Real Estate Investing in California – What You Need to Know

When you hear the song “This Land is My Land”, a lot of people think of the vast resources and real estate in California. From the beautiful rocky coastlines to the deserts and mountain lakes and forests, there is something for nearly everyone in the Bear State. A big variety of real estate investment is available there, with just about anything you can imagine from residential to commercial to vacation home real estate investments

Is Real Estate Investing California Dreamin’ ?

At 770 miles long and 250 wide, California only follows Alaska and Texas in size. Believed to have been inhabited for over 10,000 years, over 70 native tribes inhabited the area when first visited by Portuguese explorer Joao Cabrilho in 1542, only 50 years after Columbus visited the southeast coast of the US.  Spanish missionaries set up residence by the mid-1700’s building a trail of missions near the coast stretching from San Diego to San Jose. An interesting fact is that even though explored and settled, European maps showed California as a massive island up until the 1840’s after cross continental routes were found by trappers in the 1820’s.

First a Spanish territory then part of Mexico, heck, California was even an independent country for a month in 1846 during the Bear Revolt.

California was part of the settlement of the Mexican-American War, and after gold was discovered in them thar hills at Sutters Mill in 1848, was quickly made a state in 1850. What was once a strong, well organized Hispanic and indigenous culture centuries old soon became overrun with miners, vagabonds, and those seeking fortunes. The rich, loamy soil of the Imperial and Central valleys attracted Chinese and Italian families concentrating on feeding the miners and growing western populations, and as the gold petered out, cattle, orchards, vineyards and crops took over as California’s #1 economic base.

California has a solid economy

Now at nearly 40 million residents, California is the most populous state in the United States – 18.7 million in the greater Los Angeles area alone. If it were a country, California would be the fifth largest economy in the world at 2.9 billion. San Francisco has the highest per capita income in the U.S. at $99,000/yr. That density lends itself to great amounts of real estate being transacted. It also means that property often is at a premium.  You may have to have deep pockets – very deep pockets – to invest in California real estate nearly anywhere in the state.

Some of the most expensive median priced homes by zip code in the nation are in parts of California. With three of the 10 largest companies by market capitalization in the world are based there, Silicon and Simi Valleys, a lengthy list of vacation spots, and every imaginable recreation, California offers a plethora of work opportunities. While shipyards and defense industries are not as strong as in the last century, manufacturing, business, finance, and professional services, and science, agriculture, global technology are. Real estate is big business here. All those people have to live somewhere, run a business somewhere. Seems like a ripe market for real estate investment.

Like most states, California has some challenges

Not without challenges, though, California continues to struggle with air pollution, serious potable water issues, migrant emigration affecting agricultural production costs, and adapting to climate fluctuations. True, California has gone to lengths to try and stem the air pollution issues caused by so many people and so many cars on so many miles of freeways.  Recent years have seen lengthy and costly droughts, multitudes of mudslides and flooding events due to over development, and disastrous forest fires. And always innovating, they are the first state requiring green technology and solar on new construction. Land in large urban areas is scarce, footprints tight, and not an inch is extra.

Each of those things can and will affect real estate prices in a particular area, and will challenge 2019 real estate values in some areas, particularly in fire zones after last year. The critical water needs of southern California grow worse due to dwindling aqua marching by pipeline over the mountains from the Colorado River. And economists will tell you that SoCal is the predictive stall and recession barometer for real estate transactions that affect other parts of the nation in the future.

SoCal real estate has been flat-lined for 4-5 months. In a market that has been stupidly overpriced for decades, buying now is not only risky, it may be fool hearty. How about investing in yourself and letting it dump, then buy your dream place for tens, if not hundreds of thousands, less? Click here to find out how https://www.bestrealestatedirectory.com/lead-gen/

Climate plays a role in property prices in California

Weather plays a big role in California real estate, because sans air pollution, it is nice. Southern California, known for warm temps and nice beaches, harbors the hottest and lowest place in the U.S. – Death Valley. As you head north, the humidity and cooler temperatures allows giant sequoia forests, the largest living organism in the world. Three mountain ranges – the Cascades to the north, Sierra Nevada to the east, and Techachapi in the south regulate weather.

