Move to Utah without visiting first: Very bad idea? (Sandy: apartment, mortgage)

[hilgi]

Originally Posted by mlb

Our first home cost $92K. The value of our current home is about $270K. We have superb credit - so our mortgage is $482. A month.

Yes, we bought early and when prices were low. But prices (and interest rates) are STILL low here. If you have good credit - and a sizeable down payment - buying a home is truly the best investment you will ever make.

I love that line about homes being the best investment. The ROR is about 7%, hardly anything real exciting. I would love to see you get an actual offer over the next 6 months that would GROSS (pre commish) you $270k.

Most studies put the true ROR of the average home at about 2-3% a year and that was at the peak in 2006.

So many people have ridden the boomer wave for 40 years and think that houses do nothing but go up, wait until the demographics shift and we see flat to down true (after ALL expenses, taxes, etc.) rates of return.

[mlb]

Well - we're not moving in the next couple of years.... perhaps not for the next 10.

Still, a good investment.

Additionally, the move-ins from other states - will continue. I think we haven't seen the end of the California exodus.

That, in and of itself will probably stablize the prices here.

[HildaROTB]

Hope this helps.....we moved to Salt Lake City from Florida in November.
Think about it and check it out first.
Summer is nice but winter seemed to never end!
My husband was offered and excellent job in SLC...he liked the mountains and so we moved. I had never been to Utah.
We are not LDS.
We finally bought a house in Farmington....he is retired AF and the base in near.
Also the Legacy highway is very easy to drive to work on, brings him from home to job with little traffic, no accidents.
My husband loves his job and the company, a very good situation for him.
For me it has been harder.....Farmington is beautiful and everyone is very nice here......but not being LDS is a big consideration for me.
My neighbors are mostly LDS and are very nice, very good ppl, but as other posts have said they are very involved in their own community etc....and that is fine and very good for them......but it is lonely for a new person.....my husband and I are not big church goers and do like a little wine now and then.
We love good food and if we want any have to go to SLC......Which by the way is a great city.
Anyway nice place but wish we had stayed closer to the Salt Lake City...My plan is to start looking for a part-time job in the fall, maybe meet ppl that way.

[ValerieOfRiverside]

Thank you for all the input. We do plan on renting for at least a few years before buying to make sure its the right place for us. Once we buy a house we plan to stay for at least 10 years. Here is the temp agency I was talking about where my friend has found jobs for $12 to $15/hr with no problem: www.remedystaff.com. I am hoping to go there and for them to help me as quickly as they did for my friend.

One thing I think is strange is some of the houses in UT I have been looking at. Some of the nice homes there cost as much as our nice CA homes. So if you can afford $600,000 and like the beach its almost worth it to be in CA. However the rent on apartments is still so much more affordable in UT. CA apartments are so much more pricey.

I have a question for anyone 50+ years old. My husband and I were talking about buying a house and living there during the retirement years. We were wondering if its harder living in the snow at an older age? We could be wrong but have heard the cold settles in your bones and hurts your joints and can be painful to be in the snow. Also as we all get older we are slower moving and maybe dont have the best vision anymore. I wonder if it would be safe getting around in the snow at an older age. Maybe we are more likely to slip and fall and get hurt or get in an accident driving? Maybe I am way off. Maybe its just as easy to live somewhere it snows as living by the beach?? Maybe someone who has retired there could clear this up for us. Just thinking about safety for the future and we have never lived in snow...so just wondering.

Thanks!

[osugirl2]

Originally Posted by hilgi

I love that line about homes being the best investment. The ROR is about 7%, hardly anything real exciting. I would love to see you get an actual offer over the next 6 months that would GROSS (pre commish) you $270k.

Most studies put the true ROR of the average home at about 2-3% a year and that was at the peak in 2006.

So many people have ridden the boomer wave for 40 years and think that houses do nothing but go up, wait until the demographics shift and we see flat to down true (after ALL expenses, taxes, etc.) rates of return.

Housing is definitely down, but will probably stabilize in the future. However, you have to admit having a $482 per month mortgage is hard to beat. That in itself is worth the investment because I definitely don't see the cost of living going down anytime soon. With less of the market being able to purchase homes because of bad credit, no down payment etc. rental prices are likely to go up. I don't think you can even find a studio apartment for rent around here for that much.

