costs of living in Southern CA. Some of my friends have bailed out of the state not because of the house cost, but rather they get annoyed at  the high cost of taxes here.

The one that annoys me? Gasoline. When would travel to TX for work gasoline was always at least a $1 per gallon cheaper. And I drive a lot so that has an impact.

Anyway I'm just getting started.... Let me know your thoughts in the comments below.

We Buy Ugly Houses - is that a good name?

I'll start out here by pointing out "We Buy Ugly Houses" is a copyright name that belongs to Homevestors and no way affiliated with my company.

Now I can go on and question the marketing. It seems to me like you're starting out with an insult. 

My house looks like junk - do you want to buy it? If I were the seller I'm OK with saying my house needs work, or it's a fixer. But not that it's "ugly".

It reminds me of another company. An assisted living facility called "A Place for Mom". What happened to Dad? He's on his own?

I think in another life I was supposed to be in marketing.

Let me know your thoughts in the comments section below.

Can Wholesalers Work with REITS?

After creating my list of "biggest cash buyers", probably the most interesting thing learned is about the large REITS that buy and hold across the US. 

These guys seem kind of low-profile, compared to companies like Fasthomeoffer.com

I'm curious if they'll work with real estate wholesalers - which is basically - 90% of what I do.

Stay tuned, check back and I'll advise.

Biggest "We Buy Houses for Cash” Companies

I'm probably the only "we buy houses" type website that actually lists my big competitors. Why? 

1. I'm a realist. I know people finding gregbuyshomes.com are already searching the web.

2. I believe in karma: be helpful as possible and it will return to you.

One of the things that surprised me at first is the domination of the large franchises types. These guys basically sell leads or franchises to anyone that can afford them. I've seen prices for single leads as high as $500! 

Next in line is the "institutional" buyers or REITs. You won't find these companies posting "We buy houses" ads but they are the biggest of the buy and hold category.

The newest category is iBuyers. The largest (Zillow offers and OpenDoor) went offline for a while due to Covid but seem to be coming back. Zillow actually holds properties, and some say they do this at a loss. All part of their grand scheme to be your one stop shop for real estate. They want to be the Amazon of online real estate.

As we go down from there we find individual investors and wholesalers (like me). Investors "fix and flip" or hold as a rental. Wholesalers are the hard-working middle men of the industry. We find sellers and bring them together with the cash investors.

This is my first cut at this list and will come back and update over time.  (Click to open it up in a more readable window!)