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Real Estate & Rent

Did I mention I hate home ownership? Like, despise it. With a passion.

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I don’t want to think about how much money I’ve put into our already painful overpriced plot of Bay Area land/house/box that we will live in, hopefully without major issues, for the next years of our lives.

It isn’t even the cost that’s getting to me. It’s that the more we spend, the more of a nightmare management of the home is. From too many decisions to make, to not feeling at all equipped to properly oversee contractors who are literally putting holes in our floors and walls, I am just over it. And there is still so much to do.

Yes yes yes I know this blog is filled with first world, still-have-a-job-during-the-horror-that-is-a-horribly-managed-global-pandemic problems. Sue me. I realize I’m fortunate. I’m blessed. Or, whatever. Yes. True. All of that. But, that doesn’t change the panicked feeling I have when I arrive at my house to check on something unrelated and the contractor’s subcontractor, who has already put in the beginning of plumbing work for the vanity, says “your vanity is 72″ right?” and I’m like… uh… no, 66″ — I confirmed that multiple times with the GC in our What’s App chat (btw, all the contractors like to tout using What’s App for communication, but this just means they can ignore you even more by saying “ok” to things you write in What’s App but then apparently not actually read them.

I’m not going to claim I’m an easy client. I’m particular. But for 25,000 I hope I get to be a little particular. Maybe that’s not enough money to merit particularness. In total we’re spending about 35k on the bathroom. I feel like that’s a lot. I mean, that’s the new car we’re not getting for a while. So. But I can’t be as hands on as I’d like because COVID and being pregnant and all. It’s already dangerous meeting my contractor while he’s in the bathroom and I’m in the hall. It’s stupid. I’m being stupid. After being so careful during the first half of my pregnancy, I’m risking my life over a bathroom.

But it kind of has to get done. It’s not there anymore. Well, the subfloor is there. And the studs. And some drywall they didn’t take down. I don’t know if they should have taken it all down. But it’s still there so. We need a bathroom. We need this bathroom to get done.

I still need to buy tile. It’s hard for me to visualize what things look like without seeing them done, and tile options are overwhelmingly limited yet awful. I don’t want too much grout, but large tile is not relaxing to me. Ok, so bathrooms are like, my thing. I like to relax in a nice tub. Get away from it all. As much as possible in a house with two little kids, a husband, and a father-in-law. So this is very important to to me. Maybe too important. But between how much I’m spending on it and wanting to feel GOOD about it on the other side of construction, I am freaking out about every detail and yet unable to properly manage this project.

That’s not to mention the nine thousand other things going on in the house right now that we’re trying to get done before we move in (spoiler alert, it’s not all getting done before we move in.) We decided we can’t justify paying another 3000 for January rent (plus I will be having a baby sometime in January and we want to be somewhat settled before that happens), so we made the call to move on Dec 21.  A month out from my due date. Baby could come sooner, but G-d willing, baby will keep cooking through the move.

Will I have functional electricity and plumbing? That’s another story.

We’re getting the panel replaced. It has taken a month and a half for my electrician to get an appointment with the electric company. So that’s happening in January after we move in. Hopefully that’s not a big deal. Seems like most of that work will be done outside. Jan 7 isn’t that far away.

The HVAC is getting done now. The crew seems to know what’s up. And in this case its all the new vents. And the furnace. Now in the attic. I hope they’re doing this all right. 20k. Including AC. We didn’t have AC. Remind me to never buy a Bay Area house without AC again? Pretty please and thank you. My husband, who I put in charge of researching cost of putting AC into a home without it, made a comment once that it would be under 10k if there was already ductwork in the home. He missed the whole part about if your ductwork is from 1966 and filled with asbestos and in your crawl space you’re going to want to put in new ductwork anyway and that will cost 20k. And require putting holes everywhere in your house. That will cost TBD but surely a few thousand to fill. Thanks husband. I don’t blame him – this shit is confusing and complicated as new homeowners, and I always expected things to be expensive, but it is just like … everything is expensive and complicated…

So there are holes in my floor? Who will fix them? How do I find a trusted floor repair service to do this? Many floor companies I’ve talked to apparently won’t do a job this small. The super sketch ones will. Do I go super sketch? Do I keep looking? I don’t know. There is a 3×3 hole in my hall closet into the crawl space. I mean, that’s kind of cool. who doesn’t want a 3×3 hole in their closet into the crawl space with no cover? It will be a show piece for the house cooling party that we’re throwing once we’ve all had two doses of COVID vaccines. Check out our new house — check out our new hole in the ground. Want to see the bathroom? Oh, well, look at those beautiful studs! Who needs a toilet when you can pee into the hole where the shower once was? Crawl space is amazing peeps.

I hired a gardener. I know nothing about plant life except it seems like it should be more green than not green. Gardener was hired because I had an emergency need to prep house for termite fumigation situation (apparently that’s a big deal) and someone who I knew through an old hobby responded to my post on Facebook in a random local group and said her husband can help. And he turned out to be a gardening service owner. And he gave me a quote for bi-weekly gardening service. 125 a month. Ok. But who does he hire to do the work? What do they actually get paid? I’m guessing these men doing the work are undocumented immigrants, which I’m not ok with, but I’m uncomfortable asking. And I’m worried about what they actually get paid. But it also seems most gardening services are owned by white dudes who have undocumented immigrants do the work. I don’t now. Maybe they are documented. How would I find out without making it uncomfortable to answer? I’m morally opposed both to hiring people who are undocumented and even mores morally opposed to paying some white dude 125 a month (which doesn’t even seem like that much) to pay people 10 an hour to do the work. Which, maybe they get more than that, but I would like to know. And I have too much social anxiety and panic to ask. But at least my horrifying field of doom grass has been cut. It looks like its dying. It’s winter. I guess that’s normal. Is that normal? The pepper bush is the most horrifying thing I’ve ever seen. Trees seem ok. The gardeners cut a wire to the lights in the front of our house. Didn’t tell me. I asked and he said they did it, but they fixed it, or something. I don’t think its fixed. I want to fire them but I don’t have time and now it’s awkward because it’s the husband of someone I sort of know who I might meet again. And I don’t have time to find a new gardener yet. So for now, they are going to have to do.

I bought too many things for the bathroom. What does that mean? Let’s just say 3 giant vanities (same one, 3 colors) were delivered to my driveway from Home Depot. Poor husband nearly broke his back getting them inside. I wanted to see the colors in person. But in hindsight that was dumb. Ordered a blue, grey, and white one. Leaning towards white. Was always leaning towards white. Home Depot supposedly will pick up a return for free, but that didn’t go so well the other day when we scheduled a return and couldn’t be at the house all day for pick up. We still don’t know if anyone came to pick up the items. One thing is for sure, we’re not going to be able to lift it and get it back to the store ourselves. So we have to return about 5000 of merchandise within 30 days or its ours to keep. Uh. Ok, bad job me. Blame my husband for getting stuck on the idea of a blue vanity. I’m aiming to win him over with purple walls (we both like purple) so we can keep the vanity white, and make it easy to go natural when I decide I’ve had enough of this house and need to sell it in about 2 months.

Oh, some costly-but-happy things… My new washer and dryer is being delivered in a week. Woohoo. The current ones appear to be from 1966 and even my husband (who was very adamant about not replacing them as long as they work) made a comment that they seem to be useless. So, I splurged (because why not, I’m spending all my money anyway) on some nice GE front loaders. At the very least in this house o mess of mine, I can have clean clothes. I mean, if the new electric panel ever gets put in. And someone can confirm the current wiring in the laundry room won’t destroy the new washer and dryer. It might. I don’t understand electric other than our house was not wired correctly. Much is not grounded. Some outlets are. Circuits are not set up right. I don’t know. Is my house going to burn down the first time I do a load of wash in my new sparkly sapphire blue washer? Possibly. That’s one way to clean clothes.

We need a new garage door. The old one is not only manual, but it is mostly broken. I mean, you can bang at it for a few minutes and get it to open if you’re strong enough. We dream of an electric garage opener.

How was this house 1.65M again? Would I have done better buying a 2M house? Did we get screwed? I don’t know, Zillow seems to think it’s worth that. Is Zillow fucking with me? Did Zillow spend 30 minutes having a panic attack trying to open the garage door the other day? That has to knock the Zestimate down at least 100k right?

There is still a random “wine closet” broken refrigerator thing with a lock on it with no key in our garage that the sellers left for us. Thanks sellers. Um. We need to fix our doors as well. And I’m supposedly putting in a door frame for the open nook in my son’s room so there can be a closet there a well.

Did I mention I’m having a baby in T-43 days? And trying to NOT be stressed right now?

Yea, moving in the last month of my third trimester. Great idea peeps.

Real Estate & Rent

Reason #27482837 Why I Hate Being a Homeowner and Other First World Rich Person Problems

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1.7M. You’d think after spending 1.7M on under 2000 square feet maybe you would own a property that doesn’t need a cent more spent on it for at least a few years. Oh, I knew we would have to pay for a gardener given my husband and I don’t have much of a green thumb — or time — to take care of our tiny park. And undoubtedly little things would come up here and there, or so I’ve been told. But I guess I was both naive and exhausted in the home buying process (as we all last few weeks of negotiating contracts for work to be done) and so here I am… 1.7M in and about 70k-100k of work in process, and that isn’t even getting us to the house of our dreams. Just a house we can live in.

