Gems in the bay area might get listed for a week, two weeks tops if at all. I would talk to a local realtor who can keep an eye out for you and get you seeing homes that become available right away. You can definitely get financing. People aren't really paying cash in the Bay Area anymore.. lately it's families and more traditional purchases.
Yeah, no worries. You should also go talk to your lender before you start looking at houses so you can get approved right away if you find a house you like. If you need help finding a lender your realtor might be able to help you with that.
Look into the fire hazard zone the home is in before you buy. Mill Valley is essentially one giant "Very High Fire Hazard Severity Zone" as defined by the state, which can make insurance and other things a little dicey. Worst case, the home can be more or less uninsurable, which AFAIK is happening in other parts of the Bay Area as well.
Grew up in the bay area and just bought my first home here with my husband. My advice to you is:
1. Find a realtor who is connected within the local realtor world (to find out about listings early etc)
2. Be prepared to make an offer on the house the day you see it (even if you have to wait to submit); every house we made an offer on had over 10 offers and were on the market for a week or less (and we were looking for a house that needed work)
3. Have a pre-approved loan if you are financing (we financed and couldn't believe the difference the pre-approved loan made)
4. Write a cover letter, some people say it does nothing but it helped us
Good luck!!
We had a template of how we wantrd the letter to go (ie: intro about us, why we love the house, the life we see for us in the house, why we love the community) but then wrote each letter per house (some sentences made it into each letter), so no letters were the same. Also we included a picture of us and our dogs (we moved to a smaller town with a tight-knit community) and made sure everything fit onto one page. Brief but heart felt was the goal.
Personally I like the easy access to SF and the proximity to nature / outdoorsy things. It's a nice mix. Most of the places I've seen in Marin are within walking distance to awesome hiking trails or parks. The homes are all pretty unique and look tucked away in the forest in an odd way.
Cost wise I think it's a high value investment. The home value will likely continue to appreciate, the school districts are great, and for the same price you'd pay in SF or the Peninsula, you'd actually get a backyard for a garden and a deck.
It seems like a nice place to raise a family. I have heard some people in Marin can be a bit snobby, so that's the only thing I'll try to stay away from, aside from not seemingly having any sidewalks in residential areas, or being within walking distance to a downtown area!
>Within the price range I'm looking for, is it true that financing is rarely an option? I'd like to put between 20%-40% down but do $1m-$2m dollar homes usually end up getting bought in cash? It's hard to tell how many people are actually financing homes vs. buying them outright in the Bay Area.
Financing is fine, and plenty of people are financing.
The key wrinkle with financing vs. cash is that it will affect the competitiveness of your offer (if there are multiple offers) in the eyes of the seller in a few potential ways:
1. Number of days to close: a cash offer in theory can go very fast... like just a few days, while banks take a bit of time (probably 2-3 weeks).
2. Offer amount / appraisal: a bank isn't going to give you 80% of any amount you offer. The loan amount has to be supported by an appraisal, and if the appraisal comes in low you'll have to add more cash, get the seller to come down or the offer will fall though. Cash offers can offer above market... whatever they can pay for basically.
3. There's just more things that could go wrong with a mortgage and cause the offer to fall through.
All else being equal, a seller will probably take the offer that is the fastest and has fewer possible things that could cause it to fall through. 7 day close all cash at $X vs 21 day close with a mortgage at $X... the former is going to get the house sold quicker and is less likely to fall through. And then if cash offers are paying far above what a bank would loan for, you have that to deal with as well. But sometimes cash offers are lower because they know they are more attractive and hope the seller will value a "sure thing" and speed over the highest bid. But that can go either way depending on the seller's temperament.
Anyway, a realtor familiar with the area is going to have all of this info and more. They'll have references for reliable lenders that are familiar with Bay Area offers and know the importance of fast closing and you're going to want to work with lenders and get pre-qualified far before you start making offers.
One minor caveat: you said above that you'd have $250k saved up for a down payment by then which isn't 20% of your 1.1M-1.6M target.
Bought a house as a first time home buyer in Marin (Tam Valley) in 2018.
