Home buying thread

Khane_sl said:

Your first mistake is believing that renting is throwing money away. Read through this thread.

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Renting is throwing money away. That doesn't mean other options aren't the same in some cases.

Palum_sl said:

Renting is throwing money away. That doesn't mean other options aren't the same in some cases.

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Like buying a home in 2008 (or was it 2006 fuck if I know). jajaja. but in real talk Buying a new home in the bay area was like the only way I could actually seal the deal vs all these cash offers and trynig to go cash light with a va home loan.

DW, I get the feeling that anyone saying renting isn't throwing money away and that owning isn't necessarily smart offends you. As if you think we're calling you stupid for buying a home. I'm just saying the train of thought in the US is that renting is ALWAYS a bad choice and buying is ALWAYS a good one. That's just not true. Owning a home can be a goddamn nightmare.

When you make the decision to buy make sure you take everything into account is all I'm saying. Consider every expense, not just mortgage payment vs current rent payment.

Palum_sl said:

Renting is throwing money away. That doesn't mean other options aren't the same in some cases.

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That's absurd, we need shelter one way or the other. That's a necessary expenditure unless you want to live in a tent in the woods off the grid somewhere.

that's different.

Renting is throwing money away.
Buying can be throwing money away if you get a shitty deal on a shitty house which you should try to shy away from.

Renting has its definite advantages and you pay for them.

Picasso_sl said:

that's different.

Renting is throwing money away.
Buying can be throwing money away if you get a shitty deal on a shitty house which you should try to shy away from.

Renting has its definite advantages and you pay for them.

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I guess you guys all live in high end apartment? Renting can be very cost effective.

It's really a matter of what the loan to value ratio is on the home. Take a property with a low down payment and you'll be paying way more for that house over the long run. Way more. Buying a home is a big, life changing kind of purchase. I just caution people to consider all that goes into it before immediately just assuming buying is smarter than renting by default.

Over the long run you'll have a house.

No doubt about the caution but even low down payment situations arise that make sense.

if there is any generalization (questionable) to make about it however buying is better than renting.

Deathwing_sl said:

I'm not personally offended. Just tired of anyone having to articulate their position to the finest detail to prevent you from swooping in with your preachy attitude for the umpteenth time.

You don't think a guy that has already owned a house and had it taken it from him(for whatever reason) knows the differences between renting and buying?

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Well, in fairness he said he walked away from his first purchase. That can be taken in a variety of ways, one being it was foreclosed on.

Renting isn't always "throwing money away". You are paying for a service that you need, and it can definitely make sense in a lot of situations to rent instead of own.

Between the ages of 21 and 30, I moved 6 times for my job. Had I bought a home every time I moved I would have lost TONS of money just in realtor fees and closing costs, I never would have owned a home long enough to come anywhere close to turning a profit, or even breaking even. Renting made sense.

Now on the flip side, we have a rental home on my street and the people renting it have lived there for 12 years. That's just dumb.

If you foresee yourself being in 1 place for 10 years, buying probably makes sense over renting.

If you are moving around from place-to-place and/or changing careers - Keep it simple - Rent
If you are gonna sit tight, have a predictable and stable job, and want the ability to make changes to your place, - Buy

You guys sure do like to oversimplify things.

Buying is not the pinnacle of financial responsibility the industry would like you to believe it is. It just isn't. It can be, but it can also lead to financial ruin.

We buy homes because they are more private than apartments, we can do what we want with them/to them, it gives us a sense of accomplishment and satisfaction and it's nice knowing something is yours and you don't have to answer to a landlord or superintendant. It feels adult. If you're buying a house simply because you think it's more financially responsible by default than renting you need to take a close, hard look at everything involved and the risks associated with homeownership.

You started this shit with a 1 liner and followed up trying to summarize it with downpayment size.

Because I didn't want to rehash the same old argument, which happened anyway so... fail I guess.

Khane_sl said:

You guys sure do like to oversimplify things.

Buying is not the pinnacle of financial responsibility the industry would like you to believe it is. It just isn't. It can be, but it can also lead to financial ruin.

We buy homes because they are more private than apartments, we can do what we want with them/to them, it gives us a sense of accomplishment and satisfaction and it's nice knowing something is yours and you don't have to answer to a landlord or superintendant. It feels adult. If you're buying a house simply because you think it's more financially responsible by default than renting you need to take a close, hard look at everything involved and the risks associated with homeownership.

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This is the reason I'm buying a house. So I can finally make permanent installs of aquariums and equipment I've used for business over the past 10 years. Saying things like if I owned the place I'd install a floor drain there instead of having to do this work around etc. Also things like gardening we've moved 2 times in the last 10 years. It's always lame to leave behind the raised beds you've made etc and take fish ponds down to move. When you know you'll be setting them back up at the new place.

I totally look at it like I'm buying a luxury instead of an investment. It's a luxury to be able to modify space the way you want. I rent retail spaces. I can modify them a bit but to truely modify them any way I want would requiring buying the building. So I can pay a fraction of the cost to rent or pay 4 million for the building.

