What Buyers Get Wrong About Southern California Real Estate With Fred Glick, Jennifer May and Mark Levy of Arrivva

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn: 

• Why 50-year mortgages aren’t as practical as they sound
• How SoCal and NorCal real estate markets really differ—and what it means for buyers
• The hidden risks of climate, insurance, and school districts in Southern California
• What drives competition in neighborhoods from Irvine to Encinitas
• Mistakes out-of-state buyers make that can cost them big
• Why insurance pre-approval is more important than ever
• How ADUs, cosmetic updates, and accessibility upgrades can impact value
• Insider tips for timing, hidden gems, and making the most of today’s SoCal market

In this episode with Fred Glick, Jennifer May and Mark Levy

What are buyers getting wrong about Southern California real estate? 

Fred Glick, Jennifer May, and Mark Levy of Arrivva break down the biggest misconceptions—from 50-year mortgage myths to insurance roadblocks, school district realities, and what’s really driving demand in hot markets like Irvine, Santa Monica, Arcadia, and Encinitas. 

Get insider tips on beating buyer competition, avoiding relocation mistakes, and spotting undervalued homes and ADU opportunities. Essential viewing for anyone buying or investing in SoCal.

Resources mentioned in this episode

• Fred Glick on LinkedIn
• Arrivva
• Jennifer May on LinkedIn
• Mark Levy on LinkedIn
• 18471 Corte Zapala, Morgan Hill, CA
• Fidelity National
• The Real Estate Insurance Crisis: What’s Happening Behind the Scenes

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

[00:00:27] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Your thoughts on the 50-year mortgage that’s being bounced around all weekend?

[00:00:30] Fred Glick: Whatever.

[00:00:32] Mark Levy: 30 wasn’t long enough?

[00:00:36] Fred Glick: It’s Trump. I’m gonna make 50-year mortgages so you can qualify and solve the affordability crisis. No, it doesn’t. It’s stupid. Plus, there’s actually a law that was passed in 2010 that prevents anything from being a qualified mortgage over 30 years. So they’d have to amend all that and go back into Dodd-Frank, just whatever. It’s just hyperbole. It doesn’t fricking matter. And they already have interest-only loans. Okay.

They’re non-QM, but if you want ’em, you can get ’em and your payment can be cheaper because of that. But the rates are higher and you know I’m sure they’ll, jack, they gotta, the bond market, the mortgage-backed, the mortgage-backed securities, they gotta sell the mortgage-backed security. You can’t just make up a thing and just, you know, have it.

[00:01:33] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Yeah, might as well do a hundred years. I mean, it’s not about paying a

[00:01:39] Fred Glick: Yeah.

[00:01:40] Drew Thomas Hendricks: About a loan.

[00:01:40] Fred Glick: I know. It’s just a fricking stupid.

[00:01:43] Mark Levy: Yeah. I mean, you, if you can pay, you know, 300 bucks a month for a hundred years, just pass it over to your kids. I mean, that’d be kind of cool.

[00:01:50] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Yeah. Not bad.

[00:01:52] Fred Glick: A life. A life mortgage.

[00:01:54] Mark Levy: Right?

Yeah. Well, mortgage doesn’t, mortgage actually means something like death or, I don’t know, something weird.

[00:01:59] Fred Glick: That means dead hand.

[00:02:01] Mark Levy: Dead. That’s right.

[00:02:02] Fred Glick: You are correct. Dead hand.

[00:02:04] Mark Levy: Yeah.

[00:02:06] Drew Thomas Hendricks: If you tuned in right now, you’re on We Fixed Real Estate and we were discussing mortgages, but that’s not actually the topic of the discussion today.

Today’s the special report on Southern California. We’ve got a couple special guests on the line or on the podcast. One, Mark Levy. Here in my area, I’m down in Vista and Mark’s down in Encinitas. And then we’ve got Jen. Jen, who you’re familiar with, who’s on the podcast routinely. She’s up in the Foothills San Gabriel Valley and Fred representing Santa Monica.

[00:02:35] Fred Glick: 

[00:02:35] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Mark, tell us a little bit about yourself before we begin. ’cause you’re new to the cast.

[00:02:40] Mark Levy: I am. I appreciate taking the time to put me on this ’cause it’s always fun to have a little chat. My real estate career began in 1991.

I actually was a loan originator for a very short period of time. And then I ended up over the years with sales, marketing careers and such like that. I did quite a bit of investing, predominantly in Hawaii and some Florida and and now I’ve jumped back in about a year ago and pretty new at Arrivva.

So excited about what we’re doing, doing things a little bit differently at Arrivva.

[00:03:24] Drew Thomas Hendricks: And Jen, refresh our listeners for about your background and what brought you to Arrivva.

