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First home: Age 28. Sold it at break even six years later.
Second home: Age 36. 250k, income was 79k. I'm still living in it, but it's even in this crisis it has doubled in value in the last 7 years, so I have considerable equity. Paper money, but respectable. I got lucky.
atlast....
dvroberts81 wrote:
WhirledPeasPlease , I think that would be my biggest concern. Having just enough money in my bank account for a downpayment/approval. I am afraid I won't be able to resist and then I will be broke, on the other hand throwing away $1200 on rent is just as bad.
Sorry I just saw this post --
Getting into a house is a great motivator for keeping your finances in tip-top shape. You just have to constantly ask yourself if immediate gratification is more important than having a permanent roof over your head that belongs to YOU!
My bank acct has been drained slowly but surely over the past few months, but I have a breaking point that I will NOT go under. At this point I'd rather pay a bit of interest and have my cushion in cash, versus throwing it at a credit card and losing the safety net -- and possibly losing the CL and then where would I be???
Before I bought my first house, my roommate and I were paying 1k per month in rent. It was in a great location, but having my own home (and privacy) meant more to me than living in the fun part of town. (This was in Broad Ripple/Meridian-Kessler for any Indy folks out there.)
Any sacrifices I've made have been well worth it -- I liked my first house, but I love my second house. I'll be happy to live here for a very long time.
Good luck and stick to your goals!
I am 28 and hope to buy my first home in April or May of 09, when I will still be 28. I will be going FHA so that I can take advantage of the current market.
I know it would be safer to wait until I have a 20% down payment, but I also know that will take me about 15-18 months to get there, and considering I could only do it by keeping my second job that amount of time and continuing to live with my father, not going to happen.
I wouldn't say I had credit issues, since I had/have no derogs on my CRA's whatsoever, but I did have almost $29K in credit card debt, which is how I know exactly how long it would take me to save 20%.
And I'm perfectly okay with buying a smaller, less expensive home now, waiting however long it takes for the market to start improving, and then selling it for a down payment on a bigger house.
24 Years old. Bought an 1840 4200 square foot victorian 3 story this august, and the heating is killing me. LOL. If any of you live in the northern states, be cautious of huge old homes with little insulation, they may look grand, but can run you a grand a month just to heat it in the winter. Last week put in 380 gallons of Fuel Oil, 1 month and 1 week since last fill up. Thats what, almost 8 gallons a day!?!
-Justin
When my wife and I bought our current condo in 2002 it was our first real estate purchase and I was 41 at the time. We both have doctorates (we met in graduate school) and after getting our degrees went to Yale Medical School for postdoctoral training, so we were in our late 30s by the time we'd paid off student loans and begun saving for the downpayment. We could have bought several years before we did, but we considered low-downpayment loans too scary: we had friends who got hit hard by the 1980s housing downturn so we knew prices could go down as well as up! So we stayed in a small rental until we had enough saved to be sure of having equity in the place from the get-go, we emphatically did not want ever to be upside-down.
I bought my first home when I was 21. I married in 2005 and now we are hoping to purchase our 2nd home this year (I'm 25 now) and rent out our first home.
What a great thread.
I waited a long time because I kept thinking I might not be in Kansas City very long, but then 6 years after college I realized I was just saying that to avoid buying a house. So I found a nice foreclosure that I could get into cheaper than all the other houses in the neighborhood and started spending all my money on it!
Renting is not always so bad. Houses can be money pits, so make sure you save over and above that down payment and closing costs!
That was 3 years ago when I was 28.
Bought in 1986, son age 5, I was 26, dh 27. Paid $72,000 put down 10% + paid closing costs. Not bad for two kids who were earning $4.50 an hour p/t for me and him earning around $30k. We also had a new auto and no gift money from parents.
We're getting ready to sell our 2nd home which we built. Housing values are still good in our area. $320k for 2850 sq ft.