Thoughts on using bonus to buy a house?
22 second tear analyst and I’m wondering, if I’m in a LCOL area (Texas) should I save my bonus for the next 2-3 years and use it as a down payment on a house?
For those who bought a house already, when did you feel you made enough to put down on the downpayment?
This is just my starter home to jumpstart my real estate investing and will hopefully get my dream home when married
Absolute horse shit.
I'd focus more on keeping your fixed monthly costs low, including a mortgage. Don't be house poor. If you have enough of a downpayment to keep your monthly mortgage lower than rent, it starts to make sense. You can run a little model about break points to where it does/does not make financial sense. TX is going to keep growing so most larger markets there should do well in the mid-term.
currently live at home
What price range are you looking at - 300s?
400s
Sounds great, good luck! I’m in Houston and would like to go down this path. I think SFH makes more sense than townhome / condo from a property appreciation and HOA fees point of view.
Property taxes and managing utilities by myself are a bit intimidating and give me pause though.
Have you looked into duplexes at all? House hacking seems intriguing where you can put less money down via FHA and someone will help cover the mortgage via rent. Obviously trying to be a landlord as an analyst seems tough so would really, really need to vet the tenant prior to move-in
Interested if anyone has any thoughts about buying in NYC in early 20s? (For example, buying a ~$500k 1 BR w/ $100k downpayment).
Wouldn’t be a lifelong place, but maybe as a starter home for 5ish years before selling and upgrading?
Haven’t done any math or anything, but would this be worthwhile or stupid?
i don’t advise
Beware of maintenance fees in NYC. If anything somewhat desirable in or anywhere near Manhattan is ~$500k, it probably has outsized amenities fees. I've seen places listed for $200k that have ~8k monthlies.
How would you go about thinking about the monthly fees? Discount them in perpetuity then add to purchase price?
Stupid. Any time you are thinking of buying a "starter home" it's a bad idea.
It depends, I’ve certainly seen people do well by “house hacking”. But, that’s viewing the home as an investment as opposed to consumption and is predicated on finding something where that pencils and either buying a duplex/triplex/quadplex or having roommates.
No, absolutely not, horrible idea. Save your money.
I thought about this for London and it didn't really make too much sense (worth doing numbers for Tex). Interest on mortgage costs at current rates would be more than my current rent payments and was not confident Ldn property prices would appreciate enough (with leverage) to beat equity returns. Obviously depends on your market but Ldn real estate has kind of stagnated recently and the levered risk of even a 5% decrease didn't seem worth it, not to mention stress/hassle of owning a property making it difficult to move etc + taxes and maintenance costs. I'm also not sure if I'll stay in Ldn long term which was a factor
This sentence alone makes it pretty clear you shouldn't be putting your money into a house. You don't understand what you're doing.
Buying a home in which you live is not "real estate investing". It certainly isn't a smart investment when you already plan on moving in the short to medium term. There are tons of costs involved with purchasing or selling a home; buying a "starter home" knowing that you'll be leaving is really, really silly. The odds are pretty good that most of the money you'd make will be eaten up by various fees and commissions. Moreover, assuming you'll fix out a mortgage, most of your early payments are just interest, so you won't even build much home equity.
Ozy and I almost never agree but on this topic he's by far given the best answer you're going to get here. You're not ready to buy a house. Just rent dude. Put your money in a low cost index/blue chip names and wait, your time will come.
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