Ever since I moved out of my parents house on Brentwell and moved north to San Francisco I\u2019ve wanted to buy a home in the heart. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Because of different jobs and family circumstances I was never able to even put an offer down. It seemed to me that if I was able to do $400k then prices would be $600k. Then when I got to $600k the needle had moved to $800k. I always felt like I was just a little late and a dollar short. (Well, a few hundred thousand dollars short). <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The other thought I had was that if I bought then I was buying at the top of the market. That always made me hesitate. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
There were two times this changed in my adult history. One was in 2008 when the housing market collapsed. At that point I hesitated but could have done it had I dug deeper. I have regrets of not going in when the chance was ripe. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Then in early 2021 I had the chance as interest rates were low and the housing prices hadn’t rocketed (again) yet. But in January 2021 I took action for the first time! The house at 18091 Fieldberry Ln went up for sale. It was the house of someone I knew. (Well I knew one of the girls as she was my age and we grew up together). <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I worked with Dixie Long and put down an offer of $1,200,000, the asking price. I was ready to go but was scared. This was the top of the market! (Again) and I told them I was not going to raise my price for nothing. The house was perfect. It wasn\u2019t completely remodeled and it had a gorgeous pool in the backyard. It was even the same floor plan of the home I grew up in! <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The house sold to someone who offered $60,000 more. $60,000 is like nothing when you are in for $1,200,000 and the interest rate is 2.5%. I should have bid up. The home on Zillow now estimates at $1,538,700. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
As rates went up later that year and I bought a different house (not in the heart) I learned a few things:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
1. It\u2019s not about the price it\u2019s about the monthly payment. I hadn\u2019t bought a house nor had a mortgage for many years at that point. I looked at the giant price tag and thought \u201cno way!\u201d Since rates have gone up I\u2019ve realized how manageable it would have been to have that additional $60k. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
2. There is a lot of demand in the heart and prices are resilient. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
3. This is cliche but you can not time the market. I thought: well prices will go down when rates go up. That hasn\u2019t happened. Some how with rates going up the prices have still gone up. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I remain optimistic that I will still buy in this neighborhood. I foresee a lot of turnover in the next decade. Homes don\u2019t go on sale very often here and they will be less now that interest rates are higher (7%) but an aging population doesn\u2019t care about interest rates. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Many of the people in the heart have lived there for 20+ years. I know people that have been there 40+ years. As this population continues to age there will be a point where many of these homes go on the market. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
It may take a while, but I\u2019m patient. I\u2019ve waited 20 years. I can wait another 20. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Ever since I moved out of my parents house on Brentwell and moved north to San Francisco I\u2019ve wanted to buy a home in the heart. Because of different jobs and family circumstances I was never able to even put an offer down. It seemed to me that if I was able to do $400k […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heartofhuntingtonbeach.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heartofhuntingtonbeach.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heartofhuntingtonbeach.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heartofhuntingtonbeach.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heartofhuntingtonbeach.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=23"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.heartofhuntingtonbeach.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37,"href":"https:\/\/www.heartofhuntingtonbeach.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23\/revisions\/37"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heartofhuntingtonbeach.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heartofhuntingtonbeach.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heartofhuntingtonbeach.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}