Flours and Diamonds

"It just doesn't seem like a winning endeavor for you to buy something in this area." "You need to broaden your scope." "Really, you need to look elsewhere. I mean, people commute all the time." "Have you thought about looking in the Central Valley? My friend just bought a house in Manteca for under $300K." "Have you considered Hollister or Los Banos? The commute can't be that bad...?" Have you considered that you probably need to SHUT. THE. F*CK. UP?! I can't tell you HOW. MANY. TIMES. people told us how ridiculous it was that we were damn near killing ourselves trying to buy SOMETHING in San Jose. In the beginning, it didn't matter that we were looking at Townhomes. Then we learned there were a ton of struggles with HOA's not accepting the type of loan for which we were approved. So we asked our AMAZING Real Estate Agent, Mary, to include houses, even if they were small, even if they only had one toil...

We Bought A Zoo... Well, not really. In reality, we bought a house. But, there is enough land for me to have chickens, and a goat, and a dog, and maybe a turkey. So we may as well have bought a Zoo. Albeit a petting zoo, but a zoo, nonetheless. Yup. I said it. We. Bought. A. House. Except that we haven't. YET. I guess I should say We. Are. Buying. A. House. Did you know, that in the San Francisco Bay Area of California, home prices are nearly TRIPLE what they are in similar climates across the nation? Did you know that the average number of days a house in the San Francisco Bay Area stays on the market is LESS THAN 10? Did you know that this is a SELLERS market? Because crazy ass people like me and Frank are more than willing  to "play the game" and offer obscene amounts of money OVER the list price because, we, like most other married couples in their 30's, are crazy, and want to be property owners. Did you know that Flood Insurance can ONLY be purchase...