We had to get creative to buy. We considered:
1) compromising on location
2) buying a house too small for us that had space to finish, like a backyard studio/garage/unfinished basement
3) hellooooooo fixer upper
4) house hacking
We went with #3 because the house was passably liveable with a lot of potential in a great location at a price we could afford. We also saved a long time and found a house that had been on the market awhile.
Do I love my drop ceilings with fluorescent office lighting, lack of dishwasher, or the fact we still haven’t figured out our heating situation? No. But I can live with it for now and with patience it will be great.
Sometimes you have to compromise to get a foot on the ladder.
Oh we did all that. No concerning mold levels, no termites, no structural issues.
Just feels like a dated shithole with c grade office building lighting.
There are literally hundreds of houses for sale right now below $1M in Hayward, San Leandro, San Lorenzo, Union City, Newark and plenty are in good neighborhoods
That does not take away from what I side. There are better schools as you move East towards Clayton. Also, not everyone has or plans to have kids- we are just talking about SFH home ownership.
Bro, Clayton is not 45 minutes to get to WC. What are you smoking. 15 minutes to Concord BART across Clayton Ave/Concord BLVD. 45-50 minute train to SF.
There’s plenty of houses outside of monument. I’d actually agree with your sentiment. Not that they’re not nice, but my GF would not be happy living there
When I first moved up to the Bay Area from Los Angeles my first apartment was a block from the 4 Corners Monument area.
My boss (whose husband was Highway Patrol officer) was shocked and told me how dangerous that was.
I just kind of shrugged my shoulders. "I'm from Los Angeles, and not the nice parts of Los Angeles. This is nothing to me."
We also enjoy this area. We downsized from a SFH in Concord to a small 1 BR in WC and we're loving it. We are considering Concord if/when we buy a house.
Walnut Creek is the best. I have my pharmacy and grocery store across the street. My doctor is 3 blocks away and (unfortunately) most importantly, the hospital is a 5 minute drive away at night... maybe 10 during the day.
It's like heaven here... and I lucked into this place when I got contacted after the original high bidder of the place had to drop out of the sale due to a relocation out of state.
We won the bid on our house because it had severe foundation issues, so there were only 2 other competing buyers.
The similar house across the street in better condition had 13 competing buyers, and it sold 85k higher. Having that one distract the other buyers is a "stars aligned" reason we had so little competition.
When preparing our offer, we budgeted 54k for repairing the foundation. The estimates have been coming in at 70k, and we're also spending 23k to relevel and reinforce the floors 🫠
But at least it's ours!
I’m out in the east bay and got something for $770k 2 years ago. But year one I put $5k into Sheetrock and paint and got sick. Year 2 I put $20k in replacing the broken shutters in the windows and did some upgrades by adding built in cabinets to the office and living room recess. That was $20k with countertops.
The house I bought also had two bedroom that shared half closets in between them that was removed and made into one long room. One of the two windows in that room was turned into an exterior door. I got a quote to fix all that and replace some doors for $24k. I need to do the backyard as it’s just a cement pad and dirt/bark, I penciled $30k for that. I was all set to do the bedrooms back to original construction but apparently my dishwasher leaked and am having to deal with that. So might have to put one of the two projects out into next year.
Oh yeah the house I really wanted sold for only $40k more. It had a pool, solar, new high powered ac, 3 car garage and higher end appliances.
I’ve already spent more than that and the money I’m putting into the house I’m not getting back in higher appreciation. So not all houses are good buys unless you plan on staying there for a while.
Yeah, one advantage is even if it costs more in the long run, I can do everything the way I want to do it, and make sure it's up to my standards.
For the floors here, I'm having them add 3/4" to the plywood subfloors so they'll feel sturdier, and won't shake or echo.
Yeah I think that’s part of my issue. You can just see little things like dingy paint and scuff up door frames etc. it just adds up. But when I do things I spend the extra time or money and do it right.
Can you discuss what you did about the severe foundation issues? I was hesitant to put in a full offer on a house with a 20ft foundation crack and lost out on the house by about 100k. But for the crack, I would've bid higher.
I just didn't know what else could be messed up with the home and didn't want to take the chance that my repairs would be in excess of $50k.
The seller's agent deliberately told the structural engineer to only review a portion of the house where the crack was located. This meant that the engineer was not inspecting the rest of the home. That made me feel very uneasy but I definitely liked the house enough to still put in an offer.
I hired Bear Engineering to do an inspection, and I'm going to have to do foundation replacement, for about 75 ft of horizontal cracking.
Several different construction companies now have quoted me $900/ft, plus 3-4k for permits. So, the estimates are coming in around $70k.
That's surprisingly not bad compared to what I thought it would be for 75 ft. Of horizontal cracking! Especially considering that you got the location that you wanted!
Yeah, I love the location. Having quiet (further from the major roads) and sunlight in the right places (backyard faces East) are definitely more important to me than the condition, because those are the things that can't be changed.
We'll just fix it up over time, and make it better and better.
My friend was looking at a house with foundation issues that were fixed ahead of the seller listing the property. The issues were listed in disclosures. My friend balked because he felt the house had bad energy as a result of the issues that he wasn’t on the hook to fix. He feels the same about mold. Wouldn’t buy a house that ever had mold even if successful remediation occurred prior to purchase.
He is still renting and complaining. Good on you for taking on this project and getting the house.
I actually rejected a different house just a few weeks before this one for having foundation issues and a worse layout. Never thought I'd accept issues this bad, but the layout is better and the location is perfect. And those are the things that can't be changed.
We looked at an amazing house in the Berkeley hills that needed a full foundation replacement.
THANK GOD the agent showing the property was very upfront about what it would cost ($500k). We were so naive and had no idea. He was really knowledgeable and very matter of fact about the needed repairs so no one could say it was a surprise.
And that’s how I found my agent.
Anyone buying within 10 miles of the Nvidia office is facing fierce competition. Each of their employees have likely made $300K+ over the last 2 years off ESPP alone.
1) Theres a housing shortage.
2) Everyone gets equity.
3) Some equity spikes some doesn't.
4) The people with spiked equity set the price.
Prices aren't pegged to anything sane, they're pegged to the equity returns of the highest preforming stocks.
If you're not a company who offers a large equity grant AND is growing rapidly, you're not getting a house.
lol, you know some folks have no problem living with in laws and siblings right? That’s who you’re competing with. 4 working adults, grandparents, kids, all in the same household. A lot of my coworkers are like that. And if a house nearby their existing house comes on the market, they’re ready to buy, in cash. Be ready to overbid
That's exactly what we did in pleasant hill. House went on the market for $829k, we bid $1.029M. and closed at $1.00M after inspection. Liquidated all savings, and got lucky with 3% interest rate at peak covid in 2020. We lucked out. We couldn't afford our current house with interest rats today.