[00:03:29] Jennifer May: I was working in property management before I started Arrivva. And I was working with multifamily properties, and then I came over to Arrivva about four years ago now.

[00:03:43] Fred Glick: Oh yeah.

[00:03:43] Jennifer May: Yeah.

[00:03:43] Fred Glick: That’s right.

[00:03:44] Jennifer May: And I live in Arcadia, so. Close to Fred, but more on the that east side, I guess is what you would say. And I do the mortgages and then all of the backend stuff for Arrivva, and then I have my real estate license.

[00:04:02] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Fred, you need no introduction, so let’s just dive in.

What’s that Southern California, is it like a unique microcosm in real estate?

[00:04:11] Fred Glick: Well, I’m gonna start with things that people don’t know. We see a, obviously we’re licensed in the entire state of California. We’ve done deals all over the place, but what we find is that, especially for listings, there’s two different ways of listing a property that’s prevalent in Northern California and a separate way that’s prevalent in Southern California.

So this is one of the reasons why I wanted to have this podcast specifically talking about SoCal, because they’re kind of behind what everybody else is doing, and there’s no need to be. I’ll give you an example. When you list the property in Northern California, and this should be done in Southern California, is the listing agent gets all the disclosures, all of the inspections done ahead of time.

You see everything. And the beauty of that is a buyer knows you give it to them ahead of time, they can, you know, like we do, we put it through AI and or read it and find out what’s wrong. And so we know we have to deal with the properties. The inspectors are all licensed and insured. Yeah, they may make a mistake, but you know, for the most part they’re pretty much, you know, on, on par and pretty good.

So what happens is, in a Southern California deal where you’re not giving any disclosures or inspections, you have to sign a contract, buyer signs a contract, and then you give them the disclosures and then they go out and they get the inspections and they start reading everything and they get the inspections.

And guess what? They start renegotiating the price down because it’s like, “Hey, you know, we found all this and that, or we want you to make repairs.” This way, we do everything ahead of time. It’s all done. And you know, if you wanna make the repairs, we just note it in the inspection report, “Oh, we found this plumbing leak, we took care of it. It’s all done. You don’t have to worry about it.” So it’s peace of mind. The second thing that’s a major difference is in the Northern California deals, they use title companies that do the escrow for you because you’re using them for title insurance, so you need to get title insurance on the purchase no matter what.

The prices are all the same, no matter what, but in Southern California, they have these separate escrow companies that then hook in with the title company and the prices on them are astronomical. And it’s amazing how much of a savings we have because these escrow companies in SoCal, it’s really a profit center.

They price their services on a per-thousand basis. So if they’re gonna say, “Okay, we charge $2 per thousand.” If it’s a five-million-dollar deal, it’s $10,000. Whereas in Northern California with a company, we use Fidelity and rest of ’em are pretty much the same. It would probably be like $2,250 as opposed to 10 grand.

So it’s just ridiculous. And there’s really no need to have this separate escrow company from the title because the whole idea is you’re getting title insurance and that’s what you need. And the escrow person does the recording. Now, if this was in Pennsylvania, we just use title companies. There are no escrow companies.

It’s literally the title company does all what an escrow company here does. So it’s different vernaculars, but there’s a very big savings in getting the escrow and title together in one. So between that, having all the inspections done ahead of time, and by the way, on our listings, we pay for them, it saves sellers thousands upon thousands of dollars.

And there’s no like rule or law that says you have to use these separate escrow companies. You know, so that’s one of the big things for starters. The other thing is climate, insurance, stuff like that. Mainly, now both Jen and I were close enough to inhale the smoke that came from the fires. Her up in Arcadia, which is near Altadena, me near Pacific Palisades.

I mean, I saw the giant smoke cloud go past me. I actually ended up in the hospital because of, it’s just coughing. It’s crazy. So there’s gonna be different things with fires. Obviously, they could start anywhere, but there’s a lot less trees all over Southern California than there are in Northern California.

That kind of makes a difference. Flood zones are gonna vary, but you might get a little more flood zone and SoCal than North Cal. Remember, in North Cal there aren’t really, in the Bay Area, a lot of beach communities. There’s Half Moon Bay and Santa Cruz. Those are kind of the big ones, but it’s not like it, it’s continuous.

Like from Malibu all the way down to San Diego, they’d basically be current property. Most of you listening to this podcasts are never gonna be able to afford this prices, but they’re gonna play flood insurance, but if you’re five blocks in, you may have it. So those are kind of the major real estate affected differences.

Everything else, it’s pretty much market conditions. Always, always, always, no matter where it is, if you have a really good school district, you’re gonna pay more money and there’s gonna be more buyers. That’s just the way it is. So that’s kind of the overview. And then each market kind of is a little bit different, and maybe we can all speak to the differences in their area.

