patrick.net

I never thought I'd say this, but for the past- oh I'd say 3-4 months- I've been toying with just the notion of buying a house here. This is all extremely preliminary. Doesn't mean I'm jumping on the house buying bandwagon, but I am starting to think about it.

Some of you might recall one of my earlier posts where I was debating moving out of state to somewhere significantly cheaper, which isn't hard since about 95% of the country is way cheaper than the Bay Area. This idea is still on the table. If we really wanted to we could- at this very minute- pack bags and go to TX, NC, NC, GA, CO, or whatnot and buy a house free and clear and have money left over as well as a decent amount in retirement. We have been saving for years.

But... on the other hand its more or less the case that as far as what we do for a living, most of the work is on the coasts in costly cities. If we moved that would probably mean changing careers, perhaps even going as far as to start working at retail/low income jobs with some occasional freelance. I wouldn't be totally against that because we would have everything paid for and thus the jobs would just take care of health insurance and basic monthly expenses. Some part of me isn't totally comfortable with that possibility. I have some insite into this because I was laid off a few years ago and tried to get a job out of state and despite being highly qualified had an incredibly difficult time getting any responses from anyone in even some of the high tech alternatives like Austin and Raleigh. As of now we both have very stable, comfortable jobs that we enjoy so I am not really in any mood to move at this time.

So lately I've been taking a peek here and there at various houses around us. What I'm finding is that houses that had been say- 600k-650k in 2006 are now at around $400k-$475k today. Certainly not cheap by any means, but we 'could' afford it. That would mean putting down a sizable down payment of say- $100k-$150k. The houses themselves tend to be somewhat smallish, adequate homes. My rough math estimate is that the monthly nut would probably be somewhere around $1,700 not including taxes. So realistically- closer to $2,000 a month. What it boils down to is that I've been sitting and watching the bubble for years. My automatic reaction to any house for sale around here was the same: Overpriced crap not even worth looking at. I was so used to that notion that even looking at homes was not on the radar. But now... I am seeing some homes that are more like- well... they're still pricey but not absolutely ridiculous.

That amount is doable. But... on the other hand we're currently renting a rather large house with a nice big yard for a little more than half that amount. So while we 'could' afford to buy a smallish starter home, we would likely be paying more money for less space and probably have to also pour some money into the house because often times these are older houses that some old person lived in forever and ever without doing much in upgrades. So while I can't deny that buying a house is a cozy idea the situation we're in now has me a tad spoiled size-wise. The math to me doesn't make a whole hell of a lot of sense, even with a big down payment. Besides- that down payment would be like 8 years worth of renting.

That brings me down to the last thing. The other idea is to just keep on working, saving, renting, and in say- 5-10 years if all works out, see what our financial situation is then. By that time I'd say we would be in a position to make an easy either-or decision where we could probably buy something outright in either location and call it a day.

Sorry for the rambling. Anyone care to share their thoughts?