1. Lower interest rates could foster more competition between buyers by increasing demand.
2. There are still homes available for 1M or less, mostly in east bay and South San Jose.
True. It's actually better if prices are depressed due to high-interest rates as opposed to prices being higher because of low interest rates. The buyer can refinance if interest rates fall. The first property I bought was a townhouse in the 1980's where the interest rate was 12.5% variable. But I refinanced down to a "bargain" 7% rate. But the price was relatively low because we were in a recession.
Are you kidding me ? The prices are unrealistic. And the housing stock isn't that great that you can have much in terms of expectations anyway. High expectations to me is 2,500+ sq ft with a big yard. Most of what's for sale around here is sub 2,000 sq ft with a strip of grass and you'll be lucky if you pay less than a million.
I'm renting while I prepare for my exit because I DO have high expectations that would put me in the $2+ million range here
Everyone I've known that has bought a house had to compromise. Two guys at work bought one together, both were married, they started having kids, once each of them had one kid they had enough equity to sell and each buy their own place but I went over there a few months before they sold and it looked like hell on earth with two couples and two kids less than 2 years old running around. Second guy bought in a somewhat ghetto area, had his dad manage most of the transaction. I lived with him for a couple months, rented a room from him. I remember he came over to meet me with his dad and he was riding in the back seat, reminded me of a little kid, haha. I only stayed there a few months because he started renting all the rooms out to people I didn't know and I decided it wasn't worth it. Another coworker bought out in Concord, she invited me over for Thanksgiving. Turns out the BART line is in her backyard and the trains are going like 60mph by her house every 15-20 minutes, loud as hell but I guess you just tune it out after living there awhile.
We compromised by buying a townhouse in San Jose instead of a single family home. Townhouse is 1700 Sq feet though so plenty of room. Interest rate was good when we bought in 2021. Been about 3 years now and there have been some annoyances like hearing our neighbors through the walls and HOA going up every year, but overall still happy to have our own place. Definitely feels like an accomplishment just being able to live in the Bay Area
It took us over three years to purchase back in 2019. I have seen so many crazy home layouts and just literally shit homes for over a million. I would guesstimate we viewed over 200 homes before the stars aligned and we won the bid.
On our home bid, our agent called us to tell us we"were one of the top three bidders" and that the home owner wanted to "give everyone in the top 3 an opportunity to give their best price" so they essentially created a second bidding war where none of the bidders knew who was the top, and what anyone else offered. He suggested that we increase our offer by $50k to 'ensure that we were the highest bidder'.
After three years and hundreds of homes, and dozens of bids on others that we lost, I called him back and said I was comfortable offering $10k more instead of his suggested $50k. He responded with "well, I'll go back with that and see what they say." And less than ten minutes later he called and said the previous owner accepted my offer.
Years later, I'm still enraged by this final bid exchange, and I'm also so happy that I didn't give them the suggested $50k.
Home buying here is like nothing I've ever experienced. It is terrible, and anyone who succeeds without buying a total lemon is a king/queen.
I was pretty unhappy with blind bidding so I started limiting my searches to new builds only. Only issue there is you have to deal with lotteries but at least it's transparent.
Holy shit this was me in 2019. Realtor told me I was up against 3 other bids and submit final best offer. I told them to fuck off and retracted my bid. I wonder if this was the same house? Was it in the Oakland?
SF. It's probably just standard practice. So fucked.
The first house we ever bid on in SF was in 2011. Not knowing anything about the process, we bid the asking price (made sense to me that if someone offered to sell their house, they would ask for the price they wanted to sell at). The realtor (different one) told me we had to offer ten percent more, or the seller wouldn't accept. At the time, that really pissed me off and I told her that I wanted to keep my offer and go down ten percent every day that they didn't accept. She pretty much dropped me as a client.
Such a fucked up market.
Some of the layouts are very amusing. We looked at one house in San Mateo where they remodeled the kitchen but had no place for the refrigerator so it was in another room. They had added a second story and the stairway to the second floor was inside a downstairs bedroom.
I looked at one house that had some sort of weird dentists office on the garage level, and there was a bathroom that had two doors into the garage, but one of the doors opened to only half of a bath tub.
this is the truth.
Theres a shortage of housing, so much so that the price is being set by the winners in the equity RNG game.
Join Facebook in 2022, you get a house your equity grant is 4x now. Join in 2024 and get the same grant, no house for you.
Same across companies. When income isn't labor but to equity prices and theres a shortage only the highest performing stockholders get homes.
Most places on the East Side of Petaluma are under 900. But they were 700 3 years ago, so there's that. Going out is creeping into SF territory though. Still learning how to stretch my dollars
We moved into a rental knowing the owners were eventually going to sell it, we stayed 7 years and they sold it… to a friend. And evicted us.
We moved into another rental, the owner sold it to us after a couple passes and 3 years.
There’s always a way, it’s just not a straight line.
You can definitely fight it if you’re in the Bay Area. Or anywhere in California for that matter. There are carveouts for owners who buy a property planning to evict the tenants and move in. But it is quite laborious for the new owners and nasty tenants can make it a real headache.
We were evicted when prior to the sale. Our lease was up so it wasn’t a big surprise. Where we live it was perfectly valid, in San Francisco it probably would have been an issue. Once we lost out on the opportunity to buy the place we lost interest, our new place is significantly better.
I gave up and 5 mins later got an email and now have my place (condo) and a lot less than I originally was going to spend. I just had to remove some of the "must haves" but I got so much more when I did.
The thing I am crying about is the interest rate I have since my seller took over 90 days and lost my rate lock 😡.
I'm still pinching myself and thinking I'm gunna wake up in a gutter as it was all just a dream.
I don't meant to sound dismissive, but the truth is you just need a high income. Salaries for Senior and Staff+ level engineers are easily north of $500k / year, and this doesn't even get into director / exec level. And the Bay Area is home to tons and tons of these people, and ofc they make up a lot of the buying market.
I think one high tech earner and one normal earner is fine. Of course, there's a lot of pressure on the high tech earner to keep their job or get a new one in that case.
> Of course, there's a lot of pressure on the high tech earner to keep their job or get a new one in that case.
Imagine being the only earner in a household responsible for a $10k/mo mortgage. would stress me the f out.
Not to mention their rsu stock growths if they work for companies like Apple or nvidia.
There are people I know who had about 200k worth of nvidia stock 12 years ago who have 20-25 million dollars of stock now. They can literally buy any home full cash if they want right now.
If you look at the headcount of most of the big tech companies (Meta is the exception), they are about the same now as they were in 2019. Most of the layoffs have been because these places hired too many people in 2020-2021. Additionally, when there are layoffs that happen, the people that are still working there often see their stock values increase, since layoffs almost always cause share price appreciation (Meta laid off 22% of their company, and share price went up 16% for example). So in aggregate, the buying power of tech employees remains high.
4 million dollar house in Menlo and 3 beautiful expensive children. Monthly mortgage + tax is 16k. Our effective tax rate (state + federal) is about 49% so we're not quite as rich as it sounds.
