Alternatives
These are some of the other houses we considered before finding 460. We were thinking of a budget of 150k or less, which is funny now as there are basically no houses anywhere near that price range. There were many at the time, we looked at about 5 different cabins in that price range - almost all of which were in Big Bear City.
When we didn’t get the house we made our first offer on we decided to increase our budget and look at other cabins. The new budget opened up some cabins in Big Bear Lake - 460 was the first, and last that we looked at.
Big Bear City has more locals that live up here full time. Big Bear Lake is more rental - second home based. They are not far from each other but definitely have different feels to them. Big Bear City is like a little mountain town and Big Bear Lake is more like a resort/ vacation destination.
These are the main areas in Big Bear.
Big Bear Lake
Boulder Bay
Moonridge
Fawnskin
Sugarloaf
Baldwin Lake
Erwin Lake
This was the first house we ever made an offer on. We offered full price, 150k (ish if I remember right) It was right on the main street that runs through Big Bear and would have been annoying to get in and out of. But it was huge inside and had two small rooms upstairs. It was zoned for commercial and residential and had a breakfast restaurant next to it. If we got it we would have focused more on starting a business rather than a home or rental, likely some kind of VR arcade. In hindsight if we would have gotten this and the smaller (and even cheaper) cabin below then we could have had a place to live and a “store” / business. Even though we made a full priced offer they went with someone else.
This was the first cabin we were interested in. It was listed for only 120k - We liked that it had a big yard and the style of it. It would have been very easy to remodel. Definitely more of a temporary home. The neighborhood had more of a suburban feel to it and wasn’t close to the forest. Big Bear City is also not as appealing for short term rentals, although we weren’t as interested in rentals as having a home base.
