patrick.net

My suggestion is: yeild to your wife and love her. Otherwise, you may soon get into a trouble worse than purchasing a house. However, I would put as little down payment as possible (unless your job is super solid) so you wouldn't feel so bad were you to lose the house.

By the sounds of things, you don't need advice you need recommendations.

http://www.kleinattorneys.com/family-law/divorce/
http://www.mollymaid.com/

300K for a house isn't much to go on, with out knowing the location and specs. But if there's a problem with making the payments, then you shouldn't have let your Realtor have so much influence over your wife. If you can't find reason to be happy with the house, that doesn't involve her servitude to your task list. Then I definitely wouldn't buy.

KgK one says

My wife has hard time managing our 2 bedroom apt but she wants a home now. Her parents, her cousins, and our friends now have a home and they have made her home purchasing zombie. My plan was to get a reasonable home that I can easily rent, when I move out. But since the differnce was about 50 K between a town home and a single, we went for single. She is very bad with math, she got convinced that we are throwing money out on rental eventhough my cost is less than half of owning a 300 K home.
She also thinks its an investment. My realtor has brainwashed her. I fought for 6 years but since we liked the home we are buying it.

Question is how do I make sure that she maintains the home and all the extra work without making me do it. I would work more but this home is being bought primerily for her prestige.

Ugh, good luck with that!

My guess is that you WILL end up doing the maintenance or end up paying for a professional.

KgK one says

My plan was to get a reasonable home that I can easily rent, when I move out

Does your wife know you plan on moving out? Are you sure she can afford the rent once you do?

KgK one says

Question is how do I make sure that she maintains the home and all the extra work without making me do it. I would work more but this home is being bought primerily for her prestige.

In some countries the wife doesn't do the housework. That duty falls on the girlfriends that have their own quarters outside of the main home. Your problem is more of a cultural issue. Build some small studios in the backyard and then educate your wife on the possibilities. ;)

Thank you "Renting for Half the Cost" best idea yet. Won't fly but instead of 20 yr old, we might settle on a 50 yr old help to take care of the home, we make enough money to afford one. I may have to retire little later but will help keeping peace.

Just don't do it. She'll pick up the slack. Hire help. Take care of yourself or you'll both be in trouble.

New Renter says

Ugh, good luck with that!
My guess is that you WILL end up doing the maintenance or end up paying for a professional.

Probably a combination of both. Hate to say that but you are screwed. You need to change the way you're thinking rather than the reality.

No offense,but does not seem like She is caring for you!

You are in a tough spot. But buying a house isn't a life threatening decision unless you buy during the bubble, and it is something both husband and wife have to be ready for and want.

Take her around some open houses. You'll probably be swarmed by hungry desperate real estate agents, take anything they say as a half truth since they are sales people. Most important bring someone who understands repairs and knows what to look for (unless you are an expert). This will give you and your wife both a realistic view of what it will cost and if it's worth it or not.

And avoid flips, these usually are cosmetically prettied up to appeal to women. And once you get into them, you'll quickly run into real past due maintenance stuff that needs to be done and will require ripping all the cosmetics off (that you paid for in the first place) just so it can be fixed properly. It's almost criminal what flippers often do.

And lastly if you are to buy a house you do have to make peace with the fact that it is for certain prestige, it sure is not to save money.

My more serious advice is this:

1. Life isn't lived on paper. The house may not be a good financial investment but neither is a $50 bottle of wine, a new car or a vacation.
2. You shouldn't buy the house unless both of you think its a good idea. There is a lot of daylight between the two of you right now...And by daylight, I mean contempt. I don't mean that you have to agree with her on the reasons or that she has to grok the financial aspects of it...but if you can't get comfortable that the non-financial benefits outweigh the financial downsides, then I say don't buy it.
3. In any relationship both parties should "give 60%, expect 40%" (and be happy about it).

I think it's fair to set some ground rules for the division of labor on the new house. Try to approach it in a positive way, though and with less of the tone you have expressed here. It sounds like you are saying "I'll get you your damn house if you will keep it clean, lazy bitch." I'd suggest taking a few minutes to remember why you married her, why you love her and why it is important to you that she is happy. If you struggle with that, fire the real estate agent and hire a marriage counselor.

