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You bought smart like I did. I was single and not making 6 figures when I purchased. God forbid my wife loses her job, I can afford this house on one salary with little belt tightening.
Too many listen to their real estate agents or are convinced by mortgage approval numbers to purchase a house they cannot really afford. My agent was pushing me to spend $417 at the time. That was nuts to me. I ended up under just under $300 and got everything he was trying to sell me for $417. Crazy.
You post on this particular forum more than I do. Asterisks and starting "AM THINKING" might be getting old to people as well, but alas you don't care. Oh maybe I should add something more your speed: .
What is old is people making terrible financial decisions and then crying about it to everyone else. But some people want to coddle them anyway.
And we bought the place when our combined incomes didn't surpass 100K/year.
Oh I don't know about that. Looking quickly, one can ascertain the complete opposite regarding post counts. If looking for a pat on the shoulder for your *financial miracle* or whatever, should just get it over with already.
IMHO it really comes down to what one is brought up with to a large extent.
Growing up on Staten Island then and now the main focus is on owning, not renting. You see this in how little rental housing stock there is on The Rock, and how people back and the day and still today move out there because they want to own.
Now those living say in Manhattan, especially coming from a culture of RC or RS apartments may not see things in the same way.
Indeed those living in below market rentals (RS, RC, some of the better public housing, getting vouchers or whatever), in Manhattan and some select other parts of NYC really may have no need to buy.
First of all few of them probably can afford a condo, co-op or certainly brownstone/row house. Secondly they receive all the benefits of living say on the UES, UWS, West Village or whatever area without being subject to high housing costs, and that includes owning.
In case some of you haven't noticed there are plenty of for sale signs in front of brownstones/townhouses all over Manhattan, but especially UWS, UES and other "hot" areas.
Yes, some of this are from persons seeking to cash in on a hot real estate market, but something else is going on as well.
Assessed values for all types of housing in NYC has gone up and continues to rise. That brownstone on the UES someone may have grown up in during the 1970's that their parents or grandparents bought has increased in value tremendously. As such no small number of "middle class" owners are getting clobbered with tax bills. So they are selling. This or even worse when parents die and they inherit it just isn't possible to pay the taxes with what they earn.
the requirements for equity loans are now the same as if you were taking a first mortgage. they carry the same requirements unlike the past .
in fact even retirees with multiple 7 figure portfolio's may not be able to get reasonable mortgages without meeting the income requirements others do . that is with income sources outside their control , so living off your investments is not counted unless rental income.
multiple banks said unless i filed for social security it was a toss up if we would be approved since in order to sell the mortgages , most buyers have the income requirements pretty much written in stone .
if you can find a bank that does asset based loans the rates are way high .
Anyone buying in this post fiscal/credit crisis world is vastly more qualified than previously. Some say things have gone to far as too many are being "shut out" (use that for code saying minorities usually), because lenders are going strictly by the numbers.
While the process has become a bit more difficult, obtaining a mortgage is not that onerous a process today. Long as you have all your ducks in a row and can prove certain things to the satisfaction of lenders..
In many cases this really no longer matters as so much is being done by all cash deals. Many sellers today would rather go with someone with cash in hand than deal with another who needs financing. Being pre-approved does help however.
There's also the other risk of not buying and watching your rent keep going up at a faster rate than if you were to take the risk of putting a down payment for home ownership and taking a loan. People who buy at these conditions aren't necessarily foolhardy, but they are taking a gamble and often at times when the odds, as much as can be surmised, are good.
In NYC a large portion of housing at least in Manhattan and few other places is rental. Of that a good majority falls under some sort of government price control (rent control, NYCHA, Section 8, etc....) so it is only market rate tenants that really have to worry about being priced out.
What does come into play is that without the main retirement asset for many Americans (a home), renters need to have been investing, saving and otherwise building assets for retirement. Lack of which is what causes more seniors who are renters grief in NYC than anything else.
Funny, you’re right about a lot of things. But you present your opinions as if no one else realized these things and made their choices based upon the same.
I purchased in 2009. Rock bottom prices at the time AND interest rates (for then at least, they went even lower). I refinanced once 5 yesrs ago to snatch that lower rate when I could. As I’ve said before (and by design), I sought a home that would rent for more than my mortgage, in 2009. Back then the differential was about $100 a month. Now it’s around $400-500 depending on which real estate agent I speak to (or renting friend).
As for your last dig: lolololololol.
The last time cops were laid off was in the 70’s, and most were hired back in a few years. Good luck making a 16 year veteran shake in their boots with your snide comments. A layoff would actually benefit me if it went down like last time: supervisors made tons of overtime to cover for the lost bodies. When the city doesn’t hire, relying instead on overtime to cover responsibilities, it’s to avoid the benefits each body requires. Those already well established reap the benefit. Anyone who’s held a real job understands that. I waited 7 years to buy my house specifically because the layoffs in the 70’s didn’t touch people with that much time on.
All that said, you must not follow policing in this city as closely as you say you do though or else you’d know that the department has been shifting to a new model which requires more cops. Go read up on it. It will make you regret not taking such a secure, high-paying, Cadillac-benefits providing career.
Completely not interested in being a cop or for that matter any government job. Not interested in purchasing property in NYC either. And you could not pay me to live in Staten Island. Frankly it should be obvious from my posts I don't particularly like certain demographics that you have a lot of in Staten Island or for that matter Long Island, so there's no point in me accepting even a free house among people I simply do not like.
