You can buy a home with as little as 3% down in the valley. That's 30k down for a 1mil home. Sure payments will be a lot at around 4k/month, but you can rent out a room to help out. Its not any less affordable than an apartment really.

Some people can buy a home with only 3% down. FHA loans and some first time buyer programs allow that.

If you're borrowing $970K, you're monthly payment would be a lot more than $4K. When I was looking at mortgages, borrowing $600K was ~$4500/month in mortgage, property taxes and insurance. $970K would be more like $6K per month.

Not to mention that a bank will require that $6k/month payment to be less than 28% of gross income, so that hypothetical small house is out of the question for a household making less than ~$260k a year.

3% down w/3.85% fixed interest 30 year locked in. That's 4.5k/month in mortgage. That's not including maintenance, property taxes...etc.

Something tells me you haven't actually tried to do that. No bank is going to lend 970k with such little equity.

The only program that does do that, FHA, have loan limits and in SF for a single family home that is about 625k...

BUT, in hot markets like SF and the east coast, no seller is going to accept your offer with only 3% down because of the risk the lender having an LTV issue and the sale falling apart. In markets like NYC, Boston, DC, SF, etc you need to come in with a) offer over ask b) at least 20% down.

I approached a bank, and that was their offer. 3% down on a 1mil home w/a 3.85% 30 year fixed rate. I've also met some people in the bay area putting 0% down and leveraging their RSUs as a down payment.

If people are doing this, it's no wonder there's a crazy bubble going on.

Here's a better plan: Buy a huge house for a fraction of that money in the north of England, rural Spain, anywhere in Japan which isn't Tokyo, etc., and telecommute to work.

How do you find these good telecommute jobs? I'm a web developer and would love to telecommute.

- https://weworkremotely.com/

- https://angel.co/jobs#find/f!%7B%22types%22%3A%5B%22full-tim...

- http://hnhiring.me/ {remote ok}

- https://authenticjobs.com/#types=7,1&onlyremote=1

Hell of a lot more risky though...

I'm trying this plan: work for a San Francisco company, remotely. Buy a house in a city that is only "expensive" instead of "ludicrously expensive".

Ha. That's pretty close to what I did. Ended up buying in Portland. Don't tell anyone though. They hate transplants here ;)