[00:10:00] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Yeah.

[00:10:01] Fred Glick: Because it’s property types and all that kind of stuff. I’ll start with one thing. We have someone in Irvine, Val, who couldn’t be on because he’s actually selling his property and he’s got somebody actually coming to see it, which is nice. 1 57 steely in Irvine if you wanna look it up.

It’s a really nice townhouse. Only 1.325 listed. So like Irvine, we, since we have his property listed, what we find is first weekend of open houses, we had half a dozen people maybe come through. But there seems to be a decent amount of competition, especially for the, the town homes. There’s kind of more on the market.

And it’s totally different from the single families. And it’s just, you know, we had to present the house as nice as possible. We slowly get trickles of buyers who are interested, but they’re competing with a lot of stuff. We have a, the person who’s coming at 11:30 today is showing nine houses to somebody.

It’s insane. We try to set, tell people, don’t look at more than three in a day because you’ll be outta your mind confused. But you know that that’s kind of the way the market is there. LA, on West Side, here’s the craziest thing. We get the most tough bidding and competition in Santa Monica near the current airport.

Why? ‘Cause it’s in a great school district, number one, but number two, the airport’s closing. So therefore people think theoretically the value of the property will go up because it’s in this great area and you won’t have planes flying over your head. Then you go, you know, five miles away, a little toward central LA and stuff just sits.

You know, but it’s, it’s all kind of school district based. Now, condos high rises along Wilshire, they’re slow to sell, you know, there’s stuff up there a hundred days. It’s just, there’s no, there’s not a great demand for that stuff, but it’s, you gotta look at every one of them. Look at the prices.

You might be able to get something that’s been on the market for a while. So it just all depends. And I know, and I’ll let Jen talk about this from Arcadia, it’s stuff comes on the market and pretty much within 30 days it goes off the market, it’s sold, because a nice house, it’s ’cause it’s in a great school district. Right, Jen? Generically.

[00:12:44] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Yeah. Jen, why don’t you give us a recap of Arcadia and what’s going on in your area of the San Gabriel Valley and Foothills?

[00:12:50] Jennifer May: My area is pretty active. It’s basically a seller’s market if you have a good location ’cause of the school district. Sometimes the, like, if it’s the houses that are on like very busy streets that are hard to get into, they sit a little bit longer.

And then also if they’re butting up against the freeway, that causes a little bit of problem.

[00:13:12] Fred Glick: Like this one.

[00:13:14] Jennifer May: Like the other one we sold. But the school district is good. And then around Arcadia it’s San Marino, which is also a very wealthy city with a very good school district. Those houses go very fast to there.

Very big and very expensive. And then Pasadena, it depends on the location, but the schools aren’t as good. So if the house is nice and it’s worth it and you don’t have kids, it’ll go quick, or if you’re willing to put your kids into private school. And then Altadena is gonna get completely rebuilt slowly. Right now, a little scary up there. It looks like a whole bomb went off. But…

[00:13:56] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Have they started rebuilding?

[00:13:58] Jennifer May: I think there’s like certain plans that have been approved that you can fast track the whole permit process, but it just depends on what you wanna do with your house. I know they’ve started all the permits and then I haven’t seen anything being built yet, but I know that people are getting close to building and a lot of the houses that, ’cause not every house on the block would burn.

Some of them did survive. And those are being rehabilitated, I guess would be the word and fixed at the moment, but soon I think everything should start moving.

[00:14:38] Fred Glick: Yeah, and just picking up on that, let’s talk about the Palisades. What’s interesting is there are tons of lots for sale. People either just took the insurance money and said, “Okay, I’ll just sell the lot and get outta here.”

Or they didn’t have insurance and they need the money to sell. So basically you could get a beautiful lot; ocean view elevated for like 1,000,005 is kind of the going price for all of them that, that are still sitting. These have all been cleaned up by the army corps of engineers, so there shouldn’t be any contaminants there.

So it’s sort of ready to build. And there can be some other ideas of what to put there in terms of prefabs, there’s some guys out of Australia, bought a bunch of lots in Malibu putting prefabs down, which is a great idea. Or, you know, thing I love is the 3D cement printed houses. Just bring the machine on and build a house in a couple of days.

You know, there’s ways to build so that this doesn’t happen again. So. So that’s a whole different topic.

[00:15:55] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Mark, let’s hear from you. Let’s hear about San Diego County and what’s happening down here.

[00:16:00] Mark Levy: For us personally, like on a personal level, we looked at San Diego as a lifestyle play for us moving from Hawaii, which was also, you know, quite a bit focused on lifestyle as well. What’s really nice about San Diego in particular, where we are in North County, is we not only have this incredible lifestyle like coastal living, we have every amazing restaurant that you could ever imagine.