[SouthernBelleInUtah]

I moved here when I was 59 y/o. I love the weather! We have a very dry cold, not at all like the northeatern/midwest col. They city itself is very good about plowing - I have no reason to go out to the farther suburbs so I don't know how they do. But I suspect they do as good a job as SLC. Especially if you live on or within a block of a busline, you won't have trouble at all. In sum, I much prefer the dryness of UT to the humidity of the south and other areas.

[hilgi]

Originally Posted by ValerieOfRiverside

Thank you for all the input. We do plan on renting for at least a few years before buying to make sure its the right place for us. Once we buy a house we plan to stay for at least 10 years. Here is the temp agency I was talking about where my friend has found jobs for $12 to $15/hr with no problem: www.remedystaff.com. I am hoping to go there and for them to help me as quickly as they did for my friend.

One thing I think is strange is some of the houses in UT I have been looking at. Some of the nice homes there cost as much as our nice CA homes. So if you can afford $600,000 and like the beach its almost worth it to be in CA. However the rent on apartments is still so much more affordable in UT. CA apartments are so much more pricey.

I have a question for anyone 50+ years old. My husband and I were talking about buying a house and living there during the retirement years. We were wondering if its harder living in the snow at an older age? We could be wrong but have heard the cold settles in your bones and hurts your joints and can be painful to be in the snow. Also as we all get older we are slower moving and maybe dont have the best vision anymore. I wonder if it would be safe getting around in the snow at an older age. Maybe we are more likely to slip and fall and get hurt or get in an accident driving? Maybe I am way off. Maybe its just as easy to live somewhere it snows as living by the beach?? Maybe someone who has retired there could clear this up for us. Just thinking about safety for the future and we have never lived in snow...so just wondering.

Thanks!

I wonder where you are looking at for homes? Here is one we saw in Sandy up in the hills with some of the biggest homes I have ever seen. We were cracking up at how cheap it is.

Moderator cut: CAN ONLY POST REALTOR.COM LISTINGS

[mlb]

We are mid-50's. Hubby is a Southern California native - I'm from Wisconsin.

The cold clearly is not as bad as the Midwest - where it literally is bone-chilling. Hubbie would never survive that. But I have noticed that homes here are poorly insulated. It's something that can be remedied - but at some expense. Make sure the home you rent or buy has good insulation. IF you're renting - your less likely to get that remedy from a Landlord.

We, actually, are replacing all our windows this very summer. We've been in our house 12 years - and decided - not only because there's a rebate (30% on the actual purchase of the windows) - but because we're tired of doing the plastic over the window thingy - it's time. Should cost us no more than $3000 (product plus labor) before the rebate.

As for being a senior in Salt Lake - I don't think it would be hard. You can always hire someone - pretty cheaply - to do your yardwork/shoveling. There's less a sense of hibernation as there was in the midwest - even tho where I grew up there were tons of outdoor activities. You just had to have thicker blood to tolerate the freeze back there.

And the only reason our mortgage is $482 - we did come here with a substantial downpayment and we got in early before prices started to climb out of the "undervalued" zone - and more even with the rest of the country. In 1990 you could buy a new home on the westside for $75,000.

We also have never had a 30 year loan. We've only done 5 year ARMs. They've never reset to amounts we couldn't handle. And we've done that so we've been able to save for retirement. We just refinanced - another 5 year loan - at 4%. In 10 years when I retire - we'll either pay it off and stay - or move on.

[ValerieOfRiverside]

Well thank you. Its good to know people 50+ are able to live there without a problem. Moderator cut: can only post listings from realtor.com . There was even one home with like 7 or 8 bedrooms that had a waterfall put into the backyard and it was over a million dollars. I was surprised. I didnt even know they had homes that expensive there. I would never need 7 bedrooms though. The homes I have been looking at are 2 to 4 bedrooms with 2 to 3 bathrooms. On the high side they have been around $800,000+. There are more affordable homes too but from the pictures they look old and run down or like real fixer-upper homes. Like you would have to spend a lot after buying to make the place nice. The apartments I have seen in UT are not nearly as fancy as some of our apartments here either but then again UT apartments are much much more affordable! If I had all the money I needed I would go for a house right on the beach (because Im used to the beach weather). But since money plays a big role we really want something that will be affordable long term. Nice and friendly people is also a big plus.

[kaytidid]

There are PLENTY of homes in my neighborhood that are not fixer uppers and are under $300K. These are newer homes, too.