To Buy or not to Buy...That is the question

When we moved to California 3 years ago, we moved to one of the most overinflated homemarkets in the country. Like any other couple with a good paying job we were anxious to buy a house. Everyone told us that it was a great investment and now was the time to buy. Of course most everyone you talked to had some job tied to the real estate business. But who would blame anyone for trying to make a measly 12K(on a 400K house) for just shoveling large amounts of paper work in your direction. Well about every couple months my husband would start to feel the urge to buy a house and we would go on these house hunting excursions. But the truth of the matter was we couldn't afford anything out there except for the house with a hole in the exterior wall and the one that included a semiautomatic at signing as a welcome to the neighborhood. Being the supportive wife I am I would accompany my husband as we looked at the homes and then come home and talk some sense into him. Needless to say 3 years later we never bought a house. But now the tables have turned in our favor and a "starter" home is no longer 400K. So here we are again, out hunting the field and hoping that something comes our way.

So far we have made four unsuccessful offers and burned up countless hours with mortgage brokers and our real estate agent and then even more time on the MLS looking at houses. Though we know that now is the time to buy it is hard to find the perfect house on a not so perfect house budget.
But we continue forward knowing that someday, Dave will be able to plant any tree in our yard and I can't give him any grief about just being renters.