The pictures never do the view justice for this house on Golden Park. It was built in 1935 by the retired manager of the Cracker Factory, a candy and cookie manufacturer at Market and Columbia downtown. In retirement, the owner intended to take up painting, and the house design included an outdoor pavilion with a very large rock fireplace. The views from the house and pavilion were awesome – perched high in La Playa above San Diego Bay, with an eye to the channel in one direction and an eye to the mountains in the other. Today, the view has evolved to include the ever-growing heights of downtown San Diego buildings, NAS North Island, the Coronado Shores towers, and the Coronado Bridge.  The view captures the pulse of San Diego. You are able to watch incoming planes landing at San Diego Airport, as well as the cruise ships and Navy ships and sailboat regattas on San Diego Bay. I sold the house in February for $1.4 million, which the new owners will likely tear down to build anew. The house sat on the market for some time, as most buyers wanted a move- in ready home. This was a project, not so much for the condition or finish work, but, more so for what the neighbors had done to their homes. Big & bold and contemporary is  the new look of La Playa. My sellers owned the home for 30 years so it was not easy to let it go. I have to say, as a REALTOR, there is a certain sadness that I, too, experience when my clients say goodbye to their homes. Under that roof so many memories are made. Change is healthy and good for the soul, which is exactly what sellers can tell you. It provides the perfect opportunity to purge and set new goals and make new friends. The rewards are plentiful, once the muscle aches of packing and unpacking are over.

On Christmas Eve, in the middle of the day, chaos ensued at the Whole Foods Market on University Avenue in San Diego. Too many shoppers, with too many cars, were creating gridlock/ Despite the valet parking service as well as the traffic control officers hired for the day, it was the price of doing food shopping that day at that store. On New Years Eve, in the middle of the day, the REI store on Copley Drive drew so many buyers that the check out line stretched around the store and held steady under the kayak section  and into the shoe section. The estimated wait time to reach a cashier was 35 to 40 minutes. On New Years Day, the Hotel del Coronado was not serving meals to non-guests. “We are not accepting walk-ins,” announced the hostess at the 1500 Ocean restaurant, “Only guests of the hotel are being served.”  These are all signs of consumption by consumers with confidence. Of course, this bodes well for how we perceive the economy and thus how we spend our money. In real estate, inventory is low in most neighborhoods. Along with interest rates at the lowest they  have ever been, this points to an improved value for existing homeowners.  For starters, 2012 bodes well.

Four years is a long time to wait for a home.  Neighbors of mine began the house search with me in 2007, initially focused in Coronado because of the excellent school system. Their adorable daughter referred to our house hunting  as “looking for a yard house”, because she was born & raised in a condominium.  After a 6-month search, they concluded Coronado inventory was too limited for what they needed. The next step was to sell their existing property, a luxury 3 bedroom condo on the 18th floor at Renaissance in downtown San Diego’s Marina District. The condo was completely remodeled in 2004 and offered views of the Pacific Ocean, San Diego Bay, Coronado, Point Loma & the downtown skyline. In the winter, snow-capped Cuyamaca Peak in the Laguna Mountains was clearly visible. Problem is, the market was soft back then for luxury property. To add insult to injury, the Renaissance filed a construction defect lawsuit against the developer, as is customary within the 10-year statute of limitations; Renaissance was built in 2002.  So, with a soft market, a lawsuit, plus time off the market for a 2nd baby, and time off the market during the holidays, we sold the condo in March of this year.  Now it was crunch time – with vigor we searched resale homes in Mission Hills, Point Loma, Carmel Valley & Del Mar, and then brand new construction in Del Sur and 4S Ranch. The resale's were attractive because they were move in ready. Brand new construction was essentially a customized home.  Despite a 9-month construction timeline, which meant they would have to rent a home until the new one was built, that is the path they chose. Del Sur’s highly-prized school system was the icing on the cake. So, four years later, we closed escrow on their beautiful “yard home”.  Thus begins an exciting  chapter for this young family in a brand new home in time for the holidays.

I’ve just returned from a road trip that took me through almost all of California, and here are a couple quick observations:

A small sports car is more fun to drive on tight, curvy roads like the Big Sur coast than driving an SUV (or help me, a minivan).

Don’t buy a business alongside a highway in a remote area, especially a restaurant, because there are a lot of long-vacant and decaying structures that appeared to have housed a business in a remote area, right alongside a highway.

Starbucks is the universal symbol of life, almost like a mirage in the desert. Your eyes get trained to seek out the Starbucks green logo wherever you go.

San Diego, L.A., Ventura, Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo, Carmel, San Francisco, Marin, Napa, Yosemite – all these places are thriving, with people spending money seemingly without concern. After speaking with REALTORS in these areas, and reviewing real estate pricing and advertising, it appears these are all healthy and many have held strong at the luxury end of the spectrum. Parts of the central valley, as well as the far east bay, appear to be wilting in their business districts – a likely sign that too many strip malls and too many shopping centers were built during the boom years, and offered too little diversity from mall to mall. These wilting areas also have a significant amount of land and open space to build upon yet. It is true about location….

For buyers on the sidelines, weighing concerns about the economy, Wall Street, the Euro and beyond, please consider the following facts:

Return on Investment from January 1, 2000 through May 1, 2011 has been 17% positive in the Dow, -2.2% negative in the S&P, -27.1 % negative in NASDAQ, and a whopping 55.1% positive return on investment in San Diego Real Estate. (sourcing: Case Shiller, MSN Money.com)