Ventura County at dusk

I love exploring city statistics, comparing them with the city I live in, and making comparisons to cities I contemplate moving to. One site I always go back to is BestPlaces.net. I can quickly use their city compare link and glance through their copious amounts of data. (The one draw back to using this site is much of their data is a few years old. I’m hoping that when the 2010 census is published, they will update their statistics.) Another feature I find helpful is personal quotes and opinions about cities that people leave on their site. This helps narrow down the positives and negatives of an unknown city.

I use this site when considering my options for moving. For instance, I’m currently thinking of moving to a neighboring county, Ventura. It’s only a 30 minute drive away from where I live in Los Angeles County. But their population is 1/10 the size. According to Google, Los Angeles County is busting at the seams at almost 10,000,000 people – Whoa! Ventura County’s population, just to the north west, is under a cool million.  Ventura County is almost half the size, but even factoring this in, the population density is 1/6th of that of LA County (according to Wikipedia). What a difference! Less density means:

• Less traffic! A huge problem with LA county.
• Better, smoother roads due to fewer cars. I’m really tired of the pot holes chewing up my car.
• Less people! I love our city’s diversity, but I feel a little like a sardine lately. Too many people in such a small area.
• Better bicycle infrastructure. Ventura county is more bike-friendly with bike lanes painted on most of their roads.
• Less graffiti. Because we have so many people, there’s more chance of hoodlums messing up the city. Lately, many of them have been having a heyday with spray paint!

When comparing counties, I’m also looking for a little break in the cost of living. According to BestPlaces.net, I will be saving money on most of my expenses. Below is a graph directly from their website:

City Cost of Living Comparison

I’m not claiming Ventura County is cheap in any sense of the word. But it is cheaper than where I live.

Another factor to consider is their employment, or unemployment rate, and future expected growth. Los Angeles, and California in general, is pushing an unemployment rate of 13%. Ventura, however, is slightly lower than that. Since I will also have to search for a new teaching job, or something temporary for a while, this may bring me more prospects. You’ll also notice from this data below that most people in Ventura make more money than those in LA county, promising at least!

Cost of Living

Because this data is slightly outdated, I know that the sales tax has increased about 1%, but it has all over California. Ventura County’s sales tax is still 1% or more less than LA’s. Again, another reason for me to think seriously about moving.

On a side note, Ultimate Money Blog is doing something similar, but comparing all 50 states. I find this data fascinating. If any one is thinking of moving out of state, this might be a good window into what other states have to offer. If you use her descriptions along with BestPlaces.net city comparisons, you might find a city and state you would prefer to live in.

What city do you live in? Have you recently moved to a new city? What data did you use? Are you contemplating moving?

A nice house. But should I buy it?

As I browse the business sections of MSN.com, so many articles are written to encourage prospective buyers to take the plunge and buy a house. Headlines read like a “going out of business” sale, “Mortgage rates at rock bottom, buy now” is the theme. But just because mortgage rates are the lowest they’ve been in years, and home prices are much more reasonable than three years ago, does that mean everyone should go out and buy a house?

I’m playing devil’s advocate here, even though my goal is to purchase a home of my own, because I think these articles that are appearing in the business section of major news sources mislead prospective buyers. My stance is this: No one should buy a home unless they are financially prepared to do so, no matter how low interest rates are or how inexpensive homes may seem. Financial Samurai recently posted his interview with Consumerism Commentary and stated that he believes in the 30/30/2 rule when it comes to purchasing property. That is you have 30 percent saved, for a 30 year mortgage (I think this is the second 30, I can’t remember this one – Sam?), and pay no more than twice your annual income for the house. I agree, but with a slightly different variation; a person can probably comfortably afford a home at 2.5 time their income.

This means, however, that if you want to purchase a $300,000 house, you need $90,000 saved. How many new home buyers do you know that put down that much in cash for a house? It’s difficult to save that much money when an average salary hovers around $40,000. And, if you only make $40,000 a year (add a spouse that may equate to $80,000 total income), your home should cost no more than $200,000. Where I live, there are few homes in this price range. So what does this mean? It means I’m not ready to own a home yet, even with articles luring me to purchase because mortgage rates have never been this low and are primed for spiking within the next year.