I don’t fully blame our realtor for not calling these issues out, though in hindsight I wish I had a realtor who would help us really understand the costs of fixing some pretty basic things that I just missed. I should have been a more informed buyer. At the same time after shopping for over 2 years and looking in areas where 1300 sq ft goes for 1.8M+ I got jaded and desperate. I had a few target neighborhoods in a city I didn’t really want to live in, but I told myself (based on what friends and family members said) this is a starter home and I should focus on its potential, not its current state, as long as it was livable.

I still don’t know if I overpaid. The neighborhood is quite the mix of homes. Ours is on the higher end for sure. But we also have a but more property than other homes in the area. My brilliant thought was that more property gives us more room to grow in the future — for us, or to add value to the house, or both.

Well, I’m a homeowner now. No going back. I like the neighborhood for the most part. I kind of also jumped at the chance to buy something unreasonably far from my current job so it will be easier logically to move on in a year or two once I’m fully vested. Ie instead of buying the home 15 minutes from my current job, where it would be awfully hard to leave unless they kicked me out the door. So I bought this house, in a way, as a gift to myself of freedom, a ticket to whatever is next.
I may have made a mistake in buying this particular house, but I am not sure. I didn’t have to deal with a crazy bidding war—but the neighborhood we bought in has less of that going on for most of the houses, with the exception of a few high target areas. I wonder if the home was overpriced in the first place. Who knows. It doesn’t matter much as selling it at any point will cost at least 6% of the sales value, which is a giant number. So I would like to at least experience a little of the Bay Area magic where these pricy homes go up in value so fast that they cover those costs and them some when you sell. I’m not so optimistic about that—especially given how much we are putting into the house NOW.

Did I understand what ungrounded electric means, or how much it costs to fix it? No. Did I realize that the forced heating ducts would not work for a new AC system and to put in AC it would cost $20k vs $5k. No. Did I realize that to replace the ancient washer and dryer I would need not only a new circuit for $500 plus $300 for every outlet in the room, but I wouldn’t actually be able to permit it because the kitchen’s electric is such a mess if a city inspector gets near it they will make us rip the entire kitchen out to redo the wiring? Nope. Did I understand that getting a bathtub in the bathroom (instead of a shower) and redoing the old tile and fixtures would cost $35k? Well, I knew it wouldn’t be cheap, but was in a bit of denial about how much it would cost.

Beyond costs (which I’ll itemize below), the whole process of finding contractors has been incredibly stressful. I’ve interviewed dozens for each job and at the end of the day am unsure if I picked the right ones. I backed out of one bathroom remodel contract at the last minute (the project manager was very aggressive and I felt that would maybe be bad when I needed to ask him anything during the project) and switched to a smaller firm where the owner is involved more in the day to day. Then, yesterday, I realized in the blur of contract signing I managed to negotiate for little details like the installation of two electric plates but did not read the payment terms at all. Since my husband is pretty much useless when it comes to anything money related it is on me to catch such things. And half asleep in my third trimester is not a good time for me to be signing $25k contracts. I realized, yesterday, that we agreed to paying for basically everything up front. I dumbly thought we would be protected by CA’s $1000 down law, but apparently they can require payment on the start of each piece of the project vs completion. In looking at other contract I almost signed, I see a much more reasonable payment schedule—all on completion of the items. Well, fuck me. I just hope this contractor does good work and doesn’t walk before it’s done. He has enough reviews online that at least it seems I have some leverage in being able to call out anything horrific in the partnership, but I still will be out 24k, minus the $1k I get to pay when everything is complete.

I’m also rushing for good reason but rushing is never good when it comes to being smart. I’m due with a baby in two months. Every month we don’t move in is costing an extra $2500 in rent, plus we are losing my FIL’s $2k towards the mortgage of $7k a month. So we are paying basically $10k a month to not live in the house right now. Well, $7k since we are living in the apartment, but still—what a waste (did I mention this post is about first world rich people problems?)

The bathroom situation is especially overwhelming right now. I still do not understand why half the contractors said it would take 1-2 months to get a permit at the moment, while mine managed to get it in a day. This seems highly suspect. At least there is a permit so that means things will have to pass inspection. Ok, good. I’m tired of all these times with unpermitted work. Yet my contract says nothing about having to pass inspection (the other from the firm I didn’t hire actually has a payment chunk due on inspection passing.) I feel woefully unprotected and dumb right now.

The good(ish) news is that if I can purchase in stock or readily available supplies (which limits our choices immensely), they supposedly can get the bathroom done in under 4 weeks. So my goal of having it done by or soon after Jan 1, when I hope to move in, is within reach. I’m torn on buying in stock whatever vs nicer finishings — the construction is so expensive that it is pretty clear I won’t be remodeling this bathroom again for many years if ever. I want it to both be really nice for resale value (my heart still says if I earn and save enough money in the next 5 years (and am not stuck in a great job nearby) I want to sell it and move to my target neighborhood) and nice for our forever home should this turn out to be that (which quite frankly is more likely as my husband and I aren’t fans of change.)

So every little material decision is a project in and of itself. Shower system? Maybe we like one in stock but a part is missing for the color we like. Tub? They all have bad reviews or some issue. Tile? Husband and I can’t agree on anything. Vanity? Don’t ask. Ok do. The vanity is probably the biggest headache of them all. Cheapo vanities in standard sizes are readily available, but will they help resale value? The bigger issue is the space we have for the vanity. I always assumed vanities should go against the wall. Well we have about 66” to fill in that case. My contractor says we can go up to 69”. There are no 66-69” custom vanities. We can buy a 60” freestanding vanity that is centered between the toilet and the wall—or replace with something similar to what is in there now (18” linen cabinet and 48” vanity — but these are hard to find non custom and the linen cabinet adds another big cost) or we do semi custom and get a modular (still cheapo yet expensive) system at 66” but have to pay an extra $1k+ for custom top to fit and installation. Also my contract says something about how our cabinet maker must do the installation (another miss on my part) and the cabinet makers seem to not do this or charge a lot for this service.

Nicer custom vanities will not only cost $5k+, they will take at least 8 weeks to arrive. So that means there is no way the bathroom will be done before baby comes. While I’m tempted to discuss this option with my contractor — getting all the work done and having the vanity installed later in spring with the plumbing work done then — I just feel like it would be a horrible idea to leave this unfinished with a new baby and have it’s lack of completion hanging over me the whole time. I think for my sanity better for it to be done with lower end materials than missing the vanity for the next few months and hoping my contractor will finish the job months after I’ve paid him most of the total amount.

So the goal is between now and end of day Tuesday, order EVERYTHING. Try to buy in stock items, and buy things that look nice enough but are low end enough that one day if we want to replace one item we can maybe do this without having to rip out the entire bathroom again (and save costs by hiring individual contractors vs a GC.) But I don’t trust people esp people who make $25k in 4 weeks and I don’t have the knowledge to properly inspect their work beyond aesthetic issues. What if things are installed wrong? Well I’ll only know after the fact. Then I pay someone else to fix them.

ah the joys of new home ownership paired with trying to not get fired while surviving the last 2 months of pregnancy with my second child.

I went into all of this accepting we would spend about $50k on the house up front. I thought this would be enough. It’s looking like it will all be closer to $100k. I sold a chunk of stock so I have the money but I also realize that 1. That money has lost out on significant gains in the market I will never get back and 2. We should have just sucked it up and bought a house that was 100-200k more that had all this shit done already and that could be paid off at 2.65% over 30 years. Now, if buying a gone, I would definitely be looking at the fixtures, the electric work, the status of the HVAC system (and not going by my husband’s comment that he thinks it will be $5k if there is existing ductwork.)

Here is how things are adding up:

-$35k – bathroom remodel (could be more)

-$10k – new electric panel and recessed lights throughout house (does not include rewiring, which we have decided to hold on and address with subsequent remodels)

-$20k new HVAC system and asbestos removal

– $2.5k kill termites

– $1k roof repairs

– $2k – washer and dryer set

-$1k – new wiring for laundry room

-$1k – misc, new locks, random heavy crap sellers left being hauled away

– $1k closet doors for kid’s room so they don’t smash their fingers on the built in unit (there is a closet indent but the sellers got rid of doors)

-$5k patching everything contractors do where holes are left, replacing flooring (hoping this doesn’t cost more than this!)

$5.5k – new garage door and wiring (replace manual door)

That’s it for now. I guess. We are still looking into re wiring since nothing is grounded and that seems bad. All the outlets are also upside down (who does that?) and I am probably going to soon spend $5-$10k to plant some trees in my backyard covering a not so great view, and add a playground for my kids. And there are other landscaping things I’d like to update so it is more sustainable and less expensive to manage. I found a gardener for $125 a month, so that’s a new forever cost. It’s important though since everything is dying!

I am sure I’m forgetting things above —but the grand total is about $83k right now… and I’m sure that we will find $17k in additional repairs and items to fix once we move in.

And, yes, I should have bought a house that cost $100k more! At this rate. And for all of this I get to move into a 100×100 square foot room since my FIL will be taking the master suite. Which I am ok with, but for the amount I’m spending on all this, I still feel kind of sad. I feel good about giving my kids a house, I can tell my son is excited to have a house as much as he understands of our move at this point (he likes to run around the house and calls it the house with green grass.) So that makes me warm and fuzzy inside. But not $1.7M + $100k I’m up front costs earn and fuzzy.

