I’m afraid you came to the wrong forum to ask this question. Most people here think that buying real estate at this point in the market cycle is financially insane.
The best advice I can give is to invest your EUR 500K in Euro-denominated assets, not all of it in equities, not all of it in bonds, some in CDs, etc. Then use part of your dollar income to rent a nice, comfortable house (not an apartment) like the Maybeck one you like.
Unfortunately, it looks like you have made up your mind about buying. I can only hope that reading this blog as well as the thehousingbubbleblog.com will help you change your mind. House prices were ridiculously inflated in 2002-2005 (until 2006 in some other ares of California), and only recently we started the adjustment process.
House prices are awfully sticky on the way down, so prices won’t go down to reality in a year or two: it’ll take at least half a decade from the peaks in 2005 for prices to reach bottom. You may go ahead and pay $600K-$700K today, but when you decide to go back to Europe in 5 years, you’ll find that you can’t sell your house for what you paid for it. Worse yet, you’ll be paid in dollars that will be severely depreciated against the Euro.
Why would a European who can easily invest in Euro-denominated assets be interested in purchasing an asset (a California house) that is expected to depreciate in dollars, and more so in Euros? It makes no sense.