Marketing pressure is what lead to the recent housing bubble, hopefully this pressure isn’t leading more purchasers down this same path. With tighter lending practices in place, due to the financial melt down, this should remedy some of the problems of the housing market. However, no matter how enticing home prices and mortgage rates seem,  I won’t be making that plunge until I’m sure I can afford a home comfortably.

What is your thought on buying a home? Is it always the best option? Are renters financially illiterate people? What about all the articles sounding like advertisements for prospective home buyers? Should people follow the advice and just buy a home before it’s too late?

Recycled House by DRW

I love writing about little house plans, or residential architecture in general. Yet it takes some research, on my part, to find new home designs, links to great sites, and then time for me to organize my thoughts into legible paragraphs. I keep thinking that I’ll set aside one day a week for house plan posts, but with my limited amount of time, this isn’t going to happen any time soon.

But with that being said, I did find time this week to research some ecofriendly house designs that I thought were interesting.

• Circular home designs - Deltec Homes: I’ve never been a big fan of octagonal or circular homes. I just didn’t understand the purpose to them. However, I found the Deltec site that explains it. In so many words, the point of them being there are no “load-bearing” interior walls allowing for just about any floor plan layout. Their roof acts as the supporting beams, so the modifications to the interior are endless. I can see this being a huge factor if one wants a very open floor plan. The only drawback I see to circular homes is that many of the walls are curved. This would drive me crazy placing furniture against them.
• Passive Solar Designs – The Plan Collection: Passive solar is a up and coming word these days. Basically, if you design the house with enough light and windows pointing in just the right direction, you can heat your house naturally. This would save money on your gas bill during the fall and winter months. Though, I would worry about the summer months in warmer regions, like say, Arizona! You don’t want your house acting as a sauna.
• More Passive Solar Designs - SunTerra: I like the fact that SunTerra explains the point of a passive solar home and includes the importance of overhangs for shade. They also calculate how much money could be saved on heating a house passively, approximately 1/3 overall. Their home plans include explanations of how each home’s architecture reinforces green building ideas such as a zero energy home and an earth sheltered home. I also learned the purpose of a flatter pitched roof:  it decreases the interior volume improving the energy efficiency.

As a more critical consumer, many house plan sites I come across boast about “green building.” But to put things in perspective, green building really boils down to being resource efficient. The more recycled materials, the less stress is put upon the environment. My all time favorite home builders is Phoenix Commotion: taking one persons junk and turning it into another person’s treasure.

Mesa House in Arizona

My trips to Arizona always leave me questioning life style choices. I think it’s because central Arizona, to me, is a conundrum: It’s a beautiful state in the winter, and a horrid place in the summer. The newly paved roads make driving pleasant, yet the endless mini-marts and beige-colored housing developments make for a boring and repetitive landscape. Which brings me to the topic of endless housing developments.

With each visit, usually twice a year, I notice a new community that wasn’t there before. Of course building has slowed over the last 18 months, but there are still areas that are going strong. For instance, my sister-in-law lives in a new development in the far east end of Maricopa county. On our last visit, her’s was the only one in that vicinity, making it easy to find. This visit, we noticed many more had been completed and we had the darndest time finding her street. Every house was brown or beige, or a variation of taupe, making it very confusing to find the right street to turn on. With housing communities all butted up against each other, there are very few landmarks to cue a driver where to go. Eventually, we figured out that by counting the streets, we could navigate her look-alike community.

After four years of my sister-in-law (SIL) and her family living in their newish house, many things are already falling apart and looking worn. Some of this may have to do with their three children. Children usually aren’t very careful with banisters, doors, or cleaning up after themselves. However, some of the things my husband and I noticed, had nothing to do with little hands touching it. They seemed to have more to do with the quality of the houses. Like the creaky doors, for instance. I live in a rental house that is over 50 years old. My interior and exterior doors don’t creak when opened. The back patio door of my SIL’s house sounded like a door off a haunted house. Since my husband smokes, he would remove himself to the back patio, but felt horrible that every time he opened it, it would make a loud crrrrrreaking sound. Another item that seemed like it was really poorly made were their bathroom floor tiles. The edges were already chipping and the grout was completely cracked in many places.

