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Rocko Bonaparte posted:What got us to really pause was something like the complete package for trying to do something to fix it up. Pessimistically, we could assume having to deal with asbestos and plaster-and-lathe in tandem with that. We were also concerned about lead in the pipes. When we asked about what was or wasn't updated, we weren't given specifics. I'm not surprised because the default is to act like you know nothing and have it just come up in the inspection.
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Sep 17, 2023 04:52
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Yeah 5200 square feet is absolutely enormous to me, so scale up estimates accordingly but also, there's a reason knob and tube is often abandoned rather than removed, and if it's disconnected from the panel it really does no harm just being some wires and bits of ceramic in the walls. I'm not sure why you'd need to actively remove all of it. Anyway you listed several other areas of concern and it sounds like you're being realistic about post-purchase costs so that's all fine. And you should absolutely be very suspicious of a house that has been sitting on the market for a year, especially in a hot market like Portland. To answer your question, I got a quote for $8k, for my house in Concord, California, one year ago. I haven't done it yet because life intervened. This was from a lone operator, who did work on the house next door that I was able to directly inspect, and his quote included new relocated panel, a dozen or so new circuits including two 220v ones, replace some outlets, and add can lights in the living room, and he cautioned that it was possible we'd uncover additional problems that could raise the cost. But my house is one story, it has attic and crawlspace access, some of the work is in the garage which is unfinished, and the walls are all modern drywall with no insulation (yes, none, including in the exterior walls, sigh). So my estimate isn't gonna be your estimate, but I thought it might be illustrative if you were worried that rewiring would cost fifty thousand or something crazy like that.
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Sep 17, 2023 05:50
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Rocko Bonaparte posted:How long ago and whereabouts in the country was it $8k to update? It's basically irrelevant. A single story house, a place where every room has exterior walls, etc greatly accelerates rewiring with minimal damage. A multi story house with finished attic and/or basement (especially both!) is basically a nightmare to rewire. It's absolutely something you'd need quotes on first, as it could be a significant percentage of the asking price and/or may not even be feasible in certain areas without doing damage to things like built-ins or irreplaceable trims that you were counting on having. You're not just talking about an electrician in cases like this. It's going to be a plaster repair person and probably a carpenter as well. And "how well done do you want this?" is a thing, so expectations like "I don't want to know you were ever there and I want modern outlet spacing, lighting and switching" could make the bill skyrocket. I consider knob and tube to ALWAYS be a problem, because it's never not been hacked into by amateurs. If you see a single switch on a wall you can be positive someone has messed with it. Probably a lot more than that single switch loop. Motronic fucked around with this message at 14:21 on Sep 17, 2023 |
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Sep 17, 2023 14:18
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My 1940s house was built with knob and tube. Most of what is accessible has been replaced. The rest is behind plaster/lath walls or in the ceiling under a finished attic. It's not near the top of my list to replace it.
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Sep 17, 2023 16:49
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How bad does all that work get if somebody bumps into some asbestos along the way? I assume that strongly multiplies anything. Like, I would be thinking if the ceiling is high if I could just create a new ceiling at eight feet and run wire above that instead.
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Sep 17, 2023 21:19
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Rocko Bonaparte posted:How bad does all that work get if somebody bumps into some asbestos along the way? I assume that strongly multiplies anything. Like, I would be thinking if the ceiling is high if I could just create a new ceiling at eight feet and run wire above that instead. This is one of those absolutely variable things and why it's impossible to give meaningful cost ranges without a lot of additional information that needs to be gathered by someone who is from the area and familiar with the houses and those of that type/age. And again, I can't stress how variable the final bill(s) will be based on things like finishes and whether you planned on painting all these rooms and ceilings anyway or if that's also something you're going to consider an additional expense. Even development/tract housing are not widgets made on an assembly line. They are hugely variable and often in ways that are not obvious until you are already doing work that requires cosmetic repair.
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Sep 17, 2023 21:31
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pastor of muppets posted:I mean only a cop would spend that kind of money to do this.....right? Update: almost two weeks later and this place is still on the market. No price cuts. Houses in this neighborhood typically sell within three days. 
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Sep 18, 2023 15:12
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pastor of muppets posted:Update: almost two weeks later and this place is still on the market. No price cuts. Houses in this neighborhood typically sell within three days. The thin blue closing line shall not be crossed.