What this house really needs to make it “the” house is probably going to cost more than it will ever be worth. The sellers converted a full bedroom into a master bathroom that is designed in the way you would think a bunch of old people would design a master bath spa retreat (without permits, of course.) My dream is to bump out the house in the back (doable) and turn the master bath back into a bedroom (we want a 4br house) and then add a new master bath that is lovely and not quite so insane. It seems possible we could even add a small 5th bedroom in this addition, which may be helpful for resale / living with 2 kids and 2 parents with work from home jobs and possibly one more kid. And/or I’d like to add on in front and put in a nice living room, and redo the kitchen and laundry area and current living areas and open them up to make a super cozy family room. The reality is it really doesn’t make sense to do this work, probably ever. Our best bet is staying for 3-5 years, approaching this house as our starter home, hoping we at least make back what we paid for it when we sell, and being much more informed buyers when we look to purchase our true forever home.

I’m hopeful the work we are doing now adds value to the house. Given I think we probably overpaid it won’t help with sales price much in a few years but we should be able to get back what we paid as long as the housing market doesn’t tank (and if it does we can then afford to move to a nicer house for less anyway.) I worry about the master bath hurting resale value, and while I think my idea to convert that back into a bedroom and add master bath elsewhere with a small bump out is a good one, I realize that project will be another $100k or more and just a mess to do.

I just want to feel good about this purchase. But I don’t. It’s my own fault, but I feel like I’ve been had. The winners here are my realtor, the sellers, their realtor, my contractors, my neighbors (who benefit from high cost of sale of home for their own home values), the city (now getting taxes off a $1.7M value vs much less) and just about everyone but us. Ok, ok, so we have a house. A house to build memories in. A house to call home and never get kicked out of as long as we pay our mortgage and taxes and our subcontractors don’t sue us because I didn’t realize that’s a thing that can happen if you pay your primary contractor and they don’t pay their subs. Fucking fun times y’all.

I feel grateful and fortunate to be able to buy a Bay Area house in the first place. I realize it is a huge privilege to be at this point. But, geez, it really is a nightmare. It raises so many questions about if we made the right choice, if we should have just stayed renters forever, if we are going to spend the rest of our life house poor and fixing shit that keeps breaking vs just enjoying life —or if this is a smart decision that will be both fruitful in the stability it provides and maybe even grow in value in some sort of crazy way that makes it a reasonably decent investment (unlikely) or at worst a break-even luxury purchase.

All I know right now is I need to figure out what vanity to buy… and not stress about it to the point I go into pre term labor.

Real Estate & Rent

I’m Pregnant: With a New House

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I feel like I’m having twins. Except one is a baby and the other is a house. My first house. My house. Well, our house. In the middle of our street. In the middle of my check book.

After a 300k+ downpayment, you’d think we could stop bleeding cash for a while. But a “new” house in these here parts is an old house. A pre 1970s house. Which, when I bought it, didn’t seem that old — given many houses here are from the 1920s. Then, after buying it, I realized it is pretty old. Old enough to need a whole bunch of new things.

I set aside 50k for first year repairs–and I’m going to spend it all up front. Fumigation – 3k. Roof – 2k. Electric – 15k. HVAC – 15k-20k. And that’s before we get to the nice-to-haves, like an electric garage door opener, a hallway bathroom remodel (so we can have a bathtub), and maybe epoxy on the garage floor to make it into a gym (ok that’s a luxury but “only” 2k.) I don’t love the layout of the house and the two bedrooms we will be living in for the foreseeable future (while my FIL lives in the master bedroom suite) are tiny. I’d like to add on to them and rip out everything in the house and redo it all but… ok, I’m not that crazy. Maybe I am. But I’m also actually pregnant. And tired. And not ready to complete a massive remodel and cash out all my stock to build on to this house. It will probably never happen. I need to be happy with the house as is.

I’m trying to be. It’s scary to be a homeowner. I think homeownership is kind of bullshit but I’m doing it anyway. It’s a total scam. The “American dream” my ass. In a HCOL area it takes 35+ years to break even, if that. That’s not counting all the upgrades you put into your house because it’s your house. You know, home ownership and this dream is really just the government wanting to convince people to take care of a little plot of land and pay more taxes for that land and feel stuck. Being stuck is good for the stability of a nation. Not so much for its people.

But I did it anyway? Why. Oh, I don’t know. As our networth creeps towards 2M, and as we’re approaching baby #2, it seemed like the right thing to do. Give my kids some stability. It’s good for them, supposedly. I don’t know. I lived in the same house my entire childhood and look how I turned out–and now I’m just an emotional mess on my mom having to sell that home. And I’m almost 37. Maybe I’d be better off if I moved around as a kid and didn’t have such an emotional attachment to a piece of real estate.

Anyway, I did it. The home is ours. And right now it’s actually ours but we can’t go in it because the sellers have a rent back and they’ll be out on Nov 7. Then it’s ours ours. Ours to put a massive tent over and fumigate. Ours to replace the old fire hazard electrical panel. And redo the vents so we can put in AC. Ours to move our king size bed into the 100 square foot bedroom with a tiny closet because that’s what my life is now. Spending 1.5M+ on a home should buy some luxury but it doesn’t here. I have a little more space than a 1.3M home but not much more. I don’t know what I have. A 1.5M+ headache. A 7k a month mortgage. A whole lot of new stress. Neighbors — god — people I will have to get to know and can’t avoid if for any reason I want to avoid them.

I’ll miss my apartment — but we couldn’t stay in our one bedroom anyway. I’ll miss my neighborhood and town, and the last town I lived in where we tried to find a place to buy but gave up with everything going 300k above ask. I feel like this is kind of the end of everything, versus the start of it, which is the wrong way to be approaching home ownership. But it’s kind of a let down. You save and save and save and then the best you can do is buy a half-decent home with a lot of repairs needed that’s over an hour from your office. Is it an accomplishment? I don’t know. Hard to say. Maybe it will feel like it is when we have it fixed up. When it’s really ours ours. When I can tell my son this is his house, for real. His front door. His bedroom. His backyard.

I’m looking forward to the space. The grass I can lie on during the day with no one giving me funny looks. The same grass I can sleep in without worrying I’ll wake up and my keys will be gone. All the walls that we can do whatever we want with. So much responsibility. 85k a year of it, plus whatever it costs to keep the house “alive.” What a fancy life I lead.

Real Estate & Rent

Rent vs Own — What Was the Better Choice in the Last 5 Years?

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I ran an interesting analysis yesterday to help me feel better about how much I’m spending on a house! I wanted to see if I came out ahead or behind renting a 1 bedroom apartment vs purchasing a 1 br condo over the last ~5 years.

We moved into this 1 bedroom in April 2014. It was hard to find a comparable condo and exact data on its sale value at the time. I used Zillow estimates so the analysis isn’t perfect, but I think it’s close enough (if I’m doing it correctly) to be a fair comparison.

*I include “lost gains” because I am looking at total cost of ownership. At the end of ownership, this is how much one “lost” in value after owning or renting that property. While one “has to live somewhere” per a commenter, one doesn’t have to live in a rental that is any set price. The total cost of ownership should include lost gains. I also don’t include “home equity” for this same reason. “Home equity” is a misnomer because when you sell it is just cash. If you rented for less, that cash would also be in your pocket (and available to invest.)

Cost of Renting the 1br Apt (800 Sq ft)

-$183,333 – Rental Costs
-$112,871 – Lost Gains (S&P 500 w/ dividends reinvested)
====================
TCOO = -$296, 204

Cost of Owning 1br Condo (750 Sq ft nearby)

-$28,740 – HOA
-$55,424 – Tax & Insurance
-$54,556 – Interest
-$387,691 – Lost Gains (S&P 500 w/ dividends reinvested)
-$20,578 – Maint estimate
-$43,200 – Cost to Sell (realtor fees)
$178,000 – Tax Free Gain
$35,000 – Est Tax Savings
====================
TCOO = -$376,918

Renting was cheaper!

Does anyone see anything wrong with my calculations above?

Mental Illness, Real Estate & Rent

DUI Depression 10 Years Later

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The day I got my DUI seems like a million years ago. In fact, it was about 9 years and a month ago. While I don’t remember much of my 20s, I do remember that night all too clearly. All the bad decisions I made. The reckoning of my entire self identify as a “good girl” all lost in one evening of drinking too much wine at a networking event and, in the days before uber, driving home after waiting what I thought was long enough to sober up — when it clearly wasn’t.

What followed my DUI was deserved, but that doesn’t negate how horrible it was. A night at the jail handcuffed to a chair. Six weekends of “community service,” the classes, the  $10k+ in costs… or more, I stopped counting. Years later, I just want to forget about it. I made a commitment to myself that night that if I was ever to drink again, I would take public transport or uber to get home. And since then I haven’t received a DUI, nor have I had any reason to get one — because I don’t drive after drinking. Ever.

This doesn’t stop my past from haunting me. In applying for home insurance, it has come up that purchasing car insurance alongside it as a bundle could save on our total rate. Well–guess what? These companies immediately ask me if I had a DUI in the last 10 years. Sadly, my conviction was in November 2011, which is still under 10 years ago. Many companies said they won’t insure me at all. One said they might be able to get an override, but I wouldn’t qualify for a good driver discount.

