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So.....would you guys consider 1000/monthly for a house too much?

here in cleveland, the houses out here are so cheap, atleast compared to what you're getting.

i mean, there's 4 bedroom, 2 baths and higher going for around 150k-190k in really nice neighborhoods. then its only like 220-299k in the really-we refer to it as- boojee neighborhoods.

i know just running basic numbers(yes, i need to account for closing cost and a possible downpayment even though im getting a VA home loan) 1000 a month for 30 years fixed runs to 360k. (VA requires the APR to be fixed. ) so i know in order for me to get around 1000 a month it'll be on a house around 225k with a fixed apr of 4.25

i'm just spit balling so please don't go full attack mode on me. but what do you guys think? how much did your homes run?

Market on the west coast is different. I bought 3 years ago when the market was just swinging back up. Paid $199,900 for a 2 bed, one bath, 1.5 car garage, a 20x28' shop, and a 10x14 shed, sitting on a huge (by Portland standards) lot of .41acre. I also did some research and bought just 6 miles from deep downtown, but outside of Multnomah county where the taxes are crazy high. This saves me a couple thousand each year. More on taxes later.
I put $40,000 cash down on a 30 year 3.625% fixed loan of $159,900. My mortgage is $956. Which we can make on one income. Though we make $1200+ payments so we can pay the loan off in about 18 years. It'll save us thousands and end my mortgage before retirement age. A 15 year mortgage would have had a 3.25%APR but the payment would have started around $1200. Which would have been about my max if the house were ever a single income home. As your property taxes go up, and they will, your payment can creep up to uncomfortable numbers in just a few years. Don't forget about that.

Oh one other thing. Look for the most affordable home in the best neighborhood you can buy in. Location is everything. My house is the smallest in the hood. I'm surrounded by $270-350,000, 2-4 bed, 2-3 bath 1700-3000sqft homes, in my 1175sqft place. And I'm fine with that.

It's really tough to adjust for "area"..i.e., I'm in the country, in a rural county. 15 years ago, our 2 story (no basement) 3 bedroom 2 bath, with a huge kitchen, an upstairs living room about 28X20, a downstairs living room of about 20X14 went for $150,000. On 2 acres. With a pond, and a 30X80 pole barn.


But that doesn't really matter, price wise. In some areas, it would be a million dollar home. In some areas, $100,000.

But Swish - I thought not long ago you said you guys were saving up to move back to Europe?

dude, me and my wife are 27. im getting a degree.

we don't know what the hell we gonna do. we are looking at all the option on the table.

thats why i ask you guys so many things. see what y'all think, what the web thinks, what the experts say....

and then go from there. we jump into a lot of things with no thoughts and it works, but dude.....have you seen the prices of homes in europe? and what they look like?

and the neighbors? man i dunno how Katja could stand it. they're so....german. and mean.

so i dunno. it's all a possibility. but as far as houses, America has soooo much more leeway and what you can do with your homes and such. Germany is just a better place to raise my kids IMO, especially cause Kat really wants to stress the importance of them being bilingual.

i rambled on but it's a lot of stuff. it's a long story.

how does the taxes work?

Actually, I have not seen the price of homes in Europe. I have not considered moving there. I only asked because just a few months ago you said you got a job to help build up money to move back to Europe (Germany). It was just a question.


As for buying a home? If you're sticking around Cleveland for a while, do it. If you're thinking of moving in the next 0-7 years, maybe don't buy.

I closed on May 25th. In Fairfield County Connecticut (so I live in a ridiculously expensive place, have to because my parents needed me/my partner near them, and they aren't moving, so there was a lot of pressure)

I got a 4.2 APR, 30 year. 10% down. I paid 226,000 for my 750 Sq Ft Condo.


It's ridiculously expensive. But I live in a very nice area, 48 min train ride from Grand Central Station (Manhattan). Everything in the place was nice and ready to go, so that was good.

But having moved from Chicago, and having seen the prices of the West Side of Cleveland, it's been rough moving back. I loved where I lived in Chicago. South Loop, right at the base of Grant Park. 1850$ a month, 2 Bedrooms, 2 Baths. It was wonderful.

