Rent Vs. Buy housing

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Cad

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Some of us like a little breathing room. Which we have in the house we just bought. More work? Of course. But I just had a BBQ here last weekend and it was pretty awesome. Our garden is pretty awesome. I'm already clearing the space where we're going to build a fort for my son. When he gets older he'll have an actual backyard (and side yard, and small orchard, and large gravel driveway) to play around with. I loved that as a kid, he may very well too. I don't really get homes like you linked which have such a large front yard. I'd rather stick the house closer to the street and have a sweet ass back yard (which is what we have, large drivethrough driveway notwithstanding).

Mentioning the property tax thing is misleading. Get an expensive 3k sq ft house on a tiny lot and you'll be paying more than I will in my 1.4k house on a lot 4x your size. At least in California.
Well thats fine, but with your needs you should live out in the country, not anywhere near a city; which as fuel prices rise will be densifying more and more.
 

Cad

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Sorry I like doing maintaining a yard myself and gardening. It is one of my hobbies. I don't want to live in a city or in a house where I can almost touch my neighbor's house with my hand by sticking it out of my window.

Edit - yes mentioning property tax is stupid. One, property taxes are higher in a city and a large house on a small lot will easily have higher taxes on a modest house on an acre or more.
At least where I live, the land is more valuable than the house on it, in almost all cases... my lot is something like 50x165.. my house appraises at ~$1.2M, with $650k of that being the lot price. Do the math on what I'd pay in property tax if I had an 80' lot instead of a 50'. And get the privilege of paying Jose and his crew to mow it and care for it too.

Its fine that you like doing gardening and that stuff yourself; I've got things I like doing myself that other people hire out. But cities just are going towards more house less lot and densifying. There's lots of room out in the country.
 

Falstaff

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I'm fine with a quarter to a third of an acre, which is the lot size of most houses around where I am living now. I have some friends who are trying to leave the Chicago metro area and want like 10+ acres... I just don't get that.
 

ZyyzYzzy

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I'm fine with a quarter to a third of an acre, which is the lot size of most houses around where I am living now. I have some friends who are trying to leave the Chicago metro area and want like 10+ acres... I just don't get that.
Only reason I'd get 10acres is so I could build a couple of par 3 holes on my own land that I could kill time on when I got home from work.

Sorry I don't have the same values as you Cad, definitely makes me an old salty bastard.
 

Cad

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Only reason I'd get 10acres is so I could build a couple of par 3 holes on my own land that I could kill time on when I got home from work.

Sorry I don't have the same values as you Cad, definitely makes me an old salty bastard.
Haha, well, kinda. Definitely makes you a little country. Nothing wrong with that. Sorry I made fun a little bit.
 

Tenks

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I'm currently in the situation of large house/small lot and I'm looking to upgrade to the same size (~2000 sqft) but on an acre of land. Seriously living right ontop of your neighbors is becoming an annoyance.
 

Deathwing

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Decent amount of land has it's perks. Do whatever you want with the wife without the worry of neighbors seeing you. Plus, days you have to mow the lawn or do yardwork is just a day you don't have to go to the gym!
 

Cutlery

Kill All the White People
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What happens when the roof needs replacing? 3.5% down on FHA (the minimum) is $8750 on a $250k home. A new roof or a new AC system can cost almost that much.
What are you arguing here? You're not even interjecting a wrong point into the conversation, I replied to you personally using the numbers you proposed.

You didn't say shit about 3.5%. You said that if you can't save 10%, you can't pay for repairs. And then you start talking about 3.5%.

Pick a number, and we'll talk about that. Don't change the number mid conversation because you don't like how the math sounds for you.
 

Picasso3

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I think he has a great point. Just last week I came home and my roof wasn't working. Called a roofing company for a consultation and sure enough it's broken. 5k to fix. And since I only put down 10% I obviously didn't have the money.
 

Cutlery

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You're not the kinda guy that has someone else do their roof.

Hell, I've done 4 roofs, and exactly zero of them have been mine. It certainly will be me doing mine when it needs it, though.
 

Asshat Brando

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Interest rates have skyrocketed because the Fed was keeping them artificially low and they aren't going to do it forever unless you want the value of the USD to tank further. Sucks for the 18 refinance clients I have that didn't lock or the 40ish people still looking for a house that may now not qualify for as much as they thought they would. Even with that said a 4.50% rate is still pretty damn good.

Banks don't make money on PMI, they don't make money on anything loan related sans the initial origination spread along with the servicing value and the money generated from selling your loan as an investment packaged with other loans. PMI is provided by companies such as Genworth, Radian, MGIC, etc. that take the loss on you defaulting if you have their PMI instead of the banks taking the loss.

Getting back to the Rent vs. Buying, I put down $50k on my purchase and it wasn't 20%. Something catastrophic may happen and maybe I'll be able to fix it or maybe I won't and I'll have to shell out $5k or $10k or whatever the fuck it is. Unless you're a fucking child I would assume most adults will be able to figure out how to handle it and most services that have to charge that type of money and it not being covered by insurance will usually offer you finance terms. This shouldn't even be that long of a conversation.

Edit: You cannot get a conventional loan on anything over 5 acres, you have go through the USDA which is basically a farm loan.
 

Falstaff

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That link is pretty cool.

From Chicago to D.C., everything is within 6% plus or minus except housing... which is 80% more. Ridiculous.
 

Prodigal

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Edit: You cannot get a conventional loan on anything over 5 acres, you have go through the USDA which is basically a farm loan.
Did not realize this - I've been looking at 34 acres with an old house I'd probably move/flatten if I purchased the property - no conventional loan if I'm building a primary residence on it?
 

Deathwing

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I would really like to see the data those cost of living sites pull from. Some sites give me wildly different answers for the same locales. Fitting enough, housing seems to be the key factor. One site tells me that housing is 23% more expensive from one locale to another. Another site says 89%! That's a pretty big fucking difference. And really important when determining whether a job offer is worth the hassle of relocation.
 

Cad

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I would really like to see the data those cost of living sites pull from. Some sites give me wildly different answers for the same locales. Fitting enough, housing seems to be the key factor. One site tells me that housing is 23% more expensive from one locale to another. Another site says 89%! That's a pretty big fucking difference. And really important when determining whether a job offer is worth the hassle of relocation.
Nothing beats hopping on redfin or your favorite MLS data site and looking at available listings in your area of interest. The rest is smoke & mirrors.
 

Cad

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I would really like to see the data those cost of living sites pull from. Some sites give me wildly different answers for the same locales. Fitting enough, housing seems to be the key factor. One site tells me that housing is 23% more expensive from one locale to another. Another site says 89%! That's a pretty big fucking difference. And really important when determining whether a job offer is worth the hassle of relocation.
Nothing beats hopping on redfin or your favorite MLS data site and looking at available listings in your area of interest. The rest is smoke & mirrors.
 

Tenks

Bronze Knight of the Realm
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I would really like to see the data those cost of living sites pull from. Some sites give me wildly different answers for the same locales. Fitting enough, housing seems to be the key factor. One site tells me that housing is 23% more expensive from one locale to another. Another site says 89%! That's a pretty big fucking difference. And really important when determining whether a job offer is worth the hassle of relocation.
Yeah I was taking the link more as a novelty than hard and fast numbers. But I would assume it would be fairly accurate to determine if an area is much less expensive, less expensive, comparable, more expensive, much more expensive.
 

Frenzied Wombat

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Wow. It costs 2.5X to live in Manhattan vs Dallas. So you need to make 250K to equal 100K, that's crazy. How do people live there?