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Oh, so that's why they call it 'depression'.
invite response
2009 Oct 20, 6:56pm 15,713 views 70 comments
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tatupu70
2009 Oct 26, 12:10am
There have been plenty of studies on the effects of unstable home location on childhood development. Kids do better in school, are more likely to attend university, and are less likely to commit crime when they live in the same location for most of their childhood.
I think that's what he's saying. Moving is the issue.
tatupu70,
And what exactly is forcing him to move 4 times in 4 years? The choice is not between moving again every year until they finally find a home to buy. It's about moving once now, or moving once later.
Statistical generalities do not apply to individuals particularly well. That's not even what they're intended to inform. The purpose of the studies is to determine if our government's strident policies subsidizing homeownership have had any positive effect or not. It's not actually supposed to be applied to individuals. You move when you need to move, you create a loving environment for your own family my limiting and mitigating and coping with and overcoming stressors.
This is not a lead paint kind of issue, where causation is clear, this is a correlation kind of thing.
tatupu70
2009 Oct 26, 12:57am
cara--
Wow. I can't speak for Kevin and his reasons for moving. I just thought you misunderstood his reasoning and wanted to clarify what he posted.
I disagree with you about how to apply the study--but it's a discussion best left for another topic...
kevin:
Refinancing it might save $80 a month or so, but that sure as hell isn’t going to make any real difference in my financial situation...However, since I’m not a seer and I really don’t give a shit about short term losses, I don’t care...
I could just not buy anything — maybe go live in a cardboard box. But I’d have lots of cash! I could roll in it, fold it up into paper airplanes, or maybe swim in it, scrooge mcduck style. The possibilities are endless
There’s really no point in working if you’re not going to enjoy the fruit of your labor
You seem to be under the impression that buying a house would make me not have money for other things, which is very strange considering that I already stated that I make in excess of $150k a year
Huh? Why the vituperation? Is this the same person who claimed ....
Paying it off would give us an extra $500 a month, but we’d also be taking a $18k hit on our down payment money and it would take three years to make up the difference.
We also want to start contributing to our children’s college savings, but it’s hard to budget for that when you’re trying to save as much as possible towards the house.
Even simple things like buying a new TV or sofa are tough decisions. If we spend $1500 on that sectional are we going to be another month away from our objectives?
You are buying a house. May you have a good life in your house. Good luck to you.
I'm a dog on the internet.
Bap33
2009 Oct 26, 5:54am
"vituperation" ???? did this come up on your deasktop's "word of the day"? lol. Just kiddin.
Well, thanks to the mini bubble in the market it looks like we actually managed to scrape together quite a bit more than we had planned. As a result, we're now under contract and set to close in mid-december.
The end result is that my monthly payment is going to be about $2300 (sans taxes), which is what I was paying in rent for a place less than half the size (and much lower quality overall) than what we're buying in the bay area. We went for new construction, since everything built from 1940-1990 or so seemed really low quality (poor insulation, asbestos, etc.), and the only houses we could find built before WWII were either too small or needed too much work.
Now if I can just get over writing a check for $120k in a few weeks, I think we'll be OK.
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Of all the frustrating things in the housing market, "uncertainty" is probably the worst.
My wife and I have been discussing buying a place since she became pregnant with our second child in late 2006. I saw the coming crash as inevitable, so we agreed to wait.
You see, we really want to own a home. We don't want to own a home because we think it's a great investment. We want to own a home because we like the idea of staying in one place for 20+ years. We want a place that our kids will think of as "home". We like that if we want to knock down a wall or replace the flooring, we can. We're also not stupid people and don't want to stretch ourselves to buy a house that's just going to be cheaper later.
So we saved, and now we've got a little over $100k in the bank. I'm making good money (around $150k base), but I still can't see how home prices are reasonable. We moved up to Seattle from the bay area, and while things are much more rational here, I still see 2000 square feet houses that haven't been updated in 30+ years listing for over $600k.
While those prices still strike me as outrageous, it is tempting. By my reckoning I could get something along those lines for under $3000 a month, sitting comfortably at about 25% of my gross monthly earnings even if the stock market tanks again and my bonus sucks next year.
Unfortunately, the $100k is really all I have to spend without touching my retirement, so putting it all into a down payment isn't really a smart choice. That means that if I want to put 20% down on a place, I'd have to look in the sub-$400k range, and quite frankly I haven't seen anything in that market that I'd be willing to buy yet.
The obvious answer here is "wait". Unfortunately, I don't really have that option either. My daughter is two and I've also got a third kid who's nearly one. My oldest is six and in first grade. We're crowded into a small 3 bedroom apartment, and we're really sick of moving between rental properties. If we wait until next summer we should be able to get to around $150k, but my wife may murder me before then.
If house prices were definitively falling -- with banks actually listing the foreclosures that they're racking up, there wold be no doubt that the right thing to do would be to horde cash and stay in the cheap apartment for another year.
If house prices were definitively rising (say, due to massive inflation), there would be no doubt that buying would be the right thing to do and I'd be out signing some paper work right now.
Hell, even if prices were definitively not going anywhere I could at least stop worrying about it.
Is anyone else in a similar situation? Do you have good reason to believe things are going to go one way or another (and I mean actual data, not rants about government or human stupidity)? Does anyone have experience with the Seattle market?
#housing