Luckily I have car insurance now and it’s a fair rate so it’s not the end of the world, but it really feels like a sharp gutting of my heart in being reminded of the horrible mistake in my past. I don’t want to forget about it, but I also don’t want to be reminded of it anymore. I was 25 then. I’m 36 now. I’m just in a different place in my life.

The only good news is that this reminded me that in one year I won’t have the DUI on my motor vehicles report anymore. It will still show up when employers search my records — and will still make it hard to get into Canada — but at least, soon, I can kind of move on. I though I had moved on. But clearly I haven’t. So I’m a bit depressed this evening. Embarrassed of my former self. Acknowledging I am the same hot mess I was then, only a little better when it comes to decision making.

This comes on top of an incredible amount of stress (probably too much) in trying to figure out home insurance. I don’t get what we are supposed to be covered for and I don’t know how much we should be covered for. The replacement costs all the agencies are providing seem way too low given I’m told in the Bay Area it costs $500-$600+ per square foot to build. I thought the home insurance part of home buying would be straight forward (bank wants you to be covered for the cost of the loan, you get covered for the cost of the loan, and you’re good.)

I’m stressed out because I’m in the middle of this closing process and we’re still awaiting the appraisal and we’re still waiting to find out if we can get the property insured (or maybe we already have a policy we haven’t paid for — I’m confused) — and one company that was high rated said they may not insure us because there are galvanized pipes and every company is asking me how old the roof is and I don’t have any idea as the seller’s report does not say and our landlord doesn’t know. And this insurance agent I spoke with kind of freaked me out about the galvanized pipe issue. So there’s another thing we’ll have to fix when we move in, possibly. So many things.

I just want to be happy right now. I want to feel like this is an accomplishment and I want this opportunity to feel good just for a few minutes, you know? But at the moment I feel like absolute shit. Scared. Ashamed of my past. And just trying to get through this process to buy the house and figure out what really needs to be fixed and how much it will cost to make it safe and reduce risk as much as possible.

New pipes, huh?

Real Estate & Rent

Buying a House in the Bay Area Even Though It’s Probably Going to Burn Down

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Anyone on the west coast at the moment is dealing with some ill effects of the insane wildfires raging up and down the coast. Many of us woke up to apocalypitc orange skies earlier this week, and have been coughing through the impact of that atmospheric ash slowly raining on us all weekend. COVID is still raging as well, as is the occasional heat wave, and we’re all stuck in our various apartments and homes that do not come standard with air conditioning.

Yet, I’m still planning on buying an overpriced home here. That will likely set a wildfire to my own FIRE journey. All logical signs point to RENT but I can’t get the buying dream out of my head. At the very least–when times get tough–this will force us to find a way to earn more. This is good for me (I won’t be able to give up) and good for my husband, who hasn’t changed jobs (one part time job) in over 15 years. He has the same home ownership dream I have, so in a way it gets us on the same page regarding finances a bit. I think that will be good. It’s not like I’m just saying we need to save more for retirement (no matter how hard I try, he doesn’t get it and thinks he can live cheap and be fine on his minimal savings.) But a house — he gets that. So at least he will be on board to earn more if (when) shit hits the fan.

I see my own financial life going one of two ways:

  • I get somewhat wealthy. A few years ago, I would have said you’re bonkers if you proposed this idea to me. I had been saving for years and while I had “a lot” in my accounts, it was still no where near the amount that would allow me to ever achieve “wealth”–that is a minimum of $5M in networth. The I joined a company with actual stock (not stock options) and it went up in value a lot. And my other stocks also went up. It showed me how in 4 years, I could increase my networth by $1M. From ~$500k in 2017 to ~$1.5M at the end fo this year. Now, that was a winning lotto ticket. But there’s also no reason to think, if I were a normal person, that I couldn’t keep moving up in my career and getting similar grants for the next 30 years of my career. They may not go up as much as this one did, but at some point I would hit the $5M goal. It doesn’t seem completely impossible–and I don’t even need my husband’s money to make it happen.
  • I can’t afford the mortgage. This is the other option. I know, these are two extremes– but I really see this being how my financial life plays out going forward. If I can figure out a career where I can every 4-5 years or so go to a new job and keep moving up, I should be ok. If I can continue to obtain mid-level/senior-level roles in large companies then I should be fine. But the other–very realistic potential–is that I let my mental health issues get the best of me–I stay at this job for a while longer, then move to a different role (in order to maintain the level of stock grant you have to switch companies usually) and then I bomb, and I spend the next many years working at low-paid startups with crazy CEOs who hire me to do the impossible as a one-woman shop because I can’t get another role at a public company again. I’ll burn out on that too, because I’m no longer in my 20s. So then I don’t know what happens. My one ask to my husband is if we buy a house, after our kids are in school (and he is no longer a part time SAHD), can he get a FT job (esp if this scenario plays out.) He seems open to it, but it’s hard not knowing what that looks like. It’s hard to commit to a very expensive 30 year mortgage when who the hell knows what will happen.

So why not rent?

I know, I know. Renting is a fine idea. We’ve looked at a few rentals. I’m the type of person who is mentally impacted by her living space. And the actual SPACE. I grew up in not only a reasonably large house with a big backyard, but also a large room. I tend to feel claustrophobic in small spaces. I understand if financially it’s the best thing to do, I can deal with tiny rooms. I can deal with a lot if we just don’t have the money to have a nicer life.

Then I look at my bank account. Between my husband and I, by the end of this year, we should be just shy of $2M, or perhaps quite shy of $2M if the markets keep dropping. I also watch as my total wealth drops $100k-$200k in a day or two, and at this point I don’t bat an eye (outside to check if I should tax loss harvest any dumb investments I’ve made before they drop further and rebalance into a better diversified portfolio.) I’ve trained myself to be ok about losing $200k in the stock market (on paper) yet I’m completely terrified of buying a $1.6M house and it being worth $1.4M after we live in it for a few years (I mean, I’m terrified of it being worth $800k after we live in it for a few years — but the stock market could also drop 50% in a few years and I’m not selling. So why NOT buy a house?)

I’ve also run the numbers. It appears with the limited tax write-offs, at some point it still makes sense to own. That $500k capital gains tax exclusion on homes helps a lot when you’re a high earner (which is dumb as I hate how most of the tax law benefits not only rich people more but people who consistently have high incomes, as it assumes if you make a lot one year you always will.) But–as a current high earner (which in CA means something different than the rest of the country, mind you) I feel like I have to take advantage of what’s left in the tax law that benefits higher earners, as long as it still exists.

Home Ownership Tax Benefits are Slim, But Still Exist

There’s Prop 13. For those of you who don’t know Prop 13, it basically locks your tax amount into the value of your home when you purchased it, plus inflation. I’m torn on how I feel about this law. On one hand, I think it’s necessary because it makes sure that people who buy homes that are affordable (to them at the time) don’t get priced out because suddenly a tech company moves in down the street and their house is worth a bazillion dollars, and their forever tax bill goes up so much they have to sell and move.

On the other hand, Prop 13 keeps people from moving when they should, making the housing inventory low. Worse, it also significantly reduces property tax, which means despite being a high tax state, public schools are chronically underfunded. It’s all pretty messed up.

Nonetheless, it is what it is. So, buying in my 30s and staying in that home for years can be quite fruitful, as long as Prop 13 stays intact. I would imagine they would probably have to grandfather current owners and phase it out over time, even if they realize it’s not sustainable — but who knows. In any case, it is the law now, which means even though we will have to be paying taxes forever, in 30 years we’d be paying taxes on a home “worth” $1.6M, even if the going market rate is $3M or more—even if our neighbors who just moved in are paying taxes on a $3M and we’re paying half what they’re paying. That makes retiring here possible.

I’ve been thinking a lot about old age lately–not because I’m old quite yet–but because I’m helping my 66 year old mother plan HER life. And that situation is a total cluster due to poor money management by my parents. My goal is to be wealthy to be able to help her out a bit (at least pay her back for college and my wedding, especially if she lives long enough to really need the money, which I hope she does.) BUT — for me, I think I want the option to stay in my home and have a live-in aide. Who the hell knows what I will want when I am 65/70/80 etc, but why not plan for that now? The worst that happens is I end up with way too much money to split between my kids and charity when I die. At the very least, that buys me options. Especially since my husband seems on the “I don’t want to think about retirement bandwagon” (I did convince him to set up a Solo 401k so we’re putting about $35k collective to that a year while we can to make up for many years of no retirement savings–but buying a house will def make that saving harder to do.)

Let’s Be Stupid and Buy a House in the Bay Area

Anyway, here we are, ready to do something maybe stupid. Maybe making the worse financial decision of my life. After looking at hundreds of houses all over the Bay Area, we’re ready to put our second offer in — and first one that’s actually AT list. I don’t know if that will get us anywhere, but I have a good feeling about this one. It’s not perfect at all, but I feel (somewhat) good about the compromises.

The major compromise is that it’s a 3 bedroom, 2.5 bath that we will be sharing with my father-in-law for TBD years. FIL will pay $2k a month towards our mortgage and help with watching our son while we work. It isn’t full time childcare coverage, but it’s still a huge help. And my husband and I both feel strongly about keeping our kids out of daycare during the whole COVID mess for many reasons.