We’ve got incredible schools. In fact, our kids went through the whole school process from elementary all the way up through high school, and then, you know, ended up in UC schools. Both of ’em. So we love it. And, you know, we have, actually, San Diego has been a seller’s market for a very long time, and right now we’re seeing a shift.

You know, it’s definitely shifting to a buyer friendly direction which is a, which is a big change. I mean, for years we were receiving, you know, letters in our mailbox pretty much every day, you know? Sell that kind of thing. Anyhow, in this prices have dipped about one and a half percent year over year.

And that puts the median down to like 160 thousand. So it’s come down, you know, with over a million for quite some time. So really at this point buyers are finally getting some real negotiation power. Don’t reallyy see this, you know, there’s a dip, but demand is still strong and really that’s thanks to San Diego’s tech sector, the military presence. We also have a huge wave of remote workers. Really goes to lifestyle. So really in essence, experts don’t see this as a crash.

That a short term adjustment before modest appreciation return is what we’re seeing. Kind of carrying into other areas, interest rates, you know, they dropped obviously. There’s an expectation for easing later this year. But really, here’s the thing, buying now puts you in a position where you can get in before the rates drop even more, and competition heats back up. So, in essence, cash buyers, folks with solid credit, we definitely deals at the moment.

[00:18:33] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Getting fully underwritten, pre-approved mortgage. So let me ask,you may be listening to this and you’re in Nevada. You’re up in Washington, you may be in Colorado. So both Mark and Jen, what is the biggest mistake you see people making that are trying to relocate to Southern California?

[00:18:49] Mark Levy: I can just kind of carry with what I started and then I’ll let Jen jump in. But I can tell you that, you know, I think people are trying to time the market, they’re trying to get the best possible rate, trying to find the best deal. Unfortunately those things don’t work hand in hand as soon as the rates drop, and it’s gonna be extremely competitive here.

[00:19:09] Jennifer May: So, so I think that’s probably the biggest mistake here in San Diego, is waiting for the rates to drop. Yeah, I think that happens here too. People think prices are gonna come down even though they generally don’t come down too much. And then I think also, not being prepared to make an offer, but not having the underwritten preapproval or everything so that when you do see the house that you like and you’re ready to make, move forward, you can do it quickly.

[00:19:36] Fred Glick: Because the shorter you can close, the more appealing your offer’s going to be. I think that’s the truth, the other thing we’re doing is getting, is telling people ahead of submitting offers to get the house pre-approved for insurance. I know that sounds crazy, but you know, there’s nothing worse than getting under contract and realizing you either can’t get insurance or it’s tough to get insurance, or the insurance is $10,000 when you’re expecting $3,000. So that’s a big thing. Pre-approved, mortgage pre-approved insurance.

[00:20:13] Drew Thomas Hendricks: That’s an interesting thing. How does somebody go about getting the pre-approved insurance?

[00:20:18] Fred Glick: Well, you contact insurance broker, whoever. And say, “I’m looking to buy this house.” And they put that house into a computer system that has a database.

So for example, if two years before that there was a plumbing issue that they claimed on insurance, there’s a possibility that company won’t insure it because there was a claim a couple years ago. So that’s why when you’re selling a house, you gotta disclose all the claims you’ve had on insurance policies.

Then they look it up, they look at the flood maps, they look at the fire zones and they determine, you know, what they can do. You know, a broker might have to shop it to a bunch of different companies. We had Michael on a couple weeks ago.

[00:21:08] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Yes.

[00:21:09] Fred Glick: Check out that podcast about, you know, especially with difficult properties, whenever you see a lot of trees around the house and it’s in California, it’s a fire hazard. Period.

So again, we don’t have as much of an issue with that in Southern California. But there are flood zones, all kinds, we have all kinds of pearls. It’s just yeah, it’s just getting the house approved and just making sure, so we can do that even a day before you submit an offer. It’s pretty easy.

[00:21:48] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Like we haven’t had a solid earthquake in quite some time.

[00:21:52] Fred Glick: Knock on wood. I mean, San Ramon had like three quakes yesterday, but it was like this different type of quake where it kind of builds up and goes and rolls as opposed to, you know, like crazy. And then aftershocks, so the earthquake and meteorological nuts.

Well, you can Google it guys and can’t get the details, but yeah, it’s pearls. That’s what it is. But it’s also, it’s also the house itself. So you gotta know that. ‘Cause they had a lot of insurance claims, you might not be able to get it ’cause they think the house, there’s something wrong with the house. So that’s thebiggest problem.

Mark, talk to us about strategy, strategy in buying a home in Southern California. We’ve talked about the mistakes. Don’t try to time the market ’cause you’re probably gonna miss out. But what would be a good strategy for someone looking to either relocate within Southern California or looking to like, make their foothold in this area?

