Looking for a winter home

[terryandgerry]

Yeah, renting a place for a few months next winter probably makes more sense than making it a rushed vacation/real estate hunt. I am trying to curtail my impatience. The listings I've been seeing look so great and I'm afraid that by the time we make our move prices will have gone up. Renting really wouldn't be cheaper though, because its money down the drain. I've always hated renting. Since we will only ever be there January to March, the heat isn't a problem, if anything I wish it were warmer! One thing I do need is sunshine. I sometimes get very depressed up here in the Winter's and even on sunny days in Alberta in the winter, the sun is too far away to do any good.
As for the Canadian dollar, we have been trying to decide how far to let it rise before converting it to US dollars. Since most of our income comes in USD and we used to be able to count on quite a bit in exchange rate, I hate to think that the Canadian $ might continue to stay high, although the forecast seems to be that it will continue to rise for a while before going back down. This is really hurting us, and all Canadian exporters financially.

"Then you're stuck with a house to sell in a lousy market in the middle of a national economic slowdown". I'm far from a financial wizard, but isn't that the time to buy? If the market picks up too much we will probably have lost our chance. I expect if we aren't happy with it, it would take us at least a few years to admit it to ourselves and try to bail out.
Thank you for your helpful ideas.

[lifertexan]

It is very unlikely that you will get stuck with a house you cannot get rid of if you wanted,unless you buy in a rathole place that no one wants to live in.The Texas economy will always be one of the first in the nation to resurge after a slowdown,and central and south Texas is becoming a retirement mecca for retiring baby boomers from places like CA where they made a lot higher wage relative to Texas living expenses and now are moving to Texas to make their retirement dollars stretch.As long as you don't sink a bunch of money in a house and get your costs out of line with the value of the surrounding properties this shouldn't ever be an issue.

[MoMark]

Let me run that sentence by you again: "Then you're stuck with a house to sell in a lousy market in the middle of a national economic slowdown". Notice the word "sell"...which implies that you already own the house, and the position of a seller in a depressed housing market is not the happy position of a buyer taking advantage of great deals in the same market!!! Certainly you should do as you please, but you might want to study the current housing market nationally in the U.S. as well, just to make sure you're informed. Generally speaking, housing is falling in value across the nation and the inventory of unsold pre-owned and newly built homes is at near record highs. Areas where homes used to sell with multiple offers in a week are now taking six months and up to a year to sell. Texas is one of the few areas that has seen the least appreciation, as a matter of fact, most of the cities where housing is considered "undervalued" are in Texas. Even so, those buyers from California and New England are having trouble selling their homes right now, which means, that an outside influx of buyers propping up Texas home prices is fading. I just think, despite your impatience, that a few determined google searches about the housing market might pay off for you. As for your income, if it's in U.S dollars you're buying ability remains unaffected. If you have funds you are wanting to convert from the Canadian dollar to the U.S. dollar, then the higher value of the Looney can only benefit you in the USA.