Mobi says

My suggestion is: yeild to your wife and love her. Otherwise, you may soon get into a trouble worse than purchasing a house. However, I would put as little down payment as possible (unless your job is super solid) so you wouldn't feel so bad were you to lose the house.

BS. If she wants the house, she can buy it, or you can split the cost. Yield to nobody. If you ever will have kids later, you will have to support them monetarily until they are old enough and being a debt serf doesn't help with that. Your wife is old enough to take care of herself, your future kids aren't. If you decide to buy the place, put yourself only on the title - you can always put a provision in that guarantees your wife to stay in it if she needs it.

When my old lady is being stubborn on something, or being disagreeable, I remind her that I'm much smarter than her, and that I'm always right, and if that still fails, I just withhold sex from her for a day or two. Works every time

swebb says

1. Life isn't lived on paper. The house may not be a good financial investment but neither is a $50 bottle of wine, a new car or a vacation.

Don't forget the limits of your income!

errc says

When my old lady is being stubborn on something, or being disagreeable, I remind her that I'm much smarter than her, and that I'm always right, and if that still fails, I just withhold sex from her for a day or two. Works every time

I threaten to quit drinking beer and walking around shirtless.
When that fails I threaten to trim my toe nails, on my sandalded feet.
I never get what I want, but I'm looking better every day.

CaptainShuddup says

errc says

When my old lady is being stubborn on something, or being disagreeable, I remind her that I'm much smarter than her, and that I'm always right, and if that still fails, I just withhold sex from her for a day or two. Works every time

I never get what I want.

Maybe you're not doing it right

I would love to say love your wife and shower her with a dream house, but not as long as taxpayers are being forced to bail out underwater house-owners and banks. You can always withhold sex as suggested above if nothing else works ;)

It seems to me like you guys have issues. Perhaps counseling should be of higher priority than buying a house at this time.

KgK one says

Question is how do I make sure that she maintains the home and all the extra work without making me do it. I would work more but this home is being bought primarily for her prestige.

You could get divorced and include the house in her share when you divide up your assets.

She'll keep her prestige and have no way to coerce you into working on it.

Of course hiring people to deal with things will be less expensive than divorce.

1. Hire the people doing the work directly instead of covering their wages, their supervisor's wages, and profit. Ex - hire cleaning people instead of going through Merry Maids.

2. Hire the lowest grade of labor you can because more qualified people will want more even when the work doesn't call for it. Prefer day laborers, handy-people, and then contractors in that order.

I've had good luck hiring day laborers through the Hispanic Cultural Center which can do things like arrange transportation, make sure there's an English speaker on your crew, etc.

3. Get a _lot_ of quotes since costs can vary by a factor of 3-4. I had quotes to repair dry rot that varied from $700 to $2500. The low quote was removing trim and replacing it with wider pieces to cover the holes. The $2500 quote replaced the affected siding but cut it short of an adjacent door so the contractor wouldn't need to deal with the trim. For $800 I got the job done right. I had a kid with a spray set up putting himself through college do one place for $1500 where "professional painters" wanted $5000.

This ignores your relationship problems and that doubling your housing expenses for appearances is a bad idea.

You forgot to mention about all the extra sexual favors that she will have to do in return for allowing the house purchase.

I am adding your story to my long list of reasons not to get married.

Forcing you to buy a house? Does she make you carry her purse too?

lostand confused says

Forcing you to buy a house? Does she make you carry her purse too?

Doubled housing costs should usually be less expensive than alimony which is often expected to cover all of a former spouse's expenses maintaining the same life style.

Fights over money are a pretty big cause for divorce. Clearly, you have serious concerns about this purchase. Buying a house is a big deal in this market. Lots and lots of risk. No one knows what policies will rule the day several years down the road. These policies will mean the difference between you making money, losing money, breaking even... or just plain wishing you were dead. I don't want this to sound inflammatory, because I honestly don't mean it that way. It's difficult to say the next part without sounding snarky. My apologies, in advance. Here goes...

I think that you really want to buy the house for all kinds of non-financial reasons. However, you recognize the risk of possible financial ruin given the craziness of the market these days. If you allow your wife to think that she's the driving force behind this decision then you can be blameless if the market takes a turn for the worse. However, if the market improves then you can jump on the "I'm a financial wizard" bandwaggon alongside your wife.

