<p>We liked the house. It was very charming and had a lot of unique touches that made it a really great house. It’s a little small and needs a lot of work, perhaps more than we are prepared for. It needs two bathrooms to be totally re-done, pretty much a whole new kitchen, needs all appliances, basement is half finished and that job needs to be completed now that it’s been started because it’s a mess down there, it needs new flooring in some areas and where the flooring can stay should be refinished, we’d need to buy an a/c unit and get a sump pump installed… plus a LOT of other little things, mainly the things you’d expect. And we’re not talking like I want these things done because what the house has is not my style, it’s just worn out and not functional. I expect a lot of those things but to need all of them done at once seems like a lot. It’s priced very, very high for how much needs to be done and for its size, and it’s also the first house in the sub on a busy street-- thus the fence. So I liked it, but I didn’t love it. We aren’t expecting move in ready, but having to gut both bathrooms and the kitchen packs a wallop. And I worry about dogs, or kids for that matter, escaping the yard and finding themselves in the middle of a busy road. There’s not a WHOLE lot of traffic, but people are going 45.</p>
<p>I dunno, not having any experience as homeowners it is difficult for us to tell when we’re being smart and when we’re being naive. Boyfriend isn’t daunted by the work at all and thinks it’s a great house, and I think it probably is, but maybe for someone who has 20k lying around after purchase. We probably won’t.</p>
<p>The sinks in both of the bathrooms are all rusted out, cabinets falling apart, the tiles in the floor are all busted, the tub in one bathroom needs to be replaced, and in the other bathroom there is a teeny tiny shower stall that is filled with totally broken up tile and mold. Most of these bathrooms is just falling apart, and the few aspects of it which are okay are original 1950’s and could probably use replacing while we are trying to fix everything else. Maybe it’s less work that it seems to me, I am not an expert by any stretch of the imagination. I know at minimum we’re looking at a ton of new tiling, replacing a tub, and I don’t even know what to do with that shower stall. Maybe it’d be okay if we retiled it and made the opening for it wider. I admit I don’t know what I am talking about, but it looks like a lot of work to me.</p>
<p>The kitchen I think might be able to be saved with some creativity. The main issue with it is that the counters are not fitted for modern day appliances, and the owners took their appliances with them. I had measurements with me for a range of different sized fridges and ovens and whatnot and could not think of a way to make them fit without redoing the counters, everything was much, much too narrow. </p>
<p>If you can enlighten me I’d take it gladly! I’ll be the first to admit I am just guessing about how all the different issues we saw would need to be handled.</p>
<p>Not sure why young people are so crazed about owning a home. The idea of renting means ****ing money away is so wrong. When you buy, you need to to put down 20% or more. It is money you wouldn’t have access to. It would be great if home appreciates, but if it doesn’t, or worse if it goes down, then you are worse off. There are so many young people I know now who are stuck with over priced first home. They spent every dime they had on the down payment, had no money to fix it up, and then couldn’t afford to move to a bigger home when kids arrive because value of their home had gone down 20+%. </p>
<p>There is nothing wrong to rent. Use a spreadsheet to figure out your ROI. Why would you give up perfectly good bathroom/kitchen to live in a slum just so you could say it is yours.</p>
<p>If water has been getting behind the tile for a while, this could be a big problem, there could be rot in the framing.</p>
<p>We had one of those small tiled shower stalls with 60’s tile, we wound up ripping it out and putting in a glass shower corner unit. Much more spacious.</p>
<p>It cost us $20K to gut and redo two bathrooms 20 years ago, although we didn’t do any of the work.</p>
<p>A lot of people think paying rent is like tossing money out the window. You are not building equity and it only benefits the landlord.They don’t figure in the extras that don’t build equity like taxes, maintenance, fees associating with buying and selling.</p>
<p>Many of my kids’ peers bought houses 3 or 4 years ago, gently pushed and encouraged by their parents to “save” money.Several of them now are going through short sales because after having a baby, they couldn’t bear the thought of leaving the baby in full-time day care so their incomes have taken a hit and they find they could no longer afford payments for a house that has declined in value.</p>
