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everything
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2012 Dec 11, 9:52am
I feel your pain, I sold my house because the property taxes were nearing 4k, and I only make about 60k pre tax. I'm single, but for one, nothing is really all that affordable anymore, and I even live in the midwest. Instead I rent for a couple thousand more than that with all utilities included. Yes, I decided food was more important. Still, my wages stagnated, and I'm in my 40's, my best earning years are behind me, and I did not even have a decent job until I was 30 anyways. Go live with her folks, save lots of money. Hard to believe how much more everything cost than it did back in the 70's before we had our initial bout with inflation soon after going off the gold standard, I would say, get ready for the ride of your life but I can't tell the future.
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I saw the thread: http://patrick.net/?p=1219707 asking users to chronicle their house buying experiences and figured I would give it a go.
My girlfriend and I live in a small community in the east bay. I've rented here for about 6 years and really like it. She grew up here and her folks still live here so we really don't want to leave. We are first time buyers and are looking for a 2 bedroom. I'm not interested in condos, so the search is for a single family residence.
We have been frustrated with the lack of inventory. At any time there are may be only 2 or 3 houses available in our price range. Usually half of these need extensive foundation or other work that makes it not workable. We've been looking for 6 months and our price range has expanded from 350 to 400 to now 450+. Most of these houses are around 1000 square feet.
As the summer went on it seemed like prices were inching higher and we decided to wait it out until the fall when the market traditionally cools down. But it hasn't. Prices have continued to rise quite dramatically. Selling agents have been accepting offers on a set date to try to get bidding wars and it's working. We've put in a few offers but I don't think we've been very close to actually getting a place. The last one I bid 22k (5%) over asking and weren't even selected as a backup.
I really don't want to move away and don't see why we should have to leave a town that I enjoy and my girlfriend has grown up in. I'm not looking for anything fancy, even a fixer upper is ok as long as it doesn't have major structural problems. We're just not finding it. It sucks. I don't know where all these people with all this money are coming from. It's not like we want to buy in some super ritzy place, we do better than the average income for mortgage payers in our town (mostly single family houses here) according to citydata. If we have to go any higher we'll be eating ramen every day and that is just not worth it.
#housing