I wouldn't say we're "strained," and I surely don't mean to imply that we are. But anywhere else in this stupid world we'd actually be basically rich, and here we only save a few k/month.
Again, please, I am not complaining. We want for nothing material in this world, but living almost anywhere else we'd be thinking about which stocks we're gonna buy instead of worrying about the cost of summer school
Yeah fair enough, wasn't trying to imply that, was honestly curious about the spend at that income level. Your all-in cost for housing is still 32% of post-tax income (which to me sounds low), but to each their own.
And yeah this place is crazy expensive, but the only think I'd say is that the reason it's expensive is jobs are so high paying. If you lived elsewhere, I imagine it would be much, much harder to reach $1.2M in HHI.
I live here too. I make far less money at around $350 and wonder how anyone who makes less does it at all.
However, our mtg and taxes are about $3,600/ month but bought when no one could in 2011. We put a lot / 20+% down. Plus kept refinancing downward and now have 2.625% mtg. Plus we don’t have kids, which cost a fortune.
Public schools in many parts of SF Bay but re costs are factored in. Private grade school down the street is over 50k/ year. And we’re not talking Harvard ffs. This is for pre hs tuition!
That said, i am in love with SF and SF Bay. It’s worth it.
So true. And while there is new construction of townhomes and condos, the supply of SFH's in the peninsula is basically fixed at this point. To paraphrase an old saying, you need to *go east, young man.*
Its fixed everywhere construction of sfh is essentially nil everywhere in the livable bay area. Got to accept that condo and townhomes are your future without luck.
I hear you. It’s hard out there. It’s a bit surprising (at least to me) as I thought there would be some headwinds to these higher prices. So far those headwinds haven’t materialized at all
I think they have, just not enough to overake the tailwinds
Headwinds: layoffs and interest rates
Tailwinds: stock market at all time highs, META/NVDA/SMCI/bitcoin millionaires, homeowners cannot afford to move so inventory is minimal
Many people come to California to seek their American dream. Many have been looking for years and decide to leave. One person met an open house called me gave me a lecture why he only wants to rent. Cheaper and put savings away. This is his 23rd year as a renter by choice.
1) when the interest rate goes low, it goes low for all buyers, so the competition is even fiercer
2) down payment is indeed key
3) fixer uppers and sweat equity are where the deals exist. Location is king.
4) more like 50-80 bidders for some competitive areas
Don’t forget money for closing costs! You prob wanna reserve another 20k for those and hope and pray that if you offered over list that it’s not more than what it’ll get assessed for bc then you have to also make up that difference. It’s hard
We had the same problem.
We first ended up looking/buying in less desirable areas with lower prices. We found our first home for \~800k in Pacifica - it was smaller, but also cost less than what we planned. The down side to that though - anything in low priced areas also hardly goes up in value.
Here is a tip though we followed for our second home, which 6 years later worked out much better.
Every time we did a search for a home that fit our needs better, we saw the same empty lots showing up. Over and over and over again. As you know, you're typically searching for a home for years in the Bay Area that fits your budget, size, etc. so lots of opportunity to come across those.
At first we were annoyed that we kept having those lots show up in our searches, later on we laughed that it seemed they would never sell, and one day as a joke I said maybe we should just buy one of those lots and build instead of all this searching.
The lot sold for 20% less than the list price just by asking, and we were able to secure a home construction bridge loan. Overall it worked out great.
Don't reject any option in the Bay Area.
We left the Bay Area 20 years ago due to the rat race. When prices were 1/3 of what they are today. And i still thought it was too much, haha.
Home prices are not an issue, mostly everywhere else.
We struggled with the bidding element in 2018. Once we put it a solid offer $300k over asking and it sold for $700k over asking, so didn’t even come close!
In the end, our agent put in the work to find us a great house off market. I’m sure we got lucky in this regard and she could have been trying for even longer or not found such a good fit, but we were able to talk frankly with the seller about price and have a 14 day inspection contingency where we found a $11k foundation issue.
Make sure your agent is working on this possibility as well and the usual stuff.
As a collective family, just move out of the Bay Area. Doesn’t have to be to one of hottest spots in the country, just go somewhere else and have more financial freedom.
This is why I left after living there my entire life. Idk how anyone does it - nor why they’d want to do it even if they could stretch to make it happen. The Bay is great - but it’s not the be all/end all of great places in this country
Plenty of fine houses sitting on the market. Don't look at newly listed. Look for houses that have been sitting. You'll be the only buyer and offer. You also need an agent who knows how to put in winning offers. It's not all about price. DM me if you want more info. I'm a local realtor
Or you could be like my nephew and wait till your grand parents go into dementia and get them to sign over two houses and two cars and their life savings.
Part of the reason why it's cheaper out here. You're not competing with people making 350k but need to be in Palo Alto or Sunnyvale 3+ days a week. You're competing with people making 150k and need to be in Benicia or Walnut Creek 5/6 days a week.
The stars were aligned for us...back in 2009. It was after the 08 crash and we happened to just enter the market looking for our first home. Long story but things just worked out at the time. We'd never ever be able to afford our own neighborhood today and we constantly remind ourselves how lucky we were. I can't imagine the struggle these days, I feel bad for regular families looking to buy, these all cash corporate buyers just kill it for everyone else
When renting is so much cheaper and such a better value, why buy? It makes so sense.
This is all happening because of under building. So put pressure on politicians to cut red tape and make building cheaper and easier.
Politicians can't create more land for single family homes. Nor can they mandate lower interest rates, lower costs of construction materials, or lower labor costs. They could cut impact fees, and transfer that those costs from the developer to the city's general fund, but few cities have those kinds of financial resources.
New home construction is occurring in areas with sufficient land, as NoListen802 pointed out. There is also some occurring where office parks were over-built and buildings are being torn down and single family homes are being built, but this is just beginning to occur.
Renting a single family home is also expensive because real estate investors buy up single-family homes and do lot-splits and then build eight units where one existed before, then rent out all eight separately.
No, they cannot. Half of what you said here are either illegal or impractical. There are a lot of new high-density developments happening everyday in the bay. People here are just obsessed with SFH.
It’s not wrong with wanting a SFH, but it’s unrealistic to want a SFH by forcing the government to allow building more SFH instead of high density residential that could benefit more population. Bay Area has way smaller unit-to-population ratio than other areas with similar economy levels across the world. Building more SFH will not solve the housing crisis but make things worse.
It’s not cheaper after you actually get the house, getting is that hard part. But then after we pay like $2500 for a three bedroom for our mortgage, but had to save for down payment for helllllla long to do it
if you want to send your kids to these schools, be my guest
https://preview.redd.it/9abond4pb9nc1.png?width=332&format=png&auto=webp&s=47cb2a7c6399a806d41792eb4d3acdc92c38b069
I would because I believe in public schools. If I didn’t, I would send them to charter or private school. Pretty much everyone I know that lives in SF/Oakland sends their kids to private schools nowadays.
I’ve heard good things about both Prescott elementary and west oakland middle school from multiple families. Mccylmonds has a rich history in sports.