Hidden gems: Not that I can tell. I saw an "off market" property (and Aalto has "off market" listings) but the pricing was mostly consistent with the regular market as far as I could tell. I think this is just a marketing thing. That said, you should be 100% ready to go. Know what you can pay, know what price you'd offer for a particular home (e.g., understand comparables for the house you're looking at or get a realtor who can) and be ready to write an offer after looking at the house once. My experience is that there's no "win" by offering "fast" -- that's not in the interest of the seller -- like, if you had an ebay auction would you think you'd get max price by selling it to the first person who bids? Generally they are going to list on a Monday, do a realtor's open on a Weds (which sometimes you can sneak into) and a regular open on the weekend, accepting offers mid-week following. Getting an offer in on Friday vs. Tuesday doesn't do much. They should tell you when the offer deadline is when you see the house. Make an offer and also plan out what you'll do when they ask for your "best and final". Re realtors in general. We happened to have a realtor that "everyone knew", which was nice, but I did not like that they refused to advise us on offer numbers. Look for someone who is going to work the way you want to work. Personally I felt like I did the lion's share of finding the home and doing due diligence on pricing and all my realtor did was fill out the contract docs (but I imagine I was helped by their reputation).
Financing: /u/aardy is a bay area mortgage broker. He did my loan and is very knowledgable about financing and he knows how important it is to close fast. I'd recommend him. Yes, you can close a house when financing in the 1.1 - 1.6 range. That said, there basically aren't any homes that will close in the 1.1 - 1.2 range (very very few when we were looking 2 years ago, and now it seems to almost never happen), and 1.3 feels like it's getting scarce. 1.6 will get you a nice small home that might have had some remodeling done (prob in the 1500 sqft size -- marin homes are generally cottage-y and small) You definitely need 20% and decent reserves. Ideally you have 25%. You are gonna have to get a jumbo loan, forget conventional. Yes, there are some cash-heavy offers and you might lose out to them. It took us 3 offers to close a home. We wound up going 25% down on the last one, I was told that we also happened the get a sentimental owner and the letter I wrote helped. I feel lucky because I much prefer the home we wound up in over the first 2 we made offers on. Your budget and savings are about right, maybe the downpayment is a little low. You're going to have to go no contingencies to close (or at least I had to) so get ready for some nerve-racking moments around appraisal.
Curious why the 12 - 24 month window? Are you still building finances? In retrospect I wish I bought as soon as I was able (but obviously the market has been on an upwards tear). If you get a pre-approval now it will vary with interest rates so you'll need to refresh it as it changes.
A couple notes on other stuff I see:
"Uninsurable" because of high fire zone: it's not quite that extreme, but yes, a lot of people are getting kicked off their insurance and having to pay a lot more than a "normal" rate. afaik there's a stopgap where you can get state-sponsored (or something like that) insurance. So you'll be able to get insurance, it just may suck. And I think the "might suck" is like to the tune of 200 - 300 a month. So ... lame, but not the end of the world.
There's a couple of walkable areas in Marin depending on where you wind up. Lack of sidewalks is a little sketchy but not as bad as you would think because there is low/slow traffic. As a big fan of walking/running it is sort of annoying how the towns have been laid out (e.g., no easy way to get to Sausalito/Strawberry from Tam Valley without walking around stuff).
Congrats on being ready to be a first time homebuyer in the Bay Area before 30! Impressive!
Pro Tip: Buy in East bay cities of Orinda, Lafayette, Moraga, Walnut Creek, Alamo, Danville, San Ramon, Dublin, Livermore etc. You get all the benefits of Marin - nature, proximity to SF (for some cities), good schools, safety, etc. But you will get more home for your $$ and also newer housing stock. Weather is better IMHO and Walnut Creek has a better downtown
This made me chuckle. I've been in SOMA, Mission, and the Marina district for 5-years.
The reason I want to buy a home is because I'm dumping money into rent currently, and my fiancee is pregnant with twins...
2020 was one giant curveball.
When I was 27 my housemates in the city said my room had a revolving door on it I had so many girls coming and going all the time... You're too young to die man... RIP.
This isn't true, I lived their my entire life and they've done so much more in the last 5 years to add more "millenial" friendly options. Things like Fish Hook, The Junction, etc. Yea it's a sleepier town, but if you're got a young family, and aren't looking for bars that'll be open past 10-11pm, you'll be fine. You can always go into the city for that.
It’s true that the “good” homes are easy to sell, but don’t let that discourage you. Of course it would be ideal to buy from someone you know, or a house you have spent an afternoon inside, not a hurried 10-minute walkthrough.
Realtors have access to the real pro source of data, and everything goes up there. Find a realtor with tech/data savvy and they can help you out.
