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A New Long Term Goal

April 8th, 2010 at 06:18 pm

Bah - lost my entry too. First time has happened since the changeover - though usually I save as I go, I hadn't bothered.

More thoughts on real estate. I perused our old zip code for homes maxed at $100k. No surprise - nothing listed for sale. BUT, I moved my criteria to $150k max. The cheapest thing that popped up was a ONE BEDROOM in our old condo complex, for $120k. NO WAY! (We were thinking we could maybe score a 400-foot studio in that price range. This is almost 800 square feet!)

Unfortunately, not ready to buy real estate. But will add that to my long term goals. I asked dh if he thought I was crazy, and he is totally on board. Loves the idea.

I think two things have prevented us from even think about it. We obviously would love to own Bay Area real estate if money was no object. $100k price range is getting to the "money is no object" range. Just never occured to us that would happen. Of course, the flip side is the entire time we lived there we were focusing on a HOUSE. You know, something with 4 walls, a roof, a little yard. Not much. Not terribly picky. But you know, something that didn't cost at least $600k. Good luck. I don't know why the thought never really crossed our mind to just buy something really small for all our weekend visits. We loved the low maintenance of living in a condo, and could really care less about the size. Then again 800 square feet is as big as some of our friend's $750k houses.

Our current plan is to pay off our mortgage by age 45. We can push that to age 50 and pay cash for a $100k-ish second home in the interim. I don't think we will do so for quite a while. It will only be possible if dh returns to the work force for at least a couple of years. We would wait for another down cycle if we had to - certainly no rush. I wouldn't be opposed to renting a small unit in the interim to see how much we used it and if it was really beneficial. Maybe it sounds a lot better than it is. Oh, and I did check rents in the old neighborhood. 1-bedroom would rent for $1300/month. It's not like we could rent anything cheap to satisfy this want. The $120k price tag looks pretty good. IT would be a second home. Not interested at all in landlording - that is why we sold our old condo without a second thought. Could have rented it out for a fortune. Not worth the headache, to us.

It's kind of fun to revive an old, dead dream. So, we never saw the point of working crazy hours to afford an insane mortgage there. Or being stuck in a condo forever. Neither appealed to us. We may not move back or live ther full-time, but to own a home there would be a dream, yes. I am kind of giddy thinking about it. It's kind of nice to have some crazy goal besides retirement. We don't really have any other goals between now and then. We always play it too safe. This may be kind of fun. Now just give me a decade or so to execute... Big Grin

The irony is it isn't about "real estate" or investing, for us. We just want a place to call home, where we grew up. *sigh*

We much prefer the bigger abode and slow lifestyle here. But we still seem to have a foot in the Bay Area with all of our relatives and friends. In retirement, I could see spending more time there too. Could be a good long-term purchase, if we choose something we think will work for the long-term. I could totally see living there in the summers, for one. Since the only think I really dislike here is the summer heat. Big Grin

5 Responses to “A New Long Term Goal”

  1. ceejay74 Says:
    1270748537

    There has been some weird coincidence between the blog side and the forum side of SavingAdvice. Yesterday I wrote about financial aspects of breastfeeding, then flipped to the forum side and the first thread I saw was about baby expenses, with the focus being the cost of breastfeeding vs. formula feeding!

    Today, on the forum side, I just got done writing about my own dream about buying an apartment or condo unit in a city as a vacation home, once I've gotten out of debt and caught up on retirement. Flip over to the blog side and see this. Weird!

    But yes, I get giddy thinking about having a small vacation home, maybe in Amsterdam or in a city in Italy or Spain. And I totally agree that it's nice to have a dream for the future that's a little more vivid or unique than just being debt-free or having a good retirement nest egg.

    Ideally we'd own a nice-sized house in England with a vacation condo in another city in Europe. So I was completely in sync with your blog entry, from beginning to end. Smile

  2. MonkeyMama Says:
    1270748800

    Funny as I hadn't seen the forum post (I did notice the breastfeeding thing yesterday).

  3. Ima saver Says:
    1270764699

    I think that is really a neat goal!

  4. gamecock43 Says:
    1270774931

    I think you'll do it. Your savvy and you have enough ties to the city that you will utilize it. I am betting you will do it sooner than you think too.

  5. monkeymama Says:
    1270821404

    Just got news that relative scored their old condo back. Won't it be funny if we buy our old condo back, someday, too? That one comment is what spurred all this (that they were trying to buy back their children's old condo). I don't know if they think they can double the price again - given time. Or if it's just nostalgic - or for the grandkids.

    They were telling us they wanted it for $100k-ish but seller wouldn't budge with no other offers. Boy, that was fast. I wonder who caved. (I am guessing seller, since they didn't seem very optimistic Sunday, but their kids kept saying the seller was too desparate).

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