That's what my brother did. He bought a two-bedroom condo just out of college, split the cost with a roommate for a few years, then sold it and bought a house, using the equity he had built up. It worked very well for him.

I dread the day we have to drive over the Mackinaw Bridge with her.

We're not going to. I'ma build a submarine-car, we'll get the whole falling-under-the-water thing out of the way first thing and then travel.

The (Bay Area) Bay Bridge never bothered me (even driving on it fairly soon after the Loma Prieta earthquake) in the visceral way driving over the (Chesapeake) Bay Bridge does. It seems more protected. Less like you could just, you know, drive over the edge. Even though, I'm pretty sure, nobody has actually gone over the edge of the MD Bay Bridge. Even in bad accidents. It's irrational!

Hmmm, I think I may have just picked up even more work

Poor, busy NoiseBob

OMG, I have wheels!

?? I missed this? Can someone Nilly for me?

That's what my brother did. He bought a two-bedroom condo just out of college, split the cost with a roommate for a few years, then sold it and bought a house, using the equity he had built up. It worked very well for him.

Where was he, though? The cheapest condos around here that even look worth living in start at $300,000. Probably looking at closer to $400,000. (That's more than our house in Texas.)

I'm going to cling to my irrational conviction that all the quake retrofitting means even the scariest-looking of our local bridges and elevated highways (I'm thinking the 520 floating bridge and the Alaskan Way viaduct) are pretty sturdy unless I have the bad luck to be on one of them if/when we get the once-every-few-centuries earthquake-of-doom.

The (Bay Area) Bay Bridge never bothered me (even driving on it fairly soon after the Loma Prieta earthquake) in the visceral way driving over the (Chesapeake) Bay Bridge does. It seems more protected. Less like you could just, you know, drive over the edge. Even though, I'm pretty sure, nobody has actually gone over the edge of the MD Bay Bridge. Even in bad accidents. It's irrational!

I don't think anyone that hasn't driven west on the CBB bridge can quite understand it. Basically, there are no sides to the bridge in that direction, just two railings. The other direction has Jersey dividers. Since the bridge curves, there are places where, on the curve, it looks so easy to just drive straight off. I drove over that bridge every two weeks for the last two years. I thought about driving off every time. Every time.

The Bay Area housing market is guaranteed to pay off, they say.

It's very likely to pay off, but not guaranteed. Check some property prices in areas you'd like to live (on craigslist or in classifieds) and use some of those free calculators (quicken.com has some, but there are many all over the place) to see what kind of mortgage payment you'd be looking at and compare that to your rent. And use those "should I rent or buy" calculators - I'd use a conservative appreciation estimate for the Bay Area right now, prices are either dropping or increasing more slowly than they have in a long time. And don't forget that with a condo you'll have fees, those could make a difference to the financial picture.

That said, it probably would be a good investment and provide you with a place to live, and if prices aren't good when you want to move you can hold onto it and rent it out and still come out okay tax-wise.

And if you can afford a condo in Emeryville I will be freaking jealous, because my husband and I can't afford anything bigger than a studio there.

I don't think anyone that hasn't driven west on the CBB bridge can quite understand it. Basically, there are no sides to the bridge in that direction, just two railings.

AND I always end up in the "fast" lane, ie the lane that's going against oncoming East-bound traffic.