2006-09-09 
 

property envy

I'm tired of being a renter. Really tired. Each month I'm basically handing over a large chunk of money in order to help someone else have a nice investment. I just did a quick calculation, and the time I've been in San Francisco, I've spent over 100,000 dollars on rent. You can buy a whole house for that in some parts of the country. Grant you, it's been over 10 years, but it makes my head hurt thinking about it.

Not to mention, if I'd sucked it up and done that shortly after moving here, I'd have at least tripled my investment by now. Nowadays a condo the size of my first studio apartment goes for 250,000 or more.

Question: Would G and I kill each other if we squashed ourselves into a studio type home? Probably. Without alone time, I get super cranky

Question: Can I envision myself living way out in suburbia and commuting into SF for work. More likely, but it makes my stomach hurt to think about it. One of my goals when I moved to SF was to avoid the commute. I hated the fact that my job in Boston required that I spend up to two hours of my day in transit. So, when I moved out here, I promised myself I'd do no more than 30 minutes commuting. Today it takes me less than that to get to work. Could I give it up and think of the time spent commuting as money in the pocket? Maybe.

Question: How happy will I be living in suburbia? Oooogh. Don't even want to think about it. Especially since you have to go pretty far out into suburbia to get back into the affordable range.

Question: Can we up and move to another part of the country? Hmmm. Possible, but the truth is that I'm currently rather happy with my job...and it pays pretty well which might allow the dream of property to become a reality...if I set my mind to it.

This past March, my answer would've been different, but after a good 8 months of suckage, things have improved quite drastically...even better than before the suckage began in fact.

Is it my dream job? No. Want to hear a secret? My dream job is to work the register at Barnes & Noble. (I hear you snickering, but it's true.) Maybe work my way up to Assistant Manager someday, but no more than that. (and yes, I'm aware of the irony given that I do like my modern toys and shiny car, but I didn't say it was a practical dream...yet) Problem of moving from here to another company elsewhere within my industry is that I really have no interest in the industry. None. I realized this recently when interviewing for...well never mind.

Someday, after I've left the current job, I'll tell you all about it. There's a whole side of my life there that doesn't get expressed here because I'm a wimp who doesn't want to get fired. Marketing means you're in possession of knowledge that other companies would dearly like to get their hands on. When I think about what that knowledge actually consists of, it seems almost humorous...but TPTB would have my head, so I keep mum.

Question: Isn't the bubble about to burst? That's what they say, but they've said that for the past 7 years. If I had been really smart and ignored them 6 years ago when I first seriously considered buying, I'd have made enough money off the investment to make a move back east more possible today.

Question: Am I out of debt enough to be thinking about this? If all goes well, I will be by next summer. If I tie myself to a 30 year mortgage at that point, I'll be just entering retirement time when it gets paid off. Irony? 6 years ago I moved into a VERY high rent apartment that played a large part in creating the debt I'm still paying off instead of waiting 6 months and buying a house. Okay, that's an oversimplification of a complicated story, but if I could just get hold of the me I was back then and have a little chat I'd be looking at the ability to retire early versus hoping I'll actually own a home when I do so at the usual age.

Ugh. Retirement. Another thing I didn't start saving for in time, but fortunately I've caught up on it a little bit.

Point of this whole exercise? I encourage you to buy now. Buy small if you have to and work your way up...but do it now.

Just thought of something...if I did meet the me I was 6 years ago, I would tell him to not ignore that job opportunity at Google. Damn, I could be retired now! (and working part time at B&N)

Labels: dose of mikey, g

* posted by me at 2:22 PM

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