Costa Mesa's Upside Down Housing Numbers
RENTALS VS. OWNED UNITS
In my previous post, responding to Colin McCarthy's Daily Pilot commentary from last weekend, I affirmed his view that the housing situation in Costa Mesa is upside down. We have more rental units than owner-occupied units in our city.
SOME INTERESTING NUMBERS
Questions have been asked in the past about our current situation and how it compares to our contiguous neighbors. Well, courtesy of our friends at Yahoo! Real Estate, here's a chart which shows those numbers.
As you can see, Costa Mesa's ratio of rentals to owned units is far and away the most out of whack.
LOTS OF DATA AVAILABLE
You can go to the site yourself, HERE, and tinker with the "location" to get numbers from other cities for which you may have an interest.
MORE SINGLES THAN MARRIEDS
I'm not sure how relevant it is, but Costa Mesa, among those six cities, is the only one with more single residents than married.
STILL LOOKING FOR SOLUTIONS
These numbers don't provide any solutions, only emphasize the issue. If McCarthy can come up with a creative - and legal - way for us to flip those numbers so they more closely align with some of our neighbors he deserves kudos. In the meantime, the parts of the graffiti equation that we actually CAN work on - enforcement and intervention - should be a priority for our leaders.
In my previous post, responding to Colin McCarthy's Daily Pilot commentary from last weekend, I affirmed his view that the housing situation in Costa Mesa is upside down. We have more rental units than owner-occupied units in our city.
SOME INTERESTING NUMBERS
Questions have been asked in the past about our current situation and how it compares to our contiguous neighbors. Well, courtesy of our friends at Yahoo! Real Estate, here's a chart which shows those numbers.
As you can see, Costa Mesa's ratio of rentals to owned units is far and away the most out of whack.LOTS OF DATA AVAILABLE
You can go to the site yourself, HERE, and tinker with the "location" to get numbers from other cities for which you may have an interest.
MORE SINGLES THAN MARRIEDS
I'm not sure how relevant it is, but Costa Mesa, among those six cities, is the only one with more single residents than married.
STILL LOOKING FOR SOLUTIONS
These numbers don't provide any solutions, only emphasize the issue. If McCarthy can come up with a creative - and legal - way for us to flip those numbers so they more closely align with some of our neighbors he deserves kudos. In the meantime, the parts of the graffiti equation that we actually CAN work on - enforcement and intervention - should be a priority for our leaders.
Labels: Colin McCarthy, Costa Mesa, Graffiti
posted by The Pot Stirrer at 2/22/2010 10:40:00 PM
3 Comments:
Yeah baby!!! ( Austin Powers)
Costa Mesa ranked number 1 in OC weekly's OC sexiest cities list.
Here on the Westside , absentee landlords are the number 1 reason our aging housing stock remains in such a holding pattern of neglect.
Geoff,
The city had the first time homebuyer program, which was a good idea, although somewhat complicated. The city would give first time homebuyers a 0% subordinated loan, with a number of significant strings attached.
Is this program still in effect in Costa Mesa, or another victim of last year's budget?
Gary, the Costa Mesa First Time Homebuyer's program is still in existence, but it's out of money. It's funded through the Redevelopment Agency and all the funds for the 09/10 budget year have been expended. In fact, according to city sources, 10/11 doesn't look good, either.
At it's peak they provided 10 loans to Costa Mesans, but have averaged around 3 per year. Initially they made around $40,000 available per loan, but recently the amount was as much as $237,000... didn't take long to blow through the available funds at that rate.
Post a Comment
<< Home