Home buying thread

The Foler_sl

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I grew up in the same house up until mid high school when it got foreclosed on. Very nice neighborhood, 800k+ house. I"m still kind of in the same area and I still know everyone from the neighborhood but their all off at college while I"m flipping burgers at wendy"s because my parents couldn"t help me pay for it.
 

Picasso3

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Izuldan said:
Again, no relevance to someone who"s struggling to make ends meet and deciding on whether or not they should buy a house for 3.5% down. They shouldn"t.
Wow are you saying someone who can"t afford a mortgage shouldn"t get one?

That"s totally the opposite of what we"re saying.

Please -- right our perilous voyage.
 

Cad

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Picasso said:
Wow are you saying someone who can"t afford a mortgage shouldn"t get one?

That"s totally the opposite of what we"re saying.

Please -- right our perilous voyage.
No shit for brains we are saying people shouldn"t give the bank any more money than they have to, unless life situation/other priorities make it inevitable. Right now with interest rates so low, it"s probably significantly more tolerable than when they have been higher; but living below your means is a lifestyle and if he hasn"t been/can"t do it such that he needs the 3.5% loan, then he is destined for failure and he should rectify that. Especially if his family is pulling in $100k+ (basically two college graduates working entry level jobs, not difficult), he should have no problem saving $30k+ per year.

It"s not so much the idiocy of the 3.5% down mortgage (although there is that) it"s the idiocy of the lifestyle that requires you to get the 3.5% mortgage.

I expect you to ignore this and trot out some fake #"s and OMG YOU DONT UNDERSTANDZ THINK OF THE CHILDRENZ trolling, but feel free to surprise me.
 

Picasso3

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In the process of someone saving to have a 20% downpayment they are going to have the 3.5% right, because everyone starts at 0%? The same person with the same cash flow (who is as smart as you and izuldan and has to buy a house because of the ego thing).

That person should buy at 3.5% instead of renting to save 20%.
 

AladainAF

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Jesus @ Cali home prices.

I bought a 1300 sq ft. 3 bedroom 2 bathroom built in 2001 with quite a bit of upgrades, 4 side brick on a 9800 sq. ft lot for $97,700.

I don"t think Cutlery made a bad choice. His home is pretty reasonable for his income. While I do believe putting a lot down is important and the most responsible thing to do, putting a small amount down and keeping yourself liquid and still getting into a house with your family is equally a responsible approach. It"s not like he picked out an 800k house on a $100k income.

Renting is still dumb. When you can buy a home for the same price of less on a monthly basis, it"s just dumb. Putting 3.5% down (or 20% down) is the hard part for most people, but apartment complexes at least around here require two months of rent as a deposit plus the first months rent, which is pretty close to 3.5% of a 100k house.

On a side note of house prices... renting a 3 bedroom 1200 sq. ft. apartment here will run about $2,500+ a month downtown, $1,500-$1,600 everywhere else, $900-$1,200 in the hood.

But for houses:

5 bedroom, 3.5 bath, 3550 sq. ft. for $134,900 -Click
5 bedroom, 4238 sq. ft, granite counters for $173,000 -Click
 

Cad

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AladainAF said:
But for houses:

5 bedroom, 3.5 bath, 3550 sq. ft. for $134,900 -Click
5 bedroom, 4238 sq. ft, granite counters for $173,000 -Click
Both of those houses are way out in the sticks, particularly the first one. Round Rock != Austin.
 

Sharmai_foh

shitlord
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I think it reallys hinges on if you have kids are not. Before I had kids I could hop around to different apartment complexes every couple of years and take advantage of deals to save money. But once you have kids and/or enough furniture to require a mo of truck, all that goes out of the window.
 