Knowing that they paid a premium price for their home four years ago, I decided to keep my opinions about the quality of their house to myself. Or in other words, I kept my mouth shut. Yet I realized that they may not have had much choice in the matter. With home builders developing mass quantities of homes in short periods of time, the quality of the homes seems to have been at the bottom of the contractor’s check list. Why pay for premium materials when the home owner may not notice the difference? Or at least, not when the house is brand new. A few years back, when buying homes was a frenzied activity, home builders could get away with building quick and crappy homes. With time and wear, however, the lack of quality really stands out. I’m not sure if my in-laws are thinking of selling their home anytime soon, but the wear and tear will definitely have to be remedied before they do.

Have you bought a new home recently? Is it made of quality material? Have you lived in an older home and noticed that the home seemed more durable?

Returning from my trip to Arizona, I began comparing my city (a suburb of Los Angeles) to the Phoenix/Mesa/Tempe area of Arizona. I observed some drastic differences that got me thinking about my quality of life here in Los Angeles.  Let me preface this by saying that I’ve lived in the Los Angeles area for over 33 years and consider it my home. But, I began thinking about what makes a city run smoothly, remain clean, and how cities keep up with their population growth.

A few things that really stood out when I was visiting in Arizona, that got me comparing it with Los Angeles, are the following:

• Roads and traffic
• Cleanliness
• Air quality
• Cost of living

Los Angeles is a sprawling city of too narrow roads and freeways with endless tail lights as far as the eye can see. Our potholes are almost as famous as New York’s, they can swallow whole SUV’s in a matter of seconds. Our population is larger than the Phoenix metro, by about 5 million. But in contrast, the  roads in Arizona are 6 lanes wide and newly repaved. Their highways are smooth, wide, and the city is continually adding more connections and highways to link their also sprawling communities making traveling around the city pleasant. The difference between these two cities, at least with city planning, is that Phoenix is anticipating a larger population – they are thinking ahead. Los Angeles, being an older city, never planned on so many people inhabiting the area. By the time our population had swelled to current numbers, we were land locked and unable to expand our highways. Obviously, geography does play a part. We are slightly more mountainous than the Phoenix area. Yet, for the amount of money I pay in auto registration and insurance, I feel shortchanged in the quality of roads I travel on.

Another drastic difference I noticed while in Arizona was the clean road sides and NO graffiti. Phoenix either has a terrific road side crew of maintenance people, or their population is more conscientious of throwing trash out their car window. Los Angeles, on the other hand, is littered with garbage from one end to the other. Our road side crews can’t keep up with the amount of trash, and somehow people can’t make it into the trash cans! Graffiti is another problem in our city, everywhere you turn you can find graffiti somewhere on a wall or side of a building. Again, in Phoenix I didn’t see one dab of spray paint anywhere. Unless their roadside crews are also constantly repainting walls and buildings, their population must be less likely to “tag” their turfs. As a city with one of the highest sales tax rates (almost 10%), I think my money is getting lost in the shuffle. It surely isn’t being invested in keeping the city clean.

California was one of the first states to implement zero emissions on their vehicles. Yet, in Los Angeles, you’d never know it. Our air is frequently a warm shade of beige. The coastal fog combined with factory and auto emissions equals smog. Considering our population is very health-minded, it’s ironic that we have the worst air quality in the nation. While in Phoenix, I noticed that I couldn’t see the air. This is a good thing, because air is supposed to be clear! I know that during their sweltering summers, their air quality isn’t as good as during the winter months, but at least they have a period of clean air.

Finally, there is the cost of living comparison. I’m always flabbergasted by how inexpensive other cities are compared to Los Angeles (except New York, of course). For example, the sales tax in Phoenix is just above 6%, that’s almost 4% less than L.A. Groceries, restaurants, and gas are much less as well. And homes? Well, let me just say that because of all the new communities popping up in Phoenix, you can nab a new home for under $100,000. The home prices are posted on all of the new development signs, ranging from $99,999 to the low $200,000’s. Finding a decent home for mid- to low- $200K in Los Angeles county is a near impossible feat. (I do want to touch more upon home developments, but I’ll save this for another post).

