My wife Heather and I just returned from a quick trip to California. When I was with the Transamerica division of AEGON, I used to spend quite a bit of time in LA and enjoyed most of it. Despite what you might think, Californian’s, not unlike New Yorker’s are, for the most part, great people. Oh, they are very different, but I’ve come to enjoy almost everything about them except for “where” they live. Over the years, I have become comfortable with the saying, “Yeah, it’s a great place to go visit, but I wouldn’t what to live there”. Iowa is where I want to live, raise my children, enjoy four equal seasons, complain about the heat, and the cold! I love no crime, I love no traffic, I love not having to wonder if my car will be safe on this block, and I love the fact that several people on my block have left their garage doors open all night… and nothing was bothered.
Anyway, back to our trip, during our 10 years of marriage we had talked several times about doing a trip and renting a convertible to drive up the coast along Highway #1. So, this past week, we took four days and did it. It was truly a great trip. You can view some of the video’s we shot along the way at my You Tube site if you’d like. We go to see a great stretch of road along the coast, visit several great places and spend some time in Napa for the last day and a half of our trip. The trip was great, but that’s not why I’m writing. All the way along the coast, I kept seeing real estate signs, I took note of all the places we stopped and tried to peak at the real estate companies ads along the way. The one feeling I was consistently left with was gratefulness. How lucky we are to live in an area of the country where we can have so much for so little. The average price for a home in Midwest is around $140,000.00. In California it would cost you over 300,000.00 for the same level of property. We are so fortunate to have the market we have, our average price has actually risen over the past 8 month time period where as what you find in more major metro areas is that they have remained flat. Depending on which source you read, or which publication you trust, the number of foreclosures and short sales is still slightly on the uptick, but will never reach the levels they have seen in almost every other part of the country.
Be grateful that you paid what you did for the home you now own, and thank your lucky stars it is not currently worth “half” what you paid for it just over two years ago. We live in a part of the country where pulling 60K worth of equity out of your home, or paying interest only loans on a half million dollar flat with a one stall garage isn’t a reality, but we are also comforted by the fact that we are the 13th ranked location to live according to Fortune Magazine. We live a great life, we have a solid community which cares for its people and nurtures its youth. Be happy with what you have, and encourage others to join this great community. Work hard to help your neighborhoods, be proud of where you live and what this community can mean to you, your family and the generations to follow. It’s all worth it.
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