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Diversification. 1031 
I was exaggerating to illustrate a point. GRY over purchase price is greater than all expenses 
I realize that after that purchase. Since then I switched to Austin. Good, you’re thinking 
I keep on re-fi or cash-out re-fi when the price has risen by a fair amount, and invest the cash into Austin SFHs.
Your strategy is good except for the risk you have from too much leverage. In boom times, this leverage works well to turbo charge asset growth. But in bust times, the leverage can bite
I like the way you articulate these points.
An investor friend of min who lives in SFBA but invests outside say that investing in SFBA locks your investment if you hit a negative market sentiment. @hanera was able to buy in 2011 and hold it . . But, many investors like to rotate money and they want flexibility of coming in and out of an investment. Something not easy with investments in SFBA in bad years. Lot of investors who buy these days to to flip. But, that is a different class of investing.
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I have ridiculously low leverage.
If you own multiple properties in Bay Area and Austin and have taken out mortgages on many of them, then you have lot of leverage, right? Or am I missing something? Are you buying properties outright with cash? In that case, you are truly a king @hanera 
How do you guys define under leveraged or over leveraged? I feel I have more than enough leverage because the mortgage balance on my primary (and only) home exceeds $1M - so I am just trying to pay it back month by month out of my salary. It matters not whether the value of the house is $3M today or $5M a few years from now…
Without leverage, isn’t investing in SFBA real-estate just preserving capital against inflation?
leverage is value of asset divided by your equity. I friend of mind bought a home with 3% down payment (got some VA loan) and home appreciated thrice since 2010. Just sold the home to buy an even bigger home twice as much price. Leverage works if income from the asset and the value of asset appreciates. But, can go against you if income and value decline.
I have a rental property with no mortgage and couple of rental properties with 20/30% mortgage relative current market value. Even with my rent-controlled rents, the properties can afford higher mortgage payments.
My primary is worth 800k (
a joke for some of you guys here, I know) and my principal is 270k.
So that’s why I think I’m underleveraged but it is what it is…If my goal is to maximize my money, I won’t be here (and other forums) for hours and hours everyday positing random bs. 
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Probably true. Do I need to take excessive risk? I look at portfolio level not RE portfolio only, not stock portfolio only. Anyhoo, I have mentioned many times, you probably didn’t read them, I didn’t buy SFHs in CU for investment.
Ditto here. Maximize is the wrong goal. Recall WB’s advice? Not to lose money.
My original comment was not directed to your purchase. I was suggesting low possibility of someone buying a
3 M home in cupertino for investment purpose.
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LTV for RE portfolio. For Primary should be 80%, rental should be 70%. Portfolio level should be 50-70%. Mine is much lower.
From an investment perspective, you are probably right to look at it this way using LTV as the the metric.
Why do you recommend higher LTV threshold for primary compared to rental? Should it not be the other way around (I.e., one should take less risk with one’s home compared to investment properties)?
LTV for my primary is ~ 50%. Yet I feel I have too leveraged because the loan amount is greater than $1M, which somehow is a psychological marker.
How do you define portfolio level LTV? Guess that does not apply to those of us who only own the home we live in.
Desperate, I searched online for low-priced property in arid deserts or tiny houses I was too large to live in. I considered fire damaged lots in the California foothills that came with plenty of free charcoal.
“Oh, let’s just move to Texas like everyone else,” I said one night, my eyes bleary from scrolling. That was before I found out the virus had more reproductive rights in Texas than the women did.
“What about Florida?” my husband suggested.
“Hurricanes,” I said.
“Arizona?”
“Parched.”
“Tennessee?”
“Floods.”
“Salton Sea?”
“Evaporated.”
We looked at properties inland, away from the coast, far from hipster coffee and expensive pizza topped with soppressata (i.e., salami). We considered a two-bedroom fixer at $499,000 that was surrounded by industrial strength rat traps in a flood zone bordered by a levee next to fields sprayed by Monsanto.
They had 10 offers in three days.
The insane prices around SV make sense now.
It means all these SWEs are not spending full time on their jobs! My feeling that Better.com’s CEO only fired those that spent 2 hrs but didn’t fire those that spend 2+ hrs i.e. everybody spend less than 8 hrs but get 8 hrs of pay. I am envy… I spent 12 hrs to do a 8 hr job!!! I am dumb!
Can someone send the text version. I am not able to get past the paywall