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Sep 18, 2023 15:28
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House around the corner from me finally cut $200k off the asking price and it sold after 6 months on the market and 2 years of the flippers owning it. Average time before pending sale is 2 weeks tops here. The "flippers" did a nice enough job on the house, new windows, new california native landscaping, and built a 1000sqft ADU. Raw numbers they netted $400k on the sale but their cost of capital must have been through the roof given when they bought it (compared to market returns) and bought all those construction materials. They listed it immediately after getting their certificate of occupancy. Wouldn't surprise me if it's more or less break even or slight loss. Whoever owns it now has the ADU listed as a rental and just missed the "high season" for getting tenants in as all the schools and colleges within driving distance started over a month ago now. They're hoping to get $3k/month for 1k sqft 2bd/2ba. Maybe I should become a landlord when I move.
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Sep 18, 2023 19:19
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There's a nice looking place by me that's been for sale for like 2 years. I think it's someone trying to "flip" it, did a bunch of updates, and put it for sale right when interest rates shot up. Plus, it's on a busy road right next to a 24 hour gas station. Most places go within a week.
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Sep 18, 2023 19:30
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So I’m in the lucky position of owning my house already, and having bought it before everything in my area went loopy price wise so the estimated value is way higher than it should be. I also made the mistake of browsing Zillow and while I thought everything I saw wasn’t an upgrade even if more expensive than mine… doh one place just looks the most perfect. However I don’t think it’s possible, but I’m curious how to calculate what my spending power actually is these days. My current mortgage is about 150k remaining, the house value is around 450k. It was the nicest place available in the area when we bought imo and other than the roof that needs replacing I’ve done a fair amount of stuff to make it better. It just needs a good clean and some other odds and ends. E: I looked up the net profit based on mortgage left and rough value and it’s estimated around $270,000 The place I love is *gulp* 750k. It’s a big step up. Household income is a little over 100k which isn’t huge, and my girlfriend who lives with me and pays me rent has a savings account with money designed for a deposit. From memory that’s around 30k. I just don’t know how buying for the second time works and what you enter into the calculators. Would I put all the profit after the sale/fees in as down payment, or is it better to put that money into some kind of savings account instead. Or become a loving landlord and keep the current property, which feels gross. I think the place I love is a pipe dream, but it’s made me consider options. I just don’t know what the gently caress I’m doing! It’s me, the deeply stupid person from the thread title. EL BROMANCE fucked around with this message at 07:09 on Sep 19, 2023 |
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Sep 19, 2023 06:01
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EL BROMANCE posted:So I’m in the lucky position of owning my house already, and having bought it before everything in my area went loopy price wise so the estimated value is way higher than it should be. I also made the mistake of browsing Zillow and while I thought everything I saw wasn’t an upgrade even if more expensive than mine… doh one place just looks the most perfect. I've only done this once and I'm no expert, but my selling numbers were similar so I'll try to give some answers that may help. First thing to know is that as a seller, you are typically responsible for covering realtor commissions, plus other expenses, so expect a big chunk of your profits to be taken up that way. To give you real world numbers from my experience, I owed about 284k, sold for 450k, and walked away with 126k. That did include about 5k in seller credits and 2.5k for rentback, but otherwise the subtractions were from commission fees (about 23k), title\escrow fees (about 2.5k), and leftover interest\property taxes (about 6k). So in your case, I'd (possibly conservatively) estimate you'd walk away with around 250k, though you should be able to get a better estimate from a mortgage broker. You asked about throwing all of that into a down payment vs savings account, but the real question is how much house you can afford and whether the full 250k would even get you there with the 750k house. For that, we need more information about your total financial picture. That being said, at 100k household income, I highly doubt you could afford the 750k house even if all 250k goes in as a down payment. You can play around with mortgage calculators, and estimate monthly payments to see for yourself, but it looks like with the current interest rates, you'd want to get it down to probably a 300k loan (i.e., have a 450k down payment) for it to make sense. And that's total napkin math assuming you have enough in savings for moving expenses, initial repairs, already have an emergency fund, can handle scooping out a large portion of your paycheck for a mortgage payment, etc. Don't mean to be too blunt, but unless your girlfriend is sitting on a ton of cash (and you're hopefully planning on entering some manner of legal union before purchasing a house together) or you have another large source of savings to augment your down payment, it doesn't look like it's in the cards. As for the idea of renting your current house instead of selling it, I don't have experience with that sort of thing, but I can't imagine you'd have even a chance of getting a loan on that second property unless you'd already moved out and established rental income (and also had enough saved up from other sources to use as a down payment since you would no longer be getting one from the sale of the house - having a single rental property is not much of a money maker usually, and it's a huge risk, and it obviously won't give you the same lump payment as selling, so it's definitely not going to help you afford the new house that's almost twice the value of your current one).
