Amy Barnes

Many times, if you petition to your landlord that these changes will allow them to lease out the apartment at a higher cost after you leave, they'll usually let you do it.

After watching our parents retire and still have to make mortgage payments on a fixed income, my husband and I decided we would do whatever to prevent that for ourselves. So we approached our mortgages with aggressive and out-of-the-box steps that aren’t for everyone, but definitely worked for us.

When you think of San Francisco, your first thoughts may be of cable cars and rows of houses on inclined streets. However, with one of the highest costs of living in the country, San Francisco housing prices can be as steep as its slanted streets. The average small apartment goes for more than $3,000 a month and median home prices top $1.5 million.

Like many of you, I suspect, I love watching HGTV house hunting shows. It’s fun to guess how a wedding calligrapher and Frisbee golf instructor can possibly buy a $1.5 million house. When my husband and I decided to buy a house, we did not have a $1.5 million budget. But what we did have was a sizeable down payment.