Cad

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Eyashusa said:
This house in a nice suburb of Chicago = $1.5 million easy.
Only to someone with no taste. The granite (if it is granite) on those countertops is paper-thin, the appliances look apartment-grade black, no built ins, carpet (!) in the dining room, cheap looking ceramic tile, $5 home depot light fixtures, apartment-grade rollup window blinds, tacky bathroom counters and light fixtures, mismatched silver faucet hardware and oil-rubbed bronze fixtures, I can"t even tell what finish is on that doorknob. Pewter? The garage is in the front (all the nice neighborhoods in Dallas at least, the garage is in the back... but then again, this is out in the fucking country outside Austin, who knows) which ruins the facade, the brick is ugly, the windows are featureless and square with no casements on the front, tacky non-functional shutters, the little birdhouse windows on the third floor gameroom which are hideous and which have wood siding which will need to be painted. The kitchen layout sucks because the pantry and the gaping hole in the cabinetry which I"m assuming is for the refrigerator are juxtaposed which means you wouldn"t be able to open both at the same time without banging doors. The least they could do is have the pantry door open the other way. The backsplash tile is hideous and doesn"t gel with anything else in the kitchen, especially the yellow (?!) paint. There actually appears to be wallpaper on the walls in one of the bedrooms, which by the way all share the same shitstain brown carpet. None of the ceilings look to be vaulted or accented in any way, aside from the florescent (????) light boxes in the kitchen which are fucking hideous. The cabinets are plain squares with no transparent panels or accenting or millwork of any kind.

Oh yes, this is a million+ dollar house indeed. Maybe if the dirt it is sitting on is worth a million-five just to cover the teardown cost. This is nothing more than a large tract home box with apartment grade bullshit.
 

Falstaff

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I guess I should have clarified... barring the inside, that square footage + number of bedrooms and bathrooms and yeah, that house would sell for $1.5M. Or at least be priced that high.

Inside does look like dogshit, but most people don"t have taste.
 

AladainAF

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Cad said:
Both of those houses are way out in the sticks, particularly the first one. Round Rock != Austin.
Round Rock isn"t "way out in the sticks". Hutto is a little bit, but it"s still just a ~5-7 minute drive to Austin on the toll road.

You"re basically saying that Katy is in "the sticks" as Katy != Houston.

That isn"t the sticks. Yes, it"s suburbia, but it ain"t the sticks.

and Cad, pretty much Dallas and Lubbock are the only two places I know of in Texas that keeps their garages in the back, along with alleyways on their neighborhood where trash pick up is.

Even the veryexpensive homes herehave garages in front.

As for everything else you mentioned, ~$20,000 of work, tops. It"ll still be a sub-200k house.
 

Cad

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AladainAF said:
Round Rock isn"t "way out in the sticks". Hutto is a little bit, but it"s still just a ~5-7 minute drive to Austin on the toll road.

You"re basically saying that Katy is in "the sticks" as Katy != Houston.

That isn"t the sticks. Yes, it"s suburbia, but it ain"t the sticks.

and Cad, pretty much Dallas and Lubbock are the only two places I know of in Texas that keeps their garages in the back, along with alleyways on their neighborhood where trash pick up is.
Sorry dude, Katy is 30 miles from Houston and Hutto is 30 miles from Austin. (Center to Center). That"s not a useful distance to live. You pointed out a cheap house way out of town. Grats.

AladainAF said:
There are expensive houses with all manner of fucked up dumb features. Doesn"t mean it"s tasteful. I prefer something like the photo I"m attaching. No garage on the front to ruin the facade.


AladainAF said:
As for everything else you mentioned, ~$20,000 of work, tops. It"ll still be a sub-200k house.
Dude, just stop. Merely putting in tasteful cabinets would cost more than $20k. Nevermind all the other shit, half of which is architectural and couldn"t be fixed without tearing it down. That house is a piece of shit and you"re embarrassed for trotting it out here like it as nice. I get it. Move on.
 

Cad

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And just in case some of you assholes don"t know what a tasteful expensive house looks like and think Aladain has found some jewel in bumfuck country TX...
 

