<p>Yeah… I know. I understand. Your plan is a good plan. </p>
<p>You can just do what you want. This is an investment thread so I was just talking investments…</p>
<p>Most of us aren’t really trying to maximize returns anyway. Look at the time we spend here. I am sure there are more productive ways to spend our time. Lol</p>
<p>Does your wife ever see properties and then you invest in them?</p>
<p>My wife is a commercial real estate broker. I see nothing. :)</p>
<p>My wife is also a RE broker, she deals a lot with rental properties and landlords. She found all of our properties, and manages them. I am just the maintenance guy.</p>
<p>Rents are high in SF so my niece is going to buy a condo in SF. Her father and grandparents are going to lend her the money at rates below 3 percent so she can make a full cash offer. </p>
<p>So my wife wants to consider this for our daughter. I just don’t like the numbers. From what I see, cash on cash returns are about 2 percent so you are betting on price appreciation. There should be some price appreciation. </p>
<p>My aunt loaned her son money so he could buy a house and then housing prices crashed. The son stopped paying his mom interest. This was about 4 years ago. She could use that interest she isn’t getting. The lack of interest is impacting her life. The house value dropped from 700000 to 500000. Now the home is probably worth 600,000. The son has negative equity in the house but home prices are rising.</p>
<p>Our son is going into the office on the average of one day every two or three weeks and they said that he would be able to work from home when he was hired. So I’ve suggested that he just work from home when his lease comes up for renewal. He could also just get his own place somewhere in the region in an area where houses or rentals aren’t so high.</p>
<p>His workplace is growing pretty quickly and he actually doesn’t have his own office. If he wanted an office, it would be in a remote location (where they are putting new employees). The flexible workplace thing is already quite popular where I work and sometimes it feels like a ghost town at the office.</p>
<p>I don’t know if that’s a potential solution for your daughter. If she just likes living in SF, then it isn’t.</p>
<p>My daughter wants to live in the city. There is supposedly an article in a local paper that states that young people who work in silicon valley want to live in the city. My daughter’s boyfriend lives in SF and takes the train to silicon valley. He can work out of his home occasionally. </p>
<p>He’s saving money but it’s all in cash accounts. I have to sit down with him someday on the investing stuff. He’s quite busy with work and university research which is what he considers fun.</p>
<p>I dont think my daughter gives home ownership a thought either unless my wife brings it up.</p>
<p>I am not home this morning. I am texting with my wife. I dont think we are going to lend money so my daughter can buy a place. My wife is talking about buying a studio. A studio? I have no interest in loaning money so my daughter can buy a studio. I misunderstood.</p>
<p>I’m hoping my son gets a job in SF instead of NYC. The rents are so high in NYC, it is kind of shocking to me. He thinks he wants a place of his own, but he’d be lucky to get a studio for $1500 (plus they want 1st, last, deposit and maybe brokers fee). Looking for apartments with roommates is much cheaper, but it’s kind of weird to consider moving in with roommates you don’t know. I was going to look into buying an apt in NYC, but that’s probably crazy expensive. SF seems cheaper, and far less alarming to me. I wish he’d work in Seattle, it would be so easy then.</p>
<p>With interest rates so low, now, it does seem reasonable to buy a property if you get one at a decent price. You could consider it an investment if things don’t work out. It also seems that the kid could get a loan on their own, if the numbers work out.</p>
<p>Is a two bedroom apartment with parking for $2000 per month. I think the job is in the design district or central water front or somewhere in that zip code of 94107. A 20 to 30 minute commute might work but I suspect public transportation will be the favorite method of travel.</p>
<p>As I have said, that is exactly what we are trying to do with our son in Boston. I am going to lend to him at 3.75%. The main reason for doing this is that his monthly payment (interest to me, + HOA + taxes + insurance) will be less than rent, and that is before he takes the deduction for taxes and interest. It has been very difficult finding a place. Here is an example. I don’t think I can put a realtor link in here, but I just got an email about an officially sold one bedroom apartment: 1572 Massachusetts Ave #24 Cambridge, MA 02138, listed at $385k, sold for $431k!!! My son tells me it is a great location. But a ONE freaking bedroom apartment!! yikes!</p>
<p>That actually looks like a pretty decent place in SFO for the rent, especially if it includes parking…for 2 bed/2bath. You get a couple of professional people splitting the rent, and that is fairly reasonable.</p>
<p>“The new numbers give some credence to the idea that urban life is becoming more popular: Most major American cities gained residents, and faster than their suburbs. But the pattern is particularly striking because Boston, like many older cities, spent much of the 20th century in population free fall. At its peak population in 1950, the city contained, remarkably, nearly 165,000 more people: a total of 801,444. Over the next few decades, that number plummeted, reaching a low of 562,994 in 1980. Only now is the population truly beginning to rebound, though it may never return to the heights of mid-century.”</p>
<p>BTW, there’s been a noticeable uptick in violent crime in the city too - I’ve read about far more shootings this year than I can recall for many, many years. These shootings are in the bad areas and I think that the police and the Mayor work pretty hard in keeping it out of the wealthier areas. But as we’ve seen in other large cities, violence has a way of spreading. I really hope that Boston doesn’t develop the kinds of problems that Chicago has.</p>