Wow bearishgurl, I appreciate the long response. You make some absolutely spot on points. I think there is plenty of whitewashing going on in my mind. If you are a happy person, you can always look at the past and remember all the things you loved. So it is all tainted. I fully agree. And there is no point trying to recreate the past. Kids will have a good childhood if their parents are involved, happy, and healthy. The size of ones home matters little in the development of children. But we all have certain goals to shoot for. I want a stress free home. Enough room to get distance, in a nice safe walkable neighborhood, with the ability to select my kids schools, with as little financial worry as possible. I am sure our home will be different than the one I grew up in for a whole host of reasons…But having an ideal is a good place to start.
I will try to answer as many of your questions as possible. First off, I would gladly pay 420k for my old home, and it did have many of the same architectural features, but no tax treatment (there is no need because of the massive number of old homes)…My parents no longer own it though. They sold it in 04. As far as home size is concerned…I am much more interested in the lot than the home. And with all of that said shoving 5 into a 1200 sq ft shack in Bird Rock wouldn’t be too bad either!
I would probably prefer something darn near like my old home, but cheaper and in shambles…I like a project.
Your point about real estate location is a good one. I only point to the fact that all cities have nice real estate and not so nice real estate. Some have the beach, some have lakes, or rivers. My parents home was on a creek which led to a large lake (~1 mile) for swimming a sailing one direction and to the missisipi (~2 miles) in the other. Minneapolis has a much more developed park system and it is said that in the city you are never more than 5 blocks from a greenway. Granted we do not have rich foriegners buying vacation homes…but I never understood why that would severely skew the market in places like mission hills or Carmel valley (who buys a vacation home in CV?).
As far as tract homes go in MN. There are tons of tract homes in MN and some people love the Irvine style living, but there are reasonably priced old and safe neighborhoods. Like I said though, La Mesa was at the top of the list. But even there a crappy house is at least 300 vs. 100 for a similar crap hole in MN. They do not compete.
To the fixer skills.
I grew up working on our old house and our nightmare of a cabin. So I can do pretty much anything. It is more of a time thing, but that is something I can work with. And I would be willing to do all of those things twice for the right opportunity…
To the Dual income thing. My wife will always work part time (she will kill something if she doesn’t), a day or two a week, and we will use that as a cushion for life’s surprises/fun money. But I dream of having one parent home when the kids are young and relying on two incomes to me sounds like you are twice as likely to incur financial ruin.
To your point about irvine. I was using as more of a benchmark. They were able to purchase when irvine was a magnet for good schools and safe neighborhoods (like today). They did it comfortably on one income (therapist struggling to start a practice). Today, that same criteria does not apply to irvine (yes I know it is not SD). It was just my bellweather for how things have changed in S. California housing (even after the correction, even if it dropped another 20%).
I never want to look at a home as a investment. In this current environment especially, I feel like there is a greater chance to lose my shirt than come out ahead. The only way I want to build equity is with my mortgage payment and the sweat of my brow.
I went to public grade school and private Highschool…then to public for University. Utilities in my parents current 2,000 square foot home are 150 bucks a month during peak months. But taxes are much lower due to significantly lower property value than a comparable unit in CA.