[00:22:54] Mark Levy: Sure. You know, at the end of the day, I think that strategy is, it’s extremely important. If you go in blind, you could definitely make some mistakes. Looking for something that’s been on the, if you’re a buyer, something that’s been on the market for, for quite a bit of time. Might not require, maybe it doesn’t show extremely well. Maybe it needs some upgrades here and there, but at the end of the day, that’s a really good opportunity to go in where maybe you only need to spend, you know, a minimal amount of money to get it up to current, you know, styles, et cetera. I think that what Jen had mentioned earlier about being, you know, having all the, the approvals prior to going in is extremely important for your loan or your cash buyer having everything ready and proof of all of that.

Another thing that, that, you know, I wanted to mention about San Diego is the investment side.

[00:23:55] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Hmm.

[00:23:55] Mark Levy: And so, if you’re an investor, you know, the rental yields are strong especially in spots like Carlsbad and Encinitas. Investors are pulling in like 10 to 15% returns. Another thing that’s real big right now is adding an ADU.

San Diego’s definitely an ADU-friendly county, and that’s an accessory dwelling unit. It’s truly one of the smartest plays you can make at the moment. Because of that, there’s a demand for flexible multi-use housing. It’s just huge right now, so lot of counties will work with you.

[00:24:34] Fred Glick: Just to remind people about what’s going on. About two to three years ago, the state passed a law that says you can take your house and if you can put an ADU in the back, I’m being, I’m generalizing here, you’re able to then condominiumized the property and sell off that second unit if you want. Or you can obviously just keep it on there and keep it as a rental.

So that is a really beautiful thing that you’re able to do. You know, let’s say you’re, you know, mom’s getting up there in age and the house is okay for her, but she needs money. And you figure, “Oh, I’ll sell the property and she’ll live off that.” Well, now comes an idea of spend x and you’re able to make double.

If you can make double what it costs, you sell off that back end. It’s a condo, maybe even within family members. So mom has some extra money now to, you know, live off of for a while, you know, so that’s another idea. And that, and elevators that are inexpensive now are another reason why there is a bigger demand for housing.

Because usually if this was 20 years ago, you wouldn’t even think about it. You would just sell the property. More properties on the market, but there’s less because older people are able to stay in their units a long time and you know, someone older, it’s comfortable for them. They’re used to it.

They don’t want change, and it works out perfectly.

[00:26:11] Drew Thomas Hendricks: I can testify to the elevator because my, I, if you’ve been following the story.

[00:26:16] Fred Glick: Yeah. Yep.

[00:26:17] Drew Thomas Hendricks: My mother-in-law, she lives down in Solana Beach, overlooks the racetrack and she has a two story house and the bottom level is the garage, but there was no way to get to the top floor, which is where her three, two living spaces, except going upstairs.

She hurt her back and was being forced to either have to move out or find a solution. And we found Aging-In-Place as a construction company. Good plug to them. They, we installed a lift and basically an elevator in this, it fit in the size of really what a closet was like, and now she’s able to roll right into her garage, go straight up into her house. But it’s even more so like she can now take soil to, now she’s feeling better, she’s rehabilitated. But if she goes to the, you know, garden store, she can take the soil up there. She doesn’t have to haul anything up. So it’s not just aging, it’s really just a utility that is added, I think considerable value to the house.

[00:27:15] Fred Glick: Yeah, it’s funny. We have a listing now up in Morgan Hill, California, Northern Cal. It’s a almost 6,100 square foot house that’s completed in August of this year. And there’s these two beautiful staircases on each side of this gigantic entrance way. It looks dramatic. It’s awesome, but Toll Brothers did not offer as an option of an elevator.

I’m saying like, “Why not?” You know, we, there is a first floor suite, so you know, parents are gonna live, but what if the parents are taking care of the kids and they need to get upstairs? I still have to walk the steps. So I’ve been at the open house this weekend just telling people like, here’s a couple ideas of where I would say to put the elevator.

And they’re so inexpensive. Drew, did they run, is it a 240 line? Correct?

[00:28:16] Drew Thomas Hendricks: It is a 240 line.

[00:28:17] Fred Glick: Okay, so.

[00:28:19] Drew Thomas Hendricks: I say that, but I’m not entirely sure. I would think it would have to be.

[00:28:24] Fred Glick: Yeah, I, well, I’m kind of asking, it’s not more than a 240.

[00:28:28] Drew Thomas Hendricks: No, no, no. It’s not more than a 240. Yeah, it’s not, there was no major electrical that needed to happen to my mother-in-law’s place.

Basically just cut, they cut a five foot by five foot hole in the floor, and then it small, it was a one day install, and then we get a little bit more to, you know, drywall around it. Make it look like a, not just a, an elevator in the middle of the room. We made it look like a closet.

