The Flip Side Of Life

My life revolves around IF 90% of the time, but the other 10% of the time is spent thinking about other things, most notably, selling our current house and moving. This has been a major goal for both Doc and I since we got married. At first it was because we wanted to move into a better neighborhood with better schools for our soon-to-be children (insert mock laughter here), but now, it's just to get our of our 'hood.

Not that our 'hood is all that bad. It's a tract house in a relatively new development, but like a lot of new housing developments, the quality of the residents have gone downhill since Doc bought the place back in 2002. Many of the homes have foreclosed and the new neighbors are not all that friendly nor are they very considerate of their fellow residents. Add that to the fact that although the house is a comfortable 1700 sq ft most of that space is in the 4 bedrooms, of which, we only use 2 and the remainder of the house (i.e., kitchen, living room, dining room) is pretty small and can fit a max of about 10 adults comfortably. And then lastly, there is NO backyard. This was a plus when Doc was living by himself, a lazy bachelor with better things to do on the weekends than prune a yard, but now, we'd like to spend a nice evening BBQ with friends and family, but have no where to do it!

But, wait that's not all! We also have a condo that is currently underwater...My condo, the one that I proudly owned when I was living single. The one that I now regret even thinking about buying. *sigh*

So, with that, we have two properties with mortgages totaling over $800K that are both underwater. We'd like to move into a neighborhood further in the 'burbs that has nice, wide tree-lined streets and friendly neighbors. We've saved quite a bit of money, but not enough to put down 20-30% on a new house AND also pay off whatever mortgage (the amount currently underwater) we'd have remaining on our house and our condo after selling them because God knows we wouldn't get what we paid.

I know I shouldn't complain, but sometimes you just have to. I keep telling Doc that maybe we should consider leaving the Bay Area and move to Nebraska or Illinois or anywhere else besides the Bay because everywhere else (with the exception of NYC) is probably cheaper. But, then I think about the weather (I HATE humidity) and I think about leaving family and I think about living where you can't find a good taco truck to save your life and forget about eating Ethopian food or dim sum or never getting a good bowl of pho and I realize that I should just shut up because I'm never leaving.