May 9, 2005 12:15 pm US/Pacific
The surreal real estate prices of the Bay Area are driving thousands of people to cheaper pastures.
Erica Avila is one. She and her husband sold her two-bedroom Berkeley home in 2001 for $400,000 and moved to New Orleans.
"We turned that money around and invested in a two-story uptown home, four bedrooms, with a carriage house in the back, 4200 square feet, and a condo in the French Quarter for fun," she said.
Coby Ginsberg, priced out of the market here, moved to Nashville, Tennessee.
"We have half an acre, four bedrooms, three baths, a bonus room, and we paid $250,000 for it,"
Home appreciation in some parts of the Bay Area comes to $2000 a week. Why work? Because it's all on paper, unless you move.
The Dalle-Molles moved from the Bay Area to Louisville, Colorado, and they say it was the best move of their lives. They didn't plan to leave the area. Ken Dalle-Molle is a fourth generation San Josean who, with his wife Tami, found themselves in a familiar spot in 1998.
"It was really like ripping your hair out, because you see an asking price on a house, you go in $5000 or $10,000 over, which seems counterintuitive, and you weren't even in the ballgame," said Ken.
Ken is a high tech worker, and his company Xilinx has a branch in Colorado. They were able to find a four-bedroom, four-bath, 2600-square-foot home in a suburb of Boulder for $220,000 dollars.
"It was like a fantasy to come out here and look at ten homes on the market, and take your pick of what you liked best, and then lowball," said Tami.
Helped by Colorado's lower prices, as well as the money they aren't putting into a big Bay Area mortgage, they have been able to buy six rental homes and a condo in Copper Mountain. Tami also can be a stay at home mom to their three kids, Frank, Hank, and George.
"If we had stayed in the Bay Area, I would still be working fulltime, they would be in day care," said Tami. "We'd both be commuting a really long way to our jobs."
They miss family, and they miss the ocean. They don't miss snow, which continued to fall in May.
John and Pat Keating moved from the Bay Area to Boise, Idaho five years ago, and say they couldn't be happier. The couple sold their 1000-square-foot San Mateo home for $430,000 and bought a house two and a half times the size for half the price. But did they really want to live in Boise?
"My immediate family thought I was nuts, and generally everybody we know or have ever known couldn't believe it," said John.
Full Article: http://cbs5.com/topstories/local_story_129151658.html
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