<p>We didn’t buy a house til we had been married 14 years. The kids were in elem school. We had student loans to pay off, child care expenses, and neither set of parents were helping to subsidize a home purchase. When we did buy, we assumed one salary, even though we were both working full time and were at the tail end of day care expenses. We assumed that college would be very expensive. We also bought below what our income would have suggested. Fortunately the timing was at the bottom of a big market decline. It worked out well for us, though I will admit I was pretty impatient to buy once the kids were in school.</p>
<p>DH and I were agreed that we were not buying a fix-it project. Some folks have the skills, money and patience. To my dad’s disappointment, I did not marry a handy guy, and I only have two hands and limited skills.</p>
<p>My feeling is that young adults are better off having the flexibility to pursue jobs, travel, relationships, etc. without the commitment of a house. There is plenty of time to mow the lawn later.</p>
<p>Condo fees & maintenance fees can also be VERY high and onerous, especially if your building ends up in a huge lawsuit & fees are raised to pay for the attorneys! I’m glad that my S is not in a rush to buy a place; he’s been content having several very nice rentals in good parts of town. </p>
<p>One relative bought a place and already had to do major drainage project to put in a french drain around the entire back of the very sloped property, adding greatly to the cost of the place. Not sure how they’ll manage to pay the mortgage with the baby they’re expecting and his student loans as well as their new car loans. Hopefully they’re making fabulous sums and these are just small blips to them.</p>
<p>We always assumed that we’d live on one income, and shortly after we married, we started a family & I stopped out of the workforce for many years. Since then, I’ve not had a full-time job (though I have had a series of part-time positions). We are glad that things have worked out for us and we have been able to have a good quality of life and they were able to get great educations.</p>
<p>We are hoping we can help our kids out if and when they decide they want to settle down and buy a place so that they can have the option of living on one full-time or two part-time incomes. One downside to rentals is that sometimes you have to move when the landlord wants to sell or no longer wants to rent to you–this has happened to many renters we know & it can be tiring to move multiple times.</p>
<p>I did like the “carefree-ness” of renting. It was great to just be able to lock the door & travel, as well as not having any yard to tend and being able to call the manager if any maintenance issues arose. I rented for the first 9 years after I got home from law school. Probably would have been more prudent to purchase something as housing prices were pretty reasonable (relatively speaking) then compared to what they rose to. Oh well, no major regrets, as we were still able to buy a home we love and are nearly done paying for in a great neighborhood.</p>
<p>Emaheevul, it sounds to me like there are too many issues with this house. Keep looking. I know that’s not what you want to hear, but you sound overwhelmed by what needs to be done.</p>
<p>I know you had a timetable in your mind, but welcome to life. Man plans, and God laughs.</p>
<p>95% of first few years mortgage payments go toward interest, instead of giving to the landlord, you are giving it to the bank, you still do not own your home. The difference is when you own and when you want to sell, you need to pay 6% realtor’s fee, plus all other closing fees. If you are unlucky, you could be stuck with fixing everything that’s out of code before you could sell. Closing costs are any where between 3-8% on either side (buy/sell). If you only want to live in a home for few years, you need to make sure it is going to appreciate at least 10% to just break even, plus opportunity lost on your down payment. In the flat to down market, it doesn’t make sense to buy and hold for few years. At this time real estate ownership is best for long term and because you really love it.</p>
<p>To buy or to rent in Real Estate is always a gamble. In the go go years of 2000~7 it was always better to buy, because with high leverage, you buy a house for 5% down and live there for two years, if the price raise 25% you’ve made 5 times of your down payment. Then came the crash, all of a sudden, banks are no longer making 5% loans, people bought at the end of the boom lost their shirt, there are more talks about renting. It is the trend of the current real estate, as matter of fact, all the builders I know of are looking for building apartments, condos are out of style.</p>
<p>But the trend will turn, we don’t know when, but history told us it will. In some places it has. So, gamble, buy or rent, its your decision.</p>
A big problem in my area is that when a landlord gets foreclosed on, the bank kicks out the tenants. There have been attempts to pressure the banks on this and even pass laws against this, but it is an issue. There are lots of small landlords who bought at the wrong time and have no idea what they are doing.</p>
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At current interest rates, it’s about 83%, i.e. 17% goes to principal, according to my financial calculator.</p>
