Sorry about the dearth of posts lately. My landlord just told us he would not renew our lease this summer so we've been scrambling to find our new home.
Yes, I have been looking at homes to buy but before anyone calls me a hypocrite, bear in mind two things. One, my wife has a say in where we live. And two, we haven't bought anything yet!!!
She is sick of moving and so am I. It will be my fourth move in six years.
If it were completely up to me, I'd have already signed a lease on a nice beach house that I found in Quincy (view pictured above)...
Speaking of the beach, I am about to jump on a plane to Florida so my blog hiatus isn't over. Maybe I will go back to Tramonti; that post has actually directed a ton of traffic to my blog.
Of course I have a post almost ready to publish, titled Marginalizing My Landlord.
4 comments:
Looking forward to it!
What has to happen to the real estate market for you to feel like it's safe to buy?
It's not safe to buy. It's going much lower. It's only safe if a first time buyer can handle the imminent depreciation (20-30%) for their particular purchase.
I haven't bought or bidded for anything. I am just taking this opportunity to research the local market.
There are already distressed sellers out there. There is a new house down the road from me, half-built. It's been that way for almost a year; it has to be a foreclosure. Also, yesterday I looked at a house in Canton. The owner has been trying to sell it for 750k for months now, even though he only paid 670k for it at the absolute peak (July 2004). There's no interest in his house at 750k so he dropped it this week to 719k. Meanwhile the broker told me he would take a bid as low as his original 670k purchase price.
The guy was an absolute pig and it has cost him. Everyone with a clue can see from zillow.com what he paid for it (and he made no improvements either). Now he is about to close on a new house he had built in Walpole and is faced with the prospect of two mortgages. Even though it's listed where it is, it could very easily trade in near 600k by this summer.
The disaster is still in the early innings. I will wait for that lob over the middle of the plate.
why buy when you can rent? A house and mortgage would drain one's time and capital (of course, I am not talking about the super rich). Between the interest on mortgage and the expected rate of appreciation of a house, one would be lucky just to keep up with the rate of inflation. The opportunity cost is huge. What is the rationale for owning a house? Its not based on NPV analysis, that's for sure.
Sure he would take his original (top of the market) price and run.
But the "top" is passed and the question is what is the current % decline?? Reminds me of the 87 situation. It took 10 years to get back to the "top" price.
Makes me nervous to contemplate the seller's condition. mom
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