I bought a condo. Well, I bought one almost 2 months ago now. Pretty hard to believe for me to tell you the truth. I keep thinking it's an apartment that I've decidied to take care of. But it's actually mine. Ok, it belongs to the bank and will for a long time, but in theory it's mine. So, I guess that's what counts.
One of many reasons I bought this condo was that I was starting to question the belief that my friends and I had about living in The Bay Area. That belief being that "we" -- the collective we of people of our economic status -- could never own real estate around here. I was really, really starting to question this belief. And I'm glad I did, because now I own my own place! To tell you the truth, until I had the keys in my hand I didn't believe it. The whole process was quite surreal. I'll have to write about that at a later time. I did gain a bunch more grey hair as a result, but it's pretty amazing how my stress level has gone down since the day I got my keys. Of course, I'm stressed more than ever about losing my job, but there's not too much I can do about that.
People have told me that I'm smart for doing what I did. I have to agree. Others have said that I'm "puttin' down roots." Not so sure about that one, but maybe. Either way, this is home for now, and it feels, for the first time in my adult life, that "home" actually means something.
So, I highly encourage everyone to try to buy something, anything. And if you live in San Francisco and are low income, there is a really cool program (The Second Loan Program for first time home buyers) to help you get started. I know someone, two people in fact, that have used this program and both have said it was really easy to do. But you have to have money down, which I didn't so I couldn't use it. But if you are serious about buying property in SF, you would be wise to check it out.