[00:28:55] Fred Glick: Got it.

Yeah. It’s, but it’s weird that the builders don’t offer that as an option. Just makes sense. So. But that’s gonna be anywhere. I mean, the majority of the houses in California themselves, well, let me say this. There’s more single story houses in California than there are kind of in the rest of the country. I guess back then it was just easier and cheaper and faster to build them. It’s mostly the older houses or the brand new ones.

[00:29:28] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Rambling Ranch.

[00:29:30] Fred Glick: There you go. There you go.

[00:29:33] Drew Thomas Hendricks: It’s more so in California before all the stucco, mass production ones. Now it’s kind of the, the landscape’s changing a bit here.

[00:29:41] Fred Glick: Yes. Times they are changing.  Hey Mark, let’s go a little weird thing just to give people an idea. Talk about traffic in San Diego County and what’s the worst off ramps to have? Where’s an easy place to live, to commute, to say where businesses on a day-to-day basis. I know I’m throwing this out to you, but I’m sure you generically know from the traffic reports.

[00:30:09] Mark Levy: Oh, oh, for sure. For sure. Look the traffic is, it’s increased dramatically. There’s no doubt about that.

[00:30:18] Drew Thomas Hendricks: I could testify too that.

[00:30:20] Mark Levy: But one of the, well, first off, I mean, for me, I do, I’ve worked remotely for many years, so it’s been helpful. When I do need to go somewhere. When I was in a position where, you know, I’m in front of a computer all day long and then I’ve gotta go downtown or what have you, sometimes I’d ride the train.

You know, we have a very good public transportation network down here. I think, you know, it probably could be improved a little bit, but overall it’s pretty darn good. And from my house, I can drive down part in the Encinitas lot for free for up to I believe it’s 14 days. And jump on the train.

Get downtown, everything that you need downtown, get to the airport from there, there’s a transfer bus that takes about three minutes to get you right to the terminal. So I think with that it’s been very, very convenient. We also do own EVs. Unfortunately at the moment though, the incentive for many years for having an EV and being a single driver has disappeared. So that may hopefully come back, but at this point, I think that we would rely on during traffic hours, continue to do what we’ve been doing with public transportation and, you know, otherwise just kind of work around it.

‘Cause the hours are not, it’s not like LA where, you know, it can be like from 5:00 AM all the way, pretty much the entire day. So we have some windows that are pretty good. It’s just the peak rush hours you wanna try to avoid.

[00:32:02] Drew Thomas Hendricks: And you do have kind of, there’s a division in San Diego. It start, it’s right, right after Del Mar where you have the 805 and the 5 split.

Usually either live south of that or north of that. Very, very, very rarely do you commute through the split.

[00:32:18] Mark Levy: Right.

[00:32:19] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Like you’re gonna, you’re gonna try to either live in north or south San Diego.

[00:32:23] Mark Levy: Yeah, for sure.

[00:32:24] Drew Thomas Hendricks: And then up where I am on the 78, I can de definitely testify to the huge amount of traffic and what I, I’m very much fearful about what’s to come ’cause they’re building.

If you follow the news, like San Marcos is building an entire North San Diego downtown called North City with eight new neighborhoods right on the same freeway infrastructure that was already busy for the last 15 years.

[00:32:49] Mark Levy: Yeah. That is definitely a problem. And I did hear about that. We have, we have a big project here in Encinitas that we’re a little bit concerned about as well, you know, but at the end of the day, there’s a reason. Everyone wants a piece of this lifestyle.

And is its it doable? A hundred percent. A hundred percent. I don’t think we’re ever gonna look like element, you know, it’s just the way things are these days. And there’s a lot of areas that, that are, that you can’t build on. Especially coastally. So, it even has that feel sometimes when you’re in bumper to bumper traffic and you’re looking around, you’re going, God, there really isn’t that much around me.

Why is it so busy? Right. If you were a visitor.

[00:33:27] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Yeah. Think cars do move, which is other areas of the country that I go to visit, and I’m not bashing Denver, but if you ever want to go from like East Denver to Denver downtown, you have like just a gridlock of stoplights that sometimes never move. You’ll go through the same light, wait for the same light 10 cycles before you get through it, and then you just get to the next flight.

It took us two hours to get from East Denver to downtown Denver.

[00:33:53] Mark Levy: Yeah. It’s funny you mention that. My best friend growing up left LA years ago, and he moved, he’s in Denver. And all he complains about is the traffic. He’s like, “Oh my God, it’s so much worse than it used to, you know, when I was in LA.” He left like 20 years ago.

It’s like, yeah, everyone went better.

