Is it wise to rent or buy right now?

[whodiman]

From what I have read, it is still pretty hard for the average person to get a mortgage from the bank. Others can chime in on that part....If this is actually true, when the banks ease back up on lending, way more people will enter the housing market again to do more buying which means big price increases. I just don't know when the banks will ease up their lending policies.

[HX_Guy]

I guess it depends on what average person means. If you have at least a 640 credit score, no late payments in the past 12 months, and a monthly debt-to-income ratio of 43% or less (though some lender will go even higher, up to 55%) then you should be ok to get a loan. What I did find is that they really scrutinize everything but its really not that bad as long as you expect it.

[MN-Born-n-Raised]

Originally Posted by Zippyman

But, two of the 'burbs that arent on your list were probably the hardest-hit in the valley during the crash - queen creek and maricopa. Those are bedroom communities, and that's where much of this potentially "buildable" land is. If you think back to the crash, you'll remember the stories of people giving up houses in those areas because they were paying $800 per month for gas. In my opinion, one of the *reasons* for the wheels falling off of the economy was a spike in gas prices in 2008. Remember the truckers flipping out when diesel hit $5 per gallon? The people paying way over sticker for Priuses?

You can say what you want about the suburbs being "self-supporting", but the traffic patterns tell a different story - look at the roads leading into the core of the city and traffic flows into the city in the morning, and out in the afternoon. That's where the jobs are, 'cause retirees, snowbirds & those who don't *have* to come to town would never subject themselves to that, except by accident.

The very first lesson you learn when you move to Phoenix is how the traffic moves & how *far* thirty miles is when everyone else is trying to go the same thirty miles at the same time. I've had commutes of up to 80 miles (each way) to work before in my old state & I can say from experience that a 15 mile commute could take longer & burn more fuel at the wrong time of day here.

I posted the biggest burbs in the Valley showing why they should be self sufficient for many people.

There is no doubt that there are people in Surprise and other big burbs that commute downtown every day. That doesn't seem too smart to me. So of course the traffic patterns speak for themselves. What that means to me is too many people in the outer burbs have never done a cost benefit analysis of what it really costs to commute that far. Wear-and-tear, gas and depreciation adds up. I'd rather finance another $100K to get closer and gain 10% of my non-working evening hours and another 1/2 hour of sleep. It's obvious to me.

That said there is a mindset that just because someone commutes everyone else must as well. I don't commute and haven't since 1997 and I know a lot of people in Surprise that don't commute far or work at home. I've do everything on my power to avoid rush hour. I might get caught in it about once a month. That's it.

So for me at least, I'll take the trade-offs. There are tens of thousands like me.