[quote=hillsilly]May I make a suggestion? Rent for awhile.
We went from SD to Boston area. 5 years of adventure– including home ownership. When we decided we wanted to come back to California, we took a huge hit selling our home.
BTW: Russo’s in Watertown is a fabulous green grocer.[/quote]
We decided to rent to begin with, as we needed to sell our SD house and we wanted to get to know the town. In fact, we were so bummed about having to sell the SD house so soon after buying that we had every intention of just renting for the foreseeable future. The problem is that the Boston area seems to be divided into towns/neighborhoods where people rent, and towns where very few rentals are available (much based on quality of schools). This results in a premium to rent in a “buyer-type” town given limited inventory, and we have been surprised to find that renting looks to be much more expensive than buying for us – down payment notwithstanding!
