I have a little rant, I am sure everyone will agree!

Original post by AlliNMatt06

Apr 10, 2006 12:18 AM

So, since it has been so nice for the past two weekends, FH and I have been going house hunting. We both finally have pretty good jobs, so I thought we could at least look. Well, we started driving around and only stopping at houses that looked some what affordable. You can usually tell by looking at the house that it is out of our price range.
So, we go in to some houses, some nice some not so nice. Houses that should literally not be worth more then $350,000, some not even worth $150,000. They want $609, $499, $545. How can we afford this!!!!!!!!!!!
Every where you look there is a house for sale. Houses that used to be affordable. The real estate agents seem desperate to sell. Half of the people that own these houses have already moved and are now probably paying two morgtages. They just are not able to sell their homes. No, family is going to buy these houses. The ones that are going to buy these houses are newlyweds, though most Newley weds can't afford them. It is just so frustrating!!

My mom told me the real estate agent from one of the houses called my house, desperate to talk to me. The house was beautiful, but not $609,000 beautiful!!! Okay, that is the end of my Rant!!

SummerBride06 Posted: Apr 10, 2006 10:35 AM

Re: I have a little rant, I am sure everyone will agree!

what's sad is that people actually ARE buying these houses! some of them are so gross, but people buy. a few houses i looked at are sold...don't ask me how!

Blu-ize Posted: Apr 10, 2006 10:37 AM

Re: I have a little rant, I am sure everyone will agree!

Posted by MrsC2b

its very sad...my fiance and i are buying a starter house at a very very cheap price...from a friend we will probably only keep it for a year then sell it... b/c its not our dream house and we are probably going to head to florida.. =(

If you're only going to keep it for 1 year, I would just rent. The transaction fees are too high for that short of a stay.

sarahradio5 Posted: Apr 10, 2006 10:37 AM

Re: I have a little rant, I am sure everyone will agree!

Posted by ali120206

Posted by dleeny

Posted by sarahradio5

You should look into Town Houses. My FH and I bought one last November, and we are IN LOVE with it! It has everything we need... even a basement and a back deck! And the community has 3 pools and gym! We were thinking 'house' - until we found this and FELL IN LOVE. MUCH more doable than a house!
townhouses aren't much cheaper than houses. at least not the one's we've looked at.

and when you add the common fees, we would have ended up paying even more on a townhouse in the longrun.

We found the same thing! The complex we were looking at too just had a huge increase in their common fees and there's nothing the residents can do about it! We decided to rent something below our means and save for awhile and revisit next year. The prices of homes have been coming down somewhat (not substantially but, somewhat).

Our common fees are only 177/month (and we never have to mow the lawn or shovel snow... and that covers the pool/gym membership). Owning our Town House cost us just a bit more than renting some of the nice apartments we looked at... well worth it to us! And we have something to sell in about 7 years to go bigger (although we may consider staying longer than that... we really love our TH)

I have seen some TH's that are out of CONTROL with their prices and common charges, but ours are pretty fair and we get a lot of bang for our buck. Just something to consider...

DandS Posted: Apr 10, 2006 10:38 AM

Re: I have a little rant, I am sure everyone will agree!

I hear you all!!! FH & I bought our house in October and thank goodness we got it for sale by owner and we knew the owner (through FH's friend from work who lives across the street). That saved us at least $70K. FH & I were shopping around for houses for the past 2 1/2 years before we found our house. Don't worry ladies, you will find the perfect house! Just be patient and it will happen. Like I said FH & I waited 2 1/2 years and did not settle for anything we were not happy with. My brother also was looking for houses for awhile and was going to give up and rent for awhile, but one day was driving to Home Depot and spotted an open house, stopped, fell in love with the house, excellent price, and is now a very happy homeowner.

Good Luck ladies!!!! Keep looking and don't settle for anything you are not 100% happy with.

Mrs. dleeny Posted: Apr 10, 2006 10:40 AM

Re: I have a little rant, I am sure everyone will agree!

