Any guesses where the following picture was taken?
If you cheated and said that it was somewhere in San Diego County just because I live in San Diego County, you’re a good cheater, the best.
San Diego’s temperatures define it as a Mediterranean climate. Its rainfall defines it as almost a desert, and many parts of the County actually are a desert. Basically, San Diego is a Mediterranean desert, so almost anything will grow here if you provide it with its basic water needs.
People who move to San Diego often find that they are homesick for the plants, trees, and flowers they had back home. What they wind up doing is landscaping their home so that it looks like “back home.”
Therein lies a problem, though.
San Diego averages about 11 inches of rainfall a year. Most of the water for its three million residents comes from the Colorado River and the San Francisco East Bay Delta. People who plant lush, tropical landscaping in San Diego are impacting the water supply for the whole region, and it’s not going to get better.
When I inspected the property shown in the photograph, I mentioned that the tropical landscaping was inappropriate for a desert climate and specifically recommended that they ask the Seller for copies of the water bill. They might be shocked at how high the water bill was.
Several months after close of escrow, my Clients called me wondering if I had broken something during the inspection because the water bill was so high. I didn’t even need to pull up the pictures of the property to remind me of their house. Some memories last a lifetime.
I asked them if they had gotten copies of the water bill like I recommended. They didn’t.
I explained again about their tropical landscaping and told them to call the water company and get the monthly amounts for the previous years. I bet they would be similar. They did. They called me back to apologize for accusing me of breaking something and told me that the water bill had been that high for several years. No surprise to me. That’s mature tropical landscaping.
Moral of this story? It’s always worthwhile to ask the Seller for copies of the gas, water, and electricity bills to determine if you’ll be able to live in the house after you buy it. If the Seller refuses to provide them, you can always (in my experience) get the amounts from the utility companies if you explain to them that you’re thinking of buying the house.
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