Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I bought my house at age 38. I didn't feel adult then and I'm 45 now and still don't. lol I bought it out of disgust of my 10 year rental rate going up past my income, turned out I could own a home cheaper. So it seemed anyway. Had to do it, all inclusive the house payment was $100 less than my rent. Too bad I lost my job 1 month later. 7 years later I still have the house and its now a rental, waiting for a tenant, last one left end of October. No, still don't feel like an adult, feel like a kid with too many responsibilities.
I bought mine two years ago at 37 and it hasn't made me feel like an adult yet (probably because I don't have it just the way I want it, I still feel like I'm renting someone else's house, until something breaks and I have to pay to fix it).
Like you, I bought it because my mortgage is much cheaper than my rent ever was. Then 8 months after buying it I was out of a job. Thankfully because of the low mortgage I was able to hang on to it. I still have it and live in it, but I don't feel like any more of an adult, more like a goal was checked off. Same as the first cruise, my first brand new, nobody else has driven it, car, etc.
You only lose if you sell while its low. Mine is underwater but I'm not interested in selling, so its just not a real loss just on paper. It will go back up someday. I'm planning on keeping it the full 30 years of the mortgage and beyond. Income from the paid in full rental is part of my retirement plan. Of course all of Florida may be underwater by then, so thats a risk.
Anyway, the monthly payment was and still is cheaper then the rent I was paying at the time. Heck even the rent I'm asking is cheaper then the rent I was paying.
That certianly sounds nice. However it does not make me feel better about this part of our situation. Having had $400,000 in the bank and now owing $100000 more on the house than it is worth and $0 in the bank, I feel like we lost money.
We are five years down the road and just starting on a refi. Thus we have 30 years to pay on it. Yes. We definitely lost money here no matter when we sell it. Even if we wait out the market, I doubt that ti will ever regain what we lost in my lifetime. You never know.
If I had actually earned that money, I would be really upset. But since it was just money that came from increased value in our prior house - well it comes and goes.
That certianly sounds nice. However it does not make me feel better about this part of our situation. Having had $400,000 in the bank and now owing $100000 more on the house than it is worth and $0 in the bank, I feel like we lost money.
We are five years down the road and just starting on a refi. Thus we have 30 years to pay on it. Yes. We definitely lost money here no matter when we sell it. Even if we wait out the market, I doubt that ti will ever regain what we lost in my lifetime. You never know.
If I had actually earned that money, I would be really upset. But since it was just money that came from increased value in our prior house - well it comes and goes.
You are also forgetting about use of funds. Long term Munis were paying up to 6% five years ago tax free.
400K at 6% in munis would have have been around 720K in interest. But wait you would buy either more stocks or bonds with that 24k interest each year so compounded would be well over one million.
Also you forgot maint and insurance and RE taxes on house too.
Not really. Due to the bubble and collapse in prices that took years to play out, I held off on buying until there were some signs of recovery. By that time it just seemed like i was doing something I would have liked to have done years earlier. But I didn't want to deal with the likely depreciation during that period.
Yes, and it's scary. The night after I closed, I felt very anxious & had trouble sleeping because I felt like there was this heavy responsibility on my shoulders & maybe I shouldn't have done it.
Quote:
We bought a 100 y/o fixer upper.
Mine's 65 years old, but also a fixer upper. The good thing was that I bought it for under 100K. It's small, only about 1000sf, but not a cookie cutter home, so it has potential & it's surprisingly private for being in town, no neighbors on 3 sides thanks to a canal in the back to the north and a city easement to the east where a road is supposed to go but will probably never happen ( they don't want to build a bridge over the canal and even if they do, I'll have a corner lot).
My estimate is that for it to be what I envision, the house will need around $35,000 of work and the yard / grounds maybe $7500.
I told a contractor today that I want to go forward on about $20K of work right now - fixing the necessary repairs, redoing the kitchen, fix the walls & paint the inside & outside, I'm probably going to stress out about that all weekend.
Paint is insanely expensive. I was shocked that the work on the walls & painting everything is the single biggest expense.
I tend to avoid these adult questions personally because it is usually a matter of measuring myself against the accomplishments if not requirements of family, friends, and society. Personally, if there is anything that says 'adult', it is being independent, paying my own way.
However, being in similar situation to the topic, is there a way I should be feeling? Not that I necessarily want that feeling, whatever it may be, but I want to know about it to help me judge whether or not I am missing a piece of knowledge. Having lived my life often so far out of the standard timeline, I don't want to run into those situations of "Well, everyone knows that!".
I have lived my adult life, over a generation, in dorms, ships, and apartments. The only time it has been in houses have been layovers at family homes.
Now, with ranch land owned, well drilled, I am looking at building my first house which will probably be my last house.
How should someone be feeling? Aside from terrified, I mean......I've got that.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
