Is 2019 A Good Time To Buy A House In The Bay Area?

Bay Area
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I’ve spent 35 years in the Bay Area…

Born in Houston but transplanted into the Bay at the age of 2. My dad landed a job at National Semiconductor back in 1983. We moved around back then: Santa Teresa to East San Jose to South San Jose to Cupertino.

I consider Cupertino to be my hometown as I was practically forged there for 8 years. After my dad died in 1995, we ended up moving like freaks with my mom from one city to another. East San Jose, Los Gatos, Cupertino, Santa Clara, Los Altos Hills, Mountain View, and Alviso.

The years passed on and now I am a full grown adult. But I made a major mistake. I NEVER BOUGHT A HOUSE. It’s super annoying because I am from here and you know, this place is just straight up pricey now. That ship sailed a long time ago.

So I am slowly getting back into the “I need to buy a home” mentality. Markets have cooled down a bit. We reached an inflection point early 2018. But now are feeling the effects.

I put together a sweet article talking about if it is a good time for those who want to buy.

But just to make it short, it makes sense to buy if you are going to hold your home for the long haul. At least 5 years perhaps. Could be less, but the longer the better. I also wouldn’t purchase right now. I’m personally waiting to the end of 2019 to feel it out.

I need to stake my claim by buying a house where I grew up. Or forever be a castaway.

Check out my in depth write up here and let me know your thoughts on purchasing now vs later.

Bay Area Guy

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Trying to predict any market, be stocks, diamonds, gold, and real estate market is a nice but futile attempt. I base my observations on “the nature of the beast”.

You are in a forum where the snake, the bear, the bull and the nice investor thrive, disregarding if they know each other, on snatching any property from your/their hands and the hell with you being that optimistic, drama queen, or not, you being the idealistic person or not believing you are the only one dreaming on buying on the low after the marker recovers from yet another crash.

When we talk about a crash, it means, if you are a naïve person, that you will be the first “pioneer” of the next generation of either owners or real estate investors enjoying nice appreciation after the market recovers once more.

There are pockets, towns, locations, where no matter what happens in the job sector, the prices won’t go down. It all goes to the “education” aspect of that area, or the closeness to jobs.

I went through some “awakening” stage in 2011 when RE agents, friends of mine “suggested me” that I should kind of “pick up any home” with a shovel, or simply put it, be picky and pay peanuts for the castle of my dreams because “wait if you don’t get it, you will be able to pick 2 instead of 1” BS or false advise.

I became a picky guy, any home, close to my wife’s job. And by doing that, we let go of nice opportunities, to the point that one day, after we as a couple being the 1 or 2 couples visiting an open house woke up to the fact that there were 12-20 couples or people waiting in line to the open house.

That’s when the alarm went off! We, by being picky and delusional lost not only cheap opportunities but the opportunity to buy a home, so, we quit! Prices went up so quick our purchasing power was out of line, too low for the competition.

Thanks to a link I had saved on my computer, some city program for low income, we were able to receive a socialist handout :sweat_smile: 20% down payment to buy our first and only home.

So, I have a mantra, a motto, an advise, if you can afford to buy that house of your dreams, do it now! By going on the trail of “it is too expensive now, I will wait for later”, you are not only going to lose to the guys reading this topic, but to others that may have more $ in their bank accounts and won’t hesitate to beat you on the bidding of that castle.

To do so, you need to be like me. When I buy a brand new car, I, for the sake of my own health, won’t visit, nor I will read about prices on any other place or dealership, because I don’t want to find out I paid $10 more. What I want to feel, to know, is that I, finally, bought that car or house of my dreams and let the riots or the RE investors on this forum shoot at each other, or cannibalize themselves. :laughing::laughing::laughing: