How do people buy houses? - Page 5

[tempestjewel]

I really hear all of this... we live in a not-so-cheap area (Seattle/Tacoma area) and houses here are expensive. My DH has what I consider a good job with a good company, and earning his salary in a lot of other places in the country would mean a decent lifestyle, but here we are struggling. We are torn because our familiy is all here, but are finding it hard to get into the housing market. My DH is a veteran (recently came back from Iraq) so we qualify for a VA loan, which helps, but you still have to have enough salary to make the monthly payments... So we are torn as what to do- stay here and continue to struggle or pack up everything and give it a go somewhere new where we may have more $$ but no family nearby.

I'm a SAHM and it makes it even harder, but I wouldn't trade it for anything. We are trying very hard to save, we have one older car and a motorcycle that DH uses to commute to work to save on gas and on the insurance costs of having more then one vehicle. But it is hard to get ahead and things come up all the time that pinch at what we are trying to save... so I really hear all of you struggling with this...

[sovereignqueen]

I'd love to own a house, dd really needs a year, but its not going to happen for a loooong time. I live in SoCal and its hard to find a small house in a half decent neighborhood that would work for us for under $500,000. I don't even like LA!!! But its where DHs work is. Of course if we worked really hard we could save up enough $ to buy a house in Hawaii by DHs family. I'd reather move there! If only I could find a good job...

[Girlo]

Naomi -

Have you thought about Kitsap County? It's one of the few places left in the area where you can still buy a house under $200,000! The commute might be long (depending on where the job is), but it's not worse than dealing with I-5! I love listening to the traffic reports in the mornings and giggling to myself because we don't have to deal with the freeways.

[Past_VNE]

This isn't at all helpful...I'm just babbling.

We HAVE to buy. We have a dog, a cat and three ferrets. We have a son. To rent a cruddy, ONE bedroom 70s remodel apartment with one parking space here cost $750 per month. But, it's against local law for three people to live in a one bedroom. So, we'd have to rent a two bedroom, starting at 875 per month.

We bought a three (now, that's optimistic. I call it a 1.5) bedroom rowhouse, end unit, for $86,000. We share a wall with obnoxious, rude, loud, drunk idiots, but I love it. Home ownership is way more good than it is bad. Even with the responsibility, it takes a load off. As a tenant, I don't do anything wrong, but I despise having some jerk look over my shoulder all the time. Here, it is MINE. MINE. MINE. MINE. Okay, so the bank owns it and I just send the bank money. But it feels like it is MINE. Even with a 0% down loan, we pay $745 per month. (review local rental costs above)

This is in Pennsylvania.

When we lived in Indiana, we had an amazing, huge, brick Victorian house with a four car garage for $87,000. Granted, we spent about $500 per month on top of it in restorations to make it historically correct. But, nevertheless, it was a badazz house. I miss it, but not the size.

Our current house is 864 sq. ft. Perfect!

[applejuice]

I have been a homeowner for thirty years and a landlady for twenty years...I want to share an interesting situation with all of you.

I am a teacher. I have two students who are male fraternal twins. The parents are architechs, and they love to travel. They own a condo/townhome, so they do not have to worry about the gardening, the mail, the saftey of the property while they are gone.

This year they have traveled to Rome for Easter, to Louisiana for Mardi Gras, to Oregon for Christmas, to Montana for Thanksgiving, and to Australia in October.

They can leave anytime they want, they have the property association to watch, maintain and protect their abode, at a fee of cour$e, and they can take their children and go anywhere they care to.

I think in retrospect, it is a good idea. In my own situation, I am a widow with grown children and one child at home in a big old house, which is nice, but am I safe? And can I maintain this all by myself?

Something to think about.

[indiana ima]

Originally Posted by Past_VNE

When we lived in Indiana, we had an amazing, huge, brick Victorian house with a four car garage for $87,000. Granted, we spent about $500 per month on top of it in restorations to make it historically correct. But, nevertheless, it was a badazz house. I miss it, but not the size.

where in indiana was that? and when?

[SaraC]

We bought our first home in March '04 and I am so happy we finally took the plunge. DH is military and makes $37,000/yr, I am a SAHM and we got a conventional loan. We got our 1680 sq. ft house for $91,000. We just remodeled the kitchen and play/laundry room ourselves and plan on doing the bathroom this next year. We are only putting in $10,000(at the most) to fix it up and plan on making about $20,000-$30,000 profit when we sell in Sept. '06. We just try to live simply but we do have a car payment($500/month) and some other small debt. We pay everything every month and have a small savings but there usually isn't any left over for splurges. We do go out once a month but that is it. I am ok with it being that way until DH is out of school and out of the military(next year) and we can move back to KY and get a nicer, bigger house.