Dreaming of our dream home

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Omied and I have been living in San Francisco for 7.5 years. Call it the seven year itch, but as much as we love the city, we’re starting to get a bit antsy and are feeling like we’ll be ready to leave soon. I love San Francisco, but lately I’ve been dreaming about owning our own home…one where we have our own garage that we don’t share with other people. And our very own laundry room. And a dishwasher. Omg, a dishwasher. ? A front yard and a backyard. A proper office. I could go on and on about all the features of our future dream house. ? And while Omied and I might feel ready to leave the city, we don’t want to leave the Bay Area. Omied’s job is in San Francisco, and while I can work from anywhere, it helps to be close to the city where there are so many media and influencer events and networking opportunities for me.

If you don’t live in San Francisco and already know firsthand, this city is rivaling NYC in terms of cost of living. The housing and rental markets are both bonkers, and it’s crazy that it’s more common for a couple in this city with great paying jobs to not be able to afford to own a home, than to own one. We’ve just started casually going to open houses to see what’s out there, and we’ve been looking in different parts of the Bay Area outside of the city. Sometimes we’ll pop into open houses in San Francisco too, just for fun, although it actually ends up being more depressing than anything once we look at the reality of the cost. ?/?

The housing market (and our inability to own) in San Francisco is always a hot topic of debate among my friends who live here. Maybe there will be a recession and housing prices will become more affordable? Maybe there will be a small earthquake, and people will get freaked out and stop buying up million dollar homes in cash and will leave room for regular people like us to buy a home? Since it’s such a topic of conversation in all circles, I wanted to share an exciting company in today’s post, called Unison.

Unison touts themselves as a better way to buy and own homes. They call it “home co-investing.” Basically, Unison co-invests in your home with you, increasing the amount you’re able to put down for your down payment to give people more buying power when putting in offers (especially important in the competitive Bay Area housing market!). Unison does this in exchange for a share in the change in value of your home. So that way, you can own the home you really want. It’s not a loan, and there’s no extra debt, interest, or monthly payments. Interesting, right?? I really wanted to share this because it could be an incredible way for someone who hasn’t saved enough to make a 20% down payment on a house to actually get that dream home and live their best life. Unison is based in SF so they GET ?? IT  ??. They’re v. aware of how freaking expensive it is to buy a home in the city, and throughout the Bay Area. So I love that their mission is to be a true partner in all the ups and downs that the Bay Area home buying process can bring. It’s great to know this resource exists and that Unison is setting out to disrupt the home buying process. Definitely worth checking them out and learning more about how it works in this video.

I’m super excited to be partnering with Unison over the next few months to bring you guys more content around our journey of the home buying process. While we’re very early on in the process, I plan on taking you with me as we start going to more open houses, thinking about where it is we really want to move to, what’s important to us in our future dream home, and how we’re saving for it. Stay tuned for more, and in the meantime be sure to check out Unison so that you’re knowledgeable about your options when it comes to buying a home!

Thanks to Unison for sponsoring this post!