WatchHi All,
I've been a frequent reader of this thread since the height of the bubble and have always been impressed with the collective skepticism and unwillingness to toe the party line when it comes to real estate.
So I come to you with some decisions.
I'm a few years out from residency and make a very good living in Silicon Valley as a specialist physician.
For purposes of discussion let's say that my salary is over 5 times median income in santa clara county.
I currently rent at an overpriced corporate-type apartment complex and my rent has increased over 15% to nearly $2700 for a one bedroom apt. While I can obviously easily afford this, I'm not paying out of principle. I'd happily pay that for a high rise in NYC or SF, but not a tarted up apartment in Mountain View.
I have a very stable job but with cuts in healthcare, I expect my salary to decrease. Obviously I'll still be very comfortable. I plan on staying in the SF Bay Area for the foreseeable future but have to live in the South Bay, no further south than Los Gatos.
Here's the gist of my question: Should I buy a new-construction townhome? I have enough for a large downpayment and I can imagine a scenario where I can put enough down payment on a $700K condo/townhome with a 4% 30 year loan for a monthly payment of about $1600.
Or should I rent for another year and see what happens.
I refuse to pay for overpriced SFH in PA/Los altos hills/ etc. I'm really wondering who the hell is comfortably buying these things.
The fact that I even have to ASK this question points to the fundamental absurdity of housing prices in this area, am I right?
Thanks for the words.
BTW just to let you guys know I listen to you: I have 2 rifles, a shotgun, pistols and a couple thousand rounds of ammo. I just need to cordon off some land to grow potatoes.
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Facebooksux says
Condo? Never,unless you wrongfully expect it to rise in value to a million $. You just don't own if you are with an HOA.
Facebooksux says
You are truly prepared for the worst(cannibal anarchy,as per AF Tony Manero)
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38 threads
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Pleasanton, CA
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Yup, I'm with bubblesitter. HOAs are the devil. There is no regulation to how high they can go. I own a condo in another country and the HOA has gone from $240/mth to $400/mth in just 2 years. Absurd. It become part of the debt of ownership and affects the resale value later.
If you must buy, then stick to a SFH. I'd even buy something small with good land that you can fix up or add to later. Land is key. It will also provide you some good sighting distance when you need to fend off the cannibals/realtards. Just saying...
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46 male
Menlo Park, CA
$2,700 is a lot for a 1BR in Mountain View, or anywhere. Must be a pretty nice place. Median for 1BR in Mountain View is $1,542.
If you write a tiny Open House Review of some place you get a free week of Patrick.net Premium and can see all these rental comps:
http://patrick.net/housing/rental_comps.php?uaddr=Mountain+View%2C+CA&br=1&t=m
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Mountain View, CA
bmwman91's website
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Are you renting in Oakwood? $2700 for a 1BR in MV...holy crap.
Do you require all the perks & amenities? You can probably find a 2BR townhouse-style apartment in a smaller complex for a little under $2000. We're paying $1775 for a 950SF 2BR/1.5BA in MV presently, in a nice part of town. If you want the pool & all that, then you'll have to shell out for it. I was at Central Park at Whisman Station for 3 years, but I left when the started hiking rents last year. It is 2 blocks from me, and I am still in that pool 2-3 times a week lol. I also hit the Oakwood hot tub from time to time since I can just walk in haha.
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Mountain View, CA
No, not Oakwood but a similar type of building. I don't need all the amenities but one thign that's a deal breaker is thin walls. I don't want to hear shit from above, below or next to me and my current place has concrete construction.
Were the walls at Central park thin? Does your complex have any openings?
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You can certainly do better than that renting. We're paying under 2500 for a 2/1 TH end-unit in Mt. View. Stay away from the corporately owned outfits, and rent off Craigslist from owners who fixed up the unit for themselves, but didn't want to sell when they had to move out. They're often happy if they can cover their mortgage.
That said: concrete construction is a niche demand in this area. Almost everything was built in the 70s, and, while renovation is common, new construction is not. However, consider that if you're in an end-unit, you'll probably be sharing a BR wall with a living room, or a living room wall with a BR. Either way: you'll tend not to be making noise at the same time and place as your neighbor.
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Physician,
Hispanics and others in zip codes like mine are not all bad people. There are problems here but the local public K-12 also send kids to the Ivies and the top tier elite U.C.'s. Besides that those Ivy-and-UC bound kids learn some street smarts common sense, a key part of education and maturation that does not appear in the API/SAT.
Right now it's relatively inexpensive to "relocate" out of The Fortress and into a Bay Area place like this in "Silicon Valley". The housing cost is relatively low and so a high income person like yourself can save/invest a mint of money to use for other purposes.
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Mountain View, CA
B.A.C.A.H, exactly where in my post did I make negative generalizations about hispanics or any other ethnic group? My geographic restriction is one of being available when on call, not in order to live in a whitewashed suburb.
The only ethnic groups to be careful about are REALTORS and cannibal anarchists.
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Mountain View, CA
bmwman91's website
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Facebooksux says
You are very lucky to be in a concrete building. Yes, the walls at CP were pretty thin. I lived in a downstairs unit at first, and the 16 year old above would party hard until 3AM on weekdays sometimes. We tried complaining, but there wasn't much they could do since the father was on international travel all the time, and the mom wasn't part of the family. The management is nice, but sort of ineffective at anything since Prometheus Property Management owns it all, and they set the rules / rates. CP is a rip-off now anyway. Rents went up a whopping 60% there last year, over the course of 5 months. They came down a little as of now, but it is still a bad value. I rented a 3BR, 2nd floor end unit for $2312. After I left, they rented it for $3400. The 1BR units there were going for $2400 last summer, and had been $1500 5 months prior. Fuck that place lol.
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Santa Cruz, CA
I think that the luxury of ultimate mobility and flexibility is sometimes worth it.