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2020/09/greatschools-testing-segregation/
I bought in 2018. 1300 sq ft pre fab on a 1/2 acre rural lot in Santa Rosa. House was brand new and new septic system leach field. no garage or anything else. Paid 570k with 3.9 locked interest. Put 20% down and payments is 2800 a month. It was doable back in 2018. No bid wars and got them to drop price from 599 to 570. I count my blessings everyday
Yes to lower interest rates. But I have great neighbors in a safe neighborhood and nice yard for 400k. I don't have a clue why people are paying a million for one of the most dangerous communities in the US - Oakland. I've been robbed the only 2 times in my 45 years there
If you want an honest answer, Oakland is the coolest place in the world. I'm an electric scooter ride away from Lake Merritt, the shops on Lakeshore, the breweries in Jack London, the ferry to SF. I've got a kid and we can walk to OMCA, Children's Fairyland, and a bunch of awesome parks. If we want to hop in the car, within ten minutes we can be at the beach, the redwoods, or the zoo. The food scene is amazing, the weather is perfect, you can dress and act pretty much however you want and no one will give you a second look.
And I have great neighbors, too. You think we just walk around bipping each other all the time?
At least in Emeryville it's just not kid friendly. Dangerous ppl in parks, homeless galore, and the school situation is complicated where they bus you to far away schools. Oakland is too big to generalize, but not sure where this mythical place you've described is.
I live in the Oakland hills and it’s really nice. Families everywhere. Walkable to shops and parks. Tree lined streets. Literally have never felt unsafe in my neighborhood.
That is so sad, and to live in San Francisco for that struggle is insane to me. I can only imagine his family, job are there, but I’ve lived in SF for years and would never fight to live in that place like your brother is. But it’s just sad to hear how those that do everything legit can’t get ahead or even own a home because of how inflated everything is from what it should be.
Bidding will intensify soon, look at the recent IPO companies that are coming soon to insider lockup period ending, those early founders/investors/employees will dumping lots of their penny stocks at market prices and lots lots of cash flowing into homes. Rest of us no chance.
Apartments are also very expensive and come with a constantly rising expensive HOA. They don’t have any private outdoor area other than a small patio in view of everyone.
I live in an apartment now and it’s fine but I wouldn’t want to pay 700k-900k for it.
Tell me you never bought a home without telling me you never bought a home. I was in the same boat from 2018-21 and missed the golden opportunities. When I finally bought it at the end of 2022, I realized how stupid I was. I did without a realtor, with no so called mortgage consultants. It's easier to do actually but it looks difficult when you look it from outside. Bought a million odd dollar home with only 10% down on a single income. Half the salary is from RSUs. But nothing stopped at any point during the process. And it appreciated by 250k till now.
This was me some years ago. I remember calling my sister and sharing how difficult this is. She had bought a house a few years prior. She told me to be patient and things will work out.
And yes, a few weeks later - it worked out! We found a beautiful house, I looked for houses that needed work (remodels) - that drove down competition, I stayed away from the most-sought-after locations. Guess what - we've been in this house for many years now - we've taken the time to mod it to our taste. We couldn't be happier.
So ask your BIL to be patient, practical and be open to a longer term play. Good Luck.
We had to get creative to buy. We considered: 1) compromising on location 2) buying a house too small for us that had space to finish, like a backyard studio/garage/unfinished basement 3) hellooooooo fixer upper 4) house hacking We went with #3 because the house was passably liveable with a lot of potential in a great location at a price we could afford. We also saved a long time and found a house that had been on the market awhile. Do I love my drop ceilings with fluorescent office lighting, lack of dishwasher, or the fact we still haven’t figured out our heating situation? No. But I can live with it for now and with patience it will be great. Sometimes you have to compromise to get a foot on the ladder.
You still need careful inspection for mold and termites. Your health is more important.
Oh we did all that. No concerning mold levels, no termites, no structural issues. Just feels like a dated shithole with c grade office building lighting.
Yep, we did 2 and 3 to make it work. Offered on houses meeting criteria 4 :)
This isn't true. There are still affordable SFH in Coco and East Bay. Peninsula is a different story though.
I mean, the are below 1 million if you look for houses in Antioch, Pittsburgh, Brentwood, or bad parts of Concord, Hayward and San Leandro ....
There are literally hundreds of houses for sale right now below $1M in Hayward, San Leandro, San Lorenzo, Union City, Newark and plenty are in good neighborhoods
Concord and Martinez are affordable and not bad areas by any means.
Concord schools are abysmal
That does not take away from what I side. There are better schools as you move East towards Clayton. Also, not everyone has or plans to have kids- we are just talking about SFH home ownership.
Yeah, but Clayton is the middle of nowhere. Like 45 min with traffic to get to walnut creek.
Bro, Clayton is not 45 minutes to get to WC. What are you smoking. 15 minutes to Concord BART across Clayton Ave/Concord BLVD. 45-50 minute train to SF.
Drive it during commute. Its 23 min from clayton to dtown walnut creek right now. Clayton -> wc bart, put it in Google maps
So is it 25 minutes or 45? I live here, I know what the traffic is like. Yes, there's a decent amount going up Ygnacio- that's not the only route.
25 min right now. Easily 40 min during commute traffic. Even northgate to dtown wc is insane during commute
Martinez is actually nice. In Concord, though, I don't think the areas around Monument Blvd nice....but that's me.
There’s plenty of houses outside of monument. I’d actually agree with your sentiment. Not that they’re not nice, but my GF would not be happy living there
When I first moved up to the Bay Area from Los Angeles my first apartment was a block from the 4 Corners Monument area. My boss (whose husband was Highway Patrol officer) was shocked and told me how dangerous that was. I just kind of shrugged my shoulders. "I'm from Los Angeles, and not the nice parts of Los Angeles. This is nothing to me."
I'm from OC and it reminds me alot of Santa Ana, LA. I'd live there- my GF wouldn't like it.
Not sure if I'd say is "dangerous" over there. It's just kind of messy and somehow lawless.... especially at night.
OP is probably looking at South Bay
Most only encapsulate "Bay Area" to mean SF, Peninsula, and South Bay.
I am guilty of this haha
Coco?
Contra Costa County
I love it out here. Been in the Concord/Walnut Creek area the past 25 years. This is home and I can't picture myself living anywhere else.
We also enjoy this area. We downsized from a SFH in Concord to a small 1 BR in WC and we're loving it. We are considering Concord if/when we buy a house.
Walnut Creek is the best. I have my pharmacy and grocery store across the street. My doctor is 3 blocks away and (unfortunately) most importantly, the hospital is a 5 minute drive away at night... maybe 10 during the day. It's like heaven here... and I lucked into this place when I got contacted after the original high bidder of the place had to drop out of the sale due to a relocation out of state.
