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Move to Hayward or other. Build your earning power and your assets. Buy a smaller house/condo in the skirts. Fix it up a little through sweat equity. Sell and m

Move to Hayward or other. Build your earning power and your assets. Buy a smaller house/condo in the skirts. Fix it up a little through sweat equity. Sell and move to a larger condo/home. Rinse/repeat until you make it where you want to. I couldn't buy in my folks' neighborhood for over a decade out of college. Now I can, but don't choose to. Seems like entitled thinking to assume you can live where your parents worked their collective lives to attain.

shostack 10y ago
You make the assumption that most people have the free time, know-how and physical strength to do this. Most people don't, so rely on hiring contractors (expensive), and waiting on prices to go up with their earning power to be able to put down a larger down payment and upgrade that way. Although I never quite got how that works because if the market goes up and you sell, well, prices are higher than when you originally bought, so minus taxes, odds are you might not come out ahead unless you've bought in at the right time or went through several cycles.
- buckbova 10y ago
  I'm not suggesting flipping a house. Nearly everyone can scrape, clean and paint. Most can install something like laminate flooring, engineered wood, and even tile. Honestly it's more about effort than know-how. When it comes to electrical and plumbing, unless you have the skills and tools, hire someone. Plus it feels good to do stuff with your hands now and again. Obviously if your time is worth more money than what you'd pay a contractor, then get a contractor. This whole thing works because of building equity. Simple example is if you buy a 400k place and in 3-7 years have 150k equity through appreciation and mortgage payments, you can upgrade and with 20% down buy a 750K place. From my experience there's only been a few downturns in my lifetime that more time did not wash away. And it's not so much taxes as it is other fees with housing. I always wished I'd bought sooner or upgraded sooner than I have. But I get comfortable.
  - shostack 10y ago
    Your market assumption is that the place appreciates at a rate where you have that much equity. But if the market appreciates at that rate, aren't homes that are now $750k comparable to the homes that were once $400k? Or am I missing something there in how that works?

shostack 10y ago

You make the assumption that most people have the free time, know-how and physical strength to do this. Most people don't, so rely on hiring contractors (expensive), and waiting on prices to go up with their earning power to be able to put down a larger down payment and upgrade that way. Although I never quite got how that works because if the market goes up and you sell, well, prices are higher than when you originally bought, so minus taxes, odds are you might not come out ahead unless you've bought in at the right time or went through several cycles.

buckbova 10y ago
I'm not suggesting flipping a house. Nearly everyone can scrape, clean and paint. Most can install something like laminate flooring, engineered wood, and even tile. Honestly it's more about effort than know-how. When it comes to electrical and plumbing, unless you have the skills and tools, hire someone. Plus it feels good to do stuff with your hands now and again. Obviously if your time is worth more money than what you'd pay a contractor, then get a contractor. This whole thing works because of building equity. Simple example is if you buy a 400k place and in 3-7 years have 150k equity through appreciation and mortgage payments, you can upgrade and with 20% down buy a 750K place. From my experience there's only been a few downturns in my lifetime that more time did not wash away. And it's not so much taxes as it is other fees with housing. I always wished I'd bought sooner or upgraded sooner than I have. But I get comfortable.
- shostack 10y ago
  Your market assumption is that the place appreciates at a rate where you have that much equity. But if the market appreciates at that rate, aren't homes that are now $750k comparable to the homes that were once $400k? Or am I missing something there in how that works?