Our mortgage is still worth more than our house, but not by a whole lot. We are lucky we got a repo, though, for 100k less than what was being offered for more fixed-up houses. If prices keep falling we may end up with a bit of time where we are upside down, but we plan on staying here for many more years, and things will improve. Plus our house is awesome with a ginormous yard in a lovely neighborhood.

And, as my DH pointed out last night, if we HAD waited for prices to go down more, we probably wouldn't be able to get a mortgage since he is self-employed.

we plan on staying here for many more years, and things will improve

That's the thing with buying -- if you're not planning on moving and can afford your mortgage, what do you care about the market value of your house? This is my renter's feeling, anyway.

I assume SF incomes are proportional(ish) with rents?

Ish. People in NY and SF spend a much higher percentage of their income on housing than the rest of the country. (~50% vs ~30%, IIRC.)

Which is what I'm doing now. In 2 months, once I move, it'll drop down to 37%(ish). The extra few bills will be nice, for sure, but I'm not only moving in with M, I'm moving in with M & Gary. However! Huge kitchen, back deck (with room for a garden), big sitting room, 14' ceilings.... YAYS.

Yes, especially now that they are building an arthouse multiplex cinema that we can walk to from our house. If we can get a Trader Joe's around here, I will never have any reason to go anywhere!

if you're not planning on moving and can afford your mortgage, what do you care about the market value of your house?

Well, there's the property tax issue. But then, having the value go down would be kinda nice, if you don't plan to sell or get a property-secured loan, wouldn't it?

I'm not only moving in with M, I'm moving in with M & Gary.

I somehow missed this! Congratulations!

OMG, for once in my life, I remembered to use the million tiny calculations I already did for this one project, instead of re-doing them all! Yay me!

Dear dog, why do some of these sites make it so long and convoluted to apply for a job???? All these one off usernames and passwords for jobs they won't even tell me I didn't get. It's insane.

At least I have tennis to comfort me, even if they're reshowing last night's match.

Liese, the first possible pseud that sprang to mind for you on Facebook was kprinkle. It may in fact be the only possible pseud.

Please?

But it is somewhat offset by other things, like not owning a car.

That'd be nice. Sigh. Sadly, not possible right now. I can't even think of how much more income and how much less debt we'd have if we could get by without a car, or I'd start crying and never stop.

Oooh, juliana. The big sitting room and the deck and the 14' ceilings sound glorious. Is this the place that also has a hot tub, or was M living someplace else when he had that?

I somehow missed this! Congratulations!

I didn't really post about it, except for a few "OMGWTFF what the HELL am I doing?" tightly-locked posts in LJ. And thank you! It's going to be a house full of bartenders (M & G, and then the downstairs flat has 3 bartenders in it), so it'll be, um, social. To say the least. Plus, vegetable garden!! (I might be a bit excited about that part.)