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Good lord- Palo Alto home sale

ST Guy said:
I bought it for 435,000 about 28 years ago. The trick to owning a home is to simply buy something you can afford in a decent neighborhood. It doesn’t need to be your dream home. That can come later.
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The most boomer of boomer replies if there ever was one. The trick is to be born into a different generation you say?
 
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Geez….another boomer basher.

What I’m saying is buy something you can afford now. Let your equity grow. Then move up. I now live in the fourth home I’ve ever owned.

And being a boomer has nothing to do with it. I grew up incredibly poor. And I worked my ass off for what I’ve got. I’m the oldest of 12 siblings, none of which, including me, ever got anything handed to them. I also never went to college and I barely graduated high school with a D- average.

So take your boomer hate and crawl back into your hole. Unless you change your attitude, you will never own a home.
 
ST Guy said:
Geez….another boomer basher.

What I’m saying is buy something you can afford now. Let your equity grow. Then move up. I now live in the fourth home I’ve ever owned.

And being a boomer has nothing to do with it. I grew up incredibly poor. And I worked my ass off for what I’ve got. I’m the oldest of 12 siblings, none of which, including me, ever got anything handed to them. I also never went to college and I barely graduated high school with a D- average.

So take your boomer hate and crawl back into your hole. Unless you change your attitude, you will never own a home.
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Boomer is as boomer does. Jeez Louise, and how many miles backwards in the snow was it to school? Both ways you say? Times have changed my man. No hate, just acknowledgment that your perspective just might be a touch bit out of touch.
 
There’s very few options for first time buyers in the Bay Area unless you’re making over $250k with 0 kids. Our 1000 sq ft townhome with a 2008 price of $347k, a unit with the same layout next to us sold for $912k two months ago.
High income, help from parents, selling RSUs…might need all 3 to have a chance to outbid other buyers in the 900k-1.1mil range
 
It’s supply and demand. There are a lot of people able and willing to pay big bucks to live close to their jobs. So prices continue to rise.
Not a lot of new construction going on either, unless you want to go to Lathrop or Patterson and spend 2 hours commuting each way.
 
My brother in law, who drove for the VTA, moved to Modesto because it had homes he and my sister could afford. He’d commute every day to the VTA yard in San Jose.

One also has to ask themselves hard questions like “Can I live with just one or two bedrooms instead of 3 or 4?” Or can I live for a few years with only one bathroom? Can I live in a less desirable neighborhood for a few years? Can I tolerate a longer commute to work? Can I save money by buying a wreck of a home?

Buying a home in the greater Silicon Valley remains doable. More challenging, but doable. The home I’m in now, no one wanted because it, too, was a wreck. I bought it anyway because I could see its potential. It was a struggle to make the payments for the first few years. And I used adjustable mortgages to further reduce my payments.

And remember, the Bay Area is probably the richest area in the entire world. If you can’t buy here, another question that needs to be asked is “Am I better off moving somewhere else?”
 
gnahc79 said:
the only exception was ~2005 until the housing crash of 2008. We were looking in 2006, decided not to buy when everyone was doing the ARM thing, it just didn't feel right. Then 2008 happened and we bought a townhome in SJ/Evergreen for $347k. Just paid off the mortgage last week :banana...in time for my 2 kids' college tuition, one graduates next school year. gonna be poor again for another 6 yrs lol.
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This is my goal, be done with the mortgage by the time the kids hit college. That would be sweet.
 
Relocating is expensive too. Not to mention reduced wages in lower COL areas, plus shitty schools, fewer services, less diversity, shittier climate. Cheaper places to live are cheaper because people don't want to live there
 
wazzuFreddo said:
This is my goal, be done with the mortgage by the time the kids hit college. That would be sweet.
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any plans on moving 'up' to a bigger home for us, gone lol. Our property tax is only $6k/yr (hooray prop 13), so even less reason to sell. Going to drive my 11 yr old car for a while too. College tuition just keeps climbing and I can't imagine burdening my kids with that insane amount of debt on day 1 of their first job. They know it's a huge gift.

IMO plan on your 1st home being potentially your forever home unless your income exponentially increases and you're willing to gamble. A buddy bought a SFH in a not so good neighborhood. Planned to sell+upgrade within a few years to an area with better schools. Life happened, prices went up, they are still there and he regrets his decision a bit :(.
 
The point I was hoping to make is THAT home doesn't appear to be anything special, yet commanded far more than others have. Fish on? The seller's realtor deserves 5%...
 
