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September 2011 Moms
Buy a house or no?
DH and I are (hopefully) moving to Denver in the next 6 months, and we have enough money to buy (currently renting). Other than visits and the advice of a friend or two in the area, we will be new to the city.
So on the one hand, it sounds nice to be settled from the beginning with a house, especially with a LO on the way. On the other hand, I've never bought a house before, and it sounds hard enough without doing it across states while moving jobs.
Has anyone been in this situation? Is it smarter to rent for a year or so and look for houses, expecting to maybe lose some money by backing out of a lease early? Or is it better to just move in ASAP and get started in a house?
I'd love your two cents.
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Re: Buy a house or no?
I would definitely rent for a little while before purchasing. You want to make sure you really know the different neighborhoods and take your time to find the right house and community. Visiting and friends opinions are MUCH different from the knowledge you gain from living there.
Good luck! That is very exciting.
ETA: You could always put most of your stuff in storage and rent a furnished home so you don't have to move everything in and then 6 months later move it all out....
We are waiting for my husband to get tenure to get a house
If I were you, I would wait and see. If Denver is a totally new place for you, I would go, check it out, find out where the good schools/neighborhoods/grocery stores are, and THEN take the leap. Scope it out first!
I think you're right. I would hate to think that after a year or so in a house, I might say, "If I was going to buy now, I'd rather buy in ____________." I think I am just so tired of renting. It just hasn't been the right time to buy, and I'm wanting the benefits of home ownership at this point. I'm going to need to be talked off of the ledge!
I have never paid rent so I can't help you out there...When I got my job after graduating from collage with my Bachelors I bough my house... I just really can't see the value in paying someones mortgage rather than just paying my own and building up my own equity.
Say you rent a place, are you going to want to move into a house after LO is here? personally I wouldn't want to have to pack to move twice.
Buying a house is a huge stress factor! I would definitely recommend renting for a little while before buying. Only so you can get settled and really take your time getting to know the areas around you and then determine where you would like to buy and live. Its a very exciting time but I honestly couldnt imagine having to move change jobs and worry about closing on a house. It would just stress me out way to much!
Enjoy though, it will be such an exciting time for you and your family!
because in some cases, it makes no sense to buy.
We were in a similar situation about bought right away. We don't regret it at all, though obviously it may not work out so well for everyone.
We knew people in the area, including a Realtor, and that was a HUGE help b/c we knew she was looking out for our best interests. We also lived close enough that we were able to come and do the house-hunting ourselves over a few weekends. We were able to find the perfect house pretty much right away and had no problem moving in and getting settled before DS was born, which was a huge relief because I definitely didn't want to move twice (once while pg, once with a newborn), nor did we want to "throw money away" by renting a storage unit for our extra stuff or by renting moving trucks twice.
Thanks for offering! Based on our price range and what we're looking for, we've narrowed ourselves down to a few suburbs. But I'm sure each suburb has "the nice area," "the new area," "the sketchy area" etc. which I think is harder to know if you don't spend a few months in the area. I've done school research too using greatschools.net and asking friends. So I feel like we have a basic handle on the lay of the land.
I am mentally filing away this offer and will be taking you up on it soon!
Home ownership comes with a lot of negative things too like repairs, appliances, leaks, roof, a/c problems, etc. So just take your time and enjoy being able to call your landlord when anything breaks, while you can. 6 months to a year will go by really quick and it will be much easier to house hunt and go through the mortgage process once you are local.
She speaks the truth.
I totally agree with this. Plus, since this is your first child, I've found that a lot of my friends who bought their house pre-baby (we bought ours when DD was 15 months) wished they would have weighed factors differently when buying a house - once you have a little one here and see all of their stuff it makes you think different about the set-up of a house.
i know exactly what you mean about the different areas of each suburb. especially aurora if that is on your list. it's HUGE and there are definitely areas I wouldn't want to live. haha. but yeah, let me know if you have any questions.
If you make an uniformed investment in a house, you could be paying on your mortgage but not actually building equity. Also, you have to consider the money you would need to spend for repairs and such vs. having a landlord do it.
I am a homeowner, but I realize that sometimes it makes better financial sense to rent, and I think this is one of those cases. You wouldn't want to get stuck in a house or neighborhood you don't love.
We moved to Denver last year and decided to rent. We are still renting and thinking about buying in the next year. I would rent until you know where you want to be, know what school system you want, etc.
Let me know when you move! I'd be happy to meet up with our LOs!
I am so jealous that you are already there! I couldn't be more ready to high tail it out of here. That would be awesome to meet up! Mentally filing this away for later . . .