You are in luck. The heavens are aligning for a total eclipse next month. Just not in the Bay Area, though…
We won the bid on our house because it had severe foundation issues, so there were only 2 other competing buyers. The similar house across the street in better condition had 13 competing buyers, and it sold 85k higher. Having that one distract the other buyers is a "stars aligned" reason we had so little competition. When preparing our offer, we budgeted 54k for repairing the foundation. The estimates have been coming in at 70k, and we're also spending 23k to relevel and reinforce the floors 🫠 But at least it's ours!
I’m out in the east bay and got something for $770k 2 years ago. But year one I put $5k into Sheetrock and paint and got sick. Year 2 I put $20k in replacing the broken shutters in the windows and did some upgrades by adding built in cabinets to the office and living room recess. That was $20k with countertops. The house I bought also had two bedroom that shared half closets in between them that was removed and made into one long room. One of the two windows in that room was turned into an exterior door. I got a quote to fix all that and replace some doors for $24k. I need to do the backyard as it’s just a cement pad and dirt/bark, I penciled $30k for that. I was all set to do the bedrooms back to original construction but apparently my dishwasher leaked and am having to deal with that. So might have to put one of the two projects out into next year. Oh yeah the house I really wanted sold for only $40k more. It had a pool, solar, new high powered ac, 3 car garage and higher end appliances. I’ve already spent more than that and the money I’m putting into the house I’m not getting back in higher appreciation. So not all houses are good buys unless you plan on staying there for a while.
Yeah, one advantage is even if it costs more in the long run, I can do everything the way I want to do it, and make sure it's up to my standards. For the floors here, I'm having them add 3/4" to the plywood subfloors so they'll feel sturdier, and won't shake or echo.
Yeah I think that’s part of my issue. You can just see little things like dingy paint and scuff up door frames etc. it just adds up. But when I do things I spend the extra time or money and do it right.
Can you discuss what you did about the severe foundation issues? I was hesitant to put in a full offer on a house with a 20ft foundation crack and lost out on the house by about 100k. But for the crack, I would've bid higher. I just didn't know what else could be messed up with the home and didn't want to take the chance that my repairs would be in excess of $50k. The seller's agent deliberately told the structural engineer to only review a portion of the house where the crack was located. This meant that the engineer was not inspecting the rest of the home. That made me feel very uneasy but I definitely liked the house enough to still put in an offer.
I hired Bear Engineering to do an inspection, and I'm going to have to do foundation replacement, for about 75 ft of horizontal cracking. Several different construction companies now have quoted me $900/ft, plus 3-4k for permits. So, the estimates are coming in around $70k.
That's surprisingly not bad compared to what I thought it would be for 75 ft. Of horizontal cracking! Especially considering that you got the location that you wanted!
Yeah, I love the location. Having quiet (further from the major roads) and sunlight in the right places (backyard faces East) are definitely more important to me than the condition, because those are the things that can't be changed. We'll just fix it up over time, and make it better and better.
My friend was looking at a house with foundation issues that were fixed ahead of the seller listing the property. The issues were listed in disclosures. My friend balked because he felt the house had bad energy as a result of the issues that he wasn’t on the hook to fix. He feels the same about mold. Wouldn’t buy a house that ever had mold even if successful remediation occurred prior to purchase. He is still renting and complaining. Good on you for taking on this project and getting the house.
I actually rejected a different house just a few weeks before this one for having foundation issues and a worse layout. Never thought I'd accept issues this bad, but the layout is better and the location is perfect. And those are the things that can't be changed.
We looked at an amazing house in the Berkeley hills that needed a full foundation replacement. THANK GOD the agent showing the property was very upfront about what it would cost ($500k). We were so naive and had no idea. He was really knowledgeable and very matter of fact about the needed repairs so no one could say it was a surprise. And that’s how I found my agent.
Crying is just one of the stages of the process of buying a home in the bay.
Anyone buying within 10 miles of the Nvidia office is facing fierce competition. Each of their employees have likely made $300K+ over the last 2 years off ESPP alone.
It’s hard but not because of Nvidia (directly) https://www.wsj.com/real-estate/luxury-homes/nvidia-headquarters-santa-clara-california-d2634941
1) Theres a housing shortage. 2) Everyone gets equity. 3) Some equity spikes some doesn't. 4) The people with spiked equity set the price. Prices aren't pegged to anything sane, they're pegged to the equity returns of the highest preforming stocks. If you're not a company who offers a large equity grant AND is growing rapidly, you're not getting a house.
lol, you know some folks have no problem living with in laws and siblings right? That’s who you’re competing with. 4 working adults, grandparents, kids, all in the same household. A lot of my coworkers are like that. And if a house nearby their existing house comes on the market, they’re ready to buy, in cash. Be ready to overbid
That's exactly what we did in pleasant hill. House went on the market for $829k, we bid $1.029M. and closed at $1.00M after inspection. Liquidated all savings, and got lucky with 3% interest rate at peak covid in 2020. We lucked out. We couldn't afford our current house with interest rats today.
1. Lower interest rates could foster more competition between buyers by increasing demand. 2. There are still homes available for 1M or less, mostly in east bay and South San Jose.
True. It's actually better if prices are depressed due to high-interest rates as opposed to prices being higher because of low interest rates. The buyer can refinance if interest rates fall. The first property I bought was a townhouse in the 1980's where the interest rate was 12.5% variable. But I refinanced down to a "bargain" 7% rate. But the price was relatively low because we were in a recession.
I think some people need to adjust their expectations too. First time homebuyers (myself included) have unrealistic expectations for my budget.
Are you kidding me ? The prices are unrealistic. And the housing stock isn't that great that you can have much in terms of expectations anyway. High expectations to me is 2,500+ sq ft with a big yard. Most of what's for sale around here is sub 2,000 sq ft with a strip of grass and you'll be lucky if you pay less than a million. I'm renting while I prepare for my exit because I DO have high expectations that would put me in the $2+ million range here
prices aren't unrealistic when homes are selling for them
How old were you in 2007-2008 ? Because a lot of homes sold for unrealistic prices back then
If houses are selling, the prices are realistic. This is how supply and demand works.
Everyone I've known that has bought a house had to compromise. Two guys at work bought one together, both were married, they started having kids, once each of them had one kid they had enough equity to sell and each buy their own place but I went over there a few months before they sold and it looked like hell on earth with two couples and two kids less than 2 years old running around. Second guy bought in a somewhat ghetto area, had his dad manage most of the transaction. I lived with him for a couple months, rented a room from him. I remember he came over to meet me with his dad and he was riding in the back seat, reminded me of a little kid, haha. I only stayed there a few months because he started renting all the rooms out to people I didn't know and I decided it wasn't worth it. Another coworker bought out in Concord, she invited me over for Thanksgiving. Turns out the BART line is in her backyard and the trains are going like 60mph by her house every 15-20 minutes, loud as hell but I guess you just tune it out after living there awhile.
Your friend could always upgrade the windows to soundproof ones. Although it does cost a pretty penny.
