I agree with Thebreeze. This situation MUST correct.
I am eternally grateful for these Blogs over the past year, as they helped me avoid the potentially largest financial mistake of my life. I was tranferrred from an overseas post in Japan to Los Angeles for fellowship in June 2006. we were planning on buying in the South Bay area, with plans to return to San Diego in June 2009. As I began searching the SoCal RE market I found these hallowed pages, and chose to rent instead, as I felt taking $100,000 equity hit was a very real possibilty. As I am active duty military there was no chance to stay in LA once fellowship was over.
The ridiculous part is, we came here with a considerarable down payment, and my income is in excess of $200K/y, and I find myself priced out of the housing market (as of now). Coupled with this I have had to face the insufferable criticism of people who earn half what I do and are living in $1M McMansions (don’t hear much from them now though).
I’m not asking to live in the most opulent house in the city, I would just like to see my housing dollar actually buy something decent with a 30 yr fixed.
