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As a SINGLE guy I would suggest buying the BEST garage you can afford and don't worry about the house. You won't be spending much time in the house anyway. The same probably applies to MARRIED guys after the HONEYMOON also.
When you're young you can only afford to live in a cheap apartment specially if you want to be independent. I also experienced living in a cheap apartment when I was 20 and it was something I will never forget. Yes we only live once a but when it comes to choosing a home you also need to prioritize your budget. Probably save more to buy or mortgage you dream home if not there's noting wrong to live in a cheap apartment. Anyway, no one want to rent all their life.
When you're young you can only afford to live in a cheap apartment specially if you want to be independent. I also experienced living in a cheap apartment when I was 20 and it was something I will never forget. Yes we only live once a but when it comes to choosing a home you also need to prioritize your budget. Probably save more to buy or mortgage you dream home if not there's noting wrong to live in a cheap apartment. Anyway, no one want to rent all their life.
What's wrong with wanting to rent a cheap apartment all of your life? I love the carefree nature of renting.
Don't buy lots more house (and yard) than you need.
No, it's not just a cosmetic fixer upper. It's a money pit.
Every home improvement project will cost much more than you estimated and will be more complicated than you imagined.
No, you will not get used to the noise from the nearby busy street and park. It will bother you for the next 20 years or more.
I love my older single family home and my neighborhood. I would not like renting or living in a condo or apartment. But the house has cost much more than I expected to maintain and improve it. And real estate in my city and state has not appreciated significantly so my home has been an okay investment but not a great investment. More of a forced savings plan than an investment.
I completely agree! DO NOT but more house than you need! My husband and I built our dream home at 3,400 square feet. We then finished the basement totaling 5k sq ft!. We had 2 kids and we did not need a home that big! After 10 years of high taxes and cleaning we decided to move to a smaller home. It's now hard on my children to move out of the home that they have always known. We now have a 2400 sq ft home which is perfect size for us. I wish we would have originally bought a home this size!
I would say to buy has much house as you can afford to begin with. We bought less than we could afford, thinking we'd move up, but by the time we were ready to do that we realized that even a lateral move would cost us so much more money, so we ended up staying put.
In retrospect, I wish we had bought a newer, nicer, bigger, more expensive house to begin with. Yes, the payments would have been higher and yes, it would have been a struggle in the beginning. But after a few years what once seemed like huge payments don't seem so huge anymore, and you are paying less than you'd be paying for rent on a comparable house.
I was always afraid to commit to a house because I was self-employed, and never knew if I would ever get work again after my current project was finished. Of course it turnerd out that I worked as much as I wanted for thirty years, it was just my personal insecurities that kept me a renter for all those decades. Too bad.
Some people do want to rent their whole lives, I know some family friends in a city in the northeast who has an apartment across from the train station that is a 20 minute ride to Manhattan. They have been there since the late 70s and since it's rent controlled they only pay about $500 a month for a 2 bedroom apartment while their neighbors pay $1200 or more.
Others rent because they think they have no other choice and do not understand mortgages and just how low or even lower than renting your home can cost. If you live in an expensive area both homes and rentals are expensive, but you can always move to a cheaper area or commute an extra half hour to find a nice cheaper home.
Three years ago I never thought I would own a home after renting for about 20 years. Then I bought an older mobile home that was in good condition, fixed it up a little with paint, window ACs and appliances, but the lot rent was high and going up every year, so I eventually sold it for a few grand profit, moved in with roommates and found the home I bought a home a few months ago about 2 hours from where I was and now my mortgage is not only less than what I paid in lot rent, it's less than what I paid to rent a room in a home, and that's the full mortgage with principal, interest, taxes, home insurance, and pmi.
1) real estate is a financial, emotional, and life style decision (as opposed to just a financial one)
2) Don't buy a house until you are married, and even then wait 2 years. Your desires will change 3 times in your 20s, and you don't want to be moving that often.
3) It's okay to buy more house than you need. I realize this advice does not match everyone's behaviors, and that's okay. Some people need the smallest, least expensive house they can afford. But speaking for myself, using a house as a "forced savings" vehicle has benefitted my net worth immensely. It fits with my personality and spending style. On paper, owning the cheapest home with lower utilities is smarter, but in practice I don't have the will power to invest the money left over from having an extra $400/mo due to cheaper housing, I just don't.
4) you don't have to value the same things your parents did in a house. In fact, housing tastes/trends change often. I learned the hard way that I actually DON'T enjoy having a big yard. I hate yard work. While many want a big yard, we hated it. My parents loved a 3 car garage and an extra bedroom for guests. Its okay to not want those things too.
5) be the "bigger man" when it comes to meeting your neighbors. I love the fairy tale where all the neighbors come knock on our door, bring us cookies, laugh and tell stories about how the neighborhood has changed over the last 10 years. Truth is, that's too much to ask of many neighbors, especially in MN where I live. Right or wrong, it pays to be the aggressor when meeting neighbors. Knock on their door, watch when the go to get the mail, invite them over for a burger, etc. Put the burden on yourself if you actually want it to happen.
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