Life at the Beach Available for a Song--With One Catch

Million-dollar views. Private beachfront. Watch dolphins play while you soak in the deck spa. Three bedrooms. Walk to Laguna Beach. Bargain basement at mid-$200,000s. Yes, mid-$200,000s. Or best offer.

Oh, and one more thing: The state plans to kick you out in three years.

Such is the state of the real estate market in El Morro Village, the seaside enclave of 294 mobile homes on the scenic coastal bluffs between Newport Beach and Laguna Beach in Orange County.

As the state park service makes plans to clear out the swanky double-wides retrofitted with pine porches and spas to open up the area for campsites and RVs, people are clamoring to get out.

And in.

Buyers see a bargain. Renting a three-bedroom seaside condo in Laguna Beach for three years can cost more than buying one of the trailers on El Morro’s Terrace, where asking prices start at $125,000 and go up to $275,000. Beachfront haunts cost more. The asking price for a powder blue, vinyl sided trailer: $390,000. Sound crazy? Realtors say one such place just sold for $300,000.

Among those moving in is Jim Bollinger, a 55-year-old college softball coach who sold his house in Santa Ana and bought a sturdy trailer on El Morro’s Terrace.

“The wife and I always wanted to live next to the water,” he said. “If the worst were to happen we would have rented the view and we’ll move on.”

Like many other residents--old and new--Bollinger is holding out hope that the state will reconsider. The community association is lobbying hard for a plan that would preserve the mobile home plots while allowing more public access to the beach.

“It’s big brother at its worst,” said Rolly Pulaski, president of Friends of El Morro. He said the state refused to consider any plans that would save the 75-year-old community--and the $1.2 million in revenue it brings in per year.

For their part, state officials say they want out of the landlord business.

It’s been enough to make people like 18-year El Morro resident Rick Boyle panic. He has his three-bedroom, 1,600-square-foot place on the market for $169,900, hoping to get something for it before the lease termination makes it close to worthless.

“I’m unemployed and very concerned about where I am going to go from here,” he said. Even if he gets his asking price, he said, the money won’t go far toward a new home in the area.

Why aren’t prospective buyers equally concerned about dumping their savings into a trailer slated for eviction?

“A lot of people with money don’t care,” Boyle said. “It’s beautiful here.”

Boyle said he had a couple come through who frequently visit Laguna Beach and calculated down to the dollar how buying his place could save them money. “They said by the time they get a room and a place to put their kids and go out for food, renting in Laguna can cost $500 a day.”

Buyers might be hard-pressed to get a banker to understand all that. Real estate broker Char Peinado said lenders she talked with see El Morro as too big a risk to give loans. “It has to be cash,” she said.

There are at least 28 properties on the market at El Morro. Vicki Cobb, office manager for El Morro Village, said the units continue to turn over at a rate of about a dozen a year--just as quickly as they have in the past.

Pulaski said that’s because buyers believe in his group’s fight. “I’m not sure someone would buy here unless they had faith our goals [of staying put] would be accomplished.”

Peinado applauds those goals. As a 28-year broker in the area, she laments the fact that only the very rich can afford ocean views. She knows that’s why many are interested in El Morro: Prices have been slashed, she said, with some units going for half what they would be worth if the leases were not in danger.

“People are trying to get out now and get what they can,” she said. “The trend seems to be going that way.”

Not everybody is bailing. Some people can’t imagine being anywhere else and are going to stick it out--for better or for worse.

Dorothy Monroe has resided in El Morro since 1959. The Terrace plot her trailer is on was given to her by her husband when that part of the village opened 27 years ago. The 78-year-old widow lives in the shag-carpeted trailer with her parrot and her view.

She has no intention of leaving.

“I feel safe here,” she said. “I live on $850 a month. There isn’t anyplace left for me to go.”