Our initial goal was to find a 3/2 with a separate living unit. We’ve looked at all sorts of places–homes with weird in-laws, detached ADUs were the ADU was modern and beautiful and the main house was decrepit, 5 bedroom houses with a downstairs master that was beautiful that could maybe work and 4 upstairs “bedrooms” that were barely bigger than my pinky, on lots with no real private outdoor space.

The conclusion I came to — in my semi logical state of thinking right now in a complete blur as a pregnant woman who has seen a thousand too many houses so far — is we must compromise to make it work here and not totally kill us financially.

I had to throw most of the “how much can you afford” rules at the window. Few people have $1M in taxable stocks at my age also. I can’t rely on the $1M in stocks because that could drop to half that or less, but it’s a different kind of cushion. I’m not selling right now because our capital gains tax in CA is so high — but if we hit a rough patch and need to sell stock, even if it’s gone down a bit, we’ll likely have a lower earning year and have lower cap gains tax. So it’s worth it to leave the stock and not put it into a larger down payment after losing 40% of it or so by selling it all, and let it ride and have it as a safety net.

Where I want to be is at 28% or less of our pre-tax income, before bonus and RSU. I wanted to do this after-tax, but if we did that the math shows we can afford to stay in our current 1br. I decided I need to be slightly less risk-averse here. The 2-3x salary rule doesn’t work. It tells use we can buy a $750k house. That doesn’t exist here. And that doesn’t take into account bonus or RSU which I prefer to ignore for planning purposes, but still doesn’t tell the whole story.

My banker said 32% is the DTI rule he prefers. I’m aiming for 28%.

I am assuming I can make $175k a year going forward, or my husband can eventually get a full time job and make up the difference (ie if I earn $150k, he can make $25k more, which is very realistic if he got a full time job.)

His income is a lot more consistent than mine is actually — so I’m locking him in at $90k a year. I feel good that even if he has to change jobs and get a FT entry level job in a tech company (which I think he could do), he could make at least $90k.

  • That gets us to $265k a year, or $22k a month, give or take.
  • 28% of that is about $6k a month.
  • I feel pretty good about $6k a month going to our housing costs.
  • I feel better about $5k a month going to housing costs.
  • If we do my banker’s 32%, that gets us to $7k a month. I don’t like $7k a month, but I’m ok with it knowing that we probably will earn MORE than the total comp I’m including in this plan (my last two startup jobs my base was in this range and that was years ago)

So $6k a month is our target, $7k is our stretch, $5k is our happy place.

Even though my FIL’s contribution won’t go on forever (esp if we buy a home with only 3 bedrooms), it will definitely help up front when our income is likely the lowest as inflation hasn’t kicked in to increase our income while our mortgage stays flat.

In terms of rentals, we can definitely do better short term. At the moment, WFH, we can move far into the south or east bay and get a house for $4500 – $5000 a month rent with more rooms and space. That is a thought as well.

But the tax savings on the interest for the first few years seems to equate to about $1k a month between federal and state taxes. Maybe less than that. But it’s significant enough that it makes up enough of the difference between a $5k rental and $6k home.

So $6k a month it is. That’s a scary number, since we’re paying $2500 a month in rent right now for our 1 bedroom. But if I’m ever going to feel ready for it, I feel ready for it now.

  • $1.6M home = $7000 PITI
  • $1.65M home = $7250 PITI
  • $1.7M home = $7500 PITI

Based on the above figures, $1.6M should be our absolute max, with my FIL. Unfortunately — anything worth buying here (that also works with my FIL) in the area we want to live is at least that.

Buying a Home and Compromises We’re Willing to Make

Here’s what I’ve decided are non compromises:

  • Under 1 hour drive to work: (I wanted 30 minutes, I gave up — hoping WFH is something I can maintain going forward, or eventually I get a job closer to the home we buy )
  • Larger lot (7500-10000 sq ft): Lot size is interesting here. You see $3M homes on 5000 sq ft lots. Some people don’t want large lots because they aren’t outside much in their own private spaces and don’t want to deal with maintaining a yard.  I get that — growing up on the east coast a yard was expensive to maintain, but it rained so the watering bit was usually covered, with the addition of occasional sprinklers. Still, a 5000-6000 sq ft lot seems limiting. We do (/would) spend a lot of time outside in our private space. A larger lot also means we have room to build onto the house should we ever have more money and want to make it bigger without going “up.”
  • A “vacation” in my house: Decent sized master bedroom suite with existing bath. This is definitely a luxury item. But my mental health is improved by privacy, space, and access to a soaking tub. If I’m going to be “house poor” I at least want to have a space at home that feels like the vacation I won’t be able to afford because I bought a house.
  • Nice street/neighborhood. We’re homebodies. On a good day, we make it to the neighborhood park, or a restaurant around the corner. There are a few neighborhoods I like, and I’ve decided it makes sense to focus our home search there.
  • Decent schools. School rankings don’t tell the whole story (they just tell you if non-native speakers go to the school), but I still find it concerning when non-native speakers are averaging a 2 on their state tests. So I’ve made the cutoff a 5 for school rankings in the area. My kids will be going to those schools. Not only do I not believe in private school, when we buy a house here we won’t be able to afford private school! Also, resale value is also impacted by the school ranking… so buying in an area with “better” schools helps later if we decide this house isn’t right for us and we want to move, or we want to move in retirement, or whenever we decide it is time to move on.
  • Enough Space Inside (1750+ sq ft): Can we live a perfectly happy live in a cozy 1300 sq ft house? Of course. But I don’t see the point in buying something so small– for us. We don’t need 2500 sq ft either. I’ve come the conclusion that 1750-2000 sq ft is perfect, especially with the plans to live with my father-in-law. It basically ends up being that we are living in about 1300-1500 square feet for a few years, and FIL gets 200-400 sq ft. But long term, FIL will move out, and we’ll have more space. That’s important to me as we’ll have at least 2 kids and possibly a third, if the stars align.
  • Family Room AND Living Room: having two main living areas is important to me. It’s a luxury, not a necessity. And it’s rather rare here. But with 2+ kids, having two living areas will be nice when my kids have friends over, and we want to be not all in the same space. Plus, having the extra room gives us flexibility long term (we can convert a family room to a bedroom if needed, instead of having to add on.)
  • Garage: we just need a place to store things (I’m tired of having my bike in the living room) and a spot to put a treadmill for my husband etc.
  • Nice to have — Laundry Room — this is a rarity here, but with 2+ kids, I want a laundry room (not laundry in the garage, or in the bathroom, etc)
  • Nice to have — 4+ bedrooms: This was a must have until I realized I really like big rooms and in a 1750-1900 square foot house with a good master bedroom, bigger master bath, and all of the above, a 4th bedroom is hard to find.
  • General good flow: some houses here… a lot of them… have very strange additions, poorly designed and unpermitted.

The house we are bidding on meets most of the requirement below.

  • $1.6M list
  • 1900 sq ft
  • 9000 sq ft lot
  • family room + living room
  • laundry room
  • giant master bedroom suite (they actually converted an existing bedroom into a bathroom, so you can imagine how giant it is. It’s a bit too big, but I can see long term changing the layout a bit and turning part of it into a home office
  • good neighborhood/street (close to restaurants and park)

What isn’t perfect about it?

  • It’s listed at $1.6M, they prob want $1.7M. I’m not sure they can get $1.7M — the neighborhood seems to go more $1.5-$1.6. A few houses are actually sitting for various reasons. That said, this house does have an oversized lot (for the area) so if anyone else has been waiting to snag a bigger lot in that general area, we may lose the house, or have to pay more for it. We are doing a preemptive offer before offers are due — which makes it hard to know if we’re over paying if they do accept the offer. What we have going for us is down the street there is a 2000 sq ft 5br/3ba listed at $1.7M that has been sitting. It’s a flip, and while it looks nice it was a poor flip job if you pay attention to the actual work done (they did it in a month — bought $1.25M and now it’s $1.7M!) But because that is sitting, I’m hoping a 3br/2ba house can go for $1.6M.
  • It has one giant master bedroom… and 2 teeny tiny bedrooms. That kind of sucks. It sucks most because our FIL will take the master bedroom for a few years, and we’ll be relegated to the two smaller bedrooms. BUT at least there’s the two living spaces. We’ve discussed putting our bed in the family room (it would be kind of like a studio apartment situation since it’s open to the kitchen and garage) and we’d put my son in one of the small rooms and my husband’s office (and possibly a guest bed–that I might occasionally sleep in) in the other small bedroom. Our baby would sleep in our room until s/he turns 1, and then baby either goes into my son’s room (they can share for a while) or my husband moves his office into the family room and we put baby in the other small bedroom. … … eventually, his dad moves out (it’s complicated but the plan is when my mother in law needs to move out of her house — which is owned by her 96 year old mother — she will buy a 3/2 near us, and my FIL will move in with her — they unmarried but friends) and we’ll get the master bedroom, my husband can probably put his office in the family room, or in the master bedroom (though I prefer he doesn’t have it in there, but there’s room if we need to make it work.)
  • While the lot is 9000 sq ft, it doesn’t actually look that large to me. I think that’s because it’s a wider yard and the houses next to it are 2 floors, so there isn’t a lot of privacy. I think we can add a little privacy, but we won’t be able to grow a tree big enough to block the neighbor from seeing into our yard. Which isn’t that big of a a deal, I just like having privacy and feeling like I’m in my own secluded little park. We can probably make it better, and at least there’s room for a swing set.