Good for you if you're happy with what you've got. However it doesn't make you any better or give you any more rights than someone who works at a deli.
With that said the majority of the city will continue to be renters, and yes the city will have to deal with the fact the huge percentage of it's workforce is low income and realistically employers cannot afford to pay a lot of money for retail and service sector jobs. The real estate market here is irrational.
In the 1980s people with high school degrees could graduate from high school, work hard and get their own apartments in Manhattan close to whatever job they were doing. That is clearly not the situation now, and now even many professionals cannot afford to rent OR buy in Manhattan. There's absolutely no reason for me to support this system, or worship Giuliani or Bloomberg who pushed in the system (all in the guise of controlling "crime").
Though I have friends of all races and religions, of the types of white people I get along with, they are generally those considered underclass, some academics, or certain business people in tech or film. I do not get along with the average "middle class" white straight person in metro NYC. Our lifestyles are too different to realistically bridge. I hate driving cars and prefer to live in urban areas with trains. I go to bars and clubs (gay ones and of course there are Blacks and Latinos). I travel to places like Mexico and South America, where your typical white middle class suburbanite isn't going to go. I oppose mass incarceration, and was never a supporter of Giuliani or Bloomberg.
I don't like their politics (oh, I have a house I paid for YEARS ago or even decades ago, but I'm going to vote for politicians that gut rent regulation for people in the city who can't get a mortgage so that rent goes sky high and screw them if they go homeless).
So with all this in mind, it's pretty obvious I don't want a house in SI or in the suburbs. I don't like the people, and have no interest in associating with them. I would never in a million years work for agencies full of people like this such as the NYPD or the NYFD.
Last edited by NyWriterdude; 10-08-2017 at 08:30 PM..
Capitalism has a recession built into it about every 10 years where millions of people lose their jobs, homes, pensions and lives are destroyed. Last one was about 10 years ago, and so we are overdue
I think it's entirely possible we already are in one and they just haven't seen the lagging indicators of it clearly enough yet. Some clues lying around that things are turning sour for the economy and this a good little one here. NYC prices in particular have been overheated for awhile and due for a correction.
Completely not interested in being a cop or for that matter any government job. Not interested in purchasing property in NYC either. And you could not pay me to live in Staten Island. Frankly it should be obvious from my posts I don't particularly like certain demographics that you have a lot of in Staten Island or for that matter Long Island, so there's no point in me accepting even a free house among people I simply do not like.
Good for you if you're happy with what you've got. However it doesn't make you any better or give you any more rights than someone who works at a deli.
With that said the majority of the city will continue to be renters, and yes the city will have to deal with the fact the huge percentage of it's workforce is low income and realistically employers cannot afford to pay a lot of money for retail and service sector jobs. The real estate market here is irrational.
In the 1980s people with high school degrees could graduate from high school, work hard and get their own apartments in Manhattan close to whatever job they were doing. That is clearly not the situation now, and now even many professionals cannot afford to rent OR buy in Manhattan. There's absolutely no reason for me to support this system, or worship Giuliani or Bloomberg who pushed in the system (all in the guise of controlling "crime").
Though I have friends of all races and religions, of the types of white people I get along with, they are generally those considered underclass, some academics, or certain business people in tech or film. I do not get along with the average "middle class" white straight person in metro NYC. Our lifestyles are too different to realistically bridge. I hate driving cars and prefer to live in urban areas with trains. I go to bars and clubs (gay ones and of course there are Blacks and Latinos). I travel to places like Mexico and South America, where your typical white middle class suburbanite isn't going to go. I oppose mass incarceration, and was never a supporter of Giuliani or Bloomberg.
I don't like their politics (oh, I have a house I paid for YEARS ago or even decades ago, but I'm going to vote for politicians that gut rent regulation for people in the city who can't get a mortgage so that rent goes sky high and screw them if they go homeless).
So with all this in mind, it's pretty obvious I don't want a house in SI or in the suburbs. I don't like the people, and have no interest in associating with them. I would never in a million years work for agencies full of people like this such as the NYPD or the NYFD.
So hate-filled you are. I can understand not caring or giving a damn, or having different interests, but to automatically not like someone you know nothing about is sad. You must be such a miserable person to have to go about life in that manner.
So hate-filled you are. I can understand not caring or giving a damn, or having different interests, but to automatically not like someone you know nothing about is sad. You must be such a miserable person to have to go about life in that manner.
I have no obligation to like or to want to be around or to get to know every person in the world. It's the way the world works. If you feel differently you are more than welcome to build bridges by taking some young poor kid from the housing projects up under your wing. We both know that will never happen.
I have no obligation to like or to want to be around or to get to know every person in the world. It's the way the world works. If you feel differently you are more than welcome to build bridges by taking some young poor kid from the housing projects up under your wing. We both know that will never happen.
If I had an abundance of resources I'd certainly take in a little kid from the PJs whose own parents could care less of them. I'd adopt a kid from the PJs long before taking in a kid from an affluent household. I grew up in a household that always took in immigrants from the 3rd world. My own existence on earth wouldn't have come about without this type of generosity. You're just a miserable human being. It is fine to not to get to know somebody, but you go as far as "not liking" somebody that you haven't even given the time to get to know. You should say that you don't know them, rather than say that you don't like them.
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