We'll always remember our angel baby: BFP 9/24/10, M/C 10/23/10 8w4d
I agree with THIS! Never rent if you can afford to buy! You can always sell the house in a year and move, but you will take your money (equity) with you to the next house. Or keep the house as a rental and buy another. We (my husband, really, but we're married!) own a lot of rental properties around our city and LOVE our tennants for paying down our mortgages for us! Get an agent to recommend areas that have kept up their value, have high property tax or whatnot to guarantee it will be easy to sell down the road.
Elizabeth
Elizabeth
um, no, no you can't. not in this market. i know. i have a property in denver that our tennant isn't even covering all our costs with the rent they pay. sure, they are paying our mortgage down, but it's not something I would recommend doing. the market is saturated with people trying to sell their homes cheaply just to get rid of them and people giving ridiculously low rent prices just to have money coming in. You can't build that much equity in a year with that much competition for homes for sale.
"Never rent if you can afford to buy" is terrible advice in today's market, I'm sorry.
Absolutely. For kicks DH checked out some listings the other day (we are considering buying a rental property to hold on to until the market improves) and you can get houses under 30k here. Granted they are older than my house and probably need 5k+ in repairs/upgrades, but there is no way in hell we could sell our house right now and break even let alone profit from it.
I'm sorry Elizabeth but I totally DISAGREE with this! It is a buyers market right now but NOT a seller's. After only a year of owning a home, you will not have built up much equity at all. We live in Denver and still own a place in Boston that we bought in 2007. We paid rent in Denver and our mortgage in Boston all last year before we took it off the market and got a renter in our Boston place. The rent only makes up about 70% of our mortgage payment. It has been such a money drain. If you buy a place you really need to be there for a few years for it to be worth it in this market. In the past obviously if your place appreciated in value that quickly, like in a year, it would be no problem- but not in this economy.
Yah, Like I said before we have been wanting to get sell our house and it just isn't going to happen. The market is so bad we would have to pay about $30,000 of our own money just brake even. Not worth it.
RE the first bolded, if you plan to buy in this market you better plan to be there at least 5 years. Otherwise you will more than likely take a loss on your house, which just sets you back financially. Buying and selling after only a year is a terrible idea right now.
RE the second bolded, we're house hunting right now and high property tax makes a house less appealing to us. We have two houses on our list to check out right now that are similarly priced, similar sq. footage, and in the same general area of town (a tiny, tiny town, LOL). One house has TWO TIMES the property tax of the other. There's no reason for that if the houses are in the same neighborhood, and even if we love the second house we'll probably have to pass on it because the taxes are absolutely ridiculous.
DD1 Feb 2010
DD2 Sept 2011
OP, we were in a similar situation last year. We moved from the West Coast back to the Midwest when DD was about 3ish months old. We chose to rent for a year and are currently looking to buy (we've been here about 9 months, hope to buy just before our 12 month lease is up). In our opinion, it makes more sense to rent for a while, get a feel for the area and what kind/how much house you can get for your money in that area. So, my advice would be rent for a year, make sure you have all your ducks in a row and learn about the area. And when you are ready to buy, make sure you get a great realtor who will work for and with you, and who will be a great resource for information on which areas to buy in, especially in a city the size of Denver.
And the point a PP made about what you want in a house being different after having a baby is so right. Now that DD is almost 13 months and number 2 is on the way, I want very different things in a house than I did when we were young and childless!
DD1 Feb 2010
DD2 Sept 2011
I didn't mean a house with high taxes, I meant an area that, on average, had higher taxes. LIke a nice area, like around a big city there are some nicer suburbs than others. Just an idea.
Of course!! If you have two houses close together and you like them both, pick the one with the lower taxes. I'm not that dumb
I knew my answer wasn't that popular, but I didn't mean to ruffle feathers. I'm an educated person and it was just my opinion, I don't think it warranted sarcasm and condescending tones which it received.
I'm married to an experienced real estate investor. Over the years he's made me a believer. I strongly believe that owning real estate is more profitable than renting. We own 8 properties. He manages all of them himself and makes decisions regarding refinancing, buying, selling, renting and maybe it's because it's his passion....he's been very successful. (I've been a SAHM for 6+ years and we're sending at least 4 kids to Catholic schools) He also maintains his full time job and is a dedicated father and husband. Because of this experience, it's my opinion that it's possible for a couple to own and make money from a single property.
I should probably go kiss my husband for what he's done for our family. Maybe what he does is much harder than it appears!
Elizabeth