i think the super-cheap buying option might be the secret to happiness. I could probably actually buy a pretty nice house now or soon at 1.5x my income in murrieta/temecula (earn about 130k), but my wife won’t go for those houses. they seem fine to me. they have roofs, they have small yards, they have plumbing and everything; features like windows that let lights in–and they come wired for electricity, which is cool… we could have all kinds of extra monies left over. the house wouldnt be as great as other potential more expensive houses, but there’s even some community pools down the street. they have garages!. pretty neat actually, my own garage!. why are we constantly stretching? shrinking would be so relaxing. i take home maybe$6500 a month and could pay $900 a month on my mortgage, I would not even wince or shrug or consider my mortagge payment practically in the budget. I’d be budgeting for odd trips and spending all my money on Other Stuff. Why am I even considering spending $2500-3000 a month on a house? it’s stressful. would my kids really even give a damn. frankly, i grew up in a tiny maybe 900 square foot apt, my brother slept ina prison cell sized room, and well, we weren’t exactly happy, but anyway that wasn’t related to the house. on the whole, it was as rich and interesting and crazy and whole a life growing up as anyone anywhere couldve had growing up, and we both turned out crazy but fine, … at least that’s how i remmeber the big picture. i don’t really remember the exact details. i remember thinking maybe 1 bathroom in that apt was a little crowded, but we survived. it was fun! plus, the abnk would lend me the money! PLus, paying 20% down on 150k-200k house would be not tension inducing like a down payment of 100k. the catch is, you create this life with this other human and spawn all these kids and there are these expectations. there’s a book somewher ecalled SEX AND REAL ESTATE or something liek that, and it’s about human sexual response to real estate. i think.
