Move to a cheaper state?

[jp1]

We live in San Francisco right now (and have been here about 5 years). Renting because purchase prices are ridiculous and when I ran the numbers 6 months ago I figured we'd be out of pocket monthly about 33% more than we currently pay in rent in order to get something similar. Plus we'd have a huge amount of money tied up in the down payment. If housing prices keep going up the way they are now we'll have been foolish to not purchase now but I don't believe prices can keep going up like they have. The mantra that real estate always goes up only applies when it's not doing bubble-like things such as going up way faster than the average income, etc, so I believe that at some point SF prices will come down yet again. Predicting that next peak is an impossible game that I don't want to play.

Although I like San Francisco I haven't fell in love with being in this city the way I did NYC when I first moved there 23 years ago, so I would actually like to move up to the Russian River area. We go all the time for weekends and both love it. And most of our friends here go up to Sonoma on a regular basis so we'd still get to see them. With my current job I could work from home and come into the city for maybe 1 day/week to the office and for meetings outside the office, and I could still easily get to the airport for my frequent work trips to various other west coast cities, so living there would work fine and would probably cut my total commute time by condensing it all into one long roundtrip each week instead of the 5 hours/week that I currently spend going to the office every day. Unfortunately SO can't work from home more than maybe 1 day/week. He's in HR and not being in the office most of the time kind of takes the H out of HR... So if we bought up there we'd still have to have at least a small rental in the city for him to stay at during the week which would throw the cost savings of buying in Russian River out the window.

[Spartana]

We live in San Francisco right now (and have been here about 5 years). Renting because purchase prices are ridiculous and when I ran the numbers 6 months ago I figured we'd be out of pocket monthly about 33% more than we currently pay in rent in order to get something similar. Plus we'd have a huge amount of money tied up in the down payment. If housing prices keep going up the way they are now we'll have been foolish to not purchase now but I don't believe prices can keep going up like they have. The mantra that real estate always goes up only applies when it's not doing bubble-like things such as going up way faster than the average income, etc, so I believe that at some point SF prices will come down yet again. Predicting that next peak is an impossible game that I don't want to play.

Although I like San Francisco I haven't fell in love with being in this city the way I did NYC when I first moved there 23 years ago, so I would actually like to move up to the Russian River area. We go all the time for weekends and both love it. And most of our friends here go up to Sonoma on a regular basis so we'd still get to see them. With my current job I could work from home and come into the city for maybe 1 day/week to the office and for meetings outside the office, and I could still easily get to the airport for my frequent work trips to various other west coast cities, so living there would work fine and would probably cut my total commute time by condensing it all into one long roundtrip each week instead of the 5 hours/week that I currently spend going to the office every day. Unfortunately SO can't work from home more than maybe 1 day/week. He's in HR and not being in the office most of the time kind of takes the H out of HR... So if we bought up there we'd still have to have at least a small rental in the city for him to stay at during the week which would throw the cost savings of buying in Russian River out the window.

I just got back from that area a few days ago - staying mostly in the town of Petaluma just a short stunning drive to the Russian River as well as the coast and both Sonoma and Napa wine country and San Fran. I absolutely love that town and the whole surrounding area BUT it is expensive. Not SF expensive but definetly up there. I looked at property along the Russian River in Gueneville and it's more affordable but they do have bad flooding issues there every year. And being a small town as well as a gay town neither is appealing to me as a single hetero female. But Sebastapol, Santa Rosa, Healdsburg and some of the other towns are appealing. I lived in Petaluma and Novato both for a few years - there is a big Coast Guard training center just outside of Petaluma and a Strike Team in Novato I and DH were stationed at. Novato is nice but it's more expensive than Petaluma and not nearly as charming.

[mschrisgo2]

Almost everyone I know has moved out of California as they retired. But then, they came from the midwest and the east coast, so they have family and acquaintances to move to. I've been here all of my life, and my daughter and grandsons are here, so I don't think I'll be moving any where any time soon.

Though my brother continually tells me it's cheaper where he lives - Redding - but gasoline is higher, he pays a higher rate for gas, electric, and water, and the prices in the grocery stores there shock me- not to mention that they drive 4 times as far to the store as I do. Their taxes are all just as high. Houses may be slightly cheaper, but I think by the time I figured in selling/buying/moving costs it would be a wash.