What is this all about?

This blog is about one man's quest for a mid-century modernist residential paradise in a period of crashing housing prices, massive unemployment and uncertainty. More specifically, it is a diary of a limited income, retired man's quest to secure the home of his dreams with a VA home loan.

Ever since moving to the South Natomas neighborhood in Sacramento, I have always thought that if I ever bought a house it would be in the River City Commons development -- an area I pass by frequently on my daily walks.  River City Commons is a planned unit development of mid-century modernist homes developed by the Streng Brothers in the late 1970's and designed by Carter Sparks, who designed the homes Eichler built in the Sacramento area.

The Streng Brothers homes are designed for the temperature extremes in the Central Valley and do not have all the pizazz of many of Eichler's homes, but nevertheless reflect the same design philosophy design philosophy with its origins in the  modern and Japanese architecture in general. A philosophy that "form follows function"  that "less is more." But modernism found a unique expression on the West Coast where the mild climate led to the idea that the modern home should "bring the outside in." So, most West Coast modern architecture is oriented to the landscape around it and usually has generous floor to ceiling windows and wide sliding glass doors that open onto patios.

They also share the Scandinavian tradition, now exemplified in IKEA, that design should not only be good and functional, but affordable. Indeed, most of the mid-century modernist architecture was motivated by the New Deal programs of the Great Depression and the post World War II era to create affordable housing. So, if IKEA ever decided to go into home-building, they most certainly would develop mid-century modernist homes like Eichler and the Streng Brothers but make them easy for the customer to assemble.

In a certain sense, one can think of mid-century modernism  as a kind of snobbery of taste rather than a snobbery of wealth. Eichler's son, in Eichler Homes: Design for Living: states that Eichler homes were built for persons with "upper middle-class taste and lower middle-class incomes."

I am spending some time on this taste business because it explains what I think is the trend in ownership for River City Commons -- it seems to be in the process of  being taken over by the gays! In the marketing world, gay male couples are known as DINKs for "Double income, no kids." That translates to more discretionary income for travel, entertainment and home improvement. Thus, there are certain ramifications of gay gentrification, not the least of which is the overall improvement of the neighborhood and rising housing values but with the downside of increased doggie-poo in planter strips along the walkways, as happened with the gay gentrification of West Hollywood.

The current home sales situation is restricted by certain important factors. River City Commons is controlled by a homeowners association with protective covenants, architectural controls and enforced maintenance standards. Two years ago the homeowners association adopted an ordinance restricting the number of units that could be rented to 25%.  Since 35% are currently rented, as each unit comes on the housing market, it can only be purchased by someone who intends to make it their primary residence. This eliminates all speculators, discourages flippers and diminishes the overall demand creating an increase in competition among sellers. A recipe for low prices. And the data certainly verifies that.

Sacramento is, along with nearby Stockton and Modesto, California, an area that has been particularly hard hit by foreclosures and short sales. The result is that median asking prices for houses have plummeted from $385,000 in 2007 to about $160,000 at the present time. These prices are for detached, single-family homes with 3+ bedrooms, 2+ baths and double-car garages.

Most units in River City Commons are sub-plexes -- that means they occupy their own lot, but share a common "party wall."  In short, they are owner occupied duplexes. These, of course, have prices more in keeping with condominiums but usually with smaller homeowner's fees since fees are assessed only for maintenance of public facilities like the swimming pools, tennis courts, and visitor parking and not for yard or structural maintenance.

An article on the Eichler Network website tells a little more about the history of the development.  Apparently, many of the homes had been  taken over in the 1990s by persons with no appreciation for the style who had made a number of tacky "improvements" that ruined the neighborhood's integrity. Then, around 2004,  a group of concerned residents began a movement for more strict architectural review and the neighborhood began improving. With the adoption in 2008 of a change in the CC&Rs, rentals in the area, which had given rise to poor maintenance,  were limited.

The article was written prior to the bursting of the housing bubble and states that the homes were selling then for around $250,000 to $325,000.  Today the homes are selling between  $75,000 and $100,000. However, even at that price, they are not in great demand because of the overall condition in the Sacramento housing market. A major problem with the sale of mid-century modernist homes is that they look "funny" to the unwashed masses who prefer something that will allow them to have fantasies of living in chateaus or villas. Even in the hay-day of their development, they did not sell well and their purchasers have generally been artists, designers and intellectuals of one sort or another.  Since there are  plenty of  tacky villas to more than satisfy the extremely limited demand for housing and because River City Commons' CC&Rs  restrict sales to owner-occupants, many of these homes will sit there for months before moving while the unwashed masses buy homes without architectural controls where they can put up white picket fences  and plant as many pink flamingos  in the front yard as they want. . Bless their little hearts.