Quoted for troof.

I was able to just come up with 20% to get away from paying mortgage insurance. And that was 3 years ago

 

And don't forget youll have to pay property tax. And its not a guarantee that you'll be able to sell the house and break even with the way the economy is now. My friend sold a house cause he lost his job and lost over $100k

 

this is why I wouldn't want to be tied down to a house. Houses aren't investments anymore, unless you either get a fantastic deal or rent it. Even with renting, it will probably take 5 years before you aren't taking a loss each month.

I figured the average cost of taxes, maintenance, insurance, utilities, (i.e everything that is not "investment" money) was more than the cost of renting. So renting won.

 

who asked you anyway?!!?!


what time is everyone/anyone going to standard tap? This outing is close enough to me to be worth it.

 

Yes

You can get your drink on at Atco, they have a bar with tv's that show the racing live

 

Looks like I am the only one going.... NGUYEN!

 

BTW Leo is at atco right now.. Still hasen't got a clean pass bet trapped 145 @30psi on stock ignition..That trans setup is doing some work!

 

I might go down also, its supposed to be nice and cold

 

That Siri personal assistant for the new iPhone is pretty awesome. It has appropriate responses for all the ridiculous things you can think of. If you ask where you can get a happy ending it gives you a list of massage parlors. Pretty sweet.

 

how does it respond to insults?

 

147.49mph now

 

^ Whats Leo's set-up? Is this an Evo?

 

you should get all those costs, or at least an estimate of them, with your good faith estimate. I suggested a condo initially because for a fee you can have all those 'responsibility costs' you mentioned taken care of.


PMI is still PMI, no way around that. There are however loans out there currently that require VERY little down for first time, owner occupied homes. see below.

A guy I work with who is 24 just bought his first house in May of this year. Purchase price was less than $150k and he only had to show up to closing with a $1,700.00 check. He got something like $14k in seller assists. IN fact, if it wasn't for the 2% property transfer tax in the city of Phila he said they would have actually had to cut him a check for a few hundred dollars at closing.

He has a traditional 30yr fixed mortgage @ about 4.35%, so its not some silly 1yr ARM or anything. Banks are giving out loans to qualified people and they also have a TON of homes on their books they need to move, so there are oppertunities out there if you look around.


you're buddy must have bought right before the bubble burst. I know some people in the same situation and its unfortunate. I was on the other side of the bubble since I bought my first rental property in 2001 and sold it in '08 for more than double what I paid. The home I'm in now I got in 2004 and its currently valued at over 40% our purschase price even after the bubble burst. If you are smart/realistic you can make money/not lose money in this market. Its very hard to make a quick buck, but you can make money.

That is one way of looking at it, but there is another way too...

If you figure on paying rent for say 5yrs @ $1000/mo you'll be out roughly $60k, not including security deposit, electric and/or any other utilties you have to pay. That number is with the landlord not raising your rent (which is unlikely). At the end of those 5 years you will walk away with nothing to show for it other than dumping $60k worth of your money into paying off your landlords note. That is what you're doing when paying rent afterall, you're paying someones bank note for them.

Now, if you were to get a mortgage for a place that costs $150k, put 5% down and finance the rest for 30yrs @ 3.8%apr (including closing costs @ 5%, pmi @ .5%, taxes@ $2.5k/yr and insurance @ $750/yr) your payments would be roughly $1k per month. After 5 years, and paying $60k in total, you would have over $30k worth of equity in your home (assuming the vaule didn't increase at all, which is very unlikely for 5 years even in this economy). So when you go to leave, either sell or rent it out, you would get a check for more than $20k after commission to use as a nice down payment on your next home.

These figures are based on getting no kind of first time home buyer assistance, not taking into account the deductions/depreation/tax breaks you get as a home owner each year, not counting increasing property value, equity accelerator programs, ect.

The flip side to all this is that you dont EVER have to sell. In five years if you want to move out all you have to do is RENT the place to someone for an amount that covers your mortgage/expenses and BAM you have an instant equity builder year after year. Not to mention a home is considered an asset which can be benifical if you're trying to do other things like get a home equity loan, HELOC (home equity line of credit), ect.

Dont take my word for it, talk to a realtor or lender and let them crunch the numbers for you. If it doesn't work then it doesn't and you didn't lose anything... if it does work then you could be in a much better position 5 years down the road if/when you decide to get a bigger/better place. I am speaking from experience here. I know for sure I wouldn't be in the position I'm in now if I rented another apartment @ 21 instead of buying that first duplex.

 

rematch?

 

Its Chu-Spec'd, thats all you need to know!