It's kind of funny how one random comment can make you think about something you never thought of before.

I understand that the housing bubble has burst and values have gone down all over the place. It just never occured to me that ANY property in the Bay Area may have hit the $99k mark. (& Truthfully, I don't think it has - not anywhere worth owning. Maybe on the REALLY wrong side of the tracks or something - and trust me - I am not terribly picky).

A relative mentioned at Easter that they were trying to buy back a condo that their kids owned in the 90s. Talking like 400 square feet. They will buy it if they can get it for $99k-ish. Current owners aren't budging on price, but may have to come down.

Then a light bulb went off in my head. I never thought of owning more real estate, but the only reason we gave up in the Bay Area was because it was so freaking expensive. Never occured to me we could buy a second home for $100k. Sounds like a steal. The smallness I don't mind if it's not my main/forever home.

I brought it up last night to dh and asked if he thought I was crazy. He actually likes the idea too. We are talking about when we have the cash (or at least a substantial down payment), when he is working, and only if real estate prices are still depressed at a time we can really afford it. Now is definitely not the time - we both agree. But I think it's kind of exciting to have a long term goal.

On a whim, I popped in our old zip code into the MLS yesterday and looked for a maximum home price of $100k. zip, zero, zilch. Not surprising. So I put the max to $150k. A very few listings popped up so I scrolled down to the cheapest. Wouldn't you know? $120k for a 1-bedroom in our old condo complex. Seriously? No way. (I figured our price range was studio condos, if that). Ironically, looks kind of by itself with the low price. But the funny thing is that is how we found our old condo in the first place. We thought the price was a fluke. Could be something really wrong, or could just be a clueless (or desparate) seller. Ah, the memories.

Of course, I knew better. Spying on the MLS in recent years - curious what our old condo was worth - we saw the HOA fees had climbed from $250/month to $400/month. Ouch! So it took me a while to dig out the figure, but was listed at $311/month. Not terrible considering that it includes utilities, and a really nice recreational facility. Which might be nice in a "vacation home."

I looked up current rents in the neighborhood. $1300/month for a 1-bedroom apartment. You can see why the $120k price tag is so alluring compared to the option of just renting (for the long term).

As nostalgic and fun as it would be to buy in the old neighborhood, we may only consider it for the discounts to be had. I think I rather go newer for the energy efficiency. The neighborhood was getting kind of run down when we lived there. Not sure it is somewhere that will hold up well for another few decades. Thinking more long term, doubt we will buy there again. Then again, not sure we will find much better in the $100k-ish range. We KNOW it is a really nice complex, though on the older side. Could be good to look further south. Almost anything seems more appealing than living 120k miles away. A condo 20 miles south of town may be a steal and make a nice second home for us. We could own a house here and a small condo there, and still have spent less than the most run down house in that city would cost.

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A lot of relatives and friends have had terrible landlording experiences, so it doesn't appeal to us in the least. In addition, I just don't think we have the personality for it. Thus, we didn't think twice about selling our old condo when we moved, though we could have rented it out for a small fortune.

I had always tried to talk my dad into investing in some real estate and he never seemed very interested. I didn't talk him into it until around 2005 - around the peak of the Sacramento housing bubble. We looked around a bit and got cold feet. We felt like even if it wasn't the peak, we were pretty darn close. IF only he had listened to me in 2001!

Anyway, never really talked about it again. My dad changed his mind and we focused on other financial priorities. (We were going to go in together on a condo in Sacramento).

We fled the Bay Area due to high prices, so never occured to me to look there again for an investment. Dh and I had instead talked about maybe trying to buy a neighboring Tahoe cabin with his siblings/cousins, some time in the far off future - next to the one his family owns. Simply because our expanding family can't all fit in the original. That's really the only other real estate we have ever talked about aiming for. We are happy with our home and plan to downsize probably, in retirement. That's about it.

Of course, if price was no object, no doubt we would love to own real estate in the Bay Area. I think this is the first time it has ever occured to me that price may not be much of an object. OR that we really don't need near as much in a second/occassional home as we would like in a main home.

Something to add to my long-term goal list. To buy rmore eal estate in a down cycle, some day.