I am impressed by the amount of people who own their own homes(M)

May I asked how you afforded your own home? I am so jealous and I want hubby & I to be home owners as well. However, with the economy the way it is, we are finding it hard to save money for a down payment. Congratulations to those that have been able to buy!!

Re: I am impressed by the amount of people who own their own homes(M)

It is not easy to buy a home. I think it really depends on if you live at home, both work full time and who is paying for your wedding. Honestly when I purchased my condo I did so without help from Scott, he was my boyfriend at the time. But we used the money from the condo sale to purchase our home. It would have taken us a long time to save up that much money for a down payment. You can also look into low-cost downpayment mortagages.

Re: I am impressed by the amount of people who own their own homes(M)

It was basically the same for us. DH was in the process of buying a condo when we met. We sold the condo and used the profit to buy a house in Selden (in Suffolk) which was more affordable. We stayed there for two years, sold and used that profit to move to Merrick (Nassau). Without those properties and being able to make a profit on both I do not think we would be in Nassau yet at all.

Re: I am impressed by the amount of people who own their own homes(M)

Hubby bought the house 2 years before we got married, so he got in at a good price, when the prices of houses were lower than what they are now.

Re: I am impressed by the amount of people who own their own homes(M)

Moved to Texas!

Re: I am impressed by the amount of people who own their own homes(M)

I really have to thank my mom for teaching us to save money.
I lived 'at home' with my parents until I was married, and was able to save a decent amount of money. When I met DH, he was more of a spender and me the saver, and I taught him to change those ways, and he saved more and spent less as we dated.
That's basically IT in a nutshell. As I saved, since my teen years, I thought 'what a dope I am, saving money, whats the point?' Although I listened to the 'put it in the bank' tactics that my mom advised us, I never saw the point. (At 17, a home and a wedding was the furthest thing from my mind!) I still went out to clubs, bought new clothes every weekend to go out, and had a blast, but I managed my dollars here and there
and now years later I thanked my lucky stars that I continued those habits. I hope I can pass the same habits on to my kids.

IT really is hard to beleive how expensive things are and how much it costs just to 'survive' nowadays.

Good luck to you !

Re: I am impressed by the amount of people who own their own homes(M)

Iloveweddings - The down payment is really the only barrier. For most of us, our mortgage payments are the same as what we paid in rent. So the rules of saving in general apply here. Pack lunch, go out to eat less often, control spending on clothing, take modest vacations, etc. Also, very few people actually put 20% down as a down payment. I put 15%, and have heard of plenty of people doing much less. With a good mortgage broker you can even avoid PMI.

Re: I am impressed by the amount of people who own their own homes(M)

It is really hard. I know DH and I saved a lot of money for many years. We are very fortunate that both have good, stable careers and both work full time. We work and save and don't spend crazy money on silly and what we think are unecessary things while still trying to maintain a fun and satisfying life. I do feel fortunate to be able to be buying this house so soon after paying for our own wedding.

I do think little things that helped us were - we moved in together a year before the wedding (therefore not paying 2 city priced rents). We lived in our apartments with our hand-me town furniture and nothing too fancy or special. We take reasonable priced vacations. I don't love shopping so DH says he is fortunate - I also usually only buy things like clothes and shoes on sale and am not a brand name shopper (although I do shop for quality). I cook most of the week even when I get home late from work - don't spend lots of money on takeout/dining out at least during the week. Also, I never put more on my credit card than I can afford to pay off in a month. Neither of us run up credit cards even if we have to do without.

Good Luck and your time will come!!

Re: I am impressed by the amount of people who own their own homes(M)

To further what Valenia said we did a 80/15/5 mortgage which means only 5% down. We don't pay PMI, have an interest rate of 4.5% and our monthly payments are less that what our rent was and that includes homeowners insurance and taxes rolled in. So just do some research and get a good mortgage broker. Its all about creative financing!

Re: I am impressed by the amount of people who own their own homes(M)

DH owned two apartments in England that he bought 9 years ago. He sold one before the wedding and that was what we used for the downpayment. My parents paid for 50% of the wedding and my brothers paid about 25% and the 25% that we spent, we actually made back.
My parents paid our closing costs as our wedding gift to us which was unbelieveably generous.

