Wait, so you are claiming you can't find anything that's not a fixer all thew way out to Danville? I happen to live in East Bay and call BS. I live in a nice 4 Bdrm, 3 bath house in a desirable EB school district that is valued under $2mil. I'd sell it to you tomorrow for $1.8.

I think you are being picky.

OP here. I know what my options are if things stay the same. I know the BA won’t work for us as things stand. We’ve been watching this market very closely for years and have toured hundreds of houses from Sonoma to SJ and from the west side of the city to The far eastern edges of Danville. I don’t need more info about how to make it work in a fixer - it won’t - or where to look, as I have scoured Redfin like an archeologist at a dig. I appreciate that folks want to be helpful tho.

My question really is more about what people think the market will do when conditions - particularly interest rates in inflation - change.

I have 3 mom friends that left cow hollow/marina and bought SFH in your price range in the outer Richmond. Like past 25th. They have big yards, garages. They all had some fixing up to do but they now have space, more than 1 toilet, the restaurants and grocery on Clement are cheaper and they all send their kids to parochials which are 30k less than SH/Convent.

We bought a fixer and have DIYed the majority of it including some plumbing and electrical. We use tradesmen sparingly. We view it as an investment and my DH finds joy in it so it’s doable. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have been able to afford to live in our neighborhood.

Buy the fixer. The way people are remodeling is that they wait a few years until they have enough equity atoms refinance. Rates go up but they also come down.

Will it ever get better? Even moderately?

We are a family of four with young kids. We live in a condo in the city. As the kids are getting bigger we are really feeling the pressure to move to a proper SFH with a yard and space for kid stuff. I've Marie Kondo'd the crackers out of our condo and we still live piled on top of piles.

Everything we've seen in our price range ($1 to $2 mil) is a "fixer," put politely, and we don't have extra money to cover the decades of deferred maintenance that these homes need. (Especially not at the current prices for repair and remodel, which are every bit as crazy as the home prices.) Sometimes it seems like the only way to get a decent home in this area is to inherit it.

Any experienced Bay Area real estate market watchers out there? What do you think we can expect in terms of prices and supply? I've been wondering what inflation and higher interest rates are likely to do. And remote work. I know people say it's going to free tech workers to leave the area, but then we also see Apple and others building and leasing like nothing has changed.