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So, you are talking either very rural areas or high crime areas for a $100,000 - right?
Wrong on both counts. None of the areas I am interested in have very high crime, I wouldnt move there for free with all the crime. Some areas may be a little rural but other areas are nice towns or small cities near the metropolis. Please do your research, I am tired of telling people where. Look it up and you will find those affordable houses yourself. I found it all on my own.
I don't believe there are nice homes any where I would want to live that cost $50,000. You are deluding yourself.
Lets say you are entitled to your opinion. Those areas are nice to me(and much safer than south FL ironically), it does not matter if other people dont like the areas. My opinion is I dont find south Florida nice. Some people do but I dont!
It is dangerous to recommend a house that could bankrupt them. I know a realtor who didn't care because she got her commission. Well she showed a couple who had a household income of $55k a house costing $199k. That was irresponsible of the realtor not to warn the couple that the $199k house wouldn't be affordable ...
I disagree. The realtor is a sales person, they are trying to make a sale. It's not there responsibility to make sure some can actually afford what they are selling anymore than a television sales person selling a TV does. People should take personal responsibility for there own finances then relying on others to do it for them. If they buy something they can not afford, it's Not the Mortgage company fault for giving them the mortgage, or the realtor for showing them the house, it's there own damn fault. Take responsibility for your own actions than trying to point fingers at someone else.
That is just part of life - no matter how many things you have, there is always someone around the corner with better and bigger.
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I work with (and for) a lot of extremely wealthy people this fact seems to tick most of them off and make them miserable. IMO it is the reason why so many (90%?) of really uber wealthy people are miserable. Wealth cannot be your source of life satisfaction, but you never have enough to satisfy you.
Any level of home purchase is risky. Withour house we had 50% equity. The total alue of our house was 2.5 times my yearly income, but the loan amount was about 1.5 times my yearly income. That seems pretty secure.
Until things changed. My income fell by almost 33 % and the value of the house fell. Meanwhile costs rose like mad. We ended up with - $110,000 in equity and a loan amount that was close to 2x my yearly income, while the interest rate yielded payments that we could barely afford to make. We somteimes had to return cans, sell things on E-bay, or take metal to the scrap yard to buy milk to tide us over for a few weeks, esepcially in Novemebr when the prior year bonus was gone and the present year bonus had not arrived.
Now, we have a better loan, and my wife went back to work, so we can make the payments without running out of food or skipping utility bills in November. It is all a guessing game. No one can tell you what to do, you have to make your own decisions and take your own risks. It is up to you it is not someone else's responsibilty or fault.
There is no way a realtor or anyone for that matter can predict what may happen to value or to people, or to the economy. There is no way a realtor can tell people what is a good financial decision for them.
If you do nto want to take risks, you should probably live in a tent.
Ideally you pay cash for a house but a 200K house doesn't seem unreasonable on 55K. Assuming they only put down 20K, their payment would be around $900 + taxes and insurance, etc. so total around $1200. That is close to 1/4 of their income.
The real issue is debt. No one should buy a house who has other debt (cars, student loans, etc.)
It is dangerous to recommend a house that could bankrupt them. I know a realtor who didnt care because she got her comission. Well she showed a couple who had a household income of $55k a house costing $199k. That was irresponsable of the realtor not to warn the couple that the $199k house wouldnt be affordable to them unless they got their money from other sources because a $55k household income can safely afford not more than $125k to $150k of house at the very most or you risk getting foreclosed on as the mortgage can exceed your income(after paying taxes, insurance, food, cloth, gas, utilities and other expenses and not having enough left to pay the mortgage)
I see alot of you on this forum recommending nice houses costing $200k, $250k, $300k and in some cases, even $500k! Are you assuming the OP is rich and has a very high income or stockpiles of money in the bank, stocks, funds or bonds? Even if the OP states a budget of such and such, it worries me because many people do not know the maximum safe limit to spend on a house in relation to their income. It is a fact that the average person makes around $35k a year and I know a friend who made $45k a year and she knew that the house she bought in Texas for $107k was just about the limit she could swing for without creative financing or otherwise getting foreclosed in a few years. Not alot of people make the $100k that is needed for those expensive houses costing around a quarter million. Please show courtesty and educate and inform people about this. I am concerned that some of those very people who post on city-data and were given the go ahead for an expensive quarter million dollar house could end upside down in debt and get foreclosed.
Underwater situation is still happening even for the so called bottom home prices & low rates... and even after "knowing" the situation of housing bubble's causes (people buying more than they can afford, buying into over inflated home prices etc.).
Also for the many REagents using that multi-bid "trick" to get people to overpay!!! Which seriously only advantage is for the closer of the sale (RE agent) to make more money on that sale than it is an advantage for the buyers.... and worse, there is no way to "prove" that multi-bid situation, thus the REagents are very "protected".
P.S. Buyers, look out for your own wallet.
Buy low, don't buy high... run especially when "push" into situations.
Buy with money sense, NEVER with that "I love you house" emotions...
Buy so you can fall in love with that home "later" the longer you are in it (house that keeps giving), NOT like that bad marriage that will give you many regrets down that road.
There is a major disparity between houses in different parts of the country. Here's an ol' boy that thought he'd improve this house only to find that he has improved it far beyond the neighborhoods prices. Fabulous home actually and he's done a great job. He had ZERO takers at $125,000. It's a 4 bedroom, 2 bath, 2 car garage, with just under 2300 sq ft. It has 2 fireplaces, 2 kitchens, 2 eating areas, and an office in the back. Nice home. So what would this home sell for in your area? This home is not huge for this neighborhood as there are others much larger- to 3200 sq ft but not near as nice. This home was built back in 1978.
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