There's no way we could have gotten this house without the help we got from them. Even though the sale of the flat generated enough for a downpayment it's much more comforting to know that there's money in the bank 'just in case'

Re: I am impressed by the amount of people who own their own homes(M)

I was lucky, my husband had the house before we married and we lived together the year prior. The deal was that I paid for the phone and the food shopping and put money away for the wedding and he paid for the house bills. Also that is why we got married in January, we got the best bang for our buck. Since there aren't many weddings during that month most of the vendors had great prices and packages to entice us. So that helped a lot as well. It isn't a big house, and when we have children it will be too small, but it's ours!!!!!

Anyone here from Islip area???

Re: I am impressed by the amount of people who own their own homes(M)

Years of savings, being frugal and good investments (stock market buying and selling). Both hubby and I also bought when the market was good, although we didn't think so at the time (june 2000). We weren't even engaged when we bought our house. But our investment has paid off. We were able to put down 1/3 of the cost and that way our mortgage payments aren't too bad. And in the 2 yearas we bought the house, we also saved enough to pay for our own wedding. It's a pattern we got into and it has its benefits.

Good Luck.

Re: I am impressed by the amount of people who own their own homes(M)

Trish, your story sounds alot like mine !
We also put down that much and we are adamant about not adding any more debt outside of the mortgage. DH is the investment/stock market guru, I am not big on that, so he takes care of that end (and he has made some good investment decisions!)
We also bought in 2000 and thought the market was outrageous then (who would have known how much worse it would get!)
Got engaged, Wedding, honeymoon, and car (I never had one and moved here from Queens, so it was a necessity to get around!) AND I quit my job because I didnt want to commute, all in 5 months time. Talk about life-changing culture shock!

Thats why when people ask how the adjustment to motherhood is, I really feel that my adjustment to suburbia was tougher than motherhood. Maybe its because JA is a great baby, maybe its because Im a city girl at heart !

Ok, where is this tangent going ??

Re: I am impressed by the amount of people who own their own homes(M)

-We both lived at home until we got married so neither of us had rents worth mentioning until the big day.

-We lived in an apartment we hated for the first year and a half of our marriage because it was relatively cheap and we wanted to save.

-We have one h*ll of a mortgage.

It’s tough sometimes but it’s worth it!

Re: I am impressed by the amount of people who own their own homes(M)

Well first I sold my left arm since I am right handed and we both decided I really did not need it jokes just jokes


For us DH is former military so we were able to use the VA loan which dropped our downpayment CONSIDERABLE. The builder we are going through is covering most of our closing cost so that helped us alot there.

You should definately look into those 80/20 mortgages. I have a few friends that did them and they are so worth it. PMI ****s.

Re: I am impressed by the amount of people who own their own homes(M)

I live in Brooklyn and have NO IDEA how anyone could afford a home right now. I bought a few yrs ago and the property in my neighborhood has doubled in price in just that short period of time.

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I hear you stef. My best friend her home appraised at 1mil. I said girl my head hurts from that price. How do people buy a house in Brookly these days...

Re: I am impressed by the amount of people who own their own homes(M)

Save, save & save.

Re: I am impressed by the amount of people who own their own homes(M)

Similar experiences as most of the girls on here. We have a bigger mortgage because we only put 10% down (we avoided PMI though), but our salaries could afford it. The real dilemma that someone mentioned is the down payment. I have to say that we didn't buy in our 'dream' area, but I'm happy now and know that we'll move up, plus we did buy in a desirable area, which is always a plus, and we bought a house that needed work, since my father and husband are extremely handy.
We were also lucky ... my parents paid half our wedding and we got back pretty much the cost of the wedding. I was actually surprised that we bought so soon after. I think you'll be surprised what you can do, especially with rates so low. The market is stabilizing somewhat now too. But don't get hung up on actually buying a house - when you can, you will and it will be a wonderful experience. Good luck to you!

Re: I am impressed by the amount of people who own their own homes(M)

Unless you already own something to sell, I would think this is the absolute worst time to buy. The market is very inflated and the underlying economy can not support that for very long. Thats just my opinion.

At this point we could sell our house and upgrade to something nicer but I am very much worried about carrying a huge mortage for the next 20-30 years. You never know what tomorrow will bring and I dont like to worry about making the bills - so we will probably stay right where we are unless we find a really incredible deal.