Read the full article, visit the San Diego Business Journal
The charm and character of coastal Cardiff-by-the Sea is its unpretentious laid back vibe. Known simply as Cardiff by the locals, local real estate agent Kelly Howard knows the community better than most. He has lived his whole life in the area. “Cardiff has a real feeling of community with a really lowkey lifestyle that you don’t figure out until you are there living it,” Howard, a Realtor with Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage said. “There are a lot of affluent residents in Cardiff, and you would never know it because they are wearing t-shirts and flip-flops and mingling with the rest of the community.”
Despite the casual beach town feel, within its borders is some of the county’s most spectacular real estate. Howard has been selling homes in Cardiff for 15 years, including more than 200 homes west of Interstate 5 and many homes in the I-5 corridor. Howard is indeed among the community’s most successful agents. Approximately 16 homes sold in Cardiff for more than $1.5 million in the past 12 months. Howard sold seven of them. Howard’s list includes the highest priced home sold so far in 2014 at 1719 San Elijo Ave. The property is a four bedroom, five-and-a-half bath home of 5,000 square feet. Originally listed at $4.4 million in June of 2013, it sold in October 2014 for just less than $3.8 million. Howard said San Elijo Avenue is Cardiff’s beachfront. The train tracks, Highway 101 and the famous bluffs and beaches of Cardiff are to the west.
Cardiff terraces up the beach cliffs, stretches past I-5 to a broad mesa where many homes sit on large tracts of land overlooking the ocean, lagoon and the back side of Rancho Santa Fe. Cardiff has several distinct areas, each with its own character. Examples are the “composer district,” so named because all of its streets are named after composers. The higher density “walking district” is the south part of Birmingham west of I-5 with twin homes and multifamily residences. Howard said that there are virtually no large housing developments, and the closer you get to the ocean the fewer tracts you will find. Cardiff Glen off of Rubenstein Avenue is the largest tract built west of I-5 of about 20 homes. “When it was first built it was perceived as a tract neighborhood, but then people really made it their own, and it flows with the community of that part of Cardiff,” he said. The lack of large housing developments is an attractive advantage to Cardiff’s sellers and buyers.
According to Howard, Cardiff does not have a tremendous amount of turnover, there are not a lot of people selling or leaving the area, and “because we have so much long-term home ownership, during this last cycle when the market dipped down and came back up, Cardiff didn’t suffer nearly as bad as other markets did.” Howard describes another advantage to not having large housing developments in Cardiff is that people are able to really invest in their property. Unlike a tract with four or five floor plans, the value of upgrades is not limited to similar homes in the same area. The advantage of Cardiff’s diverse housing is that it creates a dynamic situation of increasing equity for both the seller and the buyer. “The buyers can do any improvement they would like and feel confident and that whatever they put into their homes is not a loss,” he said.
Among the highest priced listings is a property from Robert Dyson of Dyson Real Estate on 2073 Cambridge for just under $2.2 million. It’s a four bedroom, four bath home on a 5,000-square-foot lot. It’s a charming Cape Cod-style house painted sky blue with white trim and a true “beach cottage” feel inside. It’s been listed since July and has had a few modest price reductions in that period. The house is west of I-5 between Birmingham and Liverpool.
Mary Heon, also of Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage, has a listing at 1632 Brahms Road in the composer district for just under $2.2 million. This is a striking home with an extraordinary original design, four bedrooms and four baths in 3,934 square feet on a 5,000 square foot lot. The house was originally listed in August 2014 and its priced has been reduced by $120,000 since the original listing.
Cardiff is indeed a unique community among all of the beach communities in San Diego County. In 1911, Frank Cullen, a painter from Boston, was the first developer. His wife convinced him to name the community Cardiff because she was born in Cardiff, Wales. Many of the streets are named after streets in the United Kingdom.
Cullen and his wife might be a little taken aback if they were to encounter the wellknown landmark the “Cardiff Kook.” The reference is to a 16-foot- tall statue of a surfer cast in bronze by artist Matthew Antichevich. The nickname “Cardiff Kook” comes from a derogatory surfer slang name for a “wannabe” surfer, and reflects the low opinion the local surfers have for the statue. It repeatedly gets “decorated” with various outfits, which are officially discouraged by Encinitas’ city authorities. Unofficially, it is acknowledged that the repeated vandalism of the statue is a boost to Cardiff’s tourism trade. The artist regards the vandalism as an insult to his work. Also among Cardiff’s many charms and nooks and crannies is the best name for a bar ever. “The Office” has fooled many a co-worker or family member when they’re told the person they were looking for is at “the office.”