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We bought last year for $988K, which - believe it or not - is a pretty good price for a 1550 sqft "starter" home in a solid but not fancy neighborhood in our area. And it was a brutal hunt just for that. We could have bought a bit more, but we walked on a bigger, more expensive house that we were in contract to buy. This is only a little bit over the 3x metric for us, but it's about as good as we could do - I would have loved to have spent less. We're in good shape and live quite conservatively with a large cash cushion, so I hope we'll be ok for the future. Worst case, homes here tend to have a better chance of holding their value, so we could bail if we had to without much of a bath. The markets are very competitive here - I got another unsolicited letter from a real estate agent last week asking if we would be interested in a "top dollar" deal to move for one of his clients.
First house $315K. Lived there 10 years, went way up then way down then back up when we sold at $430ish. I sometimes wish we spent a bit more because we'd probably have bought a bigger house in a somewhat better area and not sold/moved. And we'd be close having it paid off.
But we outgrew it, and the neighborhood, which had been on a long-term upswing, sort leveled off and started to deteriorate.
Location: Chapel Hill, NC, formerly NoVA and Phila
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We bought a 1950's, 3-bedroom 2 1/2 bath, 1750 square-foot+basement ranch home in Vienna, Virginia (15 miles outside DC) for $290K in 2000. It was on 1/3 acre. We lived there 12 years and put on a new roof ($8K), turned a screened-in porch into a bedroom ($12K), updated one bath ($4K) and waterproofed the basement ($4K). We sold it in 2013 for $575K. I loved that house and neighborhood, but in some ways I wish we had bought higher. We could have afforded it, and we would have made even more money on it. Although our payments were relatively low throughout the years so it may have been a wash.
In 2012 we bought a 4 bedroom traditional home (built in 2001) with 2700 square feet in Chapel Hill, NC for $535K in a neo-traditional neighborhood on a tiny lot. Probably worth about the same today.
We bought a house in 1993 for $79,000 in a gentrifying neighborhood. Put a lot of sweat equity into it and sold it thirteen years later for $280,000. We had a second mortgage on it to help finance a business, but we were still able to turn around $180,000 in equity and plow that into a $350,000 home in a well-to-do suburb with superior schools for our three children. When we bought the house, the mortgage guy asked, "Why are you buying such a low-price home? You can afford one three times that amount." Yes, he said that.
The house was the cheapest in the neighborhood and needed a lot of work. We've dry-walled the basement ourselves and done all kinds of other work. Three years from now, when the last child graduates, we'll sell it for a tidy profit and downsize. My hope is that the equity from this home sale and buy our new home outright. Given how much property values have risen in our community, I have high hopes.
I spent about 560k for my house. I think it is the appropriate house for us at the moment. I could have paid maybe 20k less if I waited another 1-2 years but I didn't want to be living with my dad anymore. so im happy.
We bought last year for $988K, which - believe it or not - is a pretty good price for a 1550 sqft "starter" home in a solid but not fancy neighborhood in our area.
A 1,550 Sq feet home in a not so fancy neighbourhood?? WTH?? Do you live in silicon valley or something?? NVM I just checked your profile. Looks like I was close with my guess of silicon vally.
A 1,550 Sq feet home in a not so fancy neighbourhood?? WTH?? Do you live in silicon valley or something?? NVM I just checked your profile. Looks like I was close with my guess of silicon vally.
yeah,
My sister bought a 1350 sq-ft condo in Palo Alto for $1.1M. 1 year ago. It's close to $1.4 as of last week.
I was laughing thinking my brand new 5000 sq-ft house was for $500k.
Paid $129K for a SFH in a nicer suburb just north of Destin, FL in 2001. We were approved for more, but weren't comfortable with going higher considering our combined student loan debt at the time. Looking back, I wish we would have upped the budget a little. I can remember talking about how the area was way under priced for what it offered, and I turned out to be right. Like most of Florida, prices spiked in 2007, then went down, though my suburblet never totally crashed like so many parts of the state, and homes are still going for about twice what they were in 2001.
We really like out town, and wouldn't be somewhere else as long as jobs keep us in the FL panhandle. We could afford to upgrade to something bigger, but we refinanced in 2003 to a 15 year note so our current mortgage is paid off in 2018, and we've decided there's a lot of things we'd rather do than have a mortgage payment beyond that, so here we stay. We figure we're out of here for retirement and will end up going to a bigger metro area that would still let us be cash buyers.
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WTH?? Do you live in silicon valley or something?? NVM I just checked your profile. Looks like I was close with my guess of silicon vally.
