Well, luckily this is Irvine and I can get my son into a California Distinguished School (I’m thinking Canyonview Elementary and Northwood HS) without having to pay for a private school. I can rent a beautiful new apartment from the Irvine Apartment Community, or lease one of the luxurious townhomes in Woodbury that I’m coveting. So it’s not a matter of living where I want to live – it’s the part of home ownership that, having been a homeowner for 8 years, I am having trouble letting go of. I must admit, I was kind of an elitist snob in that I did look down on people who, after the age of 30 or so, were not homeowners. Given how drastically things have changed, I certainly wouldn’t change my decision to sell the house. I was convinced a couple years ago the bubble was gonna burst and I was in a mild panic to “cash out” and become a renter for a while. So intellectually, I am very comfortable with renting. I just think about how my whole childhood was in rented apartments and a rented house, and how as a teenager I felt “less than” the other kids whose parents owned their homes. I don’t want my son to feel that way! I have to remind myself that he’s only 3, he doesn’t know or care, and that in several years he’ll still be very young, and if I can remained disciplined enough during that time, I can buy us a beautiful new house while he’s in elementary school and we can live “happily ever after.” It’s hard, though, to fight the urge to buy sooner, especially since my plan would be to make offers significantly lower than asking price…