Younger people are definitely at a disadvantage as far as housing goes in this area. I once worked for a guy who was the mayor of Los Gatos. (Incidentally, he belongs to the same union as I do.) He told me that if you didn't buy a house in Los Gatos before 1985, you were SOL. Older folks have benefitted by the inflation in housing prices. I waited longer than I should have to buy a house, but I'm doing okay. As much as I like living here, I look forward to the day when I can sell out and move far away.

I think college is good for folks who don't like to work. Get a job where you learn a skill doing something that's in demand that most other folks aren't willing to do, and you can probably get ahead. In the union building trades, your training is payed for, your healthcare benefits are covered, and you get pension and 401k benefits. A union, journeyman plumber makes $140,000 a year if he can maintain steady employment. (not that hard to do) Managers can make over $175K.

Hook up with a high earner for a spouse and you're on your way.

Techie guys I know who have made it are eccentric in their ways. I think you need to find a good niche these days if you wanna go the techie route.

If you're a good bullshit artist and don't want to work, I'd get into high-end, luxury item sales.

I can't come up with a good answer for getting your foot in the door otherwise, and feel sorry for young people trying to get a foothold in the housing market in the Bay Area.
 
Yes, older folk have benefitted, but only on paper because it means nothing unless you sell and move to a much cheaper area.
 
We bought our shoe-box 988 sq ft 2 br 2 ba upstairs condo in 1985 for $100,000.00 flat. They sell now for $700,000.00 to $750.000.00. Man, is that ridiculous. I am glad though that we own two..... :cool:. No mortgages, just the HOA dues. We never took out a 2nd or used the equity as a piggy bank. We came very close to closing a sale about 31 years ago but the buyer's financing fell through because the association was still being litigated for construction defects. We had signed on a beautiful conventional home by SJCC, thankfully with a bail-out clause. I have wondered how different our lives would be if we had moved in there. Oh well, that bridge has a lot of water under it.
 
Actually right now it's a buyer's market due to the stock market yo-yo and Trump's immigration policies. Buyers are nervous and aren't making offers like before. Plus interest rates are still high.
The house next door to us was listed Feb 27th and hasn't received ANY offers despite the owner dropping the price every two weeks. Well maintained 4 bd 3 bath SFR in a nice quiet neighborhood in Pleasanton. 2 years ago this would have sold in a weekend with multiple offers over asking.
He's still $100K over market in my estimation but still - not even any lowball offers.
The house doesn't have solar and most of the lookers are Tesla drivers so that may be a big problem.

Thank goodness we have no plans to sell anytime soon. This slow period will pass and things will pick up again.
 
In 1975 :
Essentials = a home, child care, education
Luxuries = hand bags, TVs, travel, vacations

In 2025:
Luxuries = a house, daycare, college education
Essentials = $8 coffee, streaming subscriptions, Uber

Somewhere along the way, essentials and luxuries traded places.

The Bay Area is an extreme manifestation of this.
 
^^^ current young people seem more nomadic and cavalier than their predecessors in many ways; employment, relationships, a roof over their head, etc. maybe it’s viewing circumstances as insurmountable odds. maybe it’s something else.

wrt insurmountable odds - felt that way when i was just starting out too. things are 10x now. but the ratio of revenue to expense is approximately the same.
 
discoganya said:
In 1975 :
Essentials = a home, child care, education
Luxuries = hand bags, TVs, travel, vacations

In 2025:
Luxuries = a house, daycare, college education
Essentials = $8 coffee, streaming subscriptions, Uber

Somewhere along the way, essentials and luxuries traded places.

The Bay Area is an extreme manifestation of this.
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My wife runs a daycare and she’s always at full capacity. She has 3 sets of siblings whose parents each pay the equivalent of a house payment to watch their kids.
I can see why daycare would be considered a luxury nowadays.
 
littlebeast said:
^^^ current young people seem more nomadic and cavalier than their predecessors in many ways; employment, relationships, a roof over their head, etc. maybe it’s viewing circumstances as insurmountable odds. maybe it’s something else.

wrt insurmountable odds - felt that way when i was just starting out too. things are 10x now. but the ratio of revenue to expense is approximately the same.
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my guess is in the 70s there were pensions, so people stayed longer at their jobs, more likely to have a mortgage, and as a result moved less. Plus there weren't annual or quarterly layoffs back then either.
 
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