buying house in castro valley
have $200k saved but everything in peninsula is too expensive (2bed house >1.2 million). we are Married (possibly have a family in the future) and work near San Francisco. My reasoning is that both from mountain view and castro valley it takes > 1 hr (in traffic drive) to get to SF and east bay real estate is still somewhat affordable. Am I missing something? TC: 330k combined
What’s ur TC?
You’re on the right track. Castro Valley is a good value, and it’s centrally located. It has a compact walkable semi-downtown near the BART station and the schools are good.
Keep saving and buy in peninsula. Location, location, location.
Earthquake doe
Earthquakes are fine, avoid the flood zones right on the bay obviously
fremont?
Don’t buy there, peninsula is way better. You can easily afford a condo / townhome here. South Bay is closer to better beaches, top notch schools. Even if there’s a market crash, South Bay home prices will remain stable or even go higher long term.
Only downside is that if a recession were to collapse demand for housing, such offbeat locations on the outskirts tend to get hit harder than San Francisco proper or Mountain View. SF prices didn’t move much in 2008 either but east bay was a mess.
Wait for a recession the markets already cooling down. Unless you wanna shorten your lifespan with the commute.
A lot of those houses are owned by old people that could afford it way back when. Market will flood when they start dying off in droves.
I’d personally just keep renting a wait a another year. Correction is coming. It might not be huge, but a gradual decline is definitely happening. I’d just war chest and wait for the time being.
Man Netflix guy can save 200k in a year lol
Maybe if you don’t have kids. 😬 But I do save a lot. Waiting for the downturn. And praying my options pay off.
People keep saying east bay will get hit hard but haven't noticed how much it has improved since then Castro Valley is solid
Well said. Moreover, fundamentally, if you’re not going to blow your competition out of the water with your massive TC, one needs to be able to recognize undervalued areas that meet basic criteria.
Seems sound.