Overall, California, even for its massive size, has some of the most temperate, even temperatures year around in the United States. Match that up with close proximity to mountains, forests, deserts, oceans, and everything in between being just a couple hours drive, and California truly has something for everyone. Including traffic. Lots and lots of traffic. If you want to live where there is work, you must live where there is traffic in California.

One thing I learned when I was looking at California real estate is despite rumors, California is not as regulated as many might think.

There are a lot of things like water and mineral rights you have to pay attention to, as well as previous lending against a parcel of property. I even ran into one the realtor had no idea there was a second mortgage against until the bank seized it mid-offer. So due diligence is super important when you are looking around. There are also deed and community restrictions you have to watch, and some areas even have restrictions on the kind of roof, power source, and fire setbacks that are needed. And property taxes are high, as are most other taxes.

California is not cheap to buy real estate

If you are looking for investment rental property in California, you better be prepared to shell out some money. With the California real estate market in 2018 hitting a flat line, but prices not going down yet, things are still really expensive. You have to check the price rent ratio to see if the purchase worth the trouble. Some of the leading news sources are saying that California homes sales are down as far as how many are seeing, by something like 20% in 2018 over the previous year.  They think it will be a continuing trend, too, as prices keep skyrocketing and interest rates, while still low and somewhat unstable by the Fed at this time, are going up most likely. Those things tend to chill sales. They also are indications, along with the slowing housing market spreading, of another recession, which a lot of economists are saying to start watching for in 2020.

I don’t know about you, but I will wait until prices settle then reduce before I consider investing in residential or commercial real estate in California. I can save a lot of my hard earned money that way. There will be a lot more short sales, REO property, and even some foreclosure bargains available then.

Real estate is in a flat-line currently in the Bear State

There are a lot of things the pundits are saying affects the real estate market, including the gross national product, how stable the jobs reports are, and other things. With the volatility of the scene changing daily based on who we are having a trade tiff with, it seems like there are a lot of eggs in one political basket if you ask me. Reports out of California, especially SoCal, are that house sales are pretty much flat lined and have been for 4-5 months.  If you check out the key places people refer for housing sales, like Zillow, Trulia, and Freddie Mack postings, you will find markets cooling off in their trends listings, too.

Many places around the nation are seeing housing pricing stabilize and valuations falling slightly, as much as double digits in a lot of places, in the last few months. And that seems to be across the board, whether single family, condo, townhouse, luxury, you name it. In California, this is in a housing market where thousands of people’s homes burnt to the ground and a place to live had to be replaced.  Prices of homes in California did not decrease, they increased. So, prices are still going up, and closings, down. That is an economic indicator of a buyer’s market overpriced with too many houses.

With mortgage rates increasing, the financial houses are telling us that only if lower price point buyers have larger down payments will the housing market stabilize. Like that is going to happen any time soon.

How expensive is a house in California?

One of the biggest challenges when investing in California real estate is how to pay the price, or even the down payment. NAR is quick to tell you that San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and San Jose have some of the most expensive average home costs in the nation. It is true, however, that San Jose and San Francisco lead with positive equity. But the median prices? Wow.

• San Bernardino – Riverside – Ontario — $399,950. Ok, that might be doable, except the 2-4 hr commute every day. Or more. Have you driven around L.A.? All 502 square miles of it?

 

• What about northern California where the girls are warm? Sacramento -Roseville – Arcade – Arden — $469,050.

 

• What about beaches, boats, and Balboa? San Diego – Carlsbad — $775,020.

 

• If you want to solve the freeway problem (you really don’t, you just trade inside the city dead stop for freeway dead stop), how about Los Angeles – Long Beach – Anaheim — $834,050.

 

• And if you really want to be a bay area real estate mogul – San Francisco – Oakland – Hayward — $1,000,015.

You can pay that baby off in 10 years plus interest with that $99K/yr job, if you don’t eat, walk to work, and never get sick.

Not sure about you, but those prices give me heartburn on my $35K salary I was making when I started to look. That is not even talking about a profit on the investment.  I just could not see my way to real prosperity through real estate. I am making 80-90% return on my lead gens. A lot less heart burn, a lot more happy dance.

There are much better ways to do it, people. Invest in yourself for once.

California real estate investment interested me early on, since it was a younger environment and there was work there in my field, computers. I looked around, but man, I simply could not justify the prices of residential real estate and really see it as an investment at the prices they were getting 8-9 years ago. Even after the recession and the housing bust in California with all the mortgage defaults, it still would have taken every cent I earned to pay a mortgage, if I could have even qualified for a real estate loan.