Cutlery

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Izuldan said:
What foot?
The one you stuck in your fucking yapper by thinking that housing prices in CA or NY have any fucking bearing at all anywhere else in the country, you dumb fuck. Yeah, I live in shittown USA, population 50,000. Fucking moron.

Again, no relevance to someone who"s struggling to make ends meet and deciding on whether or not they should buy a house for 3.5% down. They shouldn"t.
You know what else has no relevance to anything in this thread? People who are struggling to make ends meet deciding on whether or not they should buy a house. There"s no one in here who asked that fucking question, you guys just took it and ran with it. I don"t know where you got the fucking idea that 3.5% in the bank = struggling and 20% in the bank = doin" just fine, ya"ll.

Just shut the fuck up. You"re arguing a point no one brought up and no one cares about and then you wanna talk trash like the entire country is subject to San Diego fucking housing prices. Get the fuck outta here.
 

AladainAF

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Cad said:
And just in case some of you assholes don"t know what a tasteful expensive house looks like and think Aladain has found some jewel in bumfuck country TX...
That is one of the ugliest houses I"ve ever seen... And yes, I specifically was looking in suburbia. I didn"t post that as a Jewel, nor did I describe it as such. I simply said hey, look, a cheap house AND IN COMPARISON TO RENTING THE EQUIVALENT, a good deal.

That"s all. You"re the one turning this into some really stupid discussion about the look and specifics of a house.

PS:This is a much more tasteful house.
 

Cad

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News flash: ugly houses are cheap. You posted a house prattling on about it being cheap. It"s ugly, therefore cheap.

Not a hard leap of logic.

And grats on thinking the house I posted is in the same class as a 12 million dollar home. The one I posted is in my neighborhood and is less than 1 million.
 

Picasso3

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Lol @ aladain, so poor

You can"t buy a STOVE for 20k that"s not a mobile home miniature piece of trailer shit.

Not to mention his tastes are WRONG
 

Chaotic_foh

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Derail to the flame war, advice of a different nature I seek.

I"m curious what you guys would do in my situation.

Single, large income, no intention to start a family even remotely soon. Live in New York, absolutely insane housing prices - but in turn, absolutely amazing deals because 83 billion people couldn"t afford it and there are tons of short sales / foreclosures / REO"s etc.

I"ve given some of this info earlier in the thread, but ill just repeat quickly.

I have 40k to put down. This is not 20% on an average home. (300k median home) I am rapidly amassing a larger down payment. (I predict approximately 65k to put down within 8 months, conservatively) if needed, my father would be willing to "bump" my down payment to avoid PMI. I make $75,000 a year, less copious amounts of OT. In June I will be making almost $90,000 and in three years I will be making $125,000. Rising linearly in that time frame.


Here is the advice I am seeking. If you were in my situation (and keep in mind New York is much more volatile then other markets if only because a 5% increase or decrease on a 500,000 home is obviously a much larger jump then on a 100,000 home) would you (bearing in mind I will live there at least temporarily):

A) Search for a foreclosure / REO / Short sale - killer deal type property, in any area that would make it an investment. Fix it if need be - sit on it, pay it off and rent it or flip it when market rebounds and move to something else. (150-250k investment)

2) Pick up a "normal" home in a median area (aka normal starter home) with the intention of moving to something in a nicer area in 3-5 years and doing what market dictates at that time with the home. (250-300k investment)

3) Pick the home I intend to live in and start a family in now, with no intention to move in any foreseeable time frame. House with potential (I can"t afford anything nice in a nice area as a starter home, but something that could use some work which I could do over time ) in a nice area (This would involve sitting for awhile to amass a down payment and banking on market staying depressed) 325-400k investment

I"m inclined to seek out a deal and capitalize on my reasonable reserves and being single and kind of free to do what I want right now, in order to leverage my position in the future, however like most things I am curious to others insight.

Note: I have a contractor in the family.


TLDR: Buy first home as an investment to flip in time, or with intention to stay there.