The current housing market in a nutshellSubmitted by LopsidedWafer3269 t3_10cyrrv in massachusetts
redheelermama t1_j4ivnrg wrote
It sucks soo bad. Current options are to keep paying almost 3k in rent a month, or buy a seriously over inflated in price, also at like 8% interest. I’m having fun, are you having fun?
givingup3579 t1_j4iw03b wrote
It's insanely depressing.
BoOo0oo0o t1_j4rxy3x wrote
I know you're probably saying that mostly in jest but its seriously crushing my mental health its fucking awful
givingup3579 t1_j4ry5kg wrote
I completely understand. Same here. It's devastating
Try_Bofa t1_j4j663g wrote
My SO and I are in the same exact situation. Both struggling to save between rent, student loans, utilities, and everything else...
Not sure how the fuck we are supposed to save up 30 grand to put down on a house. Just feels so fucking impossible
TheJessicator t1_j4ka7n1 wrote
Not to mention that with just 30k down, that puts you within reach of purchasing a property worth 150k, since anything less than 20% forces you into extra PMI payments, which also slows down your loan processing, which delays the closing more than just securing financing. And then there's the reality that most places you put in an offer on, if someone offers the same amount with cash, the seller will almost always go with that due to not having the sale having to be contingent on securing financing at all.
It truly is unfair at every turn.
SheenPSU t1_j4l87cs wrote
PMI shouldnt be a dealbreaker imo
We bought our house 2 years ago with 5% down and PMI is only ~$80 a month and only applies until you have at least 20% in equity IIRC
20% of our purchase price would be $44k. We paid $11k instead, and PMI costs is roughly $1k a year. It’ll be off of our payments well before it’s adverse
GaleTheThird t1_j4lakql wrote
> PMI should be a dealbreaker imo
I think you meant "shouldn't"
SheenPSU t1_j4lba9z wrote
Correct, I’ve since edited that mistake. Thanks for pointing it out
Rockefor t1_j4l7m9x wrote
We lost out on more than one house where the seller took a lower cash offer than what we offered. I hope the two weeks they saved was worth the 10k they lost.
freshpicked12 t1_j4maeq3 wrote
It’s not about time saved, it’s about taking the offer that it guaranteed to close. Sellers worry about buyers not being able to get approved for a mortgage and the deal falling through.
ButtBlock t1_j4kkdip wrote
But every time a housing development gets discussed a giant army of NIMBYs get enraged and nothing gets done. Developments end up being stupid fucking strip malls, fancy grocery stores, not giant apartment buildings. This contingent needs to get fought at the state level before this problem gets any better. Think of the GDP growth Mass is missing out on! Imagine how many more people would move to MA if housing wasn’t a total disaster!
chevalier716 t1_j4jbk2r wrote
Same. Our household income is $120k, yet we're still struggling to save between price gouging, 3k rent, etc. We have decent savings, but we can't grow it to keep pace with the 10% needed for down-payment. I got outbid on so many properties by $50k each time early on during the pandemic that we basically gave up. Hoping we can snag a condo, this year because our landlord's trying to get rid of us to renovate and we really don't want to rent anymore.
aryaussie85 t1_j4k0keb wrote
Our hack was to buy into a new construction condo development but there are risks - you get a general sense of layout etc but the builder and architect reserve the right to change anything. The good news is that if you buy pre- construction pricing you build equity right off the bat bc they just raise prices after the condo is actually built.. crazy what we have to do for housing here
LinusThiccTips t1_j4kfrah wrote
How did you find something like this?
aryaussie85 t1_j4oqpje wrote
Our realtor was with the same firm as the sellers agent. Most people working in real estate know each other - its a small club here grouped by town/ neighborhood you are searching in. Everyone is also less than competent because the market here is always so strong despite recessions - you can look at real estate data locally online and instead of dipping in 2008 like most major cities boston kind of remained flat on the whole.
after a few months of searching for single families and getting outbid, we had told our agent we were done. He mentioned the building was breaking ground to me anyways, and was doing pre-construction financing to help with costs and also make the case to the developers’ bank that people would buy in (were in metro bosto so I’m sure that wasn’t hard) Buying in early meant we wouldn’t deal with a bidding war or having to write letters to owners to convince them to pick us, which made us uncomfortable as POC. The risks to us were construction delays, losing our mortgage approval bc of getting timed out or job loss etc., or the building going under for whatever reason. We would be out our 10% deposit in that case which for us was already was less than the cost of “bidding” for a single family if that makes sense
You can also stalk city zoning boards and city council meetings for updates on new zoning approvals for buildings. More work obviously but the info is all out there for the taking - hope this helps!! Sorry for the novel lol
rwpeace t1_j4md7jk wrote
It can easily go down too. It goes both ways. Very risky
cjrun t1_j4mys96 wrote
Mathematically, on a 500k house with 300k in interest over 30 years you’re better off than paying rent at $36,000 per year for a total of $1,080,000 without a house at the end to show for it.
Ok_Entrepreneur_dbl t1_j4qjmxf wrote
It is a quandary! We moved from Colorado with a good pay increase for both my wife and I only to see that disappear because rent is twice what we paid in Colorado, utilities cost more as well. Looked into buying a house but prices for a nice property are through the roof. We have seen prices come down a bit but interest rates make it impossible.
Colorado will be back in our future!
redheelermama t1_j4sd1j5 wrote
We moved from Durango! Also doubled salary, but doubled rent cost as well. I spent 10 years in Florida and lived in 4 different cities, never paid more than $825 for a 2/2 unit, looking at rent prices in Florida now is mind blowing. Everywhere seems like a wash for renting, and the last couple years of home rush, has really disrupted things.
Ok_Entrepreneur_dbl t1_j4whtpa wrote
Colorado is still pretty good! We are finding homes in Colorado Springs in our former neighborhood for 430k 2700 sq ft nice quiet neighborhood.
Looked at 3 BR apartments as well and see places for over $1000 less that what we pay. In fact we found a 3300 ft house for 2500. 5 BR as well so Colorado is where we will go with in the year.
Viewing a single comment thread. View all comments