Rent was nearly as bad.

A single bedroom studio for a young man like me was running $1200-1700 a month! That was no utilities, either, and often no parking space. I knew I would most likely end up somewhere around Silicone Valley if I did move. It just was not smart or realistic.

So I looked around and found a corporate job where I could afford a place back home in the upper Midwest. I could afford rent on the $35K a year job I took after graduation, but quickly realized that I was never, really, going to get ahead. I wanted to be able to afford a place that I wanted, where I wanted to be. That was going to require a lot more income than I was making working 40++ hours on salary. So I began to look at my own business options for a second income.

I looked into MLMs, and spent some money on a couple. My friends and family soon disowned me.  I quickly learned only the top dogs make bucks. Then I looked at other web options, and started a reselling business via Amazon. I made some decent side money, not a killing, but the hours it took to do it and keep the 40++ going nearly killed me. I also had inventory in every nook and cranny of my already small place. Something had to give.

I needed a good business model to pay for a piece of real estate

I went back to reading and studying and hunting for a good business model.  I had already spent way into five figures on training and programs and was getting pretty frustrated when I ran across this guy, Dan, and his lead generation coaching program. That caught my interest. I knew from my work most businesses did not know how to leverage the internet to increase their sales.

After watching a couple videos and researching, it seemed this Dan guy was pretty legit.

He shot straight from the hip, and was working the same business model he had developed training for. Everything checked out about him. And when I researched the opportunity for lead gen on the net and the future, well, that was really impressive. So I clicked on this link https://www.bestrealestatedirectory.com/lead-gen/ and made an appointment to talk and ask questions.

There was no hard sell. In fact, Dan struck me as if he really was trying to weed out tire kickers and people who were only going to think it was easy. I knew already that owning your own business was work and required dedication, so that hurdle was done. Dan was really transparent. He told me I could find the stuff if I researched long enough, but he had been working the model for 6 years refining it, honing it, learning how to make it pretty bullet proof. I was impressed. I thought about it and said yes, paid for the tuition, and started to study.

And here is the simple, high income business I found to pay for it

The material was not hard and it was logical. It was very straight forward and well written, simply written, so anyone could understand it – something really rare in computer training.  It was obvious you did not have to be a geek to do it, either, even though I was sort of. I studied, followed the process to a “T”, and a within the first week had my first lead gen site up.  This is it –

I still own it.

I rented the leads right away, and to this day, 4.5 years later, I still have the same customer who pays me $750 direct deposit every month. It took me about six hours to build the site, and after some minimal expenses, I have cleared over $34,500 in 4.5 years from this one lead gen site. And I hardly ever touch it. The part about lead gen sites is you own them, virtual real estate. Sweet.

I worked and got a few more done.  I was still working the other job, which by now I really wanted to say bye-bye to.  Five months into the lead gen business I resigned the corporate job. Five months. And I was paying all my bills and had money left over to invest in my business.  I never looked back.

After 4.5 years and just under 30, I now have a high 7-figure income from my lead gen business. I average 80-90% return on investment, consistently. It is portable. I only work part of the week. I travel now. I have a life. And it is awesome.

Great property in California really is possible

I can afford the place I want now. It happens to be in California, and it is expensive. And I do not have to worry any more about eating and making the rent. I make way more than all of it combined, and now I can really look at California investment real estate, seriously, without having to finance massive chunks of money. Man that feels good.

It is so nice to be crossing things off the bucket list before my 30^thbirthday. Now I can plan some really nice, big, adventures.

How about you? Are you tired of the grind? Tired of all your money going for a huge rent check and insurance and not knowing how to meet the rest of the bills? How about investing in yourself for once and your future like I did?

Yes, it is some work, especially at first.

No, it is not free, but is was way cheaper than nearly anything else I got into.

Yes, you can work your job, go to school, take care of the kids while you get it up and running. It is so worth it to be your own boss, in control of your own destiny and finances. And you might just be able to afford to invest in California. I did.

Click here to find out how: https://www.bestrealestatedirectory.com/lead-gen/

There is no obligation, it will not cost you a cent to ask questions. No one will pressure you. What have you got to loose?