My comparison between these two cities made me realize that my husband and I need to move out of Los Angeles county. We are currently considering Ventura county, or moving just north of Los Angeles. We still want some of the benefits of being near a large metro, like the opera, shopping, the Getty Museum, and a variety of restaurants. We also like the idea of living within an hour of the beach, even though we really aren’t beach people. So, with a county population under 1 million, traveling around town will make life much more pleasant. Bike riding will also feel safer as many of Ventura counties’ cities have marked bicycle lanes. As we begin planning our move, I’ll be keeping these items in mind when choosing our new “home” city.

What do you like about your city? What do you dislike? Have you recently moved because of similar problems? Do you see your city becoming run down? How does that effect your psyche?

In another life, I will become an architect. I absolutely adore researching residential house plans, both exterior and interior. There’s so much history associated with the how and why of design. For instance, early saltbox style farm homes were mostly vertical in design from the exterior, with chopped up small rooms in the interior. My guess is that with the common-place large families of the past, each person needed their own space within the house leading to smaller rooms. This floor plan would also be easier and less expensive to heat in the winter, you wouldn’t have to heat the whole house, only one small room that the family could crowd into.

Over time with a decrease in family size, the floor plans began opening up. There wasn’t a need for so many rooms because there weren’t as many people living in the house. All of a sudden the same square footage seemed much more usable because there were fewer people utilizing the same amount of space.

Another factor influencing home design was region. The northeast is known for it’s row-style homes and cape cod architecture. Victorian also had a strong influence on architecture on the eastern seaboard.  Many of their homes include large, screened porches to keep the gnats out. With all the humidity, it’s no wonder the screens are so popular.

The mid-west homes have evolved from saltbox style farm homes to one-level ranch style. This movement, I’m sure, was due to the influence of Frank Lloyd Wright. His idea of incorporating the outside with the inside had a huge impact on homes built in the 1950’s west of the Mississippi. I especially love the homes of some of the more modern architects of his time, like Joseph Eichler and Gilbert Leong. These homes were built with the same concept, lots of windows and light, an open floor plan, and a great utilization of a central space.

Here are a few sites that have some great floor plans, no matter what style you prefer:

• Cool House Plans: They have a lot to choose from, including some small backyard projects. They also offer narrow lot floor plans.
• The House Designers: Wonderful tiny house plans to choose from. I really like the Maple Street Plan. It’s adorable! Oh, and the Rosabella. It’s a beautiful Mediterranean house plan.
• Cusato Cottages: These are the Katrina Kit homes offered by Lowes. However, I’ve never seen this site before, and it actually goes more into detail with the plans.
• Clayton Homes: They offer a lot of different manufactured plans, but I really love their i House. It reminds me of the modern architecture of the 1950’s. I’m a SoCal girl, what can I say.
• The Bungalow Company: I also love craftsman homes! See, I should really be an architect. I can’t even decide which is my favorite!

I’ve noticed that some of these sites don’t list build prices. This always leads me to believe that they may be more expensive than the sites that do list square footage price or kit home price. However, they are a great place to start looking at least! (Or dreaming in my case.)

Just the other day, Get Rich Slowly wrote a terrific post about renting versus buying property. I’ve been meaning to write my own post about this, especially since purchasing property has been on my mind now for over a year. It is also one of my goals I hope to accomplish by the end of this year or the middle of next year. However, I’m still not ready to take the plunge for a few reasons:

• Down payment: I don’t have the down payment saved up. I’d like to have at least 10% saved, which would be about $30,000 on a $300,000 home. I am really far from this goal.
• House prices: Decent homes in good neighborhoods are still selling for around $300,000. We live in a suburb of Los Angeles, so our prices are a little inflated compared to the rest of the nation.
• Fluctuating income: My husband owns his own business and it’s currently a little slow (normal for January). I work as a substitute teacher so I’m not ever guaranteed work. This will also make it a little difficult to qualify for a traditional 30-year mortgage at a decent APR.
• Indecisiveness: Lately, there are a few things about LA that are really getting on my husband’s nerves. He’s been complaining about everything: from the traffic to the grocery store clientele, to our neighbors. I’m not so sure he’ll be happy in LA in a couple of years if the city doesn’t begin to offer better services, smoother roads, or less traffic! Also, there is little hope for me obtaining a teaching job within the next couple of years with the school district I work for. They are one of the largest districts, and can’t find the money to continue paying it’s teachers. I live smack-dab in the middle of that district.

