Buy an undesirable home or keep renting a nice place? (mortgage, mortgage)
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With utilities, it averages $1,035 per month.
...my net pay to a weekly amount, it would be $625 per week.
What is the conclusion?
Immediate term... You need a roomie.
If you had one paying half the $1035 most of the time you'll easily have $5000 in a year.
($500/mo x 10 months a year; $420/mo x 12; etc)
Longer term you need more income.
Probably more than what you're expecting for next year where you are.
I should have an additional $10K saved up in a year from now. That would be able to afford a house that's up to $180K+ next year. But by then I'll be 35
So what? Some of the bad neighborhoods in Jacksonville are really bad. I don’t think you should buy a house just to buy, and you really want to stick with neighborhoods that are going to increase in value. If you like where you live now, then it makes sense to rent until you can afford something where you actually want to buy. I’m renting now and I’m happy not to be buying because the places I want to live in my current location are mostly out of my budget, or they are really old and basic condos.
Or keep waiting and get priced out of the market. Best time to buy is when the kids get back in school, that way you have less competition and you can be in the home before January 1st and apply for Homestead exemption for the next year.
Next year, I expect my financial situation to improve. I'm expecting a pay raise, promotion, bigger bonus, significantly more cash savings and more disposable income. But I'm already 34 and have been renting my whole adult life!
Thoughts?
Keep saving, and keep looking.
My aunt bought her first home when she was 75. It's never too late.
Wait it out, move a little further away, or re locate if you can. Bad schools and high crime are not attractive options. Renting is not always a bad thing, as you wont have to deal with maintaining a home. If things go bad with you neighbors in an apartment, you can just get up and move. But if things go bad, with the neighbors in a house, it would be harder to relocate.
Have you considered homes within a 15-20 mile radius? or in between the bad and the great?
I know many folks won't like me saying this but...
Home ownership is not all it is cracked up to be. Some people will tell you to buy, why waste your money on rent? But they don't tell you to take into account the higher cost of heating/cooling a much larger sq footage, light/power for the same, house insurance, city water & sewage service, city property tax, plumbers and other trades persons, roofing, painting, mowing, raking, shoveling, vermin, water heaters/AC/furnace, mortgage interest ..... all of these have to be in your budget. Instead of all that money going into the money pit, be happy renting and put that money into investments/savings fund. You will find you have a very large chunk of change to live contently without pouring it into those extra costs not included in your mortgage.
OP:
Wait till you have ~20% saved for a down payment, because your income is way too low to cover the PITI and the maintenance costs of a SFH in the price range you describe and you will be cutting it way too close.
If it takes another five years, so what?
I bought my first place, a condo, on LI at age 40, and lived well below my means after that.
You would freak out to know my financial condition at this point in my life.
Stop using external rules to dictate your life, but be guided by what is right for YOU.. and when.
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