Why Ill take a moldy California condo over a stately French castle

My husband and I recently put in a low-ball offer, just shy of $700,000 on the three-bedroom San Diego fixer-upper we’re currently renting.It has no garage, no air conditioning, no GFCI outlets, drywall rot, drainage problems and such a significant need for updates that my relatives outside California think we’ve lost our minds.Appalled that a six-figure income doesn’t always translate into homeownership in California, my extended family is staging a housing intervention.

One cousin sent me a listing for a five-bedroom house with an adjacent full-size barn in the Midwest.We could complete any necessary repairs and buy it outright with just the money we’ve saved for our down payment! Morning Report delivers the latest news, videos, photos and more.

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Never miss a story.Meanwhile, my brother never fails to point out the beautiful homes, with five times the square footage as ours, that we could purchase in their fancy Dallas suburb.Another cousin, living in France, started sending me videos comparing literal castles and chateaus in Europe to the similar prices of run-down North American properties.

After watching one with me, she laughed.“This sounds like your house.”What disturbs me most isn’t that my family’s intervention is justified.

What’s crazy is that I still want the San Diego condo.After all, we only have a little mold.And even better, our lead paint has been successfully hidden under decades of repaints! Then I shake myself, wondering when I drank the California Kool-Aid.

How did those of us who live here recalibrate our definition of “normal” so thoroughly?I grew up in coastal California, but it wasn’t until I moved back as an adult that I became acutely aware of the housing crisis.At first, my husband and I spent years waiting for the seemingly inevitable housing crash.

Everyon...