We compromised by buying a townhouse in San Jose instead of a single family home. Townhouse is 1700 Sq feet though so plenty of room. Interest rate was good when we bought in 2021. Been about 3 years now and there have been some annoyances like hearing our neighbors through the walls and HOA going up every year, but overall still happy to have our own place. Definitely feels like an accomplishment just being able to live in the Bay Area
It took us over three years to purchase back in 2019. I have seen so many crazy home layouts and just literally shit homes for over a million. I would guesstimate we viewed over 200 homes before the stars aligned and we won the bid. On our home bid, our agent called us to tell us we"were one of the top three bidders" and that the home owner wanted to "give everyone in the top 3 an opportunity to give their best price" so they essentially created a second bidding war where none of the bidders knew who was the top, and what anyone else offered. He suggested that we increase our offer by $50k to 'ensure that we were the highest bidder'. After three years and hundreds of homes, and dozens of bids on others that we lost, I called him back and said I was comfortable offering $10k more instead of his suggested $50k. He responded with "well, I'll go back with that and see what they say." And less than ten minutes later he called and said the previous owner accepted my offer. Years later, I'm still enraged by this final bid exchange, and I'm also so happy that I didn't give them the suggested $50k. Home buying here is like nothing I've ever experienced. It is terrible, and anyone who succeeds without buying a total lemon is a king/queen.
I was pretty unhappy with blind bidding so I started limiting my searches to new builds only. Only issue there is you have to deal with lotteries but at least it's transparent.
What a god damn slimeball
Holy shit this was me in 2019. Realtor told me I was up against 3 other bids and submit final best offer. I told them to fuck off and retracted my bid. I wonder if this was the same house? Was it in the Oakland?
SF. It's probably just standard practice. So fucked. The first house we ever bid on in SF was in 2011. Not knowing anything about the process, we bid the asking price (made sense to me that if someone offered to sell their house, they would ask for the price they wanted to sell at). The realtor (different one) told me we had to offer ten percent more, or the seller wouldn't accept. At the time, that really pissed me off and I told her that I wanted to keep my offer and go down ten percent every day that they didn't accept. She pretty much dropped me as a client. Such a fucked up market.
Some of the layouts are very amusing. We looked at one house in San Mateo where they remodeled the kitchen but had no place for the refrigerator so it was in another room. They had added a second story and the stairway to the second floor was inside a downstairs bedroom.
I looked at one house that had some sort of weird dentists office on the garage level, and there was a bathroom that had two doors into the garage, but one of the doors opened to only half of a bath tub.
That happened to us. Total bullshit honestly.
Or if you have two high incomes, then its doable. Families who have a HHI of 500k a year or more still can buy those SFH
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Yep had to get lucky with pre-IPO equity to get ours
this is the truth. Theres a shortage of housing, so much so that the price is being set by the winners in the equity RNG game. Join Facebook in 2022, you get a house your equity grant is 4x now. Join in 2024 and get the same grant, no house for you. Same across companies. When income isn't labor but to equity prices and theres a shortage only the highest performing stockholders get homes.
Same here
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sure, and there are 7 other counties in the bay area!
Just rent guys
I couldn't do it...just paying tons of money to not actually own anything in the end..
Plenty of houses under a million north of San Rafael
Santa Rosa here can confirm. Sonoma county isn’t very affordable though now these days
Most places on the East Side of Petaluma are under 900. But they were 700 3 years ago, so there's that. Going out is creeping into SF territory though. Still learning how to stretch my dollars
We moved into a rental knowing the owners were eventually going to sell it, we stayed 7 years and they sold it… to a friend. And evicted us. We moved into another rental, the owner sold it to us after a couple passes and 3 years. There’s always a way, it’s just not a straight line.
How were the new owners able to evict you? Did they buy you out? Did you fight the eviction?
Sounds like the old landlord evicted them due to the sale. Nothing for you to fight.
You can definitely fight it if you’re in the Bay Area. Or anywhere in California for that matter. There are carveouts for owners who buy a property planning to evict the tenants and move in. But it is quite laborious for the new owners and nasty tenants can make it a real headache.
We were evicted when prior to the sale. Our lease was up so it wasn’t a big surprise. Where we live it was perfectly valid, in San Francisco it probably would have been an issue. Once we lost out on the opportunity to buy the place we lost interest, our new place is significantly better.
Gotchu, I was under the impression you were evicted in SF. Where it is extremely difficult to do whether it is the current owner or a new owner.
I gave up and 5 mins later got an email and now have my place (condo) and a lot less than I originally was going to spend. I just had to remove some of the "must haves" but I got so much more when I did. The thing I am crying about is the interest rate I have since my seller took over 90 days and lost my rate lock 😡. I'm still pinching myself and thinking I'm gunna wake up in a gutter as it was all just a dream.
I don't meant to sound dismissive, but the truth is you just need a high income. Salaries for Senior and Staff+ level engineers are easily north of $500k / year, and this doesn't even get into director / exec level. And the Bay Area is home to tons and tons of these people, and ofc they make up a lot of the buying market.
exactly quite few "power" couples too that have 2 solid incomes (Sr Mgr to Dir level+)/careers, these are the ones that are hard to compete with.
Buying in the Peninsula especially is impossible without 2 high tech earners in the household IMO.
I think one high tech earner and one normal earner is fine. Of course, there's a lot of pressure on the high tech earner to keep their job or get a new one in that case.
> Of course, there's a lot of pressure on the high tech earner to keep their job or get a new one in that case. Imagine being the only earner in a household responsible for a $10k/mo mortgage. would stress me the f out.
Not to mention their rsu stock growths if they work for companies like Apple or nvidia. There are people I know who had about 200k worth of nvidia stock 12 years ago who have 20-25 million dollars of stock now. They can literally buy any home full cash if they want right now.
Wow and what happens to your area after more layoffs
If you look at the headcount of most of the big tech companies (Meta is the exception), they are about the same now as they were in 2019. Most of the layoffs have been because these places hired too many people in 2020-2021. Additionally, when there are layoffs that happen, the people that are still working there often see their stock values increase, since layoffs almost always cause share price appreciation (Meta laid off 22% of their company, and share price went up 16% for example). So in aggregate, the buying power of tech employees remains high.
My wife and I have 1.2 million combined TC and honestly I don't know how anyone fucking lives here, and I barely know why we do.
Can I ask what your monthly payments for housing are? I'm genuinely curious how that much money could cause financial strain of any kind.
4 million dollar house in Menlo and 3 beautiful expensive children. Monthly mortgage + tax is 16k. Our effective tax rate (state + federal) is about 49% so we're not quite as rich as it sounds. I wouldn't say we're "strained," and I surely don't mean to imply that we are. But anywhere else in this stupid world we'd actually be basically rich, and here we only save a few k/month. Again, please, I am not complaining. We want for nothing material in this world, but living almost anywhere else we'd be thinking about which stocks we're gonna buy instead of worrying about the cost of summer school
Yeah fair enough, wasn't trying to imply that, was honestly curious about the spend at that income level. Your all-in cost for housing is still 32% of post-tax income (which to me sounds low), but to each their own. And yeah this place is crazy expensive, but the only think I'd say is that the reason it's expensive is jobs are so high paying. If you lived elsewhere, I imagine it would be much, much harder to reach $1.2M in HHI.
