Real Estate Investor · San Diego, CA · Member since 2014 · 6 posts · 4 votes
San Diego, 1.3mln people, 60-70 F average temperature, one of the biggest cities in USA.
I'm moving to San Diego on Sunday the 7th. I would love to get in touch with people from the area as I want to start wholesaling.
What interesting would you say about the market over there? Is there a lot of competition among wholesalers and investors? What kind of strategies work well here? Flipping? Wholesaling? Maybe buy & hold? Is there anything special about approaching investors? How do sellers negotiate? What is the most popular property type?
I lived in San Diego from 2010 to 2013 and am returning in a couple months. I was not an active investor at the time so I cannot answer your questions with precision, but from what I gather from podcasts guests and forums the market there seems pretty flooded with folks trying to find their niche. I'm sure there's room for one (well, hopefully two...) more. Find something you can specialize in and be the best at it.
Noticeably missing from the stats you listed are real estate costs--property is not cheap there! Living in San Diego is expensive, close to 300% of the national average according to some sources and property costs are no exception, but there is an incredible diversity of real estate options. A 1,700 sqft 3/2 on Coronado Island might cost $1.7M but a larger house on a larger lot in east county might be a fifth of that. As with anywhere else, it's all about location (duh).
I probably have not helped but I presume some of the big hitters from the area will pipe in here. If nothing else, maybe you and I can get something going when I get down there.
That's what I thought about San Diego being saturated. Property prices don't really interest me as long as I can wholesale and earn on it. Does that matter whether the asset cost is $100k or $500k? It's not me who is going to pay final price anyway.
Bigger problem that I'm kind of expecting is working on tight spreads, very strict rehab rules (=high standard = high rehab cost) and difficulty of finding motivated sellers. On top of that I can imagine super deals are gone in minutes or hours after showing up on the market.
Now about the niche - I'm very relaxed here. I wouldn't look for something special for me. I can start with the simplest and the most basic stuff, e.g. SFR or apartments wholesale. I prefer to master simple deals over sophisticated engineering. And as a newcomer to the country I would prefer to start with well-known and easy stuff.
My advantage is diligence and honesty; I can admit my failures, learn on it and apologize if needed. On top of that I'm not looking for get quick rich, I don't mind working hard. That's something I think Californian market might be missing and should give me small advantage over other players.
@Chris Dot, there are a lot of hard working RE investors in San Diego county. Most good properties on the MLS that are priced right are getting multiple offers right now. I was doing mailers and when I got a call from a seller I was advised I wasn't the only person who had mailed to them but I was told I could go out, look at the property and submit my offer along with everyone else. That's been the nature of the market here for the past year. All the best to you.
Alright, I'm in San Diego. Already had a chat with some guys who bought houses/condos recently. They say most of the offers are negotiated up, meaning final price is usually higher than starting price.
They are not RE guys, but as a San Diego citizens, they say it's a seller market, property prices going up. On top of that I think I figured out, that SFRs are not so popular in San Diego due to very high price - I have a feeling, that condos are more liquid.