Condo in a good neighborhood or house in bad one?

In My Humble Opinion
41

Yeah, this would be ideal. I’m just worried that prices will rise out of my reach. Even from last year the quality of home I can afford has eroded because prices rose so much and my salary rose…almost zero. Prices could drop if the economy struggles, but in that case you might lose your job anyway, so that doesn’t help.

The other thing is that in the Bay Area you can’t really search passively. My initial idea was to just keep an eye on Redfin and then get the process started when I saw a good house, but that’s not possible because homes sell so quickly here. It takes a couple of days to get your preapproval and a couple of days to get in to see the house, and by that time anything reasonably priced and move-in ready is gone. A lot of properties sell before they even go on the market. So you always have your financials in line and be ready to offer in a day, but that puts your whole life in limbo. You can’t switch jobs, you can’t make a big purchase, you can’t open a new credit card, etc.

42

I’d get a condo in a bad neighborhood and save the rest of the money.

43

I suppose it depends on what you mean by “bad neighborhood.” To me, somebody getting robbed 3-4 blocks from your house at gunpoint is just par for the course and I’d expect that sort of randomness to happen even in the “good” neighborhoods in a big city. Personally, I’m pretty adamant about owning a home, so that would trump a condo, but if it was in a seriously bad neighborhood, I’d go condo or just rent until I could buy a home.

44

I would go with the house. Hell, I did go with the house. And my neighborhood never showed signs of turning around. I would do a lot of things different having it to do all over again (in terms of the house and small specifics) but I’ve seen condo living and it just isn’t for me.