We’re going to miss this view…

Now that we are engaged, we need to find a place to live. I work in Carson and he works in Santa Monica, so South Bay would be the desire area for us to live, considering the distance between work and home.

A bit of current location, the place he rents now sits in front of the ocean. It is old, but the interior has been recently refurbished. The outside still looks its age. But can you beat this view; yes, this one from the living room. The panoramic view is excellent. The windows open wide to take in the ocean breeze. There is no central air, as you don’t need it except perhaps for couple days in a year. That is what the fan is for. So I can’t blame Tom from not wanting to give up this view. He has been here for 3+ years. Even I have a difficult time; I can't remember how many sunsets we have enjoyed just parking ourselves in front of the windows. But he is ready to move forward to the next stage of our live.

Anyone said the house prices had dropped significantly hasn’t been searching for a home in this area. I truly think the pricing is worse than Irvine. There are lots of properties on the market, and they do stay there for a long time. But the prices had not reflected the inventory backlog and the number of days on the market.

We pretty much can forget anything with an ocean view; even a peek-a-boo demands an outrageous price. Ok, for the out-of-state folks, we are talking about close to $2M for a condo; yes, an attached condo nevertheless!!!

It can be depressing. One day, we drove by a new build condo. There is an auction sign out front. We didn’t think much about it since the beginning bid price is $975K. Then after a few days of searching and comparing, hey, it may actually be a good price after all. The property was finished in early 2008. I think it has been sitting on the market since then. It is 3 units in one block. The interior living space is large, ~2400 sq ft. The original price is $1.6M. There are similar places around here (west of PCH; for those out-of-towners, PCH = Pacific Coast Highway) up for sale. And they all command at least $1.2K upward for a smaller place (~20-25% less sq ft).

So we registered & pre-qualified ourselves, took out a cashier check and see what our luck is. Of course, we are hoping no one bid against us. I have never been to a house auction, so this has to be interesting for us. I told Tom we better not move an inch when the bidding start, no scratching the head, the hair, or anything. We don’t want to be mistaken of raising our hands for the bid. He said he is going to keep us grounded on our max price. Anyway, here is the property. The front view belongs to another unit, one that we are not bidding. The one we want is a middle unit.