Bay Area Housing Market

[Nic S.]

Are you bullish on the Bay Area market appreciating over the next 5-10 years? San Mateo has seen 12% appreciation this year, which in my eyes in isn't sustainable. But I'm curious as to what you think about the future state of the market.

For context, my finance and I are trying to purchase our primary residence in San Mateo/SF area. My investments will have to be out-of-state because the economics don't make sense here.

Thank you for your time! 

[Chris Mason]

Originally posted by @Nic S.:

Are you bullish on the Bay Area market appreciating over the next 5-10 years? San Mateo has seen 12% appreciation this year, which in my eyes in isn't sustainable. But I'm curious as to what you think about the future state of the market.

For context, my finance and I are trying to purchase our primary residence in San Mateo/SF area. My investments will have to be out-of-state because the economics don't make sense here.

Thank you for your time! 

 Five years is a coin toss, 10 years is ridiculously solid. Think about it, the worst time to buy a home in the Bay Area in the last 100 years was 2007. So we do not have to speculate too much about the next 10 years, since we have the worst 10 years right behind us (future lurkers, I am typing this in December 2017)... how does an average home's value in San Mateo in 2007 compare to 2017? 

In order to NOT do as well as that "worst case" scenario, we'd have to have something worse than the international Great Recession come up in the next 10 years. In all probability we're not going to have another once a century recession that matches the last one so soon, but even if we did, you'd be doing more than OK if your ownership horizon is 10 years or more.