Ok. This is starting to get very attractive. 726 square feet of studio in Centex’s Element in East Village. Listed at $186,500 – the otherwise mediocre building that currently separates hip, young urban dwellers from crack-alley vagrants at 15th and Market has reached a sensible level of affordability.

Element is an average building that located about 5 blocks from Petco Park. It’s close enough to the Gaslamp for a 5-10 minute walk, but by no means offers the downtown vibe of an Icon or Alta.

Slowly, however, East Village is growing up around Element. Construction timelines that have been halted as inventory levels spiked and credit markets tightened will soon have projected completion dates once again. As projects like Metro Center move forward, other residential projects will soon follow. And Element, in a futuristic East Village where the vagrants pee on the sides of buildings another 4 blocks east, will have simply been ahead of it’s time.

And that is why my eyes grow and my jaw drops just slightly as I see 726 sq ft come on the market at $187,500.  A unit that will rent between $1200-$1300 whose principal and interest payment are likely going to be under $1200 (for most borrowers) makes me think that the world is starting to make sense again… Well, maybe the world will make sense when the HOA’s aren’t $450/ mo.