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Sep 19, 2023 07:10
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I was inspired to check on my last house, and apparently our buyers just resold it in July, for about 9% more than what they paid six years ago. That’d be a real-money loss even without taxes and commission, and then they also did a lovely remodel of the kitchen and finished the basement into a studio apartment. But I’m pretty sure they tore up the trees we planted, so gently caress ‘em.
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Sep 19, 2023 07:15
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EL BROMANCE posted:
I’m in a similar position as far as current house (bought at the bottom of the market, $160k still owed, expect to sell for $400k-$450k.) We talked to our lender about options: basically we can either finance the down payment on a new place with a bridge loan, or we can put minimum down on our next place, close on that transaction, move, then put our old house on the market and recapitalize our new mortgage with a larger down payment if we close on the sale of our old house within a certain period of time (a year iirc). We’re choosing the latter. Basically we’re expecting to carry both our new mortgage and our old mortgage for the three months or so it takes us to sell our old house. That said, our household income is about 2.5x what you’re working with, and even then our budget is only $500k-$550k, which we could stretch to $650k if the absolute perfect place came along at that price point. I agree with the poster above; not knowing anything else about your situation, $750k sounds like it would be tough to swing. E: I’ll add though that we are generally pretty risk averse and don’t have any kind of financial safety net as far as family we can lean on/potential inheritance if things go south, so we may be overly conservative with what we are willing to spend vs our actual spending power. pastor of muppets fucked around with this message at 13:05 on Sep 19, 2023 |
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Sep 19, 2023 12:59
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I'm no financing expert and am only in the process of buying my first house, but earning about the same, I was approved for $300k with a 20% down payment (aka, $240k loan). Quick calculation with the first thing that popped up on Google, a $500k loan would be about 75% of my net monthly income. Uthor fucked around with this message at 13:13 on Sep 19, 2023 |
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Sep 19, 2023 13:08
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Gotta assume that this is also a bigger house - bigger house means bigger utility bills, more space to furnish, and more things that can break A dream house stops being a dream house when you A) can't afford to put anything in it or keep it up and B) Can no longer afford to do things away from your dream house
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Sep 19, 2023 13:08
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EL BROMANCE posted:net profit based on mortgage left and rough value and it’s estimated around $270,000 You can just stop there, no calculators are necessary. Your DTI isn't going to be anywhere close to get a mortgage where you can keep both both and rent one - the rental income won't "count" for underwriting until you've been receiving it for a while. And even at that, you simply can't afford a near half million dollar loan plus the maintenance and utilities of a house like that on $100k. The PITI alone would be well over half your take home pay at current rates.
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Sep 19, 2023 13:23
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Our household income is around $140k and are in a similar situation as well (current rate under 3%, bought for ~230k in 2017, house is now valued around 410k) and even thinking about a 750k mortgage makes my skin crawl. I would look at some mortgage calculators (make sure you use current mortgage rates too because yikes) and see what the difference would look like in your monthly budget...but unless there is undisclosed income or support you hadn't mentioned I think 750k is way out of your budget. FWIW I'm generally not as conservative as most posters here, bought our current house with 5% down, etc etc.
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Sep 19, 2023 13:25
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marchantia posted:Our household income is around $140k and are in a similar situation as well (current rate under 3%, bought for ~230k in 2017, house is now valued around 410k) and even thinking about a 750k mortgage makes my skin crawl. A good way to make this sink in is to run the numbers on how much your current house would be costing you monthly if you were buying it, today, for the exact same price and down payment etc as you got in on when you bought it. The difference in what a house that was totally affordable at 3% or less costs in in monthly terms in a 6%+ situation is pretty stark. Welcome to the golden handcuffs, hope you got a comfortable pair.
