What are the chances I’ll want to be living in the same area, or same house, considering the massive churn in demographics, economic shifts, etc. currently ongoing? Or even in 5 years?
About the same.
If one of those moves happens and the markets down, things get interesting. Especially when someone is upside down.
Either way, transaction costs tend to eat up any potential gains unless one is really lucky or you stay a long time, which is hard to do during high change times.
If, in the future, I can find a place in a good location/part of town, with plenty of room, and is convenient to earning income, etc. and that doesn’t require me to get loan payments at some crazy multiple of my income, then yeah I’ll probably buy.
But that hasn’t been a thing in the Bay Area since about ‘15 or so. And with everyone running for the rural areas for a multitude of reasons and remote work becoming the norm, the rental markets are crashing hard here.
Even before COVID however, housing prices had started to flatline or decrease as even with historic low interest rates, payments were very high, and even with increasingly risky financing, very few people could afford them.
> Either way, transaction costs tend to eat up any potential gains unless one is really lucky or you stay a long time, which is hard to do during high change times.
Even if you go by historical norms of prices housing rising with inflation and you consider selling costs of 10% (a bit high of estimate), you only have to be in a house 5 years to come out ahead.
> If, in the future, I can find a place in a good location/part of town, with plenty of room, and is convenient to earning income, etc. and that doesn’t require me to get loan payments at some crazy multiple of my income, then yeah I’ll probably buy.
I’ve been in the same metro area since 1996. My last job was 30 minutes away. My current job’s headquarters is on the opposite coast and the official location of my division is on the same coast but about 15 hours away by car. I doubt I will ever work in an office again.
> But that hasn’t been a thing in the Bay Area since about ‘15 or so
There is a whole big old United States outside of the Bay Area.
