Best and worst values in San Marcos
It's time again to pick out a random community and select the best and worst values. This week we chose San Marcos. San Marcos is a fast growing community in North San Diego County. There have been many new homes built there since 2000, so it makes it a prime location for flippers.
Today, instead of focusing on flipper activity, lets determining the best an worst values when we consider factors such as price/sq ft. In this area you would usually find many homes in the 2000-3000 sq ft range selling for $550-750K. IMHO, areas like San Marcos, Carlsbad & Rancho Bernardo fueled the housing bubble and unfortunately (or fortunately) will ultimately see the largest decline.
The worst value in San Marcos:
663 LA SIERRA DR, SAN MARCOS
This is a 870 sq ft home built in 1975 consisting of 3 Br and 1 Ba on a 7200 sq ft lot. The owner is currently asking between $470,000-$490,000. That basically means you would pay approximately $540-$563/sq ft.
Since this home is not located on the sand nor has any special qualities (such as an oil filed or a diamond mine in the back yard) you would be best served avoiding this pricey home.
The best value in San Marcos:
362 EDGEWATER DR, SAN MARCOS
Since "best value" is inherently a subjective term I submit this 3174 sq ft home built in 2004 consisting of 5 Br, 4 Ba on a 9350 sq ft lot. Even though the owner is asking $589,900-$639,900, or approximately $186-$202/sq ft, the home is at the low end of similar homes. The one draw back (and a deal breaker for me) is the $380 per month HOAs and Mello-Roos (that is a car payment on a BMW for the next 30 years).
So there you have it folks, some descent examples in the city of San Marcos.
6 comments:
Edgewater house is not a bad deal at all and the inside of the home is quite nice. But it looks like a good deal of the lot is beyond the black view fence in the back yard - unuseable. Still, it is worth considering.
The real turnoff for me on the HOA fee is that not only can it be a large chunk of money, but it can also increase at a rate that is much higher than inflation for any variety of reasons (lawsuits against the HOA, loss of homeowners and the HOA trying to pass the costs down to the remaining homeowners, etc.).
jb,
Don't fall for it, you can get this house for $375K by Summer 2008.
lol, you could be right anon, but I wouldn't bet on it.
Last go-round in the early 90s, my rough calculation is houses in SM dropped 25% (though official figures usually say 17%).
A 25% drop this time would bring this house to around $450K-500K, since I assume it has dropped some already.
The real wild card this time is all the 100% financing that has been used. When the economy tanks and ppl loose their jobs, that may really throw a lot more houses on the market than last time - and we all know what that means.
Unfortunately, buying a house is a big roll of the dice. Take your best guess and go for it.
The Edgewater house is priced low enough that I'm sure it'll get some bites. Which is perfectly fine as it'll set the new comp for over 3000 sqft homes in the Discovery Hills part of San Marcos.
Fellas,
Beware...the real deal breaker on this property is the Sprinter train that will run right in front of this development, 3-4 houses down from this house and within clear sight of the back yard. This is why there have been, and are, so many homes for sale on that street, and also why this one is so low.
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