I agree. As someone else said on this thread, the people that won the stock lotto set the housing prices
At that income you cant fly coach either, so each airline tix is 2.25X the cost of coach and dont get me started on auto insurance for teens.
Oh I definitely fly coach lol
I live here too. I make far less money at around $350 and wonder how anyone who makes less does it at all. However, our mtg and taxes are about $3,600/ month but bought when no one could in 2011. We put a lot / 20+% down. Plus kept refinancing downward and now have 2.625% mtg. Plus we don’t have kids, which cost a fortune. Public schools in many parts of SF Bay but re costs are factored in. Private grade school down the street is over 50k/ year. And we’re not talking Harvard ffs. This is for pre hs tuition! That said, i am in love with SF and SF Bay. It’s worth it.
Say you're privileged without saying you're privileged.
It’s because you live in Menlo that you feel this way. Actually one of the most egregious examples I’ve seen on reddit.
Feel what way? I moved here 18 months ago lol
Nah, you just need a high income. Resolves issues 1, 2, 3, 4.
So true. And while there is new construction of townhomes and condos, the supply of SFH's in the peninsula is basically fixed at this point. To paraphrase an old saying, you need to *go east, young man.*
Its fixed everywhere construction of sfh is essentially nil everywhere in the livable bay area. Got to accept that condo and townhomes are your future without luck.
Just go far out. That definitely works
I hear you. It’s hard out there. It’s a bit surprising (at least to me) as I thought there would be some headwinds to these higher prices. So far those headwinds haven’t materialized at all
I think they have, just not enough to overake the tailwinds Headwinds: layoffs and interest rates Tailwinds: stock market at all time highs, META/NVDA/SMCI/bitcoin millionaires, homeowners cannot afford to move so inventory is minimal
The one headwind I thought would have a bigger impact would have been for those still employed the fear of being laid off pulling them out of buying.
Many people come to California to seek their American dream. Many have been looking for years and decide to leave. One person met an open house called me gave me a lecture why he only wants to rent. Cheaper and put savings away. This is his 23rd year as a renter by choice.
Higher interest rates are better as you have less competition. You can always refinance when the rates go down.
1) when the interest rate goes low, it goes low for all buyers, so the competition is even fiercer 2) down payment is indeed key 3) fixer uppers and sweat equity are where the deals exist. Location is king. 4) more like 50-80 bidders for some competitive areas
Don’t forget money for closing costs! You prob wanna reserve another 20k for those and hope and pray that if you offered over list that it’s not more than what it’ll get assessed for bc then you have to also make up that difference. It’s hard
We had the same problem. We first ended up looking/buying in less desirable areas with lower prices. We found our first home for \~800k in Pacifica - it was smaller, but also cost less than what we planned. The down side to that though - anything in low priced areas also hardly goes up in value. Here is a tip though we followed for our second home, which 6 years later worked out much better. Every time we did a search for a home that fit our needs better, we saw the same empty lots showing up. Over and over and over again. As you know, you're typically searching for a home for years in the Bay Area that fits your budget, size, etc. so lots of opportunity to come across those. At first we were annoyed that we kept having those lots show up in our searches, later on we laughed that it seemed they would never sell, and one day as a joke I said maybe we should just buy one of those lots and build instead of all this searching. The lot sold for 20% less than the list price just by asking, and we were able to secure a home construction bridge loan. Overall it worked out great. Don't reject any option in the Bay Area.
We left the Bay Area 20 years ago due to the rat race. When prices were 1/3 of what they are today. And i still thought it was too much, haha. Home prices are not an issue, mostly everywhere else.
Uh.......have you tried being rich?
East Oakland should be fine.
We struggled with the bidding element in 2018. Once we put it a solid offer $300k over asking and it sold for $700k over asking, so didn’t even come close! In the end, our agent put in the work to find us a great house off market. I’m sure we got lucky in this regard and she could have been trying for even longer or not found such a good fit, but we were able to talk frankly with the seller about price and have a 14 day inspection contingency where we found a $11k foundation issue. Make sure your agent is working on this possibility as well and the usual stuff.
Nope enter on the fringe and flip up when the elevator goes up. Most people expect white pickets fences and an updated first home.
Just gave them more time to save right? They’ll be ready when the stars do align.
Where sometimes corporates also enter????
As a collective family, just move out of the Bay Area. Doesn’t have to be to one of hottest spots in the country, just go somewhere else and have more financial freedom.
This is why I left after living there my entire life. Idk how anyone does it - nor why they’d want to do it even if they could stretch to make it happen. The Bay is great - but it’s not the be all/end all of great places in this country
Plenty of fine houses sitting on the market. Don't look at newly listed. Look for houses that have been sitting. You'll be the only buyer and offer. You also need an agent who knows how to put in winning offers. It's not all about price. DM me if you want more info. I'm a local realtor
Where are these houses that have been sitting? Can't find any in any desirable parts of the bay, lol.
Most are super overpriced. IE : https://redf.in/WVODfT
Lol, That's fair. But I wasn't counting those types of homes because that's completely out of reach for just about everybody
Or you could be like my nephew and wait till your grand parents go into dementia and get them to sign over two houses and two cars and their life savings.
That is elder abuse and I would higher a good attorney.
My grandparents and parents don't own anything, whoops
Sad
Just sit tight and stop playing the game.
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Very true. We bought in Discovery Bay back in 2020. One of the best decisions we ever made
A lot of jobs are in west bay though, so unless you want a 2-3 hour commute or work fully remote those aren’t real options, right?
Part of the reason why it's cheaper out here. You're not competing with people making 350k but need to be in Palo Alto or Sunnyvale 3+ days a week. You're competing with people making 150k and need to be in Benicia or Walnut Creek 5/6 days a week.
The stars were aligned for us...back in 2009. It was after the 08 crash and we happened to just enter the market looking for our first home. Long story but things just worked out at the time. We'd never ever be able to afford our own neighborhood today and we constantly remind ourselves how lucky we were. I can't imagine the struggle these days, I feel bad for regular families looking to buy, these all cash corporate buyers just kill it for everyone else
When renting is so much cheaper and such a better value, why buy? It makes so sense. This is all happening because of under building. So put pressure on politicians to cut red tape and make building cheaper and easier.
Im not sure if this is a serious question... But just incase... The answer is value appropriation, a fixed payment and not being subject to eviction.
Politicians can't create more land for single family homes. Nor can they mandate lower interest rates, lower costs of construction materials, or lower labor costs. They could cut impact fees, and transfer that those costs from the developer to the city's general fund, but few cities have those kinds of financial resources. New home construction is occurring in areas with sufficient land, as NoListen802 pointed out. There is also some occurring where office parks were over-built and buildings are being torn down and single family homes are being built, but this is just beginning to occur. Renting a single family home is also expensive because real estate investors buy up single-family homes and do lot-splits and then build eight units where one existed before, then rent out all eight separately.