[00:34:11] Fred Glick: Okay, I’m just gonna throw this in. Back in Philadelphia, there’s, once you get on the other side of the Schuylkill River from downtown, so the center city as we call it, people will recognize this if they live there. There’s Walnut Street that goes one way, Chestnut Street that goes the other.

And they have timed lights. So if you go, I think it’s 29 miles an hour, you’ll make every light and you’ll go from like 30th street to 63rd Street in a very short period of time, they don’t do that out here. And you would think with all the technology that they can figure out how many cars and lights and time of day and all that and be able to just have traffic flow smoothly.

Lincoln. Lincoln Boulevard, okay. LA fans from the airport north. You know, why isn’t that just timed? And you can just keep going, especially from Marina del Rey to Santa Monica. I mean, it’s just a nightmare. And there’s 40 billion cars and you know, let’s have cities start looking at timing lights so that traffic can flow.

Because the more you stop and go, the more pissed off you get. And then you got car rage. I mean the 10, the 405, the I-10, 2-10, I mean it, they are what they are, you know, but they could make quote unquote freeway like continuous driving in a place like Los Angeles.

San Francisco would be another one. Just go ahead.

[00:35:50] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Well, if that exists and before they closed the Coast Highway in San Francisco, I would, I worked up there and I would drive the Coast Highway. If you drove the exact speed, you would not have to stop. You could check the surf all the way along.

[00:36:02] Fred Glick: It’s a beautiful thing.

[00:36:03] Mark Levy: Love it.

[00:36:05] Fred Glick: Yeah.

[00:36:06] Mark Levy: I think it’s gotten a little better though in some other regards with technology.

You know, for example my wife was talking about, let’s go up and see our son who’s up in Berkeley, let’s drive. And I, and the first thing, my first thought was, “oh God, I can go.” I said, “We’re gonna have to leave at 3:30 AM.” And you know, I had all these parameters which were not met. We ended up leaving at I think nine, but you know, it actually worked out really well.

We took our Tesla up there and put it in autopilot and basically, as long as I kind of touched the wheel, ’cause I’ve never done this for any length of time, I was no stress. Like the car did what it needed to do. It slowed down, it speeded up, it slowed down. I didn’t even really have to look at the road. I mean, I was looking with one eye, but it was great.

It was the most relaxing drive. So I was thinking about that. If I had to commute every day, I had an EV that’s either self-driving or has, you know, something like a Tesla with a basically self-driving. Yeah. Life’s good. We’re in a whole new era where I think a lot of these things are not gonna be as relevant moving forward.

[00:37:26] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Yeah. We have a self-driving mode on ours and I like it when I’m on a freeway, but like if I was to take it, just around town gets a little hairy. It makes some very bold maneuvers sometimes.

[00:37:39] Mark Levy: That’s how I tested it when we first got the car and my wife was with me and she’s like, “Oh God, we’re never using this again.” Because it was crazy. We did it through Cardiff, but it was like, it did everything, but it was, it would go fast here and slow down and stopped and I’m like, “Oh my God. It’s it’s controlling it itself.” Self-driving, the whole driving.

[00:37:58] Fred Glick: Here’s the thing I was thinking about. I was with my grandkids, and they’re five and three, and Jen’s daughter is, she’s two and a half now.

Roughly.

[00:38:06] Jennifer May: Yeah. Two. Yeah. Gotta be two and a half.

[00:38:08] Fred Glick: Okay. She’s never gonna have to learn how to drive. Think about it when it’s just 16, everything, it’s gonna be, every car is gonna be fully on autonomous. And you just get in, which is, which brings up the kids are going to drink ’cause they don’t have to drive, they don’t have to worry about it.

That’s the only thing you know. But still, they’re never going, the kids now, the little kids now will never have to learn to drive. ‘Cause you know, either you have your own autonomous car or you just hit the Waymo.

[00:38:48] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Waymo just launched in San Diego.

[00:38:49] Fred Glick: There you go. Where?

[00:38:54] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Yeah, I don’t know. I saw on some news.

[00:38:56] Fred Glick: Downtown or?

[00:38:57] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Probably downtown. I don’t think it’s like in El Cajon.

[00:39:02] Mark Levy: I heard Tesla. Tesla. Tesla is in Austin now.

[00:39:05] Fred Glick: Yeah. LA, Waymo’s are all over the place. People.

[00:39:09] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Oh, are they?

[00:39:10] Fred Glick: You post the TikToks. Oh my God’s so drunk. You know, it’s like, to me it’s like, thank God it’s normal, but you can’t take them to the airport yet.

That’s the big pain.

[00:39:21] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Wonder why.

[00:39:22] Fred Glick: I don’t know. It’s out of their territory. I’m sure there’s a reason, but you know what? For females, it is the greatest thing ever. No more creepy Uber drivers. I mean, you know, just get in, no driver, thank God. You know, stories, I mean, I’m sure you’ve all read about them.