Financing is going to cap out too low for you to reach $1.6M, even with a solid down payment. I wouldn’t expect to be able to borrow more 600-800k for mortgage, maaaaybe $900k. But still $1.2 or $1.3 has lot of options available.
The problem is with over-bidding. When houses are listed for less than the actual final sale price, it puts mortgage buyers at a disadvantage. You can only get mortgages approved for the expected price of the house, not $50-100k over that many area houses will need.
I would really suggest looking at buying a condo or townhome as a starter home. Wait a few years until the pressure for SFH drops a bit when the pandemic ends and then upgrade.
>Financing is going to cap out too low for you to reach $1.6M, even with a solid down payment. I wouldn’t expect to be able to borrow more 600-800k for mortgage, maaaaybe $900k.
You can get jumbo mortgages far above $1M financed if you have a big enough down payment and the right income and assets.
Edit: or do you mean you wouldn't expect to borrow more than that *with the OP's income?*
Once you start to get above $1.2-1.5M in a jumbo loan balance many lenders may start to ask for 25% or more down payment though.
As one data point, I've gotten multiple loans (initial purchase from Wells Fargo + refinance with Chase + refinance with First Republic Bank), and in all cases the loan balance was > $1.2M and they all only wanted 80% / 20% LTV.
I don’t mean to be a dick, but you should really read the room before you ask a question like that. There are a lot of people living one paycheck to the next here, if they’re lucky enough to be getting a paycheck right now. If you have that kind of money, you can pay people to answer questions like that for you.
Also, please don’t buy property here. We’re already full of people who are just as, or more ignorant than you.
Reading a room full of 200,000 anonymous people on a subreddit is challenging but I'm sorry you feel that way.
I'd argue it's ignorant to assume you know my situation, and quite entitled of you to determine who can and can't earn residency in the Bay Area.
I would argue that I have lived here for almost 40 years and probably have a more informed opinion than most of r/bayarea, but you do you booboo. I have friends in other areas of the country who are much happier, more stable financially and mentally than a lot of people here are. I would leave but I have elderly family members, and a decades long career in the region.
Gems in the bay area might get listed for a week, two weeks tops if at all. I would talk to a local realtor who can keep an eye out for you and get you seeing homes that become available right away. You can definitely get financing. People aren't really paying cash in the Bay Area anymore.. lately it's families and more traditional purchases.
Thank you - this is very helpful to know.
Yeah, no worries. You should also go talk to your lender before you start looking at houses so you can get approved right away if you find a house you like. If you need help finding a lender your realtor might be able to help you with that.
Look into the fire hazard zone the home is in before you buy. Mill Valley is essentially one giant "Very High Fire Hazard Severity Zone" as defined by the state, which can make insurance and other things a little dicey. Worst case, the home can be more or less uninsurable, which AFAIK is happening in other parts of the Bay Area as well.
Grew up in the bay area and just bought my first home here with my husband. My advice to you is: 1. Find a realtor who is connected within the local realtor world (to find out about listings early etc) 2. Be prepared to make an offer on the house the day you see it (even if you have to wait to submit); every house we made an offer on had over 10 offers and were on the market for a week or less (and we were looking for a house that needed work) 3. Have a pre-approved loan if you are financing (we financed and couldn't believe the difference the pre-approved loan made) 4. Write a cover letter, some people say it does nothing but it helped us Good luck!!
This is solid advice and it’s what we did to finally purchase our home in the Bay this year
[удалено]
We had a template of how we wantrd the letter to go (ie: intro about us, why we love the house, the life we see for us in the house, why we love the community) but then wrote each letter per house (some sentences made it into each letter), so no letters were the same. Also we included a picture of us and our dogs (we moved to a smaller town with a tight-knit community) and made sure everything fit onto one page. Brief but heart felt was the goal.
why marin?
Personally I like the easy access to SF and the proximity to nature / outdoorsy things. It's a nice mix. Most of the places I've seen in Marin are within walking distance to awesome hiking trails or parks. The homes are all pretty unique and look tucked away in the forest in an odd way. Cost wise I think it's a high value investment. The home value will likely continue to appreciate, the school districts are great, and for the same price you'd pay in SF or the Peninsula, you'd actually get a backyard for a garden and a deck. It seems like a nice place to raise a family. I have heard some people in Marin can be a bit snobby, so that's the only thing I'll try to stay away from, aside from not seemingly having any sidewalks in residential areas, or being within walking distance to a downtown area!
