I appreciate and enjoy the knowledgeable posters here at Piggington. I have lurked here for many months and can assure you that you provide a great service for many that never reply.

We (wife and 4 kids) have been renting for the last 5 to 6 years with the exception of one small stint in Harveston. We were one of the first ten home buyers for a neighborhood known as Lake Front Cottages. We sold that home in June 2006. The cottages wee origionaly sold at a lottery. On the day of the lottery we were given about 60 sec to make a decision about which house to purchase. In the heat of the moment, I put my desire to make a few bucks over the needs of my family and have since paid a price. We moved out of our too small home after about 9 months and have been bounced around from rental to rental since then.

About 2 1/2 years ago in a moment of weakness, we placed a deposit on a beautiful home in an upscale neighborhood of Murrieta. We went so far as to pick options for the place. We selected features that were important such as lighting and sound, combination of tile and wood flooring, speakers etc. The homes were built by Pulte and already had many nice features like extra wide base boards, double ovens etc.

We changed our mind and didnt go through with the purchase of this home (thankfully). I sensed that things were changing with the market and this home was now priced at about 650k. I believe the base price was about 590k, so we had selected a good number of improvements.

The people that finally purchased the home put another 40 k in stuff for a final sales price of 690K.

I was driving through the neighborhood and thought I caught a glimpse of this same house being vacant. I drove passed a couple times to make sure and then parked the car. I found an open door walked in and to my surprise were all the options that we had picked and then some. Even the dark wide plank wood flooring in the living and dining room. It looks amazing next to the fireplace in the living room. There’s also a fireplace in the master.

I know properties pretty well. I would rate this as one of the top ten tract homes in Murrieta. Its on a 1/3 acre and has an unobstructed view of the Santa Rosa Plateau. Its next to a creek bed. Its walking distance to the middle and High school. ( 4 kids)

Our offer was accepted at 450k and I’m freaking out. The problem is that were renting the exact same floor plan in the next set of house with the exact same creek bed view etc. for $2100. Our current lease is up and I’ve already contacted the land lord about his intentions for next year. I had already agreed to a $100 increase at the start of the 2nd year, and he is going to accept a month to month if we stay. The other nice thing is that he is a well capitalized investor so I think our bouncing around days are over regardless.

In order to avoid PMI it will nearly drain our saving and our new payment would be about 3k PITI. We have worked so hard to be nearly debt free and have gotten to a point where we have over 7k of after expense money. Not including food, gas clothes etc which we try to limit to about 3 k. The other 4 k goes for investments.

My goal was until last week was to eventually pay cash for a couple rental properties in places like Indiana that would cash flow $600-$700 each per month and really try to build our monthly income.

What do you guys think?