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murfygirl
member
When did you buy your first house
murfygirl
member
DH is obsessed with buying a house. He got pre-approved and now is going crazy looking. Problem is we do need to save more for a bigger down payment. I guess I am just not into it. I have no desire to own a home I am pretty happy renting. In our price range in CA we can't afford much since houses are so much more expensive. It disgusts me that I might have to pay 100k more than my brother did and at that I am getting a townhome and he owns a 4bedroom house. I feel like we have time to wait it out and be in a better place to buy. DH is 25 and I am 24.
If you own a home are you glad you got out of renting and made the big leap? Are you in your forever home or will you have to purchase again at some point? How old were you when you purchased your first house?
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Re: When did you buy your first house
We bought in December. We got a screaming deal so I am definitely happy.
I was pretty against it in the beginning, and it was Hubs who pushed the issue as well. My parents almost lost their house this year so I was pretty gun shy.
I feel great that my mortgage payment each month is an investment in our future instead of someone else's. Cheesy but true.
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We bought a home in NC in our mid-20s, sold it a few years ago when we moved to the west coast, and are now renting. Long story short, I am in no hurry to own a home again. Prices here (like where you are) are ridiculous and way out of line with rent, so why would I pay 50% more (after a massive down payment) to own a house equivalent to the one I'm renting, and then be responsible for all the work that needs to be done to it and be saddled with it if/when our housing needs change, etc... No thanks. We learned a LOT from our home buying and selling experience and I would do it again only if the price were right and we were able to afford a house we really planned to stay in until retirement. Otherwise, forget it.
I'm a little bitter over the whole thing, huh?
We bought our first "home" (it was an aprtment style condo) at 21. If we had not bought that we wouldn't have been able to afford the home we are in now. Prices doubled in the next 7 years so I am glad we did it. I am in Canada and while our market has softened a bit, not as much as the USA. My brother in Texas is upside down on his home and divorcing, so they regret buying a home.
If your cost of buying and maintaining your home is alot higher than renting maybe wait a bit. But with the buyer's market, low interest rates and the fact you can write off your interest I would personally love to be in that position. Here in Canada, we cannot write off our interes and it still makes sense to buy for us.
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I was 22 and DH(boyfriend when we purchased house) was 23. I technically wasn't on the house. It was all DH and his parents were Co-borrowers. DH couldn't stand the thought of throwing money away in renting. At that time it was better to own than to rent but now with the housing market so yucky in some situations they say you are better off to rent
Anyway I am so happy we bought the house. As soon as we were married we re-financed to get his parents off the house so they didn't have to worry about their debt to income ratio.
Great first home but it is time to upgrade. Stupid housing market making it ahrd to sell the house
I was 26 when we bought our first home. I would definitely advise buying now. If you wait a few more years, the prices most likely will go up again and you wont be able to afford as much house as you will now. We didnt buy our forever home, but we got a house so cheap in foreclosure that we already have a decent amount of equity in it (we've already made $60k on it). When we go to sell when the market turns, we will make a good amount of money, put a large down payment on a bigger home, and still have an affordable mortgage payment.
I bought my first house at 23 years old at the height of the market. Unfortunantly I lost it due to foreclosure, I was the only name on the deed so only my credit is messed up. I bought it in 2005, lost it in 2009. My DH and I bought a new house in 2010 with his credit only. Luckily this all worked out for us.
I don't know about prices in Rancho, I also live in the IE so you could get some good deals out in the Menifee, Murrieta locations. When we were looking last year there were homes around 2800 sq ft for about 245,000. GL.
ETA: Are you the one that lives in Ranho C., I might be thinking of another bumpie.
This is my thing! If DH were patient like willing to save so we could up our price and get more of a home then I would be more for it. But he wants to buy asap and basically whatever we can get. I just dont feel the rush
We bought our first house when I was 30 and dh was 32. It's a house that could be a forever house, but we would prefer a few differences so we'll probably move someday if possible.
If I had the money, I'd buy a property or two right now. Prices are crazy low, as are interest rates.
I'd support the idea of buying. By the time you warm up to the idea, it's very possible (if not likely) that interest rates will be higher, as will prices. May as well build some equity for yourself now if you can!
Good luck
I would say to get an OK and just an OK house in Rancho you need to pay 300k. I am not for moving too far since the cost of DH commuting would off set the lower prices.
I bought my first house when I was 20 with my ex. We seperated and I bought my second house when I was 27. My boyfriend owns his own home (we don't live in it yet - this summer with any luck we'll be moving there), he bought when he was 25. We plan on finishing the restoration with my home and selling it this spring/summer then moving to his house in the country. We're both 32. We're almost done restoring both houses (both from the 1800's), and thankfully we were able to do all the work ourselves. My boyfriend is an electrician and he previously worked for a restoration company for 15 years.
I would also recommend buying now. They say it's a buyers market, you have the upper hand. Prices are low and you can always bargin with the sellers (relator is the middle man). Also the intrest rates are very low. Remember, you don't have to find the "perfect home" you can make it into your dream home. That's what we're doing. Good luck home shopping.
I bought my first home in 2004, when I was 24- I still have it- I rent in out, it's in Myrtle Beach on the golf course- it's fully furnished- so it's rented weekly in high time to golfers and families down on vacation in the summer.
DH bought his first house when he was 25 which was 15 years ago, and we have bought several together- some we still have, some we have sold over the years. If we wanted to stay in Las Vegas we would buy another home now- homes are dirt cheap here and you can get so much for you money- we would buy our forever home, but we are seriously considering moving back east and out of Las Vegas- we will continue to have our rental homes here, but would rent a house for awhile until we decided on what area we would want to be in. It's weird to think that I would not own the house I lived in, but I also want to get out of Vegas. We have lost so much money with our houses, we are upside down over $100,000 in more then one house- it makes me sick!
