My friends and I are early 30s professionals living in one of America's most expensive cities and making middle-class incomes. None of us can afford to buy or save for a home here. We all rent, but we're not broke. We save for kids and retirement and illness, but a home isn't in the cards. But recently, we think we might have found an unconventional loophole.
it's little surprise that Clara Jung and her husband, Sam Zun, found their own countercultural path there. For more than a decade, the Bay Area lawyers escaped to Sea Ranch rentals each New Year, a head-clearing ritual through fertility struggles, the surrogacy journeys that brought their two children into the world, and Jung's pivot from corporate law to interior design.
When I tell people I bought a fixer-upper in Vermont with my siblings, the reaction is almost always the same: part envy, part amusement, part horror. "That's so exciting, but you must really like your siblings. I could never do that with mine. It would end in disaster," they say. Did I mention the house - tucked deep in the woods - is nearly impossible to find, three stories tall, and has no interior staircases or electricity?
They rented for about a year, settling into their respective careers: White is in PR, and Harper works in the flower department at Trader Joe's. They were happy in their rental, but White aimed to become a homeowner as soon as possible. As she looked at available homes in their area, she realized she and Harper could likely afford to buy a home if they pooled their incomes.
