The Elusive Fee Simple

Do you know who Andy Rooney is? If not, the only thing you really need to know is that he is cranky and opinionated—about everything, that is. Then again, he gets paid to express one cranky opinion per week, a job he has held since the middle ages. I guess if I were in Andy’s shoes, I, too, would have quickly run out of rants to rave about the big ticket items like taxes and world peace and would have had to move on to yelling about things like the state slogans on license plates.

That said, I am about to get all Andy Rooney on you about none other than the atrocity that is the Southern California real estate market. I know, I know—this topic is seriously lacking originality and chances are that half of you have already clicked over to that Rooney license plate article for more enlightening fare. It’s just that I’ve had some personal experience with this lately….

A few days ago, my sister, the notorious Mrs. Dub, posted on her blog about her desire for a house. This is a desire Mrs. Dub and I have had in common for some time—in fact, in the weeks prior to the HGTV Dream Home giveaway every April, nearly all of our telephone or email conversations with each other have to do with what we do and don’t like about that year’s Dream Home and which of the two of us is more likely to win it. (And then every year they give it to some Midwestern retiree who has already owned four homes in his life and swears he just entered the sweepstakes one day on a whim, but I digress).

Anyhow, Mrs. Dub’s post was timely as lately my house-lust has been out of control. You see, last Saturday afternoon I was at work when I realized that if I left right then, I would have time to drive up and tour the Martha Stewart designed KB Home models in Lancaster, California, which is locally known as St. Nowheresville. I must admit to being a bit of a Martha groupie (getting her to join my scooter gang would be a major coup, no?) and this is something I’ve been wanting to do for a LONG time. You know, just to see them.

Getting to St. Nowheresville from Los Angeles took a LOT longer than I thought. Google Maps estimated it as 60 miles one-way, but it was closer to 75. I was also surprised at how different things looked from the parts of California I’m familiar with. The terrain was eerily similar to those pictures taken by the Mars rovers, only with a few Joshua Trees and Super Walmarts photoshopped in. Yet the houses there are CHEAP as free for Southern California—as in the high $300Ks / low $400Ks, so I guess a lot of people are willing to live on Mars and commute to LA every day because it is the only option for non-Compton homeownership.

As I got closer to the Martha homes, I seriously began to question Lancaster’s non-ghetto reputation, as the Semiannual Antelope Valley Street Gang Convention appeared to be converging in a vacant lot only blocks from the Martha Models. Luckily, I’ve lived in LA long enough to know how to give a pretty convincing “I didn’t see anything, I swear,” look. Once, the Roommate and I were walking in West LA and had to whip out this look twice within thirty seconds—the first time when we inadvertently saw a drug deal go down, and the second time when the dealer crossed the street towards us and accidentally dropped a packet of crack on the ground, then fumbled around all bug-eyed as he tried to quickly pick it up. It was one of those treasured LA moments that is simultaneously comical and life-threatening, but again, I digress…

At this point I was expecting to be underwhelmed by the Martha models, which, quite frankly, would have been a good thing (Martha groupie bad pun intended). To my utter dismay, the houses were the perfect size and simply amazing. The drive alone was worth it to see all the cool little knick-knacks and decoration. It was like a Martha museum, and the price of admission is simply 20 minutes of your time listening to the sales person’s pitch.

In my particular instance, the sales person had me at “Martha.” She also told me that most of the people who come to see the models work in Los Angeles and plan to make the daily 150-mile commute. When I told her I worked downtown, she said, “Well that’s easy. You can take the Metrolink [train] to Union Station in downtown. Most people have to have a second car on the LA end to drive from the train station to work.”

I left the models with a folder of materials and a song in my heart. I stopped at a Super Walmart on my way home—a rare opportunity for any Angeleno, but the whole time I was shopping all I could think about was what kind of kitchen countertops I would get and how much work I would get done on the train every day. But then my bubble burst when I got home and did some old-fashioned internet research. The Metrolink ride from St. Nowheresville to downtown is 2 hours one-way!! Getting to the St. Nowheresville station would take about 15 minutes, as would the bus ride from Union Station to my office. So I was looking at over a five-hour daily commute. The last train leaves downtown at 7 p.m., but I’m not always off work by then. What’s more, I ran the numbers and I couldn’t afford even the smallest house anyway—at least not without living at the very edge of my means and going sans furniture for several years.

Suddenly, I was struck by the absurdity of the whole idea and, I’m warning you, this is the point at which I got very cranky. Just to provide some context to any non-Angelenos out there, I want to point out that right now I live in West LA about 3 blocks from the always-noisy 405 freeway. Across the street from my apartment, there is a building of newly-renovated condos for sale. This is common in West LA right now—they take old apartment buildings, slap a coat of paint on them, and convert them to condos. This particular building looks like a newly painted 1970s Motel 6 (i.e., not attractive). The condos have one bedroom, one parking space in a communal garage, and no in-unit laundry. They are under 1000 square feet and are priced in the $900Ks. The HOA fee is several hundred a month. Over by my old apartment there is a high-rise of luxury condos going up. Regardless of how luxurious they are, they are still condos. They have a sign advertising “From the $4,000,000s.” That’s right—apparently a luxury 1900 square foot condo for four million is considered a deal.

And I know these are not Manhattan prices, Honolulu prices, or San Francisco prices, but you have to admit—they’re still pretty bad. Indeed, my cranky mood was exacerbated by reading some of the comments on Mrs. Dub’s post, where areas such as Northern Virginia (median housing price = $450K) were touted as “expensive.” They seem like such a deal to me by comparison to SoCal. Homeownership is simply not an option in the greater LA area anymore for the first-time buyer who is not a member of the upper-class. It is why large cities with soaring real estate prices are losing their middle classes to the Phoenixes, Vegases, Portlands, Atlantas, and Houstons of the country (where, in turn, their influx and collective warped financial perspective are driving up real estate prices in those areas).

As for me, I have already started my campaign to get Mrs. Dub and the rest of the Ess clan to migrate to St. Nowheresville, Georgia, where the same Martha homes are going for over $100K less on larger lots with a much shorter commute to downtown Atlanta. So far, I have received a lot of complaints about the weather. I think those are strong words coming from people who brave blinding sunlight and 118-degree weather every summer. I can point to a couple of instances in Ess family history where I successfully wore everyone down, so I think I could still make it work.

With that, I’d like to invite all of you to join us. (Except, of course, for my surprising number of Singaporean readers, because Atlanta’s crime rate may be a bit of a shock to their systems. I think the Singaporeans only read this blog for the scooter stuff anyway, and they probably didn’t get this far on such a non-scooter post. I will make it up to you soon, Singapore.) We can form a commune full of Martha homes and scooter riders. It will be a veritable Utopia—at least in my book.