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Sep 19, 2023 13:26
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Really appreciate all the replies. There’s really zero surprise it’s not doable, but I’m glad it gave me the impetus to look into how things work, what the actual numbers are etc. Funnily enough Marjorie, while you were posting I edited my original to update it with the information I got from a net profit calculator, and our estimates were about the same - in the 300k range when including my girlfriends savings. Overall it seems about 100k out from being a reality, which isn’t going to narrow down even with making an offer and our lack of financial commitments anywhere else (no kids, no loans, my car payment is like $100). Main drawing factor is our existing house is 20 years older and I need to replace the roof on it soon (I have a grant in place at least) and while 1,000 sq ft is a nice size, we both work from home so adding extra space felt appealing. It’s wild that the market is basically showing us places that are listed from a bit higher than what we have all the way to 100k more for places that are in worse areas and aren’t as appealing. The only thing in my favor is possibly the automated value is actually lower than reality… but it ain’t gonna be enough. And yeah I didn’t think renting out the existing property would be a go, and that sounds like a headache id not want to live in. Back home in the UK there was a push for people in situations like mine to do that years ago, and I’m sure they were being exploited. Also I don’t want to be a landlord. Appreciate the feedback all!
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Sep 19, 2023 16:12
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marchantia posted:Our household income is around $140k and are in a similar situation as well (current rate under 3%, bought for ~230k in 2017, house is now valued around 410k) and even thinking about a 750k mortgage makes my skin crawl. I think that's a huge cost that a lot of people are slamming up against. Sure you'll have a big down payment when you sell your current house. But kiss that 3% APR goodbye and say hello to a ~7%. A really good case study on why you probably shouldn't buy a "starter house" in general (though I don't think thats what OP did).
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Sep 19, 2023 16:32
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EL BROMANCE posted:Really appreciate all the replies. There’s really zero surprise it’s not doable, but I’m glad it gave me the impetus to look into how things work, what the actual numbers are etc. I don't know construction costs in your area, but you can probably add an addition and a new roof for far less than the ~$300k in difference in house prices.
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Sep 19, 2023 16:35
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Lockback posted:I think that's a huge cost that a lot of people are slamming up against. Sure you'll have a big down payment when you sell your current house. But kiss that 3% APR goodbye and say hello to a ~7%. I am curious what you people should do if not buy a “starter house”? Rent and hope to catch up to the middle of the train to be able to afford 2k+ sqft and also close enough to not have a poor commute? Or just everyone should roll the dice like Ham Equity?
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Sep 19, 2023 17:28
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TheBacon posted:I am curious what you people should do if not buy a “starter house”? Rent and hope to catch up to the middle of the train to be able to afford 2k+ sqft and also close enough to not have a poor commute? Or just everyone should roll the dice like Ham Equity? I know there's a lot of hate, but there is something to be said for the TINK strategy.
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Sep 19, 2023 17:30
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TheBacon posted:I am curious what you people should do if not buy a “starter house”? Rent and hope to catch up to the middle of the train to be able to afford 2k+ sqft and also close enough to not have a poor commute? Or just everyone should roll the dice like Ham Equity? It's ok to buy a cheaper home, but don't buy a home that you know you will be forced to sell or otherwise can't stay in long term. Like, if you know you need a 3 bedroom and can't afford one, it's better to rent and save. Buying a house that you think you will NEED to sell in the short term is tremendously risky.
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Sep 19, 2023 17:31
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EL BROMANCE posted:So I’m in the lucky position of owning my house already, and having bought it before everything in my area went loopy price wise so the estimated value is way higher than it should be. I also made the mistake of browsing Zillow and while I thought everything I saw wasn’t an upgrade even if more expensive than mine… doh one place just looks the most perfect. This does seem like a stretch. Really the absolute best way to figure out your max "budget" is to... well... make a budget. I am going through that very process right now! Maybe it would help if I laid out my napkin math. Would love to hear goons thoughts on my "maximum budget" breakdown. No kids. 700k home, 200k down payment after selling current residence makes for 500k loan @ 7%, or a monthly PITI of ~$4500. Household Income (gross): 190k Net Annual Income after 8% Pre-Tax Retirement Contributions (plus 6% employer match): 174.8k Approximate Net Annual Income After Retirement + Taxes/SS/Medicare: 174.8k x .67 = 117.1k 117.1k/12 = $9750/ net income month $9750 - $4500 (PITI) - $1000 (student loan payments) = $4250 net monthly $4250 - ~$800 (monthly bills; phone, internet, utilities, etc.) = $3450 $3450/4 = $862/week for groceries, misc. expenses, eating out, activities We are set with our e-fund. No kids currently, but likely in the future. We are not big spenders, eating out 1-2x/week at a reasonably priced place is plenty for us. Probably $200/week for groceries (this is probably even a little high), leaving a little over $600 for miscellaneous expenses, savings, and recreating. This seems like a reasonable budget to me. A bit of a stretch, but I think it would get us in a home we love, and that may be worth it... Hopefully paying off student loans over time and some future raises for the wife would make this increasingly affordable over time. Anyway, would love for you goons to poke holes in it or point out if it is at all unreasonable. A $4500 mortgage payment is definitely.... big. Like, it does seem like a crazy big number to me to sign up for. But, then again, we are making more money than we ever have, and the math seems to pencil out... hobbez fucked around with this message at 17:33 on Sep 19, 2023 |
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Sep 19, 2023 17:31
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A starter home makes sense for people who expect to earn a lot more as their careers advance. You get what you can afford now, and if your career plans change, you're not trapped in a house you can't afford: but in ten years, or twenty, your income is doubled or more and you can trade up. To me the phrase "starter home" translates to "don't overreach when you're buying your first house, get what you can afford today."
