Call me crazy...

This crazy Bay Area housing market can cause people to take some desperate measures to become homeowners. I was really lucky (smart?) that I bought a 1 bedroom condo in 2003. It's small, but it has been a great experience and after four years, it has appreciated enough to make me think about selling and trying to make the jump into a single family home. That's a BIG jump around here. However, I also wanted to jump up to the mid-peninsula area, which is also a fairly large jump as the mid-pen market is quite a bit more expensive. I am, in essence, making a HUGE leap. But I am determined. It is time.

With my budget, what this really means is that I'm shopping for a fixer upper where some TLC (in this case, that means Tender Loving CASH), sweat and patience will yield a decent ROI in several years. The property I've targeted is less of a "fixer upper" and more of a "total dump that needs to be gutted and rebuilt" If the lot were any larger, it would have sold right away to be torn down for construction of a ginormous new home. Fortunately for me, it's a teeeeeny-tiny house on a teeeeeny-tiny lot, so no one has wanted to touch it and it's rash of problems. But I see lots of potential.

The neighborhood is delightful, and the location meets my needs. This little house is definitely the ugly little sister in a neighborhood of lovely, modest homes, many of which are being expanded and updated. It's also a mere three blocks from a very chic-chic neighborhood, which is definitely helping drive the value of the area upward.

My third offer on this property is on the table and I expect a response this afternoon. The seller seems to be wearied by the fact that this property has been on the market for nearly 2 months (average in that area is 15 days),and should be realizing that he's never going to see any offers remotely close to the asking price. At two months on the market, buyers know there is something wrong with the property (MANY things wrong in this case), and their offers will reflect that. Mine certainly did.

If they don't accept my offer, I'll wait another two weeks and resubmit it. I certainly doubt they will see anything better in the interim.