Salton City: The boom that wasn’t [San Jose]
Developers still add housing the remote, inexpensive area, despite rising gas prices and mortgage rates
This lakeside hamlet is about as remote as you can get in Southern California and still have plumbing and pavement.
Nestled on the western shore of the Salton Sea, the town doesn’t have a supermarket or movie theater or drugstore. But it has as many as 250 homes for sale, most of them newly built — a huge supply for a place with just 1,440 people.
When real estate values began soaring a few years ago, builders flocked here. Summer temperatures might hit 115 or even 120 degrees and the sea may be too sickly for swimming or sailing, but land was cheap. Builders figured that people priced out of Los Angeles and San Diego would discover Salton City and the other towns in Imperial County.