<p>If you buy slightly less house and get a 15 year mortgage (or dig deep and pay the difference), which will have an even lower interest rate (3.0% no points around here), then 65% of the payment is principal in year 1.</p>
<p>The realtor looked at some comps and said that this house would never turn out to appraise at what they’re asking for it, which doesn’t surprise me. I gussed it was about 20k overpriced, and after research the realtor said I was about right. We have the skills and experience to do most of the work ourselves, but I just don’t think this house is a realistic possibility.</p>
<p>There are a lot of arguments for renting over buying, especially when you’re not settled yet. I have a lot of single friends that have bought just to get in on the cheap market who think they are going to sell in a few years when they want to get married and move on, and I think that’s very foolish. There is no reason to buy until you are settled and not planning on moving on any time soon. That is not our situation. We have 20% to put down without touching our regular savings-- we are not spending every penny we have on the downpayment. The homes we are looking at are big enough for “when kids arrive.” Our mortgage payments will be a third of what our rent is. We’re planning on marrying and having kids in the next few years and need to be somewhere with a better school district. Prices here have gone up and are rising, in a few years we will not be able to afford these homes in the better school districts that are large enough for a family. Even with the increased expenses of homeownership, it works out that we can afford ALL of our expenses on just my boyfriend’s income with plenty of cushion leftover so that we have flexibility and choices once we have children-- and while we both work we have an enormous amount of cushion for things that we cannot afford to do right now. My boyfriend has been at his job for ten years and his company is healthy and growing, and he is one of the most important components of his department. Our parents are fully supportive and excited about what we are doing. I appreciate that not all of you would support your children doing the same, but happily I already have two parents and don’t need any others at this time. ;)</p>
<p>On a positive note, I think realtor number 4 may be a winner. We met with a new guy at the showing last night and he seemed to hit it off with bf, he specializes in the area, and he was able to answer a lot of questions for us-- and finally someone PROMPT! It sure took long enough to find him!</p>
<p>Glad you found a good realtor, ema. But that house sounds like a money pit. And sometimes first houses in a subdivision get affected if the main street its on gets widened. Goodbye buffer or part of your yard. I agree with veryhappy. Keep looking.</p>
<p>I did not ask for advice about whether or not I am old enough to buy a house. This is not the first time this issue has come up and I made it clear before that it isn’t a discussion I am interested in having. If we want to talk about young people and buying versus renting-- cool, I can participate in that discussion, too. I know a lot of young people that are not settled yet who are buying, and like I said, I think that’s silly. However, I should not have to explain every little detail of our situation to convince everybody that that is not what we are doing in order to be allowed to participate in the thread without derailing it on this subject AGAIN, and I think it’s overstepping the bounds of what is ones own business to, more than once, step in to give me unsolicited advice about what I am or am not old enough to do.</p>
<p>Being that it was on topic, I very much appreciated the advice regarding the work on the house-- and the thought about the road being widened someday is a very good point, I hadn’t considered that and that is something that could be in that road’s future. Not to mention having construction basically in our backyard any time that road is resurfaced, which could easily be every other summer around here. This experience, and this discussion, reaffirmed for me that we really do not want an end lot. Roads do not make good neighbors. We’ll keep looking.</p>
<p>Renting vs. owning–it is true you are giving to the landlord or the bank, either way, and paying interest (tho you’re not paying as much interest these days) but that interest is deductible, a valuable thing in the early years of the mortgage.</p>
<p>You have to do the figures and make educated guesses about your future. My kids bought a house 7 years ago for a very reasonable price and it was better than renting, for many reasons, but now that the market has tanked, they may well be upside down even though they did put 20% down. They are looking to leave the area and the house situation is not looking good.</p>
<p>Remember when the TARP money was supposed to help homeowners and congress changed it to help the banks instead?</p>
<p>Ema: say no to the house. The one thing you can’t change is the location, and the location is not the best. You are always always always better off buying for location than for anything else.</p>
They are looking to leave the area and the house situation is not looking good.</p>