Our First Time Home Buying Experience

My husband, Casey, and I bought our first home in the Bay Area, and in the middle of a global pandemic! Here’s how it went…

[Casey and I standing in front of our to-be-house.]

In March 2020, when we decided to get more serious about purchasing our first home in Northern California, we had been casually looking in the Bay Area for about a year already.

We honestly thought that buying during the pandemic meant prices would drop, but with the low interest rates, the price of homes did the exact opposite - it skyrocketed! That, coupled with the fact that folks (understandably) wanted to move out of smaller apartments and into larger spaces with backyards meant demand for a house was higher than ever (and inventory was low).

For the first 6 months we were focused on getting a home in Oakland, which is situated across the bay from San Francisco. A diverse community with all sorts of cultural activities, delicious eateries, a great night life, and a buzzing art / creative scene…it had a lot of what we wanted from our surroundings. But the price of homes there, many of them over 50 years old, was incredibly inflated and being an interior designer, I had pretty high standards for what I wanted as far as vibe, interior features, and layout went.

I was on the real estate apps day and night, and would send emails to our agent about new listings we wanted to check out at odd hours. She would help us narrow down our search based on what we were looking for. Our evenings and weekends were packed with tours.

We would find one or two homes that we felt were a great fit; I’d compose a letter to the home owner sharing our story in hopes of personalizing the process. We would put in an offer, always over asking. We’d get a call from our agent saying we were one of over 10 offers, many all cash, with no contingencies. It was quite frankly, exhausting.

Casey and I had set a goal to find a home by November, 2020, and we were determined to make it happen without settling. By month 7 we decided to widen our horizons and look at Berkeley, El Cerrito, and eventually parts of Richmond we hadn’t yet heard about…Point Richmond, and Marina Bay.

Within one month of searching for a house in Richmond, we found and put money down on our first house in Marina Bay! It was new construction, so we actually just purchased the dirt lot…but my interior designer self was very happy at the prospect of building and designing our first home.

[The empty lot where our house would be built.]

9 months later, the house is still under construction. It has been a process with quite a few highs and lows. Follow along here as I continue to blog about our journey with our new home!