That said... You really shouldn't make this purchase unless you are willing to share the blame for this decision if things go sideways on you. Why? Because right now you have a choice. You don't have to buy the house. If you aren't comfortable with the risk then you don't have to buy the house.

You and your wife will have lots of financial decisions you have to make together. IMHO, you both need to be on the same page with each and every major financial decision. You both need to agree that you made the decision together, you both must understand the risk, and you both need to be willing to accept the blame equally if things don't go as planned. Nothing good will come from the alternative. Just years of martyrdom and resentment.

Have you done out the math in a clear and concise manor that shows the cost break-down? Sure, renting is "throwing money away" but so is paying mortgage interest, property tax, house insurance and general maintenance. Your utility bills will also be a little higher in a larger property.

If you have MS Excel, or even just Google Docs, get it calculated out in a spreadsheet. See how much money it will actually cost per month in your current situation versus if you bought a given house. Maybe you are throwing more money away per month one way or the other, I don't know, but YOU should. It might be that you are losing the same amount on interest/tax/insurance as rent. I am not 100% on the "paying principal = saving cash" train since a house is a very illiquid asset, but at least it isn't completely pissing money away like renting or paying interest.

Just use a format like this:

Monthly "Cash Throw Away" from Renting:
- Rent
- Utilities

Monthly "Cash Throw Away" from Buying
- Mortgage Interest
- Annual property tax / 12
- Annual house insurance / 12
- HOA dues (if applicable)

Keep in mind that you will be throwing away a LOT more money in the first 10 years or so since mortgages are front-loaded with interest. It gets "better" further in as you start taking bigger bites out of the principal. Also remember that rents have some probability of increasing.

My wife still very much "wants her own house" too, and seemed largely disinterested in facts or cost analyses of owning at one point (and she's a degreed mechanical engineer for god' sake!). I made up a very simple cost breakdown that showed that the "throw away costs" of a house that we would want in this area are 1.9x our renting "throw away costs" at month 1, average 1.4x for the first 10 years and were still 1.1x at the end of 30 years...assuming our current rent never increases. If rents go up 4% annually, renting involves pissing more money away faster than a house in about 7 years in our case. Anyway, she is a lot less gung-ho about the house thing now. Her father is putting huge pressure on us though, and he probably can't be convinced to ease-up since he lives & works in Hong Kong where real estate is in a very different situation than it is the US. It also has a very different cultural significance.

There are many unknowns too, but this covers most of the big-ticket items. I wouldn't count on the mortgage interest deduction saving tons of money either since a $300k house probably doesn't get you much of a deduction, and it might go away anyway.

Honestly, you two need to have a talk about this. Does she know how you feel about the situation? If not, you should inform her in a polite, respectful way. If she cannot handle your feelings, then that is a problem. There is obviously some resentment on your side too, which is not good. I'd say that it is probably your fault for feeling that way by not trying to communicate effectively. You can't NOT communicate because you are afraid of her. That's just a recipe for divorce. Maybe sitting down & talking with her is a recipe for it too, but at least you tried. It is 100% reasonable to expect some level of participation on her part in maintaining the household. If you want an engaged partner and she is not interested in that, then you may have married the wrong person.

Talk with her. If that fails, seek counseling. Put in 110% to make things right. It is not easy, or fun, but you both might come out of it much happier. If not, at least you tried.

KgK one says

My wife is forcing me to buy a house, becoming another slave

The book of Exodus has a solution to this problem. Just sell your wife into slavery. Two problems solved at once.

Call it Crazy says

Good points... also don't forget to factor in to your total costs in buying is all your closing costs, inspections, title work, attorney, mortgage app fees, points, etc..

Also, if your wife likes to start projects, plan on the costs for all upgrades, new appliances, fixtures, cabinets, tile, etc. which would normally be paid for by a landlord... These costs can really add up in the first few years of ownership!!

When you tally it all up, you just might see how much "cheaper" renting can be...

I'd just amortize it into the mortgage. Add 6% to the price of the house & factor that into the mortgage cost. That should take care of the various closing costs, furnishing, etc.

Also, if putting down less than 20% you will pay mortgage insurance. That's another monthly cost.