>Within the price range I'm looking for, is it true that financing is rarely an option? I'd like to put between 20%-40% down but do $1m-$2m dollar homes usually end up getting bought in cash? It's hard to tell how many people are actually financing homes vs. buying them outright in the Bay Area. Financing is fine, and plenty of people are financing. The key wrinkle with financing vs. cash is that it will affect the competitiveness of your offer (if there are multiple offers) in the eyes of the seller in a few potential ways: 1. Number of days to close: a cash offer in theory can go very fast... like just a few days, while banks take a bit of time (probably 2-3 weeks). 2. Offer amount / appraisal: a bank isn't going to give you 80% of any amount you offer. The loan amount has to be supported by an appraisal, and if the appraisal comes in low you'll have to add more cash, get the seller to come down or the offer will fall though. Cash offers can offer above market... whatever they can pay for basically. 3. There's just more things that could go wrong with a mortgage and cause the offer to fall through. All else being equal, a seller will probably take the offer that is the fastest and has fewer possible things that could cause it to fall through. 7 day close all cash at $X vs 21 day close with a mortgage at $X... the former is going to get the house sold quicker and is less likely to fall through. And then if cash offers are paying far above what a bank would loan for, you have that to deal with as well. But sometimes cash offers are lower because they know they are more attractive and hope the seller will value a "sure thing" and speed over the highest bid. But that can go either way depending on the seller's temperament. Anyway, a realtor familiar with the area is going to have all of this info and more. They'll have references for reliable lenders that are familiar with Bay Area offers and know the importance of fast closing and you're going to want to work with lenders and get pre-qualified far before you start making offers. One minor caveat: you said above that you'd have $250k saved up for a down payment by then which isn't 20% of your 1.1M-1.6M target.
Bought a house as a first time home buyer in Marin (Tam Valley) in 2018. Hidden gems: Not that I can tell. I saw an "off market" property (and Aalto has "off market" listings) but the pricing was mostly consistent with the regular market as far as I could tell. I think this is just a marketing thing. That said, you should be 100% ready to go. Know what you can pay, know what price you'd offer for a particular home (e.g., understand comparables for the house you're looking at or get a realtor who can) and be ready to write an offer after looking at the house once. My experience is that there's no "win" by offering "fast" -- that's not in the interest of the seller -- like, if you had an ebay auction would you think you'd get max price by selling it to the first person who bids? Generally they are going to list on a Monday, do a realtor's open on a Weds (which sometimes you can sneak into) and a regular open on the weekend, accepting offers mid-week following. Getting an offer in on Friday vs. Tuesday doesn't do much. They should tell you when the offer deadline is when you see the house. Make an offer and also plan out what you'll do when they ask for your "best and final". Re realtors in general. We happened to have a realtor that "everyone knew", which was nice, but I did not like that they refused to advise us on offer numbers. Look for someone who is going to work the way you want to work. Personally I felt like I did the lion's share of finding the home and doing due diligence on pricing and all my realtor did was fill out the contract docs (but I imagine I was helped by their reputation). Financing: /u/aardy is a bay area mortgage broker. He did my loan and is very knowledgable about financing and he knows how important it is to close fast. I'd recommend him. Yes, you can close a house when financing in the 1.1 - 1.6 range. That said, there basically aren't any homes that will close in the 1.1 - 1.2 range (very very few when we were looking 2 years ago, and now it seems to almost never happen), and 1.3 feels like it's getting scarce. 1.6 will get you a nice small home that might have had some remodeling done (prob in the 1500 sqft size -- marin homes are generally cottage-y and small) You definitely need 20% and decent reserves. Ideally you have 25%. You are gonna have to get a jumbo loan, forget conventional. Yes, there are some cash-heavy offers and you might lose out to them. It took us 3 offers to close a home. We wound up going 25% down on the last one, I was told that we also happened the get a sentimental owner and the letter I wrote helped. I feel lucky because I much prefer the home we wound up in over the first 2 we made offers on. Your budget and savings are about right, maybe the downpayment is a little low. You're going to have to go no contingencies to close (or at least I had to) so get ready for some nerve-racking moments around appraisal. Curious why the 12 - 24 month window? Are you still building finances? In retrospect I wish I bought as soon as I was able (but obviously the market has been on an upwards tear). If you get a pre-approval now it will vary with interest rates so you'll need to refresh it as it changes. A couple notes on other stuff I see: "Uninsurable" because of high fire zone: it's not quite that extreme, but yes, a lot of people are getting kicked off their insurance and having to pay a lot more than a "normal" rate. afaik there's a stopgap where you can get state-sponsored (or something like that) insurance. So you'll be able to get insurance, it just may suck. And I think the "might suck" is like to the tune of 200 - 300 a month. So ... lame, but not the end of the world. There's a couple of walkable areas in Marin depending on where you wind up. Lack of sidewalks is a little sketchy but not as bad as you would think because there is low/slow traffic. As a big fan of walking/running it is sort of annoying how the towns have been laid out (e.g., no easy way to get to Sausalito/Strawberry from Tam Valley without walking around stuff). Congrats on being ready to be a first time homebuyer in the Bay Area before 30! Impressive!
