If you like the Old-Spanish style architecture, you can find examples in the oldest parts of the county – neighborhoods like Point Loma, Mission Hills, Kensington, and Oceanside.
Excerpts from wiki’s Oceanside entry:
Although the area was first settled by Native Americans, the first European explorers arrived in 1769. The Spanish missionaries under Father Junipero Serra founded Mission San Luis Rey de Francia on a former site of a Luiseño Indian village on the banks of the San Luis Rey River. In the early 19th century, the introduction of farming and grazing changed the landscape of what would become Oceanside. The area – like all of California – was under Spanish, then in 1821 under Mexican rule, and conquered by the U.S. in 1848.
In the late 1850s, Andrew Jackson Myers lived in San Joaquin County. A native of LaSalle County, Illinois, he returned in the late 1880s and lived in San Luis Rey. In 1882 Myers moved on the land that was the original town site for Oceanside. A patent for the land was issued in 1883 by the federal government. It was incorporated on July 3, 1888. The city hall as of the early 21st century stands on the former Myers homestead.
In the 20th century, Oceanside was a beach town devoted to activities on a 6-mile (9.7 km) stretch of beaches. Residential areas like downtown (built in the 1890s), South Oceanside (built in the 1920s and 1930s), and developments east of Interstate 5 (built after World War II) are preserved and remodeled. Since the establishment of Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton in 1942, Oceanside has been home to U.S. armed forces personnel, and the wartime industry of WWII – in the 1950s there was an ammunition manufacturing facility in the city.
In the 1960s, Oceanside beaches had been a mecca for tourists, and the town flourished up until 1972 – that’s when the new-car dealers uprooted from Hill Street (now Coast Hwy.) and moved to Car Country Carlsbad.
I definitely like the style and the layout. Its main problems are that it only has two bedrooms (the room in the back doesn’t count), the kitchen, back room and bathrooms will need plenty of remodeling work, and the electricals might have to be upgraded depending on their age.
The biggest challenge will be to fix up the place in such a way that it preserves and restores its original Spanish style on the inside. I wouldn’t want to see this home littered with contemporary remodeling crap that will go out of style in less than ten years.
After months of no progress, in the spring of 2009, a reporter called Litton to ask why the Ahlemans’ loan modification was stalled. Litton responded quickly and later made the couple a compelling offer: It said it would cut the interest rate on their first mortgage from a variable rate of 9.3 percent to a fixed rate of 4.59 percent. Litton also offered to waive $38,332 in arrears on their loan, which included late fees and legal costs that had accumulated while the loan was in default.
Separately, Banco Popular, the bank that owned the $50,000 second mortgage on the Ahlemans’ property — which carried a whopping interest rate of 12 percent — wrote it off entirely. This eliminated the couple’s obligation to pay the debt, which had grown to $62,000, including fees and other charges. (The couple paid taxes on the forgiven mortgage.)
Under the terms of the new loan, the Ahlemans’ mortgage obligations dropped from almost $250,000 to roughly $198,000. Their monthly payment fell from $1,959 to $1,376.
The Ahlemans say their loan deal gave them a life-changing second chance. Since they received it in June 2009, they have made their payments on time; they emerged from bankruptcy a year ago.
With work busy for both of them, they have been able to put money away in case they hit another rough spot.
“We like to have one or two mortgage payments in a savings account so that money is there to fall back on if we do have a bad month,” Ms. Ahleman says. “From going through that whole experience, we became very frugal. Every now and then, we’ll go out to dinner, but we don’t splurge or go on shopping sprees.”
http://www.cnbc.com/id/40808402//
actually, that is from:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/26/business/26mod.html?_r=1&ref=business
A Mortgage Nightmare’s Happy Ending