Hopefully nobody who I have a direct financial relationship with ever buys that type of property again. I didn't like it when it happened and I hated it when they realized what a money pit it was.
My family does include some high end brokers as well, they struggled to move this piece.
This was Gold River for whatever that's worth. Maybe other areas do better.
Been following your convo. My two cents:
1. Real estate has some advantages, which makes it one of the better investments--interest on the mortgage is a deduction, cap gains is excluded on a primary residence (up to a point, at diff levels depending on whether you're single or married). If it is a rental, you can depreciate the property, which shelters the net rental income. We used to be able to write off property taxes, but that's been jumbled together with local taxes and capped at $10k. And should anyone be fortunate enough to inherit property, the prop taxes from your parents carry over via prop 13 and 58.
2. That said, the idea that real estate appreciation is linear is not true. As evidenced by what happens during recessions when home prices compress. And the focus on home prices alone is wrong--the focus should be on whether the owners are able to carry the debt service during recessions. If you can't pay the mortgage, the home gets taken away--along with your equity in the home.
3. I have a lot of close friends, who are in real estate. At pretty much every level of the supply chain--from realtors, to flippers, to hotel and Airbnb owners. I've fired a few of my real estate friends as clients over the last few years, because their view of risk was distorted by the 11+ year bull run in RE. Better to maintain the friendship than to argue over risk. Their expectations were distorted. Hard not to be distorted when everything you touch turns into gold in RE. The one common thing that I've noticed among them is that they end up doubling and tripling down in the industry (rather than diversifying away from it), which has unfortunately lead to a potentially catastrophic situation now when the economy has effectively grinded to a halt.
4. As for non-Sacramento residents buying Sac property. It's true. We almost bought a property in El Dorado in 2011. Should've since the property has appreciated 150% since then. Will likely buy in that area, should RE properties compress. Would like to have a place there because it's an hour or so from South Tahoe (usually takes us 2.5 to 3 hours to get to Tahoe) and it gives us a place to stay when we're visiting friends, fam, and going to Kings games.