We've got a friend who pays $850 a month utilities included for a 150sqft apartment in Seattle. It's one of the micro apartments and she loves it. Doesn't own a car, hell doesn't need a car and walks to work etc.

Then you've got me, who drives 45 minutes to work, owns 3 vehicles 2 used for the business etc. It makes more sense for me to own a house than for our friend to own a house.

If the only thing you gain from owning a house is equity. Buying may not be the right choice. If you gain a better commute, customization, relaxation due to acreage etc. Something else it may be worth it. I have friends who aren't happy with their home because of the current value. I find this insane. Being that they aren't trying to refinance or take a loan against it, it shouldn't matter. But it eats at them.

They feel as if it's unfair for someone else to move in net door to them and pay 2/3 of what they paid. Because someone gets epic loot rare loot on their first raid, doesn't make your epic rare loot any worse. It just means they were lucky.

People need to evaluate what a property is worth to them to live there long term. 1 guy might say property on the river is worth 1 million dollars to him. Life long dream. The next guy comes along and says he wouldn't live there because it could flood and wouldn't give 200k for it. At the end, if the guy pays 1 million dollars for it and lives a happy life there. Money well spent. If the other guy buys it for 200k and hates it ,200k is badly spent.

Buy somewhere you want to live. Not just buy somewhere to live.

Think of it this way. If you pay 1k a month in rent for an apartment. If your landlord came to you and said. If you pay 1k a month for the next 30 years, you'll own this apartment but you can't sell it to anyone else. In theory you just starting making equity. But if you don't want to live there for 30 years don't buy it. The animosity you'll have for the place negates any of the benefit in equity you were building.

Too many houses are bought because it's time to "settle down". Not enough houses are bought because that house is omg badass. Most people settle on a this house will do house. Then get butthurt when they want to upgrade or need to get out of it and it is not worth to someone else what they think it's worth.

So the process has moved very quickly for us in just one month. We looked at 20 houses and found two we liked.

Our agent was talking to the agent of one of the houses (on 4/18) and told them it was overpriced. House had been sitting on the market for just over 5 months at $255k. Well, sure enough, they dropped the price to $235k on the morning of 4/19. We put in an offer of $235k which included up to $8k in closing costs (VA Loan, so some of that was required anyway). They countered at $240k with up to $5k in closing costs; essentially their lowered listing price. We countered back with $236.5k with $5k in closing and they accepted. It worked out decently well, since our closing costs will likely be just over $6k, so we didn't give back as much as it seems. I will say that I should have started negotiating way lower, but due to their price drop (which seems like it was in our favor, but I feel like it wasn't) I felt compelled to act fast and close to their price.

So now in the last week it's been scrambling to get all the shit done for our lender. We provided a lot of it for the pre-approval, but now we need even more and it's stressful. That said, we got a 3.25% rate (paid $1200 in points).

Had the inspection a few hours ago and there's almost nothing wrong with it. House was built in 1989. Has a pressure release on the water heater that needs to be lowered, a small leak in the 2nd bath sink (just needs to be tightened), some missing toe kick tiles in the kitchen/master bath (planned on redoing floors), some missing shingles on the roof (we had a roofer look at it prior to our offer, and so we think they blew off in some heavy winds from last week) and a leak in the spigot in the 2nd bath shower. The last one is the only one I'm concerned about, since there's a possibility of water behind the wall. All in all, I'm really happy.

I don't know I guess I consider expenses with no net return or that are essential consumables to be "throwing money away". Even if I have to eat, sleep, etc. I consider it necessary but still 100% a wealth drain. The only way you gain on rent is when your alternative is fiscally unsound. But of course the same poor judgement can be made with renting so to me it's a non issue. Even if I simply pay three times the true cost of a home over 30 years for mortgage interest, repairs, improvements, etc. And even if the house lost half its value, I'm still up over renting at the same price per month over that time frame.

I don't see many markets these days where renting saves much (or is even less at all) than renting an equivalent space. Even then with small sizes, there's always purchased apartments and condos, so...

Palum_sl said:

I don't know I guess I consider expenses with no net return or that are essential consumables to be "throwing money away". Even if I have to eat, sleep, etc. I consider it necessary but still 100% a wealth drain. The only way you gain on rent is when your alternative is fiscally unsound. But of course the same poor judgement can be made with renting so to me it's a non issue. Even if I simply pay three times the true cost of a home over 30 years for mortgage interest, repairs, improvements, etc. And even if the house lost half its value, I'm still up over renting at the same price per month over that time frame.

I don't see many markets these days where renting saves much (or is even less at all) than renting an equivalent space. Even then with small sizes, there's always purchased apartments and condos, so...

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That's ignoring every other expense that goes along with owning a home from maintenance to repairs to upkeep and upgrades. That's all I'm saying. Rent price vs Mortgage price is only one small piece of the puzzle.