[00:39:45] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Never been in one.

[00:39:46] Fred Glick: It’s progress. Never been?

[00:39:47] Mark Levy: I haven’t either. I’m looking forward to it though.

[00:39:55] Fred Glick: It doesn’t bother me. It’s just you get in and it does its thing. You know, but the, there’s a button to push. You can talk to somebody if you really need it to, and I mean, you always see these Tiktoks that’ll come up, oh, the Waymo was stuck, and whatever.

It’s not normal. They’re fine. They’re fun, they’re, do whatever you want. Always thought about like you can’t do it. They figured this out, but it’s like, “Hey, you wanna send your dog to your dog trainer?” You just put the dog in the car and hit the button. That’d be funny. One day go with a, you can go with a dog in an Uber, but you know, just can’t imagine.

Just put three dogs in the car and no driver and they’re just barking.

[00:40:45] Mark Levy: That’ll be normal. That’ll be normal soon, I’m sure.

[00:40:47] Fred Glick: Exactly. Exactly. So that’s the future. So is your future in Southern California? Are you looking for it? We’re here to help, but yeah, it’s fun there.

[00:41:03] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Yeah. Well, as we’re kind of wrapping down this podcast, Mark, do you have any kind of last bit of advice or thoughts for us or for our, not for us, but for our audience?

[00:41:12] Mark Levy: I guess I can kind of, in a nutshell give you sort of the takeaways for San Diego. And basically, San Diego’s market is stabilizing. It’s not crashing. 2025 offers a, a really smart entry point for buyers, and I think that’ll continue through the beginning of at least the beginning of 2026. And investors seeking long-term appreciation, strong rental performance is huge.

[00:41:42] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Sounds good. How about you, Jen?

[00:41:46] Jennifer May: I would say just be prepared. Reach out to me if you need a underwritten preapproval before you start looking. And go to the open houses, see how many people are interested in the house you’re gonna make an offer on, just so you can see how competitive it is before you make the offer.

And the schools are still really nice and the values will, even if they’re dipping right now, they’ll ultimately be going back up. So now’s a good time to look.

[00:42:13] Fred Glick: Yeah, this is the time of the year to look as a buyer because between basically right before Thanksgiving and the Super Bowl, the weather’s not as good.

People are busy with family. Everything kind of slows down. But I’ve done, I think about five years in a row, an agreement either on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day and you know, got for a little better price. Sellers kind of, you know. The other thing right after Christmas is right after you have your whole family who’s talking in your ear about what to do, “Oh you should sell, just get rid of it or, you know, or put it back on the market in March and jack it up by 300,000.”

So, but for the few people who, you know, had been on the market for a while and especially if in the pictures there’s ugly furniture that you hate, or the color of the kitchen cabinets is dark and you want light, don’t worry about it. That means you can get the house for cheaper because it’s not perfect.

You can get in there and paint or restain the cabinets or put, there’s ways to fix that up. The furniture will be gone. Okay. I had one woman years ago who said, “Oh, I hate the paint color in this house. I would never buy it.” I said, “Do you realize you can paint it after you own it?”

That, she was interesting. Anyway, but yeah, ignore, ignore everything that’s not staying there. And remember, you can change paint colors and cabinet colors, and if you get it for $50,000 less than do a new kitchen for 20,000, guess what? You’re still 30,000 ahead of the game. And then the value goes up because of what you’ve done.

So. There’s that demographic, it’s still kind of dying off and we’ll be selling. So, you know, keep an eye out for that. Keep an eye out for some interesting places. If you’re over 55, like Laguna Woods. My uncle and aunt, I’ve lived there for 30 some years and yeah, they get kind of a, a single that’s attached, single still in like six, 700,000 and a nice community.

Like they have 15 golf courses and events and stuff like that. And you don’t have to do any of that. But you’re gonna get a house a heck of a lot cheaper if you’re over 55.

[00:44:50] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Oh, is that like the villages west?

[00:44:54] Fred Glick: No, this is much, this is a little more upscale ish. And they have condos. They even have condos with full service, with all the meals included on down to just the regular houses.

[00:45:06] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Yeah.

[00:45:06] Fred Glick: So they have a variety of things. So don’t discount that if you’re over 55. Great, great numbers, and you’re in a great area. It’s a hell of a bike ride up from Laguna Beach, but…

[00:45:22] Drew Thomas Hendricks: E-bikes are here.

[00:45:23] Fred Glick: E-bikes are here. There you go. My favorite.

[00:45:27] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Well, I think a lot of sage advice for everyone. I think this has been a really deep dive into Southern California and this was the latest episode of We Fixed Real Estate.