Where the Journey Began

Like most people, I'm guessing, my first "investment" was my own home.  Having had the keen foresight to buy in  the frenzied, bubble-inflating, sketchy financing days of 2004 just before my then boyfriend and co-owner and I both became unemployed.  I got to learn some hard lessons right at home, but not necessarily the just the familiar ones. 

After nine months of bidding on a different place (invariably cute but with "issues" and in an "up-and-coming" location) every two weeks only to be outbid by other eager first-time nesters, I changed my strategy.  I started looking for the places that had been on the market for at least a month (a dead listing in Berkeley in 2004…and now), and that's how I found our funky home-sweet-home.

She was a 700 square foot 2 Bed/2 Bath on the books (1 Bed/1 Bath by any reasonable use) with no driveway, a bad foundation, knob-and-tube electrical on a fusebox, rust-plugged plumbing, really smelly carpeting, hot pink sponge paint from floor to ceiling in the kitchen, and a bad floor plan, unless you see a second door opening directly from the bedroom into the kitchen as a "feature".  And all of this glory was ours for a mere $460K (which included the cost of the foundation replacement escrowed by the seller).

What lessons did I learn so far?   Similar places with iffy foundations and fresh paint that didn't smell bad were going for $550-600K.  Replacing the foundation on a tiny box on a flat lot was a cinch and cost $25K at the time for a 2-story foundation.  At this point, we're still congratulating ourselves on our clever purchase while our families looked (and smelled) on in horror.  What could go wrong?