We probably won’t get this house. But we might. I’m trying to decide if it’s worth going up to $1.7M for it. If we can get it at $1.6M, I will feel good about the purchase. In the town we prefer to be in, we’ve decided not to bid on houses that have gone $1.7M. They weren’t as big or nice as this one, but if we have to pay $1.7M for a house 30 min further from my work, I start wondering if we should just go $1.8M to get something that works in the better area. But, no, I’ve run the numbers, and we really shouldn’t do more than $1.6. If we do $1.7 it’s over budget, but we can make it work.

So, what do you think we should do?

Real Estate & Rent

The Bay Area Home Buying Process (Spoiler Alert: We Haven’t Bought One)

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Two years into our on-and-off again (now very on again) home search, we’ve looked at hundreds of homes, put an offer on one and just decided to pass on an other we came very close to attempting to get. Despite the strain of years of home searching getting to our heads, we both realized buying a polished-up fixer was the same as buying a fixer, and due to some serious permit issues possibly WORSE than buying a fixer. And so, we’re back to square one.

Our requirements make it pretty hard to find anything that works. I feel bad for my realtor. There is also nothing on the market right now, especially the area of the Bay that we’re looking (not to mention that everything around said area is currently on fire–why are we buying here again?) Sigh. It’s hard to leave. And I think many companies will still want employees back in the office when COVID is over… eventually.

So we started out with a budget of $1.5M… maybe $1.6M for the perfect house. I thought that was a healthy budget. Not so. Not for what we want. And while we can compromise — why should we? If we were going to compromise, we’d rent. At least… on certain things we can’t change like lot size, neighborhood, street noise, distance to public transit, shops, etc.

I decided I’m ok living with my father-in-law since it gives us some more wiggle room with budget — with his contribution, we can go up to $1.8M, maybe $1.9M. I thought that’s a HUGE amount and of course we can find something for $1.9M. Right?

Nah. With my FIL, we also need to find a place with an in-law, ADU, or two master suites. The home we almost bid on did have two masters (sort of) — the original master didn’t have an en suite, but at least it could fit our California King bed. Then the owners converted their garage into a bedroom and bathroom, with lovely French Doors to the backyard. So they started a permit on the doors… they never got the garage conversion permitted (because it’s not legal to convert a garage here unless it’s into an ADU following strict rules.) Oh, they didn’t file the permit about construction on the French doors being finished either. Guess they realized the building inspector would ask them about why their permitted French doors were installed on a very un-permitted garage conversion. Plus, there was a 300 sq ft un-permitted not-well-constructed sunroom that we were told would basically have to be ripped out and rebuilt if we ever wanted to do any legal permitted work on the house. Despite the “low” price for the neighborhood, the great street, the relatively great lot — we had to pass.

So back to the drawing board.

A few months ago we DID put an offer in on a house — a 3/2 with an in law downstairs. I didn’t love it because it was in the hills and I feel like being on flat or slightly hilly ground is important for my long-term health (I love to go for walks… but know myself that I wouldn’t on very hilly streets… and I’d never drive somewhere to walk.) We bit $1.65M on a house listed $1.8M. They said no, and we refused to go up. It ended up going $1.75M. Another house we considered, without an in-law, sold for $1.7M.

It seems insane to spend that much on a house. But we want to settle down and we’re ready. But the housing market isn’t ready for us I guess.

We’re looking in other areas nearby–but really I don’t see the point in buying a house unless I can be in the area I want to be in. Otherwise we can rent in that area and hopefully one day save up enough to buy. Like, by the time I’m 80?

It also happens that all the “how much house” can you afford calculators don’t really make sense when you make $170k a year ($250k family income) BUT you have RSUs that sometimes bump your income up to $300k-$800k at random. Which, I’m not complaining about, but it’s hard to figure out what we can really afford. It’s scary without having any idea what our future income will be–especially when my particular role can be paid anywhere from $80k to $800k a year (well, usually $150k-$200k.)

With our second child due in January, I am so ready to buy a home. We may end up moving into a larger rental, but I’m just done with renting. I’m almost 37. It feels like if we don’t buy now we never will. What in the point of getting a 30 year mortgage when our kids are 10??? It’s time to buy… if only there were houses on the market that made sense to buy.

Networth, Real Estate & Rent

Still Shopping For a Home—Will We Ever Buy One?

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Nine weeks pregnant with number two. Wide awake at 4am due to some pretty bad nightmares and a moderate amount of dehydration. I would go to the kitchen to get a water bottle but I can’t because I live in a one bedroom apartment my son sleeps in the living room, next to the kitchen.

I feel so ridiculous to consider my problems problems when the real problems in this world and in this country are so, so much worse. Anyone reading my story, especially without context, would think—man, what a crazy rich woman who is afraid of spending money. Maybe I am. Maybe I shouldn’t be. But my mental health issues make it really hard to know what my life will be like in a year let alone a day. So what do I do?

Looking at houses here that are under $2M and you wonder why anyone buys a house. If they cosmetically are acceptable then there is something wrong with their bones, if their bones are in good shape they are three bedrooms in a space only slightly larger than my current one bedroom apartment. With my husband’s mission to have his dad live with us (which I support IF we could find a place that worked), it makes it all the more difficult.

Part of me says — rates are so low right now, now is the time to buy your forever home. It will hurt financially for the first 5-10 years and then not be too bad. But that is if I can maintain employment for 30 years. I cannot imagine doing what I am currently doing for 30 more years. I desperately need a career change. Without a clear vision of what that is or the income on the other side, I really don’t know how to plan at all. And my husband mutters how I make unreasonable requests of him like try to earn $150k in 5 years (he is at about $80k now but works part time, and he is 38.) I try to tell him I don’t care about his income but if we are going to buy a house that changes things. I need to know we can afford the mortgage or at least most of it on one income—mine OR his.

I know many families have one SAH parent and buy a house. But around here the only families like that I know are one engineer households. If you are a good engineer at a good company you are pretty much set for life unless you massively fuck up. I’m not in a position like that. My job is a weird one that in some companies would be considered a junior role and in companies where it is paid anywhere near what I’m making it would require a lot more management experience.

So I am in this weird spot. I am earning more than I ever thought I would and my networth is climbing (it is realistic to think, if I can keep my job, I’ll have $2M in 2-3 years saved up pre tax, unless the stock market crashes) but I still don’t feel at all stable or accomplished. Yes living in the Bay Area is living in lala land — anyone reading this post from anywhere else would say leave! But my husband grew up here, our friends are here, I am better mentally without my typical seasonal depression in most of the country, and we really want to stay.

I just wish my husband would step up a bit. I know he is tired since due to COVID we lost our part time childcare and now he is watching our son all day while also working part time at night or whenever he finds time to do his work. So maybe I am asking for too much. I would like him to take an online class or something—just to move in the direction of building a career. Like my job, his doesn’t really make sense outside of his company. Some skills would translate but since he has worked for one small company his entire 13 year career, it’s harder to show variety or new learnings. I still think he could get a better paid full time job if he tried, but he never has been interested in having a career.

And some days I think—maybe I can just work my way up to VP and consistently earn, say, $300k a year. For others in my position, that might be doable. But I’m no VP. I do not like managing people or hiring or firing people. In my creative field, I find it very difficult to give feedback without redoing the work myself—and even then I don’t like what I’ve done so how am I supposed to guide someone else to do better?

All of this is to say, here I am, 36, pregnant with #2, with a good chunk of change in savings, and I feel more vulnerable and scared than ever. Up until now I’ve lived with no debts. Some of that is due to fortunately having parents who footed my bill for college (and I really want to pay my mother back for that one day!) But I’ve also bought my cars used with cash and live in small apartments that are less than I can afford based on any housing to income cost calculators.

It’s hard to go from NO debt to $1,500,000 in debt.

But isn’t that how wealth is acquired? My friends who 11 years ago paid $800,000 for a small house, probably with $180,000 down, now own a small house valued at $1,700,000. Maybe $2,000,000 in 10 years will sound as cheap as $800,000 sounds now? Though it’s hard to imagine these homes being worth $3M let alone the $2M they are going for today.

On top of all this, I dislike the real estate business as a whole. Sure, if you know what you are doing and buy the right investment properties you can do very well for yourself. But when you are buying a home for yourself, you are in it on your own while all the people who are supposed to help you don’t really have your back —

your lender — well they want you to be as low risk as possible and any small risk they say you have gives them a reason to charge you more for it. This makes sense for actual risks — but my latest finding from one lender is that we qualified for 3.125% 30 year fixed except when they realized my husband is self employed it jumped to 3.85% (clearly they don’t care that my husband has worked for the same one non profit for the past 13 years and has always made the same annual income with them plus raises while in that same time I’ve had six jobs. Whose income is more stable???)

Then, since you can’t do contingencies in the Bay Area if you want to buy a house, you apparently have to risk 3% of the price of the house (your “earnest money deposit”) and pray to god your loan closes in the allowable amount of time. If not, bye bye $30k! Well, none of these lenders are giving me much confidence our loan will close with no hiccups. With my husband’s self employment status and some new rules around that, not only will our rates be higher, they also will need to see some crazy things like a deposit within 10 days of close. Maybe that makes sense for someone with ongoing business income, but my husband gets paid four times a year for each quarter of work. That is not a big deal—to hold a check and deposit it, but only one lender told me this. What other weird rules will pop up during our closing process that we don’t know about?

your realtor — she drives a nice car, always. And she is an extrovert and smiles and sells you on why to buy a house. She may look at the disclosures and warn you of major risks, but she isn’t really an expert on that stuff, that’s what inspectors are for. But you don’t need an inspector to see that this house built 60+ years ago has issues. There are tiny cracks here and there. The floor is uneven. A tree looks like it’s roots might be going under the house. Everything creeks when you walk upstairs. The layout is nonsensical which is a cosmetic issue but still will you regret having to walk a weird way to get around for the hundredth time? What other issues are lurking in the foundation and in the walls?