Renting may be "saving"money now, but given the way things are going, renting might be as- or more-costly in less than a decade. It is truly anyone's guess since rentals are "THE" thing for investors and a lot of rental inventory will be coming online in the next few years, but at the same time super low housing inventories are forcing a ton of people to rent since there isn't much to buy. I'd just be conservative and assume 3-4% rent increases annually.

swebb says

Life isn't lived on paper. The house may not be a good financial investment but neither is a $50 bottle of wine, a new car or a vacation.

Perhaps but a $50 bottle of wine or even a new car is chump change compared to a house. If the wine sucks you're out $50 and a few minutes of your life. If the car sucks at least there's a warranty. If the house sucks you're out 6% or more plus weeks if not months of your life.

Home is nice, we found it after looking for 2 years. 4 B2.5bath .5 acre in PA

Call it Crazy says

New Renter says

If the house sucks you're out 6% or more plus weeks if not months of your life.

And that's if you can resell it for MORE than you paid for it...

My comment assumed a short residency with no change in value either way. CIC does bring up another important factor - is the area likely to appreciate or remain stagnant?

KgK one says

Home is nice, we found it after looking for 2 years. 4 B2.5bath .5 acre in PA

It does look like a nice place... you can grow a lot of yams on 1/2 acre.

Fuck dude, THAT house for $300k? I hate California sometimes. Something like that would be $2M here, and I am not joking.

...and 5 acres of land?

Call it Crazy says

If you're going to go that route and hire a house cleaner, you need to go "all in". Forget about the 50 yr. old.... You need to go this route. Might make your wife change her mind and step in and help....

Problem with "sexy" costumes is that they look like costumes. They leave no room for imagination and hence they are not sexy at all.

Try a real French maid uniform.

Call it Crazy says

How about just a real French maid?? Forget the costume..

I prefer to have a British maid but in French maid uniform. :-)

Not to take her side but I can see both sides of this, having lived in a cramped two bedroom myself.

If you're paying 2x as much as renting, here's my thought process.

1) can you afford it?
2) can you still afford it if one of you were to have a sudden decrease in your income?
3) are you getting 2x as much living space?
4) What would the house reasonably rent for given the current market in your area? How does that compare with what your PITI will be?
5) List out the pros and cons of buying it.
6) If you were stuck there a decade or longer, would you still like it.

If you answer yes to 1, 2 and 3, 4 is about even and 5 shows more pros than cons, then it just might be worth it, so long as you can say yes to 6. In this market, I'd plan on staying in it long term -don't think about it as an investment that you can flip and/or rent out in only a few years time. IMHO, the market isn't coming back that fast.

And yes, based on the photo it has some curb appeal.

Good luck.

OCall it Crazy says

bmwman91 says

Fuck dude, THAT house for $300k? I hate California sometimes. Something like that would be $2M here, and I am not joking.

That house would be about $375K in my area of NJ, and you know how screwed up NJ is!!! (although, taxes would be like $8K here..)

Property taxes here run 1.25% or so. That makes the annual tax on a $2M property $25k.

Suddenly that $8k is looking pretty good isn't it? Oh but its deductible....that makes it A OK.

E-man says

bmwman91 says

Fuck dude, THAT house for $300k? I hate California sometimes. Something like that would be $2M here, and I am not joking.

You don't hate CA. You hate the Bay Area. You can get something similar to that for a pretty cheap price in Central Valley, Inland Empire, or certain part of Monterey County.

True. Check out Rancho Murietta up by Sacramento. Many houses as nice as the one shown by the OP in a similar price range. Go up into the foothills and they get even better. Hell of a commute to the bay area though but if you own the house outright and keep expenses down you may be able to find a lower paid job locally that would pay the bills.

Sorry, my bad. The OP said $300k, not $375k.

bmwman91 says

Fuck dude, THAT house for $300k? I hate California sometimes. Something like that would be $2M here, and I am not joking.

It does make you wonder why we cling onto this area dosen't it?

Call it Crazy says

Peter P says

Try a real French maid uniform.

How about just a real French maid?? Forget the costume..

Hairy legs, armpits and B.O.

Peter P says

Call it Crazy says

How about just a real French maid?? Forget the costume..

I prefer to have a British maid but in French maid uniform. :-)

Bad teeth.