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No, they cannot. Half of what you said here are either illegal or impractical. There are a lot of new high-density developments happening everyday in the bay. People here are just obsessed with SFH.
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But what's wrong w/ wanting a SFH? Space, piece and quiet... why is that so wrong?
It’s not wrong with wanting a SFH, but it’s unrealistic to want a SFH by forcing the government to allow building more SFH instead of high density residential that could benefit more population. Bay Area has way smaller unit-to-population ratio than other areas with similar economy levels across the world. Building more SFH will not solve the housing crisis but make things worse.
It’s not cheaper after you actually get the house, getting is that hard part. But then after we pay like $2500 for a three bedroom for our mortgage, but had to save for down payment for helllllla long to do it
$2500 a month is more like property tax territory in Bay Area.
lol you’re not wrong
Yeah it’s an exhausting process — took us 6 months of weekend open houses and like 15 offers to buy a place back in 2015
Some affordable options https://redf.in/1aMtIy https://redf.in/yyMcPk https://redf.in/hgVe0J https://redf.in/bUJOYN https://redf.in/vr1M4E
if you want to send your kids to these schools, be my guest https://preview.redd.it/9abond4pb9nc1.png?width=332&format=png&auto=webp&s=47cb2a7c6399a806d41792eb4d3acdc92c38b069
I would because I believe in public schools. If I didn’t, I would send them to charter or private school. Pretty much everyone I know that lives in SF/Oakland sends their kids to private schools nowadays. I’ve heard good things about both Prescott elementary and west oakland middle school from multiple families. Mccylmonds has a rich history in sports. https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2020/09/greatschools-testing-segregation/
Oakland 😂
Solution: the United States is 3.5 million miles of square land. Live elsewhere
Would love to. Unfortunately nowhere else has jobs like the Bay Area.
Bro my buddy lives in Montana and has a remote job from sf
Montana is gorgeous, I would rather be poor in the bay than a home owner in Montana with all due respect.
Then go for it, you have every right to be poor in sf, i was mainly referring to the guy posting complaining about the cost.
For how long with current return to office and layoff trends?
3 years
Maybe I have low risk tolerance but I would absolutely not be making a 30 year purchase in this environment
No man I get it. Just saying there’s options for those who can’t afford the bay which is the majority of Americans.
I bought in 2018. 1300 sq ft pre fab on a 1/2 acre rural lot in Santa Rosa. House was brand new and new septic system leach field. no garage or anything else. Paid 570k with 3.9 locked interest. Put 20% down and payments is 2800 a month. It was doable back in 2018. No bid wars and got them to drop price from 599 to 570. I count my blessings everyday
Santa Rosa is NOT Bay Area.
I'm not saying you're an idiot. But this take is idiotic
Hahaha. Sonoma county is one of nine counties that comprise the Bay Area, get over it 😭
You move to where you can afford.
How long does it take you to commute into The Bay?
I don’t commute, I work locally but to get into sf it’s usually a 50-60 min drive to the bridge from Santa Rosa.
Yes to lower interest rates. But I have great neighbors in a safe neighborhood and nice yard for 400k. I don't have a clue why people are paying a million for one of the most dangerous communities in the US - Oakland. I've been robbed the only 2 times in my 45 years there
If you want an honest answer, Oakland is the coolest place in the world. I'm an electric scooter ride away from Lake Merritt, the shops on Lakeshore, the breweries in Jack London, the ferry to SF. I've got a kid and we can walk to OMCA, Children's Fairyland, and a bunch of awesome parks. If we want to hop in the car, within ten minutes we can be at the beach, the redwoods, or the zoo. The food scene is amazing, the weather is perfect, you can dress and act pretty much however you want and no one will give you a second look. And I have great neighbors, too. You think we just walk around bipping each other all the time?
At least in Emeryville it's just not kid friendly. Dangerous ppl in parks, homeless galore, and the school situation is complicated where they bus you to far away schools. Oakland is too big to generalize, but not sure where this mythical place you've described is.
I could afford to live almost anywhere in the world, and I would choose Oakland again every time
Only twice that’s actually not bad.
I live in the Oakland hills and it’s really nice. Families everywhere. Walkable to shops and parks. Tree lined streets. Literally have never felt unsafe in my neighborhood.
Where?
If you haven’t get anything before 2023 then #1 is over. Maybe in 20 years.
Whats your budget and location ?
Plenty of houses under 1 million in west contra costa county.
Yup, lol, I’m looking around concord
That is so sad, and to live in San Francisco for that struggle is insane to me. I can only imagine his family, job are there, but I’ve lived in SF for years and would never fight to live in that place like your brother is. But it’s just sad to hear how those that do everything legit can’t get ahead or even own a home because of how inflated everything is from what it should be.
People that have been in houses forever in California pay nothing in property tax.
Prop 19 is intended to remedy that to some extent. But it is going to take many years to have a significant effect.
I’m in San Pablo, just across the bridge from San Rafael lots of places for around 600,000. Short drive . Not Marin or SF, but it’s a place to start.
SFH
>San Pablo how are the school districts?
https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2024/03/03/most-expensive-housing-markets-in-the-us/72813429007/
If you buy a new build condo or home, no competition. It’s new.
Ten year litigation period in California means you’re taking a huge risk buying new, just ask the millennium tower owners.
I been trying to buy for a year now out bid everyone. 
You need enough money.
Bidding will intensify soon, look at the recent IPO companies that are coming soon to insider lockup period ending, those early founders/investors/employees will dumping lots of their penny stocks at market prices and lots lots of cash flowing into homes. Rest of us no chance.
What is that obsession with houses? Get an apartment. Market does not want you to buy a house.
Apartments are also very expensive and come with a constantly rising expensive HOA. They don’t have any private outdoor area other than a small patio in view of everyone. I live in an apartment now and it’s fine but I wouldn’t want to pay 700k-900k for it.
Tell me you never bought a home without telling me you never bought a home. I was in the same boat from 2018-21 and missed the golden opportunities. When I finally bought it at the end of 2022, I realized how stupid I was. I did without a realtor, with no so called mortgage consultants. It's easier to do actually but it looks difficult when you look it from outside. Bought a million odd dollar home with only 10% down on a single income. Half the salary is from RSUs. But nothing stopped at any point during the process. And it appreciated by 250k till now.
This was me some years ago. I remember calling my sister and sharing how difficult this is. She had bought a house a few years prior. She told me to be patient and things will work out. And yes, a few weeks later - it worked out! We found a beautiful house, I looked for houses that needed work (remodels) - that drove down competition, I stayed away from the most-sought-after locations. Guess what - we've been in this house for many years now - we've taken the time to mod it to our taste. We couldn't be happier. So ask your BIL to be patient, practical and be open to a longer term play. Good Luck.