But living across the yard from my parents has been alright. I can get mom's cooking again, and I can help take care of my father.


Anyway, 226k for a 1BR, 1BA in a very safe location, conveniently near many things, but you need a car. Overall, I don't think my place will lose value, but if it wasn't for my parents, I wouldn't have moved back to where I grew up. I'd still be in Chicago, living it up

You really shouldn't, IMHO, allocate more than 25-30% of your monthly income to a house. You just never know what life is going to throw your way. Trust me on that one.

When I bought my house, I could have gotten into a $700-$800 range mortgage, but that was far more than I felt I could commit to. I wound up with a nice home, in a good area, for under $500/month. A subsequent refinance has my mortgage down close to $400 with only 1 year added to the term. When my back went on me and I started having all of this nerve pain in my legs and feet, I was really glad that I had picked a house I can still afford. I have friends who have paid a small fortune for a home, one of them gets laid off, and their whole financial life completely explodes as a result. I always suggest moderation in such a huge investment. I realize that everyone wants the absolute best of things, but sometimes the 2nd best is a much better investment.

Are you and your wife planning on having additional children? Do you have a lot of out of town visitors? Do you and your wife need a home office that would take up a bedroom by itself? You have 2 daughters, right? If none of these apply, then why go for a 4 bedroom home? A 3 bedroom would allow each child their own bedroom, and would be considerably less expensive.

I would also suggest that you have 3-4 months of expenses in the bank before you buy a home, With the veterans loan programs, you can often buy a home without a bunch of money down. That's all well and good, but you go into your home with no equity at all, and you need that backup in the bank just in case a disaster hits. 3-4 months should be the minimum. Some experts suggest 1 full year, but I don't know if most people can handle that.

Just a few suggestions.

For affordability all that matters is your debt to income ratio. $1000/mo might be high for some and low for others. Make sure you factor in home insurance+taxes. Also note that taxes will often change after the first year or two as the county assesses it.

A suggestion if I may: opt for a 15 year fixed. A 250k home at 4.5% interest will be $1266/mo and will cost you $206,016.78 in JUST INTEREST. Thats almost another house! That same loan at 15 year fixed? $1912/mo and $94,246.98 in interest. Also 15 year mortgages get better rates so if you were to get say 4.5% on 30 year, you could get 4% on a 15 year (roughly)

I ended up spending a few grand more for a house I really wanted. I wrote a blurb about the house but I felt it would bore most people so I trimmed that out Bottom line make sure you save money on the front end. Yes houses go up in value but after inflation and closing costs etc you basically break even. Find a house that has a superficial flaw that people pass over, that's been on the market for 2-3 months. The owner will be in a hurry to sell and that works to your advantage.

I bought a 3 bedroom 2 bath with a huge garage with built in workshop for 14,000 in the historic district of South Bend. I put about 15k into fixing it up. Which included all new pipes and a bathroom overhaul. It has about 1,800 square feet with huge master bedroom with cathedral ceilings and a walk in closet.

The house is now worth 70-110k and the den was modified into a huge 4th bedroom. The rent I earn on the room pays for ALL my house bills and I have no mortgage. Never did. I haven't had a mortgage in almost 5 years at the age of 38. In your scenario of $1000 a month I have saved 60,000 dollars so far plus if I sell the house for 100,000 (very possible) I will easily profit 100,000 or more just for living here instead of my old house that was valued at over $220,000 with the big mortgage payments.

I would never take out a mortgage on an over sized house ever again. It cost me almost 30,000 a year just to live there.

I took the money I saved and bought a second house that I rent out. I only paid 7,900 for that house but I spent 15,000 fixing it up. A lot of the work I did myself but I had to put a new roof on it. I makes me about $700 a month in rent. My hope is to grab another house like that one in the same area. I don't have a mortgage on that one either. One of the big keys is finding a house to rent that doesn't have high property taxes.

Anyways I would stay away from the big over priced house that suck your income dry.

