Bought a condo in October of 2002. Aside from the investment value, it’s been a great tax write-off, and homeownership has a nice warm fuzzy feeling. Bought the place with an 80-10-10, 30 year loan … that’s where you borrow 80%, put 10% down, and borrow another 10% in the form of a second mortgage. The nice thing about the 2nd mortgage is that it also serves as a HELOC (Home Equity Line of Credit), which means I can borrow against it, and write off the interest to boot.

A good book to read is ‘Home Buying For Dummies’

Oh, and if you live in San Francisco, I would highly recommend my realtor: Andrea Swetland.