House Hunting in San Francisco

Every couple of Sunday's you visit a couple of Open Houses, get hounded by a few of the Agents hosting them, and go back home thinking "someday". Maybe you're a www.Craigslist.org fanatic and don't realize you're only seeing 5% or less of the homes on the market. Or maybe you still rely on black&white and browse the Chronicle's Open House pages - there you're probably seeing 20%. In other words, not only are you not very serious about your home search, what little you do gets you no where. AND OH, those hounding agents! They are just SOOO annoying. Who needs an agent anyway?

When asked how long you've been looking, you say "oh, on and off for about 18 years now", frustrated that you didn't buy that over priced $400,000 miniature 2-bedroom on Russian Hill 5 years ago. What a shame because you saw it last week on "sale" for "only" $799,000.

Maybe you're an advanced searcher, and have found an MLS site like
www.SF-MLS-Search.com. Here you get 95% of all homes. Even more convenient is www.Automated-Homefinder.com where homes that fit your entered criteria get emailed to you the day they hit the market. You've got the pulse of the market, well at least of the listings. But you're still just a searcher, and not a buyer. You almost put an offer in on that amazing one-bedroom a few weeks back. But the agent scared the hell out of you with all the "TIC" talk. What in the world was that about?

Ahh well, this bubble will burst someday, and me and my 98 friends all making $100,000+ who still rent will finally have an opportunity to buy. Oh wait, that's another $10 million that will just re-prop up the market. Dang, will I ever be able to buy?