The sellers, at least here, pay for their own inspections. I’ve read plenty of reports. Termites. Water damage. Fungus. Liquefaction zones. Flood zones. Seismic hazard zones. Environmental hazard zones. The list goes on. In any area where we are considering a $1.8M home (that will probably go $2.1M anyway) the ground water apparently is 0-10ft deep. That’s not in the inspection report, I found that online! But two “tanks” with one leaking(?) is in the report. What does that mean? My realtor said she would be comfortable with that risk. But we don’t know what’s leaking.

I’d feel so much better buying a 3/2 for under $1.4M. If it turns out to need work we would have the money to do that work. Husband refuses, wants a large home on a large lot with an in law where his 76 year old dad (who can pay $2000 a month until he goes into assisted living) can live. I want that too—but without me knowing I can maintain a mid-senior role in public tech companies every month for the next 30 years, well, that seems like a horrid idea.

your inspector — ok, they are going to try to find issues to help you out (that is their job after all) but given no inspection contingency is allowed in most cases, you won’t actually have your own inspector.

Ok, so maybe we should rent-forever. It is difficult to find rentals I want to live in (at a reasonable cost) and I can’t fight the nagging feeling that if we don’t buy now we will be priced out forever. I certainly know most people would recommend we rent for a few years then move to an area with a lower cost of living. But we really plan to stay here forever. At some point, into the far off future, buying becomes a better financial Option than renting. Emotionally, it is a better option day one.

The reality is that houses that really check all the boxes are around $2M-$2.5M. Y’all think I’m crazy but look at Bay Area listings on the Peninsula and in the nicer areas of San Jose. Can we get a house for less than that? Of course. It’s even possible to get a dump for $1M! But if we get what we want — 1800 sq ft, 4br/2ba with an in law or ADU on 7000 sq ft in actual good shape, in a half decent school district, that’s easily $2.2M. So then I question should we just wait until we can afford $2.2M? Will we ever be able to afford that? And by then I won’t that house be $3M and the mortgage rates will have gone up?

i know I know first world rich people problems. But most rich people have either trust funds or faith in their career and ability and skills and value, and often two parents who are earning a good income. What do I have? A few crazy good years of income thanks to RSU growth then back to earning $150k a year, if that?

I feel like I can’t buy a house until I figure out my career but at 36 that now seems like it’s never going to happen. I want my son and tbd child 2 to grow up in a house. It isn’t necessary, it is a want. But when I’m making $600k a year (what I will likely earn this year if I keep my job which is absolutely insane) I feel so confused about how I should think about my “class,” my risk tolerance, and my home purchase price. A few more years at this income and I can afford that $1.8M house. Heck, I can afford that $2.2M house. But in 2 years my income drops to $300k, then $210k, as my stock isn’t being refreshed enough since I am not a very valuable employee. I should get some small stick refresh this year so I’ll probably hover around $210k if I stay in this company in this role forever (last year I got a 1.7% raise so I’m not expecting any big salary growth here.) $210k isn’t bad either, but with my husband’s $80k that is not enough to afford $2.2M or $1.8M.

AND that $210k is IF i keep this job forever. It is good for now—I am going to stay at least to get all of my initial grant as long as I don’t get fired or let go, and maybe one more year, but then I need a change. Maybe I need to make $80k for a few years (or less) while I figure things out. Maybe I need to go back to school. Maybe I want to take some time off to spend with my kids while they are young and consult part time, I don’t know what I want but I know I don’t want to overbuy and close doors to whatever out there could make me happy, if such a career exists.

So this is where I am. We’ve agreed it we don’t buy a house by October we will rent a bigger place for a while. We are considering putting a $1.8M offer in on this 5br listed at $1.875, which I am fairly confident we wouldn’t get. I’d prefer to lose out on a bunch of bids then overpay. The house is far from my current job but I won’t have to go back to the office this year and in 3 years I can change jobs. But it’s also far from SF which most jobs I’m qualified for are. If I change careers, maybe that doesn’t matter. But it’s scary to think I might get stuck with some crazy San Jose to SF commute one day to not lose our house.

we are looking at another two coming up—not as nice, both $1.8-$2M, both with built in laws. The inspection report on one was pretty scary though most old buildings have issues so who knows.

I wonder at what networth I will be able to relax a bit and enjoy life. I have the $5M number in my head. It’s arbitrary, as all my numbers are, but I think that’s it. That’s enough for a $2.5M basic house and enough to stay in the stock market and grow as long as we keep working and at least pay our living expenses each year. That’s enough to pay my mother back for college and my wedding and help my sister out a bit if she is still earning minimum wage or close to it. And to start giving to charity in substantial ways. I mean, $10M sounds better, but more realistically I want to aim for $5M. I guess that’s my FAT FIRE number. I don’t know how I’ll get there (unless I manage to keep getting jobs at rocketship companies where my RSUs go up in value.) I mean, realistically I’m looking at $2M by 38 or so. If I don’t touch that and get 5% on it YoY, in 20 years we will have $5M. Of course, in 20 years $5M won’t be worth $5M today. The real question is how do I get to $5M by 45? That’s saving about $400k a year for 8 years in a mix of interest, stock growth, and new earnings. It seems impossible. But my first $100k also seemed impossible. So maybe it is possible. Maybe it’s only possible if I buy a house. Maybe it’s only possible if I don’t.

 

 

 

Real Estate & Rent

Figuring Out How Much House We Can Afford with RSUs

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We are going to buy a house. It is not the most financially wise decision, but life isn’t about always being financially wise–sometimes you have to splurge (within reason) and take risks. I accept that buying a house will reduce our total networth in the future, and I’m ok with that. After all, what is the point of making money if you can’t enjoy it, and what would I enjoy more than having a home of my own to raise my kids in? Sure I’d love to take lots of international trips and such, but with a toddler and one on the way (and maybe one more in 2-3 years), that’s not happening for a while. My house will be my Paris and Prague and Tokyo.

But one thing has been very difficult to figure out — how much we can afford. All home buying calculators assume you have a fairly consistent income that goes up by a consistent percentage every year. That isn’t reality for us. There are many ways to figure out how much you can afford, but one model that I’ve decided I like is 28% of pre-tax income (I’d prefer to do post-tax but if I do that I’ll never afford a home here.)

I worked out the chart below, which shows potential annual income (pre tax) with the amount of mortgage (PITI total) we can afford per month (on the right) and then on the let, I have the house price and the total amount of PITI with a 3.5% 30 year fixed loan. Our goal would be to afford a $1.7M home with an in-law, where my father-in-law would pay some rent. This means based on the chart below we need to make $320,000 per year, consistently, to afford a home at this price point. (*my insurance estimates are probably way off but I tried to figure out what home insurance would cost in California with earthquake insurance tacked on — if these numbers look wrong please let me know in a comment.)

Total Year Total Month Mortgage Max (28%) Total Monthly House Price Mortgage (3.5) Taxes Insurance Earthquake
$210,000 $17,500 $4,900 $4,872 $1,000,000 $3,412 $933 $167 $360
$255,000 $21,250 $5,950 $5,957 $1,200,000 $4,310 $1,120 $167 $360
$300,000 $25,000 $7,000 $6,862 $1,400,000 $5,029 $1,307 $167 $360
$320,000 $26,667 $7,467 $7,767 $1,600,000 $5,747 $1,493 $167 $360
$400,000 $33,333 $9,333 $9,936 $2,000,000 $7,543 $1,867 $167 $360
$500,000 $41,667 $11,667 $11,381 $2,200,000 $8,801 $2,053 $167 $360

 

Right now, I’m earning $170,000 in base income, and my husband makes $85,000. Based on our minimum income, that gets us to $1.2M of house… which isn’t enough here. To get to that $1.6M target (which is still a small house and a fixer upper), we need $320k in annual income. So either I need to consistently make $235k, or my husband needs to increase his income, or some combination of both.

What the above does not account for is that my annual bonus is $34,000. I have no idea if I will get a bonus this year or how much of it I will get. I have received my full bonus every year for the past 3 years BUT there is no guarantee I will receive a bonus in the future, or that future jobs will pay such a sizable amount in bonus. I’m not sure if I should include my bonus in my calculations or not. I’d rather not, because a bonus is nice to have for an extra vacation or gift for the kids vs worked into our planned home expenses. It would be nice if my base was $200k, so I could actually include that in the calculations. If I could get my base to $200k and my husband could figure out how to make $120k, we’d be in pretty good shape.

In addition to the base and bonus, I also receive a large amount of my income in RSUs. My refreshes have not been great, though. And if I lose my job, then I will not be able to obtain the same amount in RSU.