Looking at Europe and cost's ; I would take a peek at Portugal . The Algrave area is drop dead gorgeous ( Think Lagos ) and many an expat lives there .. No need for air or heat , fresh sea food , vegetables , wine .. One of the best buys in Europe right now

great information guys. this really helps. keep it going!!

PS: A cool thing about a place like Lagos is that it;s so multinational // You will here Portuguese , Brazilian Portuguese , French , Italian , Spanish all at the same restaurant ..

How about I just sell you my 4br, 1ba bungalo in Old Brooklyn for $75K?

It'll be on the market within a couple of weeks

House buying...

Small world.

My girlfriend and I are in the process of buying a house now.

It's in West Columbus near the Georgesville/Norton area.

$104,000 mortgage @ 779.00 a month.

3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, finished split level basement, and the garage was converted into an extra room. Backyard already has a privacy fence and storage shed. Very nice condition all around.

We just spent 15+ months paying $950 a month for rent in Grove City. That's way too much money to be paying for just rent...

I think YTown's advice was really good.

You don't want to be "house poor." Figure out an affordable payment that will allow for some curve balls that life throws you but the where the payment is still manageable and allows you and your family to have the lifestyle that you enjoy.

We just bought a home this past November. We ended up buying a home that we absolutely love. We could have technically afforded a more expensive home, but we like to have decent cars, travel, go out to eat from time to time, have people over for get togethers, etc....all things that cost money on top of a mortgage. We picked a home at a price that allowed us to maintain our lifestyle with some breathing room. I cannot stress this point enough. Do not make yourself house poor.

The other thing I would say is location is super important.

Man, the housing market out here is so much different. Houses are very expensive out here.

if you can afford 1,000 then its no problem. Just make sure you and your better half (make sure you tell her I called her that) Put back enough money in savings to get by on for 6 months to a year if you would both lose your jobs. We have a 4 br 2 1/2 bath home with a three car garage and a total of 4300 square feet. Y'all know I have been off work since mid December and we have been living on savings and my wife's income (she makes about 1/4 of what I normally do) and we have a payment of just over 2,000 per month. Of course we only have a 300 car payment, a 260 payment on my Can-am spyder, and we have no credit card debt.

In austin I'd have killed for that rent. I started paying $900 a mo in 2006 when I moved down there. When I left early 14 the same apartment was $1800/mo! I switched apartments only once in 2007, and austin was booming so much there wasn't any cheaper options to move to...

Also YTowns rule is a good rule of thumb (no more than 25-30% of income going to mortgage+tax+insurance), but I'd make sure you do that on net income. The bank will do it on your gross (32% i believe). But going off the net leaves much more wiggle room

Hey something else we can agree on

My wife and I bought our first house about 20 miles outside of Columbus in November. It's a 2,000 sq. ft., 3 bedroom, 2.5 bath, full basement, 2-car garage home built in 2004 with a nice sized yard and garden in the back with raised beds that the previous owners built. The master shower was completely rebuilt with stone flooring/walls and a flexible showerhead. They also built custom shelving in the basement and had extra ventilation installed because the husband used it as a workshop. There is an air hose hookup, too.

I pulled $10K from my retirement to use as the down payment (5.7% of the purchase price) on a 30-year loan with 4% APR. The purchase price was $175K and our monthly payment is over $1K. If you have an IRA or 401k, you can use money from it toward a home purchase without penalty if it's your first home purchase. You can only do that without penalty if you're a first time homebuyer. I was still taxed for that $10K, though. I'm 33 and have plenty built up in my retirement already, so I had no worries about dipping into it. I'm also still young enough to keep building it. Doing something like that is certainly a personal choice, but it's good to know that something like that is available.

Like YTown said, how much you can afford is relative to how much you earn. Also like he said, I wouldn't put more than 20% of our combined monthly earnings into our mortgage payment. Calculate what your taxes would be for the area, any homeowner's association fees (if they exist in the neigborhood you're looking at), and bills (water, gas, heat, electricity, etc.). You should also make sure you can cover any breakdowns that might happen because you'll no longer have the luxury of an apartment maintenance crew to help out. Also, factor in home insurance and home warranty costs.

