Lucas

I just happened to walk by this area on the right day when I was going home from Roscoe's Chicken and Waffles. It was a fun event with life music, hand crafted arts and paintings. Will defiintely check it out again when I have more time! - Wed Jun 25 2008, 16:17

A couple lenders to look at are Bank of America's No Fee Mortgage Plus loan, and a Countrywide Home loan. Both programs only require 5% down. They both also do FHA loans that only need 3% down, but you pay a mortgage insurance for these loans. That made FHA more undesireable to me, so I'm going conventional with the BofA Mortgage No Fee Morg. +. - Tue May 6 2008, 23:03

I've been waiting for 5 years to buy a house, ever since I graduated college. Each year I would be able to save more money, but each year the amount needed for a downpayment continued to go up up and up. I knew getting an exotic loan made no sense. I'm an engineer. Eventually I was tired of waiting. I just said "F* it" and bought a couple homes in the midwest to rent out, since they are positive cash flow. Then, we hit the peak here in California. Prices started to go down again, so rather than buy another rental back in Indiana, I saved and started looking for a place out here again. The only place I found I could afford that had decent shopping/bars/restaurants/stuff to do was in Long Beach. I found a foreclosure on ziprealty, got preapproved, and close at the end of this month. This was the only foreclosure that I've seen that was competitively priced, and it had 4 offers within the first week. - Tue May 6 2008, 22:53

Have you thought about renting a room in a house? Usually the house is already furnished and your roommate might be the owner, who will take really good care of the place and be pretty clean. I'm buying a house in Downtown Long Beach at the end of this month and will be looking for a roommate in a newer 3 bedroom house to help offset my mortgage.
You can probably live in a nicer place for the same amount of money by doing this. - Tue May 6 2008, 22:03

I'm with Julia on this one. From what I've seen, there really aren't very many nice areas of San Pedro, and it's drive to get to the nearest highway. Long Beach is about the same price and has a bit more to offer...
I'd only go with San Pedro if you worked there and wanted to be next to work. - Mon Apr 28 2008, 10:43