Posted by sarahradio5

Posted by ali120206

Posted by dleeny

Posted by sarahradio5

You should look into Town Houses. My FH and I bought one last November, and we are IN LOVE with it! It has everything we need... even a basement and a back deck! And the community has 3 pools and gym! We were thinking 'house' - until we found this and FELL IN LOVE. MUCH more doable than a house!
townhouses aren't much cheaper than houses. at least not the one's we've looked at.

and when you add the common fees, we would have ended up paying even more on a townhouse in the longrun.

We found the same thing! The complex we were looking at too just had a huge increase in their common fees and there's nothing the residents can do about it! We decided to rent something below our means and save for awhile and revisit next year. The prices of homes have been coming down somewhat (not substantially but, somewhat).

Our common fees are only 177/month (and we never have to mow the lawn or shovel snow... and that covers the pool/gym membership). Owning our Town House cost us just a bit more than renting some of the nice apartments we looked at... well worth it to us! And we have something to sell in about 7 years to go bigger (although we may consider staying longer than that... we really love our TH)

I have seen some TH's that are out of CONTROL with their prices and common charges, but ours are pretty fair and we get a lot of bang for our buck. Just something to consider...

wow! those common fees are very reasonable. where is your townhouse?

sarahradio5 Posted: Apr 10, 2006 10:45 AM

Re: I have a little rant, I am sure everyone will agree!

We're in Central Islip... just north of Citibank Park (where the Ducks play). Our community is very nice and safe... I was initially concerned about the area to the north, but my father made sure he did some investigative work to make sure where we live is safe, and he gave it his blessing. (He's a former sergeant, so if he says it's safe, it must be safe!). Plus, they're building all around us (Home Depot/Target - wahoo - more Town Houses to our south) so it keeps getting better. Really... it's a great option to moving out of LI, which I REALLY didn't want to do! And I can't wait for the pools to open up this summer!

Have I mentioned we're very happy there?

SeptBride70 Posted: Apr 10, 2006 10:57 AM

Re: I have a little rant, I am sure everyone will agree!

Posted by sarahradio5

You should look into Town Houses. My FH and I bought one last November, and we are IN LOVE with it! It has everything we need... even a basement and a back deck! And the community has 3 pools and gym! We were thinking 'house' - until we found this and FELL IN LOVE. MUCH more doable than a house!

i completely agree, i actually prefer a TH over a house to start off with b/c it's less work... and much easier to afford in most cases...

FSIL is practically killing herself and my FIL's are helping her pay her bills so she can afford a two bedroom, 1 bathroom ranch in commack with original everything-- it's a shame when my sister bought a TH and paid over 110,000 dollars less than she did and it's over 20 years newer, more than 3x the size of her place and in just as nice of an area... but FIL's wanted FSIL in a 'house'...

i want a house too of course once we have kids, who doesn't? but that's a few years down the road so we'll take a TH for now and they are always easy to sell b/c they are very popular with younger people starting out, single people who dont want to be bothered, and older people who can't do the maintanence... i always tell FH that we'll start in a condo and end in a condo!! LOL

so it's def tuff out there and i hear ya but give the condo lifestyle a chance-- you'll save on your taxes a bit too! HTH and no matter what, I'm sure you'll find something or it will work out in some way if you just keep trying and looking!!!

SeptBride70 Posted: Apr 10, 2006 11:03 AM

Re: I have a little rant, I am sure everyone will agree!

-- i just read about the common charges and i def hear you guys on that but with the money that some of my friend's are paying to have the lawn done and then when they have to shovel (not to mention that covers any and all maintanence to the outside of the condo and your water bill)-- when you compare it, as long as the charges are reasonable, it's usually a savings... and the taxes are usually less too...

my sister is in Smithtown and I've seen similar ones like my sister's in Commack, Hauppauge, Mt Sinai, East Setauket, and Miller Place (these are the places my FH and I have been looking for a condo and I've been doing a lot of research on the expenses, school ratings, taxes, etc... SO much research so I'm firmiliar with this stuff)...

just something to think about as an alternative b/c the housing market is hard to deal with!