When I joined my company, my total compensation was as follows:

  • $165k (base)
  • $33 (bonus)
  • $56k (RSU/yr for 4 years) (*currently worth ~$350k+/yr)
  • TOTAL = ~$254k

My current compensation once I fully vest my first grant is:

  • $170k (base)
  • $34k (bonus)
  • $12k (RSU/yr)
  • TOTAL = $216k

So, that’s good, with bonus and RSU I’m still getting close to the $235k I need to make to afford a $1.6M home, but not quite, and that’s including bonus and RSU which are all variable.

What’s scarier is that if I lose this job, I have no idea if I will be able to do better than $150k salary with no bonus or RSU (I feel fairly confident I can find a job with $150k salary since before I started this job I had a few offers for that amount at startups that I turned down as they were way too low.) So do I base my home purchase off of $150k (me) + $85k (husband) = $235k/yr of income? Then we a afford a $1M house… so we can’t afford any house here and we’ll just continue renting. However, with my RSU growth, my income this year and next year are very high, and it “feels” like I should be able to afford more house. But can I?

Adulting, Pregnancy, Real Estate & Rent

Am I Having Another Baby?

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Given it took months and $5000 of fertility treatments to conceive our first child, I was momentarily bewildered by a very faint pink line on a cheap-o pregnancy test I took two weeks after our first month trying for number two. I joked to myself, as I do, that of course my previously infertile PCOS-ridden womb would get pregnant the first month we tried. I’d be taking the test on Mother’s Day weekend, so it was only appropriate to find out that I was to become a mom – again.

I had taken a test two days prior and it was negative, but I figured I’d waste another cheap-o test and move on with my life. I was convinced that it was impossible to have conceived this month anyway, since my husband and I missed the time in the month I thought I was fertile. But then, as I blurred my eyes at the test, I saw not one, but two lines. I blinked. I waved the strip in the air. I walked away and came back. I took a picture of the strip and sent it to a close friend who knew I was hoping to get pregnant by fall. She responded, “you’re pregnant.”

I dug through my drawer of random things I never used and pulled out the more pricey early response tests I saved for when I might actually be pregnant. Took one. The positive line came back dark pink. “I’m pregnant.” My friend, with one more photo to document proof, confirmed.

Suddenly, my next year flashed before my eyes. I had imagined it all, but not quite so so soon. And with the coronavirus, everything became much more difficult and scary (I was aware of the pandemic when we were trying and decided at 36 with fertility problems and the hope to have at least one if not two more kids, we should get on with it — I figured we’d probably get pregnant in a few months and I’d be giving birth in spring 2021, maybe around the time a vaccine would be available–not exactly January 2021, in the middle of what could be a bad second or third wave.)

So the next year blur — a stomach growing bigger and bigger, being unable to sleep well and having all the horrible third trimester symptoms, not being able to travel to see my mother or sister or visit my childhood home that needs to be sold, the worst possible ways one might have to deliver with COVID-19 around–laboring with a mask and with full-blown corona symptoms unable to breathe, and then just the reality of now having 9 months to move from our one bedroom apartment (a needed impetus to stop being so frugal and get more space), I sat there and took in the reality of what this little pink line meant.

And despite all that worry, I felt really happy. I pictured my son, not able to interact with any other kids these days, having a sibling to grow up with. He has no cousins, and it’s unlikely he will have cousins (my sister is our only hope and if she does have kids it won’t be for quite a number of years), and I want to give him a family (this is also why I want 3 kids even though that’s kind of crazy… we’ll see how I do with two.) I pictured my kids growing up together and fighting and laughing and having fun and being silly.

I went to get my son out of his crib and he was the first to hear the news, and he kept my secret all day. We often jokingly ask him if he wants a brother and he exclaims “or sister!” so I asked him again and told him there is a baby in my stomach. He’s 22 months old so he isn’t going to understand but I made a cute video of telling him and planned to show it to my husband at some point. I knew he would be quite surprised.

That evening, as he was putting my son to bed, I sent him the video and told him I took a cute video of our son but it was too big to upload to instagram. I videoed him watching it. At the beginning I go “do you want a brother?” and so on. My husband, watching the video clueless looks at me and says “it’s a good thing you didn’t post this to instagram, people will think you’re pregnant” (classic) — a few seconds later, when the video reveals me handing a positive pregnancy test to my son as his “present” my husband figured out that he was right about one thing… people will think I’m pregnant.

But over the last weeks, I’ve had some reasons to think that this baby won’t stick. I won’t go into details, but I ended up having an early ultrasound and with only a gestational sac and a yolk sac seen, it’s possible the baby isn’t growing and isn’t viable. It’s also possible I’m just earlier than they think (which I know is true at least somewhat) and we just need to wait and try again in a few weeks. So I’m in wait mode now. I have another appointment on June 15 and will find out if there is a baby or I’ll have to make a horrible choice between getting a D&C, taking a pill to miscarry, or waiting for my body to handle it naturally. I’m hoping I don’t have to make that decision, but accept hat may be the case. I’m 36 now, and it’s just more likely that anytime I get pregnant we’ll hit a bad egg. I’m trying to tell myself that it’s good news either way–I’ve proven I can now get pregnant without fertility treatment, and I should be able to again. And if I am actually pregnant, well, that’s terrifying but amazing and I really can’t wait to have a baby again and grow my family and continue building the life I want.

I successfully achieved having $1M before baby #1 and I wanted $1.5M before baby #2 and I should get there, adding in my husband’s savings. And $2M before baby #3, if there is to be a baby #3, also seems possible. My personal capital account, which shows our pre-tax networth, is at about $1.4M right now. That seems insane to me, as I still remember looking at my mint account with about $10k to my name, wondering how on earth I’d ever save $100k. I have a good $350k sitting in cash for a downpayment (and soon will have another $50k more thanks to some strong performing company stock vesting soon) so everything is really just working out… somehow.

Why is it I still feel so out of control though… afraid to purchase a home… afraid to make any commitments or live slightly less frugally? I really want a home. I want a reasonably nice home, which seems to cost like $2M in the Bay Area, but I’m willing to settle for something a little cheaper, like $1.7M (sigh) and handle a house that isn’t perfect but that is a place to call our own… a place to make our memories. It’s time to leave this 800 square foot apartment and move on with our lives. I’ll miss it, but I won’t miss it that much. Not if we have a home of our own.

At this point, I’m waiting until my appointment next week to see how much we need to rush the moving situation. If there is no baby, then we have a little more time. If there is a baby, then we have less than nine months to move. Even if we wanted to, we can’t legally stay in a one bedroom with two kids. So here we are, family of 3 maybe about to become a family of 4, in the middle of a pandemic, having to buy a house and move and set up our life and figure out if we move south to have a little more house for our money or stay in the area we want to live and have a lot less house or who knows. I realize financially renting makes way more sense but I’m at this point where I feel like what is the point if we don’t have a home to put down our roots in… and a sense of stability and a place that is ours. I’ve saved $1.2M on my own and I know that’s not enough to really buy a house here… but on the other hand, having all that invested in the stock market is risky too and while it will probably perform well over time, why avoid buying the one thing I really want just to have a big number in the bank?

I hope I am pregnant and I hope this forces us to move and find a house and meet our neighbors and be grown ups and grow up. Life is so short and I can’t believe I’m almost 37 and really almost 40. I thought I’d be a lot more settled by this age, but I do think that my 40 I want to have some serious domestic accomplishments, not just financial ones. And I hope that when travel is possible again I can have a guest room for my mother and sister to come visit. I hope I can have a yard to have friends over and sit around a fire pit and maybe eventually buy myself a hot tub though that will probably never happen but it’s a thought. And a garage where I can store my bike and some other things so my living room doesn’t have to be my storage room and my living room and my son’s room with his crib and toys and slide and rocking horse. And my bedroom doesn’t also have to be my husband’s office.

I guess I’m tired of making smart financial decisions and want to make ones that make my life better now. I know I’m so fortunate to be where I am and have what I have. With all that is going on in the world right now, especially the injustices against the black community, I feel guilty being concerned with any of this mundane life stuff. But life still goes on, even as the world needs a big kick in the ass and a whole lot of fixing. I’d like to figure out how to contribute to fixing the world too, but I think part of that comes with my settling down and not having to spend a lot of my energy thinking about “what’s next” and instead focus on stability in my own life and how I can then give back to the world.

Anyway, lots going on right now. I very well may not be pregnant… but I could be. If I was 5w6d at my prior appointment, or even 6 weeks (which I think I was), then maybe it was just too early to see the fetal pole and heartbeat. Or maybe the doctor I saw (not my normal doctor) rushed the appointment and didn’t spend enough time looking because she knew if she found it or didn’t, it didn’t really matter at this point… she was just confirming the pregnancy was not ectopic, which it wasn’t. She did say maybe it’s just earlier than we think and gave me a glimmer of hope pointing to a little speck on the screen saying “maybe something is growing there” so there’s nothing I can do but wait.

…And even if my next appointment, where I think I’ll be 8 weeks and some-odd days, shows a healthy embryo and heartbeat, I can still miscarry at any time or have other complications before a healthy baby is actually born. So I don’t want to get my hopes up. My last pregnancy was relatively smooth, but my childbirth was not. I am trying to just have not expectations here other than hoping that I remain healthy and safe through whatever happens. And that maybe all of this leads to purchasing our home and really starting our life as a family together–I realize that owning a home is not a requirement to do that, but it still feels like something that needs to happen before I feel like I’ve made it as an adult.