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Sep 19, 2023 17:35
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Lockback posted:It's ok to buy a cheaper home, but don't buy a home that you know you will be forced to sell or otherwise can't stay in long term. Like, if you know you need a 3 bedroom and can't afford one, it's better to rent and save. Buying a house that you think you will NEED to sell in the short term is tremendously risky. I'm single with no kids buying a small house. Perfect for me. My mom asked why I'm not getting a bigger place in case I meet someone and get married and we have kids.
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Sep 19, 2023 17:38
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Uthor posted:I'm single with no kids buying a small house. Perfect for me. My mom asked why I'm not getting a bigger place in case I meet someone and get married and we have kids. Just go to the house tree and pull a bigger house off of it, like you do.
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Sep 19, 2023 17:39
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Leperflesh posted:To me the phrase "starter home" translates to "don't overreach when you're buying your first house, get what you can afford today." Usually starter home (to me) doesn't just mean "Not a forever home" but implies a direct plan to sell because you know it won't meet needs after a few years. If you're living in a place for 10-20 years that's not a starter home. It's when people buy a home and intend to move in 2-4 years. That's probably a bad plan if you know you're really not able to stay at that place after that period. Uthor posted:I'm single with no kids buying a small house. Perfect for me. My mom asked why I'm not getting a bigger place in case I meet someone and get married and we have kids. Yeah, that's not what I'm talking about. You might get something later but it's not like your plan is to flip that house at a certain date.
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Sep 19, 2023 17:39
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Yes, some people do buy with an intent to sell in a short time frame and that is very risky because of the large transaction costs, and maybe it also encourages them to do unwise things like get an ARM that they won't be able to afford when the rate adjusts. I think there are good reasons to buy a home that you don't intend to live your whole life in, though. Our needs, wants, and money situations change over the course of a lifetime, and it's awfully difficult to anticipate and plan for all of them and get a house up front in your 30s or whatever that will suit everything. It can be a silly waste of money, for example, to buy a 5 bedroom house you can't reallly afford today because you and your spouse are planning to have three children, eventually. My wife and I don't intend to retire in this house. If we do, well, that's OK, it's not awful or anything, but when we bought it it was our starter home, representing compromises (size, condition, location) based on what we could afford at the time.
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Sep 19, 2023 17:44
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imo if you're single with no kids then renting a real small place and saving as much as possible is a strategy worth considering. Unless you're absolutely certain you want to be single with no kids for the rest of your life (and who's certain of anything at like 25 really) then saving toward the down payment on a real house for your eventual family is the key thing. I agree with Lockback that buying a real small place you can't reasonably raise a family in is not a good idea, unless like you can get it dirt cheap and do the mountain of work required to bring it into the 21st century yourself.
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Sep 19, 2023 17:45
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Lockback posted:It's ok to buy a cheaper home, but don't buy a home that you know you will be forced to sell or otherwise can't stay in long term. Like, if you know you need a 3 bedroom and can't afford one, it's better to rent and save. Buying a house that you think you will NEED to sell in the short term is tremendously risky. So your point is basically timeline? Like I’ll talk about myself. I just bought a 3 bedroom 1300sqft “starter home”. I have some personal goals of children within the next 10 years. If that comes to fruition I imagine I would want a larger house sometime in 7-10 years, but in the meantime wanted the equity and more importantly the ability to do whatever I wanted with my house (especially have a garage) even at the potential expense of 7% if rates do not come back down. I may never have kids and then this house is great, but if I do I do not see having multiple kids growing to adults without desiring a bigger house. Is that reasonable or do you think I would have been better served trying to get a 4-5 bed 2k+ sqft house of the jump?