There is a lot to consider in addition to just your mortgage payment. Do a lot of research and planning before you pull the trigger and you should be good to go.

I went VA on my first loan, no down and the seller had to cover most of the closing costs, $500 a month with escrow. House listed at $52K.

20 years later went VA again and had to come up with 3% down, same with the first loan on closing costs. House was listed at $186,000 payments that include the ridiculously high taxes and insurance come in at about $1250 a month. I'm putting in an extra $2000 a year to chop off the later years of the loan.

I itemize my income taxes and take the interest and property taxes as a deduction and keep track of any home improvements to see if they come up to an amount that can be deducted as well.

Look at what a similar place is renting for, and I will guess it is at least what your mortgage would be. Difference is you won't be paying for someone else's mortgage. As the years go by you will be surprised at how low your mortgage payment will be compared to someone who is just buying.

just my 2 cents.

Yes, utility bills are big, and can vary widely depending on the home. I like my well and septic but I do have to spend $50 a year on softener salt. Still cheaper IMO than the monthly city bills though.

Another one is your HVAC system, both type and fuel. Forced air heat is more expensive than Hot water heat for the same fuel type. Oil and electric heat are more expensive than natural gas. But typically homes with hot water heat won't have central air.

So many things, right ?

From what I read there, it really sounds like you should not buy a house. Until you have a clear vision that you will stay in an area for, at the very least, 5 years, I wouldn't buy a house.

There's way too many downfalls to owning a house for a short period of time. In the end, you usually lose.

This thread is depressing.

Depressing was 1981 when home interest rates were at 15%. There is nothing really depressing about 4% interest rates.

why?

Sorry to bring this thread back to life, but I have a question here. I'm a first time home buyer and honestly, very nervous and very stressed. It's a lot of my life's savings that is about to be obliterated with what seems with just a handful of signatures and signing papers.

I saw this house over the weekend, around 1800 sq. feet and etc. It seems to have some roof issues. I saw water runs/marks (sorry for usage of non-technical terms) in the attic where whatever material was screwed onto the ceiling. The roof on the outside is has different colored areas which I'm guessing is dealing with moisture/dampness? The shingles in a few spots are also clearly not in good shape.

If it were you, how would you go about approaching this home to make an offer? Clearly I'll get a home inspection and have my offer contingent on that. My realtor suggested having them pay closing cost and using that 3-4k to apply towards a total roof teardown. I feel like there would be a better route to take though in negotiating cause I do anticipate the inspector having negative scores on the roof condition.

How much is a total roof tear down on a house round 1800sq ft? Realtor is saying 5-6k.

ANYTHING else, I mean ANYTHING, that you guys could give me as advice, I'm totally open ears. Some of you likely have been through a few home buying processes and your advice is welcome in the utmost fashion.

Have a contractor, as well as home inspector, check it out. Get a price from the contractor on what it would take to fix the issue.

Go to the sellers, or their agents, or take it to your agent - whatever - and flat out say "here's our offer based on the fact that we'll need to spend 5 grand, or 10 grand to get the roof fixed.

If the sellers aren't loopy, they'll already have that built into their price. If they don't, they'll need to realize and accept that they need to take less for the house because of the existing problem.

Don't walk, run from this house. Don't get emotional about homes, they'll be another house that will be a better fit.

Yup. Unless the home present as an absolutely FANTASTIC investment opportunity, it probably isn't worth it.

When you buy a home - any home - you are buying someone else's problems... don't put yourself into a hole at the outset on that unless you have a plan that allows you to make it worthwhile.

Now, if this home, in good condition, could fetch a significant amount above what you might be able to get it for, then it might be worth it to sink that money into a new roof. What you don't and cannot know at this point, is what other issues are there from water coming in that you cannot see.


As for cost of a roof: that varies by size of roof, its pitch, and number of peaks and things they have to flash around -- and how much wood sheathing they have to replace once they get the old roof layers torn off; not square footage of the home. I'd guess that the estimate might be closer to 6-8k, depending upon those factors (especially being that you are likely looking at a fair bit of wood needing to be replaced).