I think right now renting is good thing- if you can afford a home, and the upkeep and the added expenses that come with home ownership go for it- it's a good time to buy in some area's- but remember things may still go down- home prices are still falling. Suze Orman says that renting is the new american dream, and home ownership is the new american nightmare.
i was 23
dh was 25
he bought his first condo when he was 23, then we made our house purchase together.
Yes, I am glad we decided to buy but this is definitely not our forever home so I'm worried about the time when we have to sell, lol! That's always the scary part to think about. So... fingers are crossed that works out in the future (this is actually our second home; we were lucky that our first home only took about five months to sell). We were 22 and 24 when we bought our first house.
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We bought our first home in CA back in 2003. We lived in it until May 2009, which is when we moved and turned it into a rental. Since we moved so fast, we were living in a rental back here until I found out I was pregnant. That's when we started looking for homes back here and eventually bought our current home in October 2010. We were able to save a lot of money when we first got back here because our rent was chump change compared to what we make on our house in CA. Luckily, we were able to put a nice chunk of change down on this house and have a pretty decent rate on it.
The really sad and pathetic thing is that while our house back here is about 3x the size of our house in CA and about 40 years newer, we owe more on the house in CA.... and we overpaid for this house.
My first house was 82k, plus I got over 10k back at closing because my Dad was my broker and we got money from the seller to make repairs. I had to put 3% down because we went FHA. It was a 3/2 with 1500 square feet and our payments with taxes and insurance = $683.
I've owned many more properties since then, but real estate is what I do. We buy cheap investment condos now instead of "flipping" - it's so much easier!
If you don't feel ready, don't do it. It is a huge responsibility and it's expensive to keep up with a house. Having to replace a roof or HVAC system is so expensive, you need to make sure you have a very healthy emergency fund.
DH and I bought our house 4 years ago so things were different then they are now. We'd been married 1.5 year and knew we wanted a house before we had a baby.
We got a great deal on a For Sale By Owner home and our loan was low intrest rate with 0% down. We couldn't pass it up and I'm so glad we did!
It's not a big house but has 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms so plenty of room for now. I don't know that we'll live here forever, but no plans to move in the near future.
We also have 2 acres with woods arounds us so lots of privacy and room for DD to play.
ETA: We were both 28.
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Yeah, but think about it. Say you wait 3-4 years and save a bunch of money for a downpayment. You have to work hard, cut back on things, etc to save that money. When you get a home in a good price now, you don't have to do anything to save money besides pay your mortgage. When you go to get a larger house, you will have money that you made in selling your smaller house that you did nothing besides live in, and all the extra money that you would have worked hard to save from your paycheck every week will be in your pocket.
We save money on our taxes by owning. Also, we made $60k in 2 1/2 years without having to do anything besides owning our home. If we were going to try to save $60k in a savings account just by saving money out of our paychecks every week, that would take a really, really, really long time.
I'd just buy now even if it's not exactly what you want, make sure you get a good deal (houses in foreclosure are almost always a huge bargain), and sit on it until the market turns. You can make tens of thousands of dollars without doing a thing. You're not making a penny by renting.
This is our story too. We bought our town house and thought we would get in and sell in two years and make some money and buy a single family home. Unfortunately we are stuck in our place for hopfully only a few more years.
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We got our first house, its a townhouse, in the fall of 2006. We were both 25.
We closed on our house and got engaged the same weekend (in our house) and got married a year later. Neither of us rented first, however, I do not regret buying a house. The only thing I do regret, but its not like we had control, is if we would have waited less then a year, we would have gotten a much better deal, because of the housing market issues that happened.
Anway, since were in a townhouse, we are not responsible for any sort of outside maintance, roof issues, siding issues, not our problem. Its all covered by our association dues.
We aren't in our forever home, we had plans of being here about 5 years, but we don't really want to go anywhere, just yet, we'd loose out the wa-zoo if we did, and we have no reason to go anywhere. Once we do move, it won't be far, we love the location of where we are.
We bought in May 2007. We will never buy again, because it's not worth all the hassle IMO. We're going to rent this house (condo) out when we move and keep it in hopes of using the rent as supplemental retirement income after the mortgage is paid off in ~25 years.
We were both 24 when we bought.
In this market buying is easy, but selling is a biitch. I would not buy unless you know you plan to stay there for a long time. If you'll eventually need a bigger place than what you can afford now, I'd keep renting.
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I can't go back to yesterday - because I was a different person then. ~ Alice
I guess this is what I am afraid of.
I have two sisters where buying a house has shot them in the foot. One bought in 2004 and the other 2002 our prices have tanked so much that they cant make enough profit off their houses to move and their small houses aren't cutting it so they're stuck. Granted DH and I pay more in rent than either of them do on their mortgage.
Right now we're living in PA and renting out our house in TX. Ugh. Fail.
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We bought our house in Nov (2010)-DH and I were both 25. This is definitely our "forever" home. It was a foreclosure, so we got an AMAZING deal. It's a 3 bedroom, 2.5 bath house in a great neighborhood. We love it and have no plans to ever move.
Interest rates back then were between 6.5 and 7%, property value has gone way down and you are still paying more in rent than they do on their mortgage...I say buy if you are in the same area. Interest rates are so low.
I have no idea what you are paying in rent, but your principal and interest would be around $1600 if you bought a 300k house. I have no idea what taxes and insurance would be in your area but I'm guessing it would make your mortgage payment around 2k per month. If you are looking at townhouses you have to figure in the monthly fees, here that can range anywhere from $150 - 400 per month (including insurance on the structure only, not your belongings).
A 3/2 1700 square foot house rents for $1200 a month in my very LCOL area.