When Christopher Park turned 28 — the age his dad was when he bought his first home — he started to wonder: Could he ever do the same?
Gaining a foothold in his hometown, the waterside city of Benicia in the Bay Area, isn’t as easy today as it was 30 years ago for his parents. They bought their house in 1993 for $205,000, and have seen its value soar to $800,000.
“I knew I would never get to Benicia,” the e-commerce manager at an industrial manufacturer said.
But Park was still set on buying a home in the Bay Area. To save money, he moved in with his parents for a few years. When he finally moved out, it was to live with his girlfriend, in an apartment attached to her parents’ home in Vallejo.
After getting engaged in 2023, Park and his fiancée, Kristyn Reano, a water treatment operator, started to take a more serious look at the housing market.
Homes in Benicia were only getting more expensive, with the median-priced home growing 54% since 2015 to $788,943 from $512,544, according to Zillow.
Nearby cities presented more options within their $500,000 budget. The couple was drawn to Vallejo — not far from Marin County, where Reano had recently taken a job — and the industrial city of Martinez in Contra Costa County.
While Park was open to looking at condos, starter homes for many these days, Reano was adamant that they buy a single-family home. They were also willing to consider places that required a little fixing up, since Reano’s dad, an experienced builder, had offered to help them work on an older home.
Here were their options:
No. 1: A Recently renovated ranch in Vallejo
This three-bedroom home in South Vallejo had recently been fixed up by a home flipper. It was about 1,500 square feet, plus a 400-square-foot finished attic, and sat on the largest plot of land on the street, measuring a quarter acre. The home had just one bathroom, though, and a small kitchen. The asking price was $550,000 (reduced from $650,000).
No. 2:…
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