Thanks very much guys. Falling into the hole of someone's else problems is by far the route I'm trying to avoid. The price they're asking is comparable to other of similar sizes/etc in the area, so I don't think it's a superb and "FANTASTIC" investment property either at the prices being listed.

Again, thanks for the advice guys!

I am a little late to this discussion, but I will just add this: When an owner ignores (or half-asses) something major, like a roof, it is very likely that they have completely ignored the little and medium things.

Unless you are able to do the work yourself, and are getting a bargain, walk on.

When I first started looking for my first home purchase, the advise I got was this:

Buy neighborhood 1st. It is OK to buy the ugliest house in a good neighborhood, but beware the money pit. Paint can be changed really easily, and landscaping is not that difficult to do either. However, thinking that you will buy a home and re-do rooms, and the like, is crazy.

Check the big items first. How is the roof? Siding? The furnace? Central air? Structure? Windows? Is the basement dry, or damp? Step on the ground around the foundation on each side and make sure that the ground right up against the house is not wetter than the yard is. Walk the ground, on a dry day, and look for soggy areas. Such things could indicate a broken water main, (I can tell you this one from experience)or a water diversion problem. (where the gutters are not draining off the home or property to the drains) These are all items that can cost you thousands, or tens of thousands. or a ton of work if you try to tackle them yourself. There are some things that are acceptable, and minor repairs, but don't pay a premium for major problems.


Just my $0.02 worth.

Yeah I work on cars and computers, I am for sure not diverse in handyman/house stuff. I feel like the advice I got here and others that perhaps I should continue to my search. My uncle made the comment too YTown that if they half assed the roof, chances are there are hidden spots of "half assy'ness" all over that could in the immediate future, bite me hard.

Question for more experienced home buyers than myself, how do you make a decision to put an offer on a house in less than 12 hours? In Colorado Springs, homes are flying off the market. Demand is high, supply is low.

3 houses were listed on Sunday, told me realtor I wanted to see them. By 10am on Monday he emailed said 2 are already off the market, the 3rd is expect to be gone by noon.

If I do get to see a house before it's gone, I have to decide before I go to bed if I want to make an offer. Feeling pressured to make a move that fast makes me feel uneasy.

Unless you're living out of your car, don't make a hasty move. If they're gone, they're gone, move on. Wait for the deal you want.

Don't feel pressured to make a quick offer. You may lose out on some, but do it on your own terms. Would you feel pressured if it was a used car salesman? Look at it as a used house.

Congrats on possibly buying a home - huge step... I agree with what someone else posted in terms of looking for an affordable or cheaper home in a nice neighborhood... I've bought a couple houses and each time have thought will it hold its value, how hard will it resale, can I do somethings to it to improve its value, etc... Location is absolute key... Even if you don't have kids you have to look at the school systems because if you buy a house with 3-4 bedrooms whe. You resale it most likely will be to a family with kids... You have to factor in taxes in the area.... I had a house in Knoxville for $100,000 cheper than my current home and the taxes there were almost $15,000 cheaper....

For sure get an inspection!

If at all possible, I wouldn't by a house (or anything else for that matter) that's in such severe demand.

one thing I looked out for is to get a loan with no prepayment penalty. That way every month you can pay an additional month of the principal (which is very little in the first few years of your loan, most of it going toward interest). For each month you can pay of the principal, it's a month off your mortgage. We eliminated about 8 years of our original 30 year mortgage that way.

I had the same issue in Houston with my last house... There were people buying houses sight unseen with cash... Average days on market were like 5 days...

For me it helped knowing what things I could live with, what I absolutely wanted, and what there was no way I was living with... That check list helped me decide quickly if the house was worth considering... Once a house was ranked high on my list of things I absolute wanted then it was asking if it was in my budget range... With housing leaving quickly I knew I wouldn't get to negotiate much so the full price had to be within my comfort zone...

For the most part sticking to my budget and wish list made making an offer quickly... If ended up making an offer and then breaking it because of things found on inspection that I couldn't live with... I nodded up losting $500 on the deal, but to me in the long run it was ok... So even if you make a quick decision you still have some time to back out