This brings me to rethink our idea of purchasing property. I know that we will eventually be property owners, I just don’t know if it’s going to be as soon as I had hoped. I have been really struggling with this new train of thought. That is until I read J.D.’s post. Basically it boiled down to what it really means to own property and is it a good investment?

Deep down I know that owning property is a good thing. If by the time of retirement, the home we purchase is either paid off or is worth more than we purchased  it for, it could be used to help us retire or move. It could function as an added security later in life. However, if we move only 5 years after we purchased our property and the market hasn’t improved, we would be breaking even if we’re lucky. In that event, we would be better off renting.

I found a great, free calculator from Yahoo.com that puts renting and owning in perspective. (I tried the NY Times link on GRS, but you have to be a subscriber to use it). Here is what the calculator figured out based on my numbers:

Rent vs. Buy Calculator

You’ll notice that based on these figures, it would be better if I continued to rent. The only thing this really doesn’t calculate is the profit earned by selling the property. I’m not quite sure how that works, but I would think that if you purchased a property for $300,000 and decided to sell 20 years later, the property would be worth more than what you paid for it. This is in sharp contrast to renting for the same period of time, there’s no profit in that scenario at all.

Again, I do intend to be a property owner myself in the near future. At least now I don’t feel as rushed or guilty if I don’t own my own little house in the valley by mid-next year.

What are your thoughts? Does this calculator factor in everything? Or is it missing the resale value somehow?

I don’t know if kit homes were ever popular, so I can’t say they’re “making a comeback.” However, kit homes today are making themselves known. MSN.com created a great slide show of beautiful kit homes. Some of the companies I’ve never heard of, and considering I’m always researching ways to save money with buying or building a home, there were a few surprises. Here are a few companies worth mentioning that are reasonably priced:

• Shelter-Kit: Most of their homes they offer have prices listed on the site. They range from as low as $10,000 for the materials, up to about $60,000. These prices are really reasonable, and some of the lowest priced, based on other kit home I’ve found. They are located in New Hampshire, so I’m guessing shipping the materials across country would tack on some additional fees that might match the price of the home!
• KitHAUS: I’ve come across this site before. Their structures are fairly small ,and I think most people build these to use as home offices. However, their K4 + bath could be built as a small starter home. They start at a little over $52,000.
• Gastineau Log Homes: According to MSN.com, their homes are priced between $48,000 and $93,000. However, they offer many different styles of log cabin kit homes. They don’t specifically price out their homes, but they do offer an excel spreadsheet that helps determine a budget.
• Multi-facettedhomes.com: These homes are beautiful, octagonal- shaped cedar sided homes. Too bad their website is really difficult to read. It is hard to figure out the pricing and floor plans. However, their site makes it seem like it’s very easy to put together with the help of a few friends! They are located in Hawaii, but will ship to the mainland.

As much as I love the idea of building my own home, primarily to save money and include “green” features, finding land is problematic. The flat lots are pushing $200,000, and the less expensive lots are on dramatically sloping hillsides!  My search for land continues!

Wieler Starter Rapson Greenbelt Home, I could live in this.

To quench my continuing curiosity with small house options, I’ve done extensive research on small, energy efficient, house plans. Since it’s very possible that my husband and I might end up buying land first, living on it in a tent, then building a home, I’ve had to get a little creative in what kinds of plans we could build quickly and inexpensively. Prefabs seem to be the best option, whether we go with pre-cut materials, or a prefab kit. Not only do they get built quicker than traditional construction, we can add energy efficient add-ons to them.

I found a great website with lots of links to prefab options called Jetson Green. It’s basically a blog about green building. Not only does it post information about green communities popping up, it also has lots of resources like books and links. I searched many of his copious links and found a few prefab sites I’d never come across before that were really helpful in deciding if it’s worth building a prefab house. Three that I think are worth mentioning are below:

• weeHouse by Alchemy Architects: I’ve heard of these guys before, but I think they’ve revised their website and made it easier to view samples. They have lots of examples of actual homes they’ve built. They are quite modern in design, but I like their variety. They also have a sample pricing guide that describes the three main expenses: Land+ weeHouse + Site work. I didn’t know about the site work pricing before seeing their diagram, so this at least gives me a ball park figure.
• Zamore Homes: This site is completely new to me. I don’t necessarily like their house plans, but their pricing over view is pretty detailed. I would think I could use this as a guide to any build-from-scratch model.
• Wieler: I like that they offer a “starter” home that can be expanded upon. They don’t offer concrete pricing, just an overview of how most square footage pricing breaks down. However, if their starter home is reasonable, it might be a great option. Again, I like the modern look of these prefabs. They remind me of the modern homes built by Wright and Eichler of the 1950’s and ’60’s.

