I am not sure it’s a blessing or curse for the long term. In Bay area, it’s not a market to over stretch your leverage. This is a market full of uncertainty and untraveled territory. It’s very unpredictable as to how high it will rise int the future. Hidden inside unprecedented median price and crazy bidding for average looking million dollar houses, risk is also very high.

Rest of America is easier to predict and study, we can rely on demographics, local economic tide and ebb, inflow and outflow, baby boomer trend, land supply trend and zoning situation to help making decisions. I feel more comfortable investing my money into a regular market, even including Phoenix, Las Vegas or most of Florida. But when it came to Bay area, all general guidelines seem to fall apart. Middle income people are bidding for million plus house in fear of opportunity loss. Bay area is a very strange market. I consider myself lucky not having to deal with it. My goal is continuing to search for and accumulate 300K range houses in my region or not too far from my region. I personally believe that 300K range is better for cash flow, however, even that is getting tough, even in my area, the median is already passing 400K. But still doable in a market slump like today. A lot of people are cutting prices, even builders are cutting prices. Therefore, a 400K value house can be probably bidded down to 350K or less.