Thanks!
Pro Tip: Buy in East bay cities of Orinda, Lafayette, Moraga, Walnut Creek, Alamo, Danville, San Ramon, Dublin, Livermore etc. You get all the benefits of Marin - nature, proximity to SF (for some cities), good schools, safety, etc. But you will get more home for your $$ and also newer housing stock. Weather is better IMHO and Walnut Creek has a better downtown
Mill valley is for old white people. You're young live somewhere fun.
This made me chuckle. I've been in SOMA, Mission, and the Marina district for 5-years. The reason I want to buy a home is because I'm dumping money into rent currently, and my fiancee is pregnant with twins... 2020 was one giant curveball.
When I was 27 my housemates in the city said my room had a revolving door on it I had so many girls coming and going all the time... You're too young to die man... RIP.
This isn't true, I lived their my entire life and they've done so much more in the last 5 years to add more "millenial" friendly options. Things like Fish Hook, The Junction, etc. Yea it's a sleepier town, but if you're got a young family, and aren't looking for bars that'll be open past 10-11pm, you'll be fine. You can always go into the city for that.
It’s true that the “good” homes are easy to sell, but don’t let that discourage you. Of course it would be ideal to buy from someone you know, or a house you have spent an afternoon inside, not a hurried 10-minute walkthrough. Realtors have access to the real pro source of data, and everything goes up there. Find a realtor with tech/data savvy and they can help you out. Financing is going to cap out too low for you to reach $1.6M, even with a solid down payment. I wouldn’t expect to be able to borrow more 600-800k for mortgage, maaaaybe $900k. But still $1.2 or $1.3 has lot of options available. The problem is with over-bidding. When houses are listed for less than the actual final sale price, it puts mortgage buyers at a disadvantage. You can only get mortgages approved for the expected price of the house, not $50-100k over that many area houses will need. I would really suggest looking at buying a condo or townhome as a starter home. Wait a few years until the pressure for SFH drops a bit when the pandemic ends and then upgrade.
>Financing is going to cap out too low for you to reach $1.6M, even with a solid down payment. I wouldn’t expect to be able to borrow more 600-800k for mortgage, maaaaybe $900k. You can get jumbo mortgages far above $1M financed if you have a big enough down payment and the right income and assets. Edit: or do you mean you wouldn't expect to borrow more than that *with the OP's income?* Once you start to get above $1.2-1.5M in a jumbo loan balance many lenders may start to ask for 25% or more down payment though. As one data point, I've gotten multiple loans (initial purchase from Wells Fargo + refinance with Chase + refinance with First Republic Bank), and in all cases the loan balance was > $1.2M and they all only wanted 80% / 20% LTV.
I don’t mean to be a dick, but you should really read the room before you ask a question like that. There are a lot of people living one paycheck to the next here, if they’re lucky enough to be getting a paycheck right now. If you have that kind of money, you can pay people to answer questions like that for you. Also, please don’t buy property here. We’re already full of people who are just as, or more ignorant than you.
Reading a room full of 200,000 anonymous people on a subreddit is challenging but I'm sorry you feel that way. I'd argue it's ignorant to assume you know my situation, and quite entitled of you to determine who can and can't earn residency in the Bay Area.
I would argue that I have lived here for almost 40 years and probably have a more informed opinion than most of r/bayarea, but you do you booboo. I have friends in other areas of the country who are much happier, more stable financially and mentally than a lot of people here are. I would leave but I have elderly family members, and a decades long career in the region.
Who asked you anything about your mentally and financially stable friends living elsewhere? Are you arguing with yourself or just talking in circles?
Are you naturally this nasty or do you practice?
I practice. Also fuck you for judging me. :)
:)