I appreciated all your advice and thought I’d provide an update. I decided to keep the spouse, who, apart from bubble beliefs, is a great guy.
Our discussion went well though he is still not convinced that prices will come down much. From his point of view, the bubble ‘pop’ has not really manifested in a visible way – he has colleagues who are looking to buy houses. The place we used to live in LA is still selling well. It’s hard to believe there is a bubble when most of the people around you don’t think there’s a bubble either.
The most convicing data for him was the cost to own vs renting. We would be able to squirrel away a significant amount of $ by renting for a while. And we can rent in a much nicer area than we could afford to buy.
Also, hugely in my favor is that we are enjoying being renters now. (Plus, looking at the houses we can afford is depressing.) We spend our weekends playing with our baby rather than hanging at Home Depot! Unfortunately we have to move mid-August. If I find a nice place it will significantly reduce the pressure to jump into a house. I’m glued to craigslit, but if anyone can recommend property manager/realtor/rental finder – we have dogs and the baby, which makes it tough – that’d be really wonderful.
So our discussion is ongoing. I did, however, go buy and show off the Wall Street Journal when it had the “for sale” article on the same day the SD Trib had a related story. Seeing it in print made a big impression, particularly coming from the WSJ.
kiki — I think you can deduct $2500/person if you earn less than $130K as a couple. But I’m not 100% sure.
unsolicited advice for other people in the same boat – it helps to set aside a time once a month or so to talk about housing/finance rather than letting it come up at emotional moment. It sounds dumb to have to make an appointment with pen, paper, calculator and spouse, but it works for us.
