To buy or rent?

[quantumleap]

Considering your purchase will be cheaper in 2 years......wait.

That is unless you really need a house and plan on staying in it for at least 7 years.

I remember you giving this advice years ago and today it is still valid. After the down payment and deposits on other things and insurance and mortgage payments it takes a while for a house to appreciate to cover all of these.

 

[SoCal]

i have been car pooling with a part time RE Estate agent. occassionally i go with him to show a house here in San Diego area. the foreclosures give us an inside look at how some people were living. jesus h christ... a bunch of fcking slobs thru out the USA. holy shit these houses now valued in the 300k range down from 500k are sometimes just gross. fcking filthy.

i just don't get how people live in such filth. the carpets in numerous places caked with pet barf/crap that has been wiped up leaving residue. wtf man. if any of you fckers lives like that in your 400k home, jesus... wtf man

 

[Doug]

Some holes in the wall might look bad, but fix kind of easily.

I'd love to get a 250k home (otherwise), for 125k because it has a few small dog size holes in the sheetrock and ugly carpet. Fix it yourself, or hire a handyman to do it for you. Sheetrock and 2X4's are cheap. Any seller should fix that or have it fixed before selling, IMO.

Personally I think that stuff is Golden.

A hole in a wall is minor cosmetic SHIT. A fucked up roof, foundation,etc. is more major.

 

[Doug]

I started a thread awhile back asking the forum if I should buy or rent at the new location I was moving to. Most of you said to buy and that was in my mind last week when I set out on a 10 day journey to select a house and make an offer. Let me tell you how the market is these days from a guy who just wasted 10 days of my life.

- More than 90% of houses listed and we looked at are in the short sale status. People are seriously taking their keys and walking them into the bank and dropping them off with nothing else said. I'm not talking ghetto houses here fellas. I'm talking expensive homes that looked like absolute ass inside because the owners just moved out without a care in the world. The houses looked like shit with holes in the walls, shitty carpets and just plain ole' fucked up. I turned around and just walked out of some of these places.

Hire somebody like me for say $1,000 to fix the sheetrock, then maybe a painter for 5k to paint the interior, then rip up the old carpet... if lucky you might find a nice hardwood already there, if not 5k for carpet, or maybe like 15k to put in wood laminate flooring.

15k fixes a lot of problems.

- Other nice houses are in foreclosure and we'd have to go bid on them at an auction and I don't have time for that shit.

- People are not selling their homes straight up because they'll lose money on them and they can't afford to sell and lose their ass.

I came to the conclusion after shopping and almost willing to give away 300K I had no other option but to rent. Now, I got a really nice house at $2,150 a month but damn I wanted to buy. Well, my next option is to buy in Arizona and tell my mom to move in and pay me rent.

Trashed houses are Gold, you just need a few weeks (realistically) for repairs before you can move in, I love these kind of homes.

 

[Doug]

pay me $50 an hour cash for a full 40 hour week (2k) plus a few hundred for materials, I'll fix multiple holes ( say 6) in sheetrock that are the size of a sink, plus a lot of smaller stuff, but then you need to paint.

Big- Ass Holes in drywall are quite repairable, but they sure look bad !

 

[romer]

I think you made the right choice my self as rent is cheap right now.

How is $2150 cheap? I think thats a shitload for a month. Thats about $26K for the year. hno:

 

[ChalksR4Kids]

If you got a really nice house for $2150, then you are doing fine. This housing bust is serious business and it isn't over yet and could well go on for years. Why gamble on a bursting bubble when you can get a good home at a good price without tying up your bankroll?

 

[romer]

Houses don't go down by that much. Say you get a 300k house, its not going to go down to 100k or anything like that. 4 years of renting and thats over 100k.

 

[Enfuego]

If you got a really nice house for $2150, then you are doing fine. This housing bust is serious business and it isn't over yet and could well go on for years. Why gamble on a bursting bubble when you can get a good home at a good price without tying up your bankroll?

4 Bedroom, 3,300 sq ft and a finished basement in a very nice neighborhood. It belongs to a home owners association and the clubhouse has a pool and basketball court. It's a very nice house.

 

[djmatt]

romer.. you have no idea how much property values dropped do you? Maybe relative to your area, but nationwide some places have seen severe SEVERE hits to the market

 

[CalvinTy]

Houses don't go down by that much. Say you get a 300k house, its not going to go down to 100k or anything like that. 4 years of renting and thats over 100k.

I beg to disagree. My condo community was built in 2005 and poor those people who got the first condos. As an example, this condo (according to county records) was sold for $346,800 on October 5, 2005. Now this condo is selling for $225,000 (link).

I have the similar model, but the upper one, which is only about 10K-20K more. The builder originally priced them at $359K (upper)/$349K (lower).

So if I were to try and sell now, it'd be on sale for around $249K while we got it last June for $319K (I was lucky to have a 5% discount from builder from previous failed condo conversion so the final price was 'only' under $304K).

The builder is selling them now at $299K (upper)/$279K (lower) right now in the new buildings across us, so we definitely don't have equity. At least, I really really don't see more drops after this. I thought we were buying at the bottom last summer, but nope, the bottom is here now, LOL.

* CalvinTy

 

[Enfuego]

I beg to disagree. My condo community was built in 2005 and poor those people who got the first condos. As an example, this condo (according to county records) was sold for $346,800 on October 5, 2005. Now this condo is selling for $225,000 (link).

I have the similar model, but the upper one, which is only about 10K-20K more. The builder originally priced them at $359K (upper)/$349K (lower).

So if I were to try and sell now, it'd be on sale for around $249K while we got it last June for $319K (I was lucky to have a 5% discount from builder from previous failed condo conversion so the final price was 'only' under $304K).

The builder is selling them now at $299K (upper)/$279K (lower) right now in the new buildings across us, so we definitely don't have equity. At least, I really really don't see more drops after this. I thought we were buying at the bottom last summer, but nope, the bottom is here now, LOL.

* CalvinTy

Calvin, some folks have no idea what's happening and this was my first experience in the market in its current state. Nobody and I really mean nobody is selling through an agent. All the homes are either short sales or foreclosures.

 

[Doug]

I wouldn't buy now, unless it was a Hell of a deal... and that means a fixer-upper.

Renting has its advantages... you can easily move, for one.

 

[Brooklynbomber]

I thought we were buying at the bottom last summer, but nope, the bottom is here now, LOL.

:missingte

don't count on it

 

[romer]

I beg to disagree. My condo community was built in 2005 and poor those people who got the first condos. As an example, this condo (according to county records) was sold for $346,800 on October 5, 2005. Now this condo is selling for $225,000 (http://www.teamregencyhomes.com/viewhome.asp?NoSummary=Y&HOMEID=PW6672214).

Thats sucks for them. But thats a steal for $225K. 3 beds, 2.5 baths. You couldn't get anything like that here for less than $300k.

 

[xpanda]

Houses don't go down by that much. Say you get a 300k house, its not going to go down to 100k or anything like that. 4 years of renting and thats over 100k.

If it can go up 100k in four years, it sure can go down just as fast.

Plus, don't forget interest and property tax payments over those four years. You don't pay that when you rent.