…but I’m afraid of being stuck in a one-year lease and missing a prime opportunity to buy.
I can tell you that we won’t be seeing any “prime opportunities to buy” in the SD area for at least 3 years. This unraveling of the bubble has only started, and there is a long way to go before sales volume and prices hit bottom. Real estate cycles are very long, and it takes several years for trends to reverse. Unless you plan to buy and hold for 7+ years, it’s much better, financially, to rent.
When we bought our first house my wife spent a lot of time on decorations, but after a couple of years she had enough. We spent a small fortune every weekend with trips to Home Depot, and this was a brand new house with zero problems (all the purchases had to do with decoration or minor add-ons).
We were lucky to sell in the summer of 2005, at the peak of the cycle, because of an in-state relocation. Now we rent a beautifully upgraded house, and congratulate each other on not having to spend any time or money on maintainance. Our landlord even pays for the gardener. I’ll buy again, but not until after the market really bottoms.
