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Thread: The "Looking to become a homeowner" Thread

  1. #951
    Consultant KillerB's Avatar
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    As for buying a house vs renting and putting more in retirement, there are so many factors that there's no right answer. On one hand if I was in a market like where I'm from in PA where real estate isn't an appreciating asset (in fact, factoring for inflation I'd say it depreciates in northeastern PA) I wouldn't view a home as an investment. On the other hand, housing is so cheap, why not buy? On a third hand, no investments you make in the property will pay off. On the fourth hand, the rental stock there is AWFUL...

    Yeah, anyhow, the decision is easier for me out here in CA. Rents continue to escalate and, barring some mass exodus from LA and Orange Counties (two counties whose population combined exceeds the entire population of Pennsylvania, the sixth-most populated state), at best I see rents stabilizing in the next five years. There is a value to locking in your cost of housing if you have stable employment and you expect the cost of housing to continue to rise.

    I don't live close to Silicon Beach, unlike Servo, but with people being priced out of that area by all the tech companies, combined with the gentrification of LA, it has knock-on effects throughout the region that I believe are somewhat independent of national trends.

    In other words, YMMV.

  2. #952
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    I'm fortunate because I live in a rent controlled apartment. My rent goes up by $30 or so every year.

    I know people who got notices that their rent was going up $400. They had to find a new place in a hurry.

    But real estate in Los Angeles is nuts! I could buy and be sure it'd appreciate, such is the fervor and demand. But i'd be paying twice what I pay now to get into a modest home that probably needs a lot of work. If i lived anywhere outside of LA, NY, Boston, i'd be halfway done with my mortgage already.

    YMMV indeed.

  3. #953
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    Quote Originally Posted by Yeti View Post
    This is why I'm planning to buy a cheap and small house to live in until I retire. So I can jam money up my 457b with BOTH FISTS.

    That and the rentals/apartments around here are dreadful.
    Do it!

    And start an IRA as well!!!

    i wish I could get into a house at that price. But fuck the winter, I ain't moving to where there's snow.

  4. #954
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    I know a friend who's a loans agent and she I guess she's made so much money thru home loans and refinancing over the years and doesn't know what to do with her money... so she's actually buying homes in PA and Florida area. I don't think she bought them with all cash..., but with just enough down and then just use the rental income to cover the mortgage payments and the management costs.

    She is just a single person investing with her own money.

    I'm pretty sure there are other investment companies doing exactly what she's doing. These are the folks driving up housing prices. So I don't really thing this 'bubble' will burst anytime soon. At best, the market will cool down and stays flat, but I don't see housing market crashing anytime soon. Maybe if these investors can find something else more worthwhile to invest in..., then they'll sell their real estates and cash out.

    With regard to 401k vs your own home..., basically both values can be market driven and therefore values can go up and down.

    1) When you are just about to retire and the stock market crashed and totally messed up your projections... and you still need to pay rent, how do you feel about that?

    2) When you're living in your own home, if fully paid off, great. If not, at least mortgage payments are fixed and could even go down if you refin to a lower rate... even if there's a housing crash and you suddenly lost 99% of your home value on paper. So what? Your house is still standing and you can still live in it. If housing market heats up, you can also just cash out and move somewhere else cheaper! If you running out of money, you could also take a reverse mortgage to slowly cash out while you're living in it...

    I don't know. To me, owning a home is a clear winner in most cases compared to renting.

    Think of it this way... if car values appreciate or stays relatively flat, not depreciate, over the years, would you still be leasing them? Yeah, leasing is probably cheaper/month and you don't have to worry about repair bills and you'll always have the latest safety features and coolest tech..., but you'll never be as rich as TSG because he owns all of his old and expensive cars which would end up helping him to become one of the richest men in the world!

  5. #955
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    Quote Originally Posted by neanderthal View Post
    Do it!

    And start an IRA as well!!!

    i wish I could get into a house at that price. But fuck the winter, I ain't moving to where there's snow.
    I probably will in the future, just to augment the 457 and the state pension, but for now I'm mostly trying to save for teh hause.

  6. #956
    Member Member 21Kid's Avatar
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    What is a pension?

  7. #957
    Jedi Cam's Avatar
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  8. #958
    High Plains Luddite George's Avatar
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    At my last job with a big corporation, employees became eligible for pensions after five years.

    From what I understood, it was mere pennies after five years, but if you stayed ten or twenty or thirty, well, then it was worth having. It wasn't a big deal to me since I figured I wouldn't stay long enough to get a big pension, but any pension would be better than none, right?

    Well, I was hired as part of a new team with a big software conversion pending. We worked like dogs for years to get everything done and running smoothly and then the whole department was outsourced to another continent. Looking back, I can see it as the perfect plan, with obvious steps toward the final goal, but when I was in the trenches doing the day-to-day grind, it wasn't always obvious.

    Our time of service varied per individual hire dates, but the most senior of my group left a couple weeks short of five years. I made it to four years and nine months. I'm not angry, and I'm doing better where I landed after the layoff, but I'm starting to see more clearly these days.

    I haven't voted Republican in many years, but I used to.


  9. #959
    Bad Taste novicius's Avatar
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    Yep.

  10. #960
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    I'm not so sure working class democrats are fairing better...

    Not until more people like Sanders have more control of our govt can things truly change.

    For now, we'll just have more of the different color boots stepping all over us..., while believing all our problems are caused by the opposition party.

    Anyway, affordable housing should be a bipartisan dream.

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