Is it smart to buy a house right now?

Question

At my age of 24 and living in California, a house seems out of reach. However if the market rockets up again in the future, I'll rent for the rest of my life. It feels like my age group needs to make 100k a year because we don't have equity this late in the game for a down payment. Condos go for around 250k but charge for home owners dues, and homes start around 300k. Should I wait this out a little longer? Or should I dive in head first?

Answer 1

I wouldn't make any long term investments, personally. Illogical as that might seem.

Answer 2

BUY!!! Try to get your parents or family to help you out. Do tons of research and find an agent that will spend extra time with you finding the appropriate house or condo.

Make them do a real estate analysis of the area and comparisons to the market where you are looking to buy. Take along someone experienced for the first few houses you look at to have them show you the important things to look for in buying a house, like the furnace, roof, AC, water damage, etc.

Look at no fewer than 20 houses to get a feel for the market. It is a buyers market right now so you can find some deals out there. Look at trying to get a roommate or 2 to help pay the mortgage while you first get started. The hard part is coming up with the deposit and finding an appropriate house for you.

Get a house you can fix up yourself but not so horrible that you can not live in it. Possibly look at the fore-closer market.

Get a good independent mortgage broker on your side and get a pre-approval done before you even look at one house. Get referrals for both the mortgage broker and the real estate agent.

Start early and stop throwing rent money out the window.

Answer 3

EDIT because above answer very good, but please: carefully consider how many hours you spend at your job. if you must work until you are practically dead, don't buy anything that requires a lot of maintenance work (maybe not a house because maybe even mowing the lawn would be too much for YOU), or repairs, if you don't have the time for them and do not really know good contractors... buy ALWAYS for location, location, location!

i would DEFINITELY start looking to buy a house! hopefully, a single family, detached house with a yard and garage. go to a professional and experienced Realtor after you have learned from a mortgage lender how much you can afford and what you have to put down, as well as what the closing costs will be.

it is a buyer's market, big, big time. you'd probably want your Realtor to do these things for you after you have told her which locations you want to live in:

1. give you a list of houses that have the same number of bedrooms and baths as what you want, in the same locations as those you want to live in, but which are for only CLOSED sales within one year.

this is so that you can see how much the sellers were asking and how much they got. you should also be able to see the number of days the house was on the market. the longer it was, the more unreasonable the seller was in the beginning, and he lost his qualified buyers for overpricing the house.

if you want, you can ask your Realtor to do a little more research to see what is called the "cumulative market time" on given houses was--that is a compilation of ALL days the ADDRESS was listed, not just for the listing NUMBER. ask your Realtor what i mean by that.

2. then to give you lists of the houses that are now on the market for the same areas. see if you can get "cumulative market times for each one of them." that's so that you know how sick and tired the seller is getting of trying to sell his house.

please realize this:

a. any house that is priced right zooms off the market, even in a buyer's market.

b. so if you find the "one," (AND WHAT I MEAN HERE IS EVEN IF IT IS THE VERY FIRST HOUSE YOU SEE) write an offer with earnest money check IMMEDIATELY, even if you do it in your car. get your Realtor to negotiate it right away.

kindly open this link. it shows you a very simplified example of how home ownership is cheaper than is renting. there are other somewhat more complex articles on the net too:

LINK: http://www.firsthomebuyers.net/rent-versus-own.htm

Answer 4

I dont know ur income, but if u r in a good job and r sure u r wanting to buy a home, I would suggest to keep looking, have u cked into any homes that have been foreclosed on etc. U will have to keep looking ck. the areas u want, call #s on for sales signs etc etc u may find a real good deal out there, thats what we did, and yes this is a great time to buy interest rates r real low, the better ur credit the better rate u will get 5.25% up to 6% is a great rate and at ur age u could take a 30yr note, but if u add extra to ur principal every month u will have it paid in 15 yrs. u would only be 39 or 40 with no mortgage! HAPPY HOUSE HUNTING! p.s. condo is ok but ur better with a home, you could buy a duplex later and have great rental income!!

Answer 5

Best move I made when I was youg was to buy a house. Accept what income you have and how much you can spend on mortage payments. You might even consider something where you can have a roomate or a tenant; i fyou can survive the payments iwth no roomate, then you'll do okay when you have a roomate.

Answer 6

If you can make the $$$ work out, it is always better to buy, from a financial standpoint. Don't forget that all of the $$ you pay in mortgage interest is deductible!!