Next, I think I’ll look into tiny trailers or sheds that my husband and I might be able to live in temporarily while building a house (or waiting to build a house) on land that we buy. We’ve already called Tuff Shed, they seem like they might have a few models we could set up shop in while we “rough it.” I’m just not sure how the cats would like it!

Reminiscing about my first obsession with residential architecture, I remember the copious details I added in the exterior of a house I drew on my chalkboard. Drawing with colored chalk was half the fun, but the house itself best identified with a ranch-style layout: it was horizontally long as opposed to vertical in height, I added a brick trim to the base of the house, and large windows to the front. The reason this was the house I decided to draw was based on my reality, all the houses in my neighborhood were modified ranch-style homes.

Now that I’m hoping to become a home owner in the near future, I’m researching homes for sale. And what style house am I finding? Mostly modified ranch…shocking. Living in suburban Southern California, the ranch-style home became the norm. Its design was based upon Frank Lloyd Wright architecture: low roof lines, horizontal fronts, lots of windows to let the outside in. Many communities in my neighborhood were designed by some well-known ranch-style architects like Joseph Eichler, Cliff May, and Gilbert Leong. These homes were known for their open floor plans, many contain atriums, and some have radiant heat under the flooring; quite modern for their 1950’s and ’60’s build date.

In my neighborhood, the majority of the homes were built between 1940 and the 1960’s. The architecture tells quite a story and I can almost see how the shape of homes morphed from one decade to the next. For instance, my block was built in 1951 and 1952. Using an online digital library, I found an old brochure advertising our community called Meadowlark Park. I’m pretty sure that most of my neighbors have no clue that they live in a community with such a name. There’s not a single placard anywhere stating that this is Meadowlark Park. Yet, the brochure went on to describe the houses as ranch-style homes with “massive chimney’s” (they are really very small in today’s standards), a “garage-and-a-half” (these single-car garages will barely house a mid-sized SUV) and “country living” in the valley. Oh, if only they developers had known that the valley would soon turn into a little city unto itself!

But these homes were larger in comparison to those built 10 years earlier and 3 miles south of where I live, a difference of 300 square feet. The ranch-style home was in the making; 3 bedrooms, 2 baths, it was a home owner’s dream come true. As the 1960’s approached, the true ranch-style homes emerged through Joseph Eichler and Cliff May, taking on architectural attributes similar to Frank Lloyd Wright. These homes were gigantic in comparison to the homes built in the 1940’s and ’50’s, almost twice the size in square feet (around 1,800 to 2,400 sq. ft.) They included an open floor plan, large patios with sliding glass door entries into the back yard, and many even incorporated atriums to really bring the outside in. The idea was to incorporate outside living in temperate Southern California.

The 1970’s homes are similar to the 1960’s, there is still a “modern” ranch feel to the architecture, think the Brady Bunch house. However, the homes of the 1980’s, mainly found on the perimeter of the valley, began to stray from the ranch-style floor plan and design. They became more heavily stuccoed, the features are larger and a little heavier in feel, many of the homes of the 1980’s have wood shingles or tile roofs. Over the past 20 years, residential architecture has moved far away from the ranch homes of the mid-century. Today’s homes are modified Mediterranean style homes with red tile roofs, two story floor plans, and a more vertical use of land, mainly because land is so limited in our urban-suburban neighborhoods. The ranch floor plans are still preferred by many, however they can only be found in older homes that often need more work than a newer model.

Here is a sampling of homes for sale ranging in age:

Ranch Style Homes

As I continue my house hunt, I’m sure I’ll see many variations of the ranch style house. I have to admit, it wasn’t my favorite style until I researched the architects and ideas behind the design. Now, I love ‘em!