Do you live in the Bay Area? How long did it take you to find your apartment or house? How much did you pay for it (if you don't mind saying). Do you think things will get better now that all those dot-coms are going under?

-- Anonymous, November 19, 2000

Answers

Sorry, can't help you with the Bay Area. (but if you move to Vegas now)

The trick to taking cold showers is to move one extremity in at a time over a period of 10 minutes or so starting with your lower legs.

If you've gone inner tubing in a cold river, at first it's hard to believe you'll get use to the cold water (but you do)

Although, you said it was 40 degrees out, and I think that's too cold. When my hot water was out I took showers when temps were in low 70's but never 40's.

-- Anonymous, November 19, 2000

Yes, I live in the Bay Area (East Bay), Livermore. We bought the house 5 years ago for $340,000...its now worth about $680,000. And now we couldn't afford to buy it if we were to buy it today! Actually no, I don't think its going to get any better...A couple of slower growth propositions passed this last election which should slow growth somewhat, but that will just push up the price of existing housing. Then there's the traffic...from what I can see of the schedules, all the road projects aren't due to be completed for years, which will make traffic even worse...thus pushing up the price of housing closer to work. And in closing, if, 10 years ago you had told me I would own a house worth over half a million dollars, I would have laughed in your face! Yet here I am...

-- Anonymous, November 20, 2000

Im presently in Chicago, but I don't think the demise of the dotcoms would affect property rates in the Bay Area.. SF has been one of the centers of the universe since decades.. and San Jose/Si Valley would still remain firing all cylinders. Computers/IT are here to stay, and every business has to adopt them. So many businesses have old systems, and as you know, this tech evolves real fast, and so Si Valley would flourishm, despite the dotcoms' extinction. Nothing's for certain though :)

-- Anonymous, November 22, 2000

Geez, a thousand bucks a month and bad service. That's a heck of a price to pay for suffering. Some of the contract programmers I know have taken high paying jobs in that area only to find themselves sharing and paying out the nose for a motel six hotel room and monthly parking fees. Personally I'd waive the six figure income and settle for a reasonable house with a big yard.

-- Anonymous, November 24, 2000

I'm currently living in the Boston area, which is experiencing an affordable housing crisis of its own. My husband and I are dying to buy a house, but there is nothing in this area that's affordable. I mean, One bedroom condos are going for not less than $169,000 or so, even in the suburbs.

So Mark & I have actually been contemplating a move to your coast, Jen. We have a line on a place in oakland (lake Merritt area) that's a 3 bedroom 2 bath for $110,000 or thereabouts. It will need some major work, but we can handle that. The land value alone is worth that much. We may actually decide to tear down the existing structure and build from scratch.

We shall see. The only thing I'm worried about is sinking all our money into a place and having the property value go down, instead of up like I think it will. People forget that it could happen that way. Most of us live in such a good economy right now that we forget how bad it used to be.

Anyway, in looking at property in the Bay Area, I'm really surprised that there are still pockets out there where property is affordable. There's almost nowhere in the Boston area where we could find a deal like this.

-- Anonymous, November 24, 2000

I live in the bay area of Oakland CA. I have rented this house for over 40 years and have a thirty day notice to either buy it or move out.It is in a lousy location and the house is 50 years or more old located between two alleys.The owner has offered it to me for 185,000 dollars. It sits on two lots. No way in hell is it worth this much money.The city is contemplating on condeming this house to support a huge reabilitation project. Repairs are needed that would drive up the cost plus a chance of the city condeming it and paying a much lower price.I need to purchase a home in a good location and I have to do it within 30 days.

-- Anonymous, June 01, 2002

I lived in the bay area for 6 years and have seen prices of a single family home rising from under $200,000 to over $600,000. I wasn't ready to pay $500,000 for 1000 sq. ft. 50 years old house to be closer to work nor I could afford $900,000 upscale house. So I moved to Austin, Texas. Now I have a big new house custom built with large backyard. Less population, pollution and traffic problems. Better schools and in general much better standrad of living. I am glad that I could get out of the bay area in time.

Good luck to those who wish to move in the crazy area where you can earn big $$$$$ but still cannot afford a decent house and living. - Neil

-- Anonymous, June 25, 2002