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Sep 19, 2023 17:46
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For us the calculus was “how long do we need to stay in this house (all else being equal) to break even on our closing costs?” which we figured to be seven years when we bought our “starter home” in 2013. We’re still here ten years later. Our income has tripled since we bought it, which we weren’t counting on. So now, our options are: 1. Stay in our current house, make do with the things that don’t work for us (no individual office space, only one bathroom, no space for hosting holiday dinners/get-togethers for which we have become the de-facto hosts of), pay off our mortgage early within the next two years and live completely debt-free 2. Spend $300k+ to do a massive renovation to contort our house into what we need it to be, deal with a year plus of living in a construction zone, commit to living in this house for the foreseeable future 3. Find another house that suits our needs better, give up our 3.7% mortgage for a 7+% mortgage, and will cost us another $2k/month and put us further out from ever being debt-free We went with option 3. Arguably the least financially sensible route, but we are also being very picky. We’ve been house hunting for over a year now and have put in one offer (on which we were brutally outbid). So, really, if we wait out the clock long enough we may accidentally stumble back in to option 1. 
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Sep 19, 2023 17:55
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Leperflesh posted:It can be a silly waste of money, for example, to buy a 5 bedroom house you can't reallly afford today because you and your spouse are planning to have three children, eventually. Opposite waste of money: friends of the family had three kids and two parents living in a 3 bedroom house. 7 people. Eventually started adding another floor/3 bedrooms to the house when the kids were in high school. Welp, they're in college/moving out for their first jobs, parents pass away, and the construction is eventually finished for the two people left living in the house.
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Sep 19, 2023 17:55
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hobbez posted:This does seem like a stretch. The two big gaps I see are: 1) you are probably underfunding your retirement 2) I don't see anything regarding cars, which are typically a sizeable expense for people It looks doable to me. You would be spending 28% of your gross on housing which is right up around upper bounds of reasonable as a rule of thumb. If you are planning on kids that 862/week of leftover money would cover just over one infant full time in daycare in my market so uh consider that closely. What's your overall income picture like? Do you have a reasonable line of sight to increased future income?
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Sep 19, 2023 17:59
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If you can afford the house and it will increase your quality of life more than renting, then by all means go and buy a house - but realize it might be a bad with money decision, while also maybe being good with life. I did and probably lost money on it all things considered, but I don't regret it one bit. I'm a renter again for reasons, with intent to buy again.
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Sep 19, 2023 18:01
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pastor of muppets posted:Update: almost two weeks later and this place is still on the market. No price cuts. Houses in this neighborhood typically sell within three days. In my area, houses sell in 3 days too. When we were looking for a house, one of them which we tried to put an offer in had some owner who was poo poo about price. It was like 50-75k overpriced, and we were asking for in the middle (about $25k over what we'd want). Owner would not budge even a little, so we walked. House still for sale 3 years later, so clearly that inflexibility has remained. This is something they owned since it was built 3 decades ago, so it wasn't like they were refusing us because they were underwater.
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Sep 19, 2023 18:02
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Uthor posted:I'm single with no kids buying a small house. Perfect for me. My mom asked why I'm not getting a bigger place in case I meet someone and get married and we have kids. Anecdotally, no matter how suitable a house may seem the likelihood of a future spouse wanting a different home they have input in choosing is very high.
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Sep 19, 2023 18:02
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TheBacon posted:So your point is basically timeline? Like I’ll talk about myself. I just bought a 3 bedroom 1300sqft “starter home”. I have some personal goals of children within the next 10 years. If that comes to fruition I imagine I would want a larger house sometime in 7-10 years, but in the meantime wanted the equity and more importantly the ability to do whatever I wanted with my house (especially have a garage) even at the potential expense of 7% if rates do not come back down. I may never have kids and then this house is great, but if I do I do not see having multiple kids growing to adults without desiring a bigger house. Is that reasonable or do you think I would have been better served trying to get a 4-5 bed 2k+ sqft house of the jump? Timeline and need. So you have a long enough timeline, and let's say the market gets more hosed in the next 10 years. Would you have to postpone your life or potentially walk away from your house? Probably not, if you had kids you could probably make due for a while. If you were to say "I won't have kids while I own this house, but don't worry, I'm sure I'll be able to sell it and upgrade in 3 years" then I would say you're taking a risk. It comes down to using a house and the costs that come with it financing, closing, maintaining, etc as a means to build equity when its not really what you want to live in but do anyway is a risk. Sometimes it works out, sometimes it leaves you screwed.
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Sep 19, 2023 18:25
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