Reasons It Sucks to Buy a House in the Bay Area
07.7.2011 We are considering becoming California homeowners. I have a stomachache. The two things are definitely related.
1. You will be instantly poor.
2. You will remain poor.
3. The price of your house here could buy a small island somewhere in the Pacific.
4. In 48 other states, your down payment would be enough cash to buy a mansion straight up. With a pool.
5. Your husband starts talking gibberish about trying to pay off the house as SOON as POSSIBLE because BABE over 30 YEARS it will be like 8 MILLION DOLLARS.
6. You lose the flexibility of being able to drop everything and move to Hawaii. Or just hang out without a ginormous mortgage.
7. You have to care about school districts.
8. Property taxes are tens of thousands of dollars. Per year.
9. You look at a gazillion photos on Trulia, RedFin and Zillow and everything starts to look the same. Granite, wood floors, kitchen cabinets that are too dark or too light. Carpet from the 90's. 4 poster beds in the master bedroom that no one should ever sleep in, much less post photos of online. Mega mansions where the only thing in the playroom is an alphabet mat.
10. You become anchored to one place. Which was fine back in the day when you had a great job, a great pension, and long term security. Nowadays, everything is so...contingent.
11. You don't have a crystal ball to tell you your house will be a good investment.
12. You saw what happened after the frenzy in 2007. You still see it happening.
13. You're picky as a mother and it's really hard to find something "perfect." And when you're spending this kind of ridiculous money, you kind of feel like "perfect" isn't too much to ask for.
14. Your American Dream has shifted to value flexibility and cash in the bank as much or more than stability and a fatty house.
15. You have a nice landlord and you don't have to pay for anything that goes wrong.
16. You feel like there's no clear "right" decision.
Reader Comments (9)
Follow your gut, kiddio... it's all about the timing.
Seems like 16 reasons to rent. Don't rush, you have plenty of time (market opportunity wise). There are a lot of reasonably priced and gorgeous homes in "average" school districts; with the money you save, you can afford to send your kids to Harker ;))
Bill, you know the funny thing is--I am a product of public schools K-12 and I really want Emmy to be a part of the public system too. Not because I want to save 20K a year, which I do, but also because I think good public schools are what this country is about and I want her to experience a slice of the real world everyday. Plus, I don't want her to expect a Range Rover on her 16th birthday because "all my friends have one."
NFGM: My gut is totally not sure about the timing!!
Location, location, and location. DId I mention location? I like your blog entries where you enumerate things.
NBC Viewer has the same philosophy me and the wife just followed - location, location, location. Wife, myself and Wonderboy (9 months old now) just moved from our SF apt to a small house in Palo Alto for way too much $$$, but we figured ourselves out based on a few factors. Firstly, both me the wife are products of public schools (moi in Canada and she in Taiwan til middle school (NYC)) so we get your public school feel... however, after researching the clusterfuck in SF we realized that a good school there was a crapshoot and even if we got a great school like McLaren (sp?) that it'd take us an hour to drive there and out to our jobs (at least) every day, thus private school is likely the option in SF (please add $25-30k/yr to your world)... so we bought ahouse in Palo Alto within 3 blocks of one of California's highest ranked public elementary schools and 2 blocks of one of California's highest ranked middle schools and it feeds into an amazing high school so... (math time) it might save us $20k/yr X 18 years and all of a sudden the price of a family friendly neighborhood with awesome schools is important to us. That's our choice anyway... oh and yeah, we are fucking poor as church mice. :(
Probably not feasible for your situation, but in 2005, me and the Mrs. were thinking Sacramento. Halfway between SF and Tahoe and cheaper. We even put a deposit down on a condo conversion selling at the time for $210K but got cold feet and backed out before we signed a purchase contract. (The last time I checked, they were trying to give them away at $70K).
Considering the volatility of your industry, do you and the Good Doctor have a contingency plan if KNTV were to let you go and couldn't find employment elsewhere in this market?
Trust me, excellent (not just good or very good) public schools are important and worth the extra $ for the mortgage. Also, it's really good to live where all the kids in the neighborhood go to the same school rather than a bunch of different ones because even the kids should be able to play together, they probably won't unless they know them from school. Oh ya, take a deep breath. It is an awful process - especially once you have a family. Lots of love and luck to you, The Good Doctor, and Emmy.
Woz: Thanks for sharing your story and experience. Remind me to bring you some cheese.
DB: Good thing you didn't pick up one of those condos.
Auntie J: I have a post coming up talking about private vs public school that I'm sure people will agree to disagree with me on.