So you want to buy a home? In San Francisco???

My friend lent me a book all about home-buying. Since Jay is in the middle of the largest transaction of his life, I thought that I should learn a bit more about the whole process. This book, called The Everything Homebuying Book, is full of interesting tidbits of information. What I like most are the cute examples of home prices. "Let's say you estimate the price of the home at $110,000 to $125,000." Isn't that cute? Don't you want to just hug the author for being such a cute puppy?

Since Jay started the house search, I have taken to referring to huge sums of money with a single digit. When we looked at a two unit building on Alamo Square, I looked at the informational flyer and I was shocked. "This building is only seven?" I exclaimed, meaning that it would only cost $700,000 to buy.

We went to open houses in the city almost every Sunday. "There's a loft for four we should look at...The unit that smells like urine is only two...The one on Fell Street is only three, but it looks like it already fell over."

Now that he has finally settled on the place he wants, the intricacies of finance are making themselves known. Thanks to a handy spreadsheet he has developed over the years, Jay can calculate the exact monthly payment required for any mortgage, based on the current interest rates offered, and a range of house prices.

I began to be envious in a most childish and inappropriate way. I wanted an income that I could divvy up toward various expenses. When would I have to come up with a budget, and plug away at my numbers, knowing that careful management would make them grow and grow? I started to realize that money is a grown-up's toy, which makes it much more desirable than if it were just a universal language that we use to assign value to the world around us.

The homebuying process has driven home to me the fact that I am not rich. Sometimes when I wear nice clothes and walk around the city, I know that I am mistaken for a rich person. This used to happen when I had a lucrative job at an accounting firm, and I used to want to shout to the less well-dressed, that no, I don't have money, I'm just faking, I'm one of you. Now when I walk around in nice clothes, I savor the fact that I am mistaken for quality, because I know how far that is from the truth.

The fact is: Jay is not rich either. He is talented, hard-working, and prudent; he is solidly middle-class. The truly rich, whose money is not new and runs into figures that my mind cannot grasp, would never enter into the homeowning situation that Jay is attempting. For he is buying into a tenancy-in-common (TIC). This is a form of ownership where all the parties involved own the entire property together. The ownership is divided into shares commensurate with their investment, and they all pay off a single mortgage together. Without getting into the tedious details, TICs are more affordable and more risky than your standard single-owner mortgage, affordable because you share costs with other owners, and risky because if one person defaults, the rest have to come up with the mortgage payment.

Such a situation entails many complications in the buying process. For example, last Monday, Jay and I met with our three future neighbors/co-owners. We sat in the living room of our future house and discussed finances, the history of the building, current renovations underway, and future improvements. It was bizarre to sit with three strangers and the real estate brokers and talk candidly about personal information that I wouldn't feel comfortable revealing if all my sh** was hanging out, so to speak.

Here are some pictures of the future home of Cody and Jay, Inc. (just kidding, I'm not a party to the transaction, fyi).

The dining nook, looking toward the sun room.

The 50's vintage stove, focal point of the living room/kitchen/sun room complex.

From the kitchen, looking into the living room.

Living room shot.

Another living room shot.

Looking down the hall toward the front door.

Bathroom.

More bathroom.

Bedroom.

The view from the front door.

Posted by cbsisco at September 5, 2003 05:03 PM