Unreal Estate Game: Northern California
 

Assume that you idly buy a state lottery ticket while getting a doughnut at 7/11, and voila! You're a winner! You win your choice of one the five houses that will be shown.

I'll give you five houses in a state, and you vote on the house you would take.

Background rules:

Assume that your job situation won't need to change - you can find an identical job or work from home or whatever, so jobs don't matter.

Consider the house itself and the location and anything else that's important to you (schools, restaurants, lot size, etc.). Feel free to do a google map search to check out the neighborhood and the area.

You cannot sell the home. You can live in it as long as you like, but when you move out, it reverts back to the state as a prize for a future winner.

All houses will generally be in the $900,000 to $1 million price range.

All maintenance and utilities and taxes are cost-neutral compared to your current home.

If you wouldn't move into any of these homes, you can instead accept a cash prize of $50,000 (tax free).

Today's state is the northern half of California. Here are your five houses:

Carmel - http://www.realtor.com/realestateand...3_M10767-01203

Crescent City - http://www.realtor.com/realestateand...ex=CA597543812

Napa - http://www.realtor.com/realestateand...8_M21949-62320

Sacramento - http://www.realtor.com/realestateand...7_M22677-62516

San Francisco - http://www.realtor.com/realestateand...1_M20748-17593

San Francisco. I'd love to be able to live in San Francisco. I mean I could, but it would be dumb.

Good grief, if I won the lottery, I wouldn't live in a 1,600 square foot home.

I think 5,000 square foot would be my absolute minimum.

My rankings:

#1 - Napa. What's not to love? It's in redwoods, it's reasonably close to a town, and it's a nice space even if it's a bit dated and inefficient. It's not really a high end home in terms of trim and fixtures, but it's livable and I like the general design.

#2 - Sacramento. This house fascinates me. It's cool as heck - clearly the most interesting home in terms of design on this list - but come on. It's got to be in a frequent flood zone or something. I'm afraid that it would fall into the river at some point or that it would get hit by an errant boat in a heavy rain. Nonetheless, the house is so cool that I'd be really tempted to go with this as #1 if it wasn't in Sacramento, but I've heard that Sacramento gets really hot in the summer. This house is really tempting.

#3 - San Francisco. It's smallish, but big enough to live in. It's not fancy, with basic fixtures. But come on. It's on Lombard Street in San Francisco. You've got all of the amenities of the big city. I would rank this higher, but I think those photos of the views are from the roof or something and not from the apartment. This is a second-floor unit, so my guess is that your view is going to be the apartment building across the street. This is purely a location play, and it's a good location, though (with the caveat that a San Francisco expert may have better input on the neighborhood).

#4 - Crescent City. To some extent, it's not right to include this in northern California because the location is such an outlier. But hey, it's in northern California. I'm really intrigued by the "off-grid" statements, but I wonder if it's really off-grid or if it's just got solar. They don't really explain. It's a nice house, but it's more of a cabin than a full time residence in my opinion, as witnessed by the accordion door to the bedroom. I think this house would live smaller than it looks.

#5 - Carmel. What's underrated about this house is its great fixtures. They went top end on a lot of home elements, and I really like the indoor-outdoor space with the rising door. On the down side, there's not much curb appeal. But the bigger deal in the end is you're not getting views and you're not near restaurants and shopping but you're paying premium prices. I like the house, but the location is overvalued.

The realtor included a picture of a raccoon climbing on the back deck in a listing for a $949k house. Couldn't she get a good pic of the skunks and possums?

It's designed to appeal to people who want to put an apple in their mouth and then get on their hands and knees to see if the raccoon will come and take it.

It doesn't seem to be close to a town. It's like a nice cottage without the lake.

Eh, you're right. It's further than I thought. I thought it was only 2-3 miles from Napa for some reason when I looked at the map. I guess you'd have to send the raccoon into town to pick up pizzas and stuff.

Make mine 50.

Are you anti-raccoon or something?

Napa

California is a nice place to visit but I wouldn't want to live there.

HOLY SHIT! I LIVED AT 156 TELEGRAPH LANDING FROM 1996-1998 WHEN I FIRST MOVED TO SAN FRAN!!! :eek: Rent was $1750 a month and by the time I moved to a different area the rent in the complex was $3600 a month. I also screwed the young Russian hottie who worked the front desk Maya Gruyina.

-My brother lives next to Sacramento in Roseville, so no to Sacramento

-Been to Napa 20 times and much nicer homes and I'm not a huge fan of that style

-Crescent City is too rural and do not like.

Carmel is one of my favorite places on earth and I love that house!

Carmel is the winner!

Give me the 50K

I already live up here. I'll just take the $50k and put it into my current home.