[Porsche-O-Phile]

Actually the area I'm in isn't a ghetto at all. There certainly are some ghetto areas of the LBC - no doubt about that. But the swath from the beach to about 4th street is pretty nice actually. Lots of professional types, artists, normal folks. Once you start moving inland the quality drops off rather precipitously past that. So I've found a nice "niche" area that manages to stay strong against the sprawl of gangbangas and ghetto trash inland - typical of most cities (prices are higher near the waterfront, which tends to keep a lot of the riffraff out).

Anyway, Manhattan & Huntington I wouldn't consider - my wife used to work in Huntington and it's extremely overcrowded and expensive. Plus it's a noisy, chaotic party town full of spoiled young brats living large on mommy & daddy's money. No thanks. Not my scene.

Marina Del Rey might not be too bad, but it would involve commuting on the 405 for both the wife and I. F that. Plus it's not appreciably cheaper than here.

Huntington Beach is ridiculously overpriced. Great scene, fun and all, but ridiculously overpriced. Irvine is "ground zero" for the housing bubble (overpriced, but correcting). Maybe in a few years. . .

I think my best course of action is to continue looking where I've been - up in the mountains for a cabin and some land - areas that have been not nearly as affected by the bubble and run-up in prices. Actually what I'm seeing is that a ton of people bought these locations as "second homes" and now are up ***** creek on their first mortgages (ARMs and the like), so they're starting to panic and dump 'em - or try to. . .

Anyway sorry for the thread hijack. Back on topic, the "bottom" is a long way away. If you're buying to live in and hold (as in 10+ years), have a big pile of cash sitting around doing idle, an 800+ FICO score and aren't concerned about job loss or income reduction as a result of the recession, sure you could buy now. However, I personally feel the best deals are still quite a ways off and in any case, your $$$ would earn you a helluva lot more in foreign securities right now.