California costs too much! Let's compare it to Texas

[Diablo del sol]

18. One of the things missed in evaluating CA is how many people like us that exist.

Yes we have some stiff payments at first, but make it through the first few years then we have a very solid backstop due to home value. Trying to get that point across to my kid, she needs to wait for the drop, then jump in. I basically had zero appreciation in the first house I bought. Had I held onto it, would have been a 4x appreciation. Want her to understand that buying at the peak means a correction may take 5 years to get her value back up to purchase price. So for anyone single, under twenty-five to thirty, wait it out. Then dive in and is twenty years a person will be sitting pretty. (I bought the current house at near the bottom, was off by about six months.) In the meantime they hang out at the beach on weekends, jump into a car and ski or hit Central Coast on any given weekend. A great life for kids just out of college as long as they don't rush out and get $600 per month car payments or have to live near the beach and pay outrageous rent.

Side but related note, had I taken every cent I put in 401k's/saved and put them into housing market, I would be retired with easily 2 to 4x in retirement funds.