yeah I solicited advice here before I bought. We bought knowing it could go down, and we CAN be in it for the longhaul, but honestly, we dind’t think it would go donw this low. we figured it would come down to about what we paid for it. so we anticipated a decline, but we underestimated it’s severity. 🙂
I’ll have to lookup the MLS listing from home. My wife found it, not me. But I saw it. I couldn’t believe it.
My situation WAS no downpayment, but high income. I earn close to 150k/year but I did not have anythign saved. i have a stay at home wife, and a large student loan. i would NOT have a substantial down payment in 6-12 months.
I am considering this though. I have parents who are about to retire. They have a sizable amount of cash/savings as well as their own house in a high $$ part of San Diego that they may sell. they are considering selling, renting a while, or buying once stuff bottoms out, but buying in a cheaper area like temecula, murrieta. they are about to “retire” and want to downsize their lifestyle/expenses.
I had considered getting THEM to buy one of thse mcmansion homes if/when they bottom out…say one of thse houses that used to be 600k sells for 200k or something unspeakably cheap. they buy it for cash – which they could easily do. then they “sell” it to me by acting as the lender, and I write up a note and make my house payments to them. they get some stable monlthly investment income return on their money, I get a bigger house with a lower payment, then I “try to rent out my odl house but it won’t rent so i have to walk away”….
i wind up in a house owned by my parents, not the bank, and just make payment to them. i’d still get a tax writeoff b/c it’s interest… and they would get monthly income to use in retirement.
seems like a win win. it just depends on how low it goes.
i like my house. don’t get me wrong. i really like it. it has everythign I need. I epoxied my garage floors, I installed nice storage systems in the garage, it has very nicelandscaping, a fairly private lot that is great for sipping wine or smoking cigars, I can walk to the pool… it has a nice cutou niche for my 58″ plasma tv… Call of Duty 4 for the PS3 looks awesome on a 58” tv BTW)… it has granite, nice tile, fans…blah blah blah. it’s your typical cookie cutter lennar house wtih a lt of goodies. I like it. i come home, and I am happy to be there. so it’s not like i hate my house, hate my stuff, and feel miserable every time I come home.
but i’m not so emotionally attached to my house that I would stay in it NO MATTER WHAT.
if I sat down with some financial guru, and lets assume that stuff goes WAY down even more, and that my house is like $200k negative…and I could literally by the house nextore for half… and I *could* find a way to GET INTO that house…and cut my monthly housing costs SUBSTANTIALLY… then that money I save can go to put more away for later, or for kids college, or a Porsche…or whatever… but it that financial guru told me DUMP YOUR HOUSE OR YOUR STUPID… then i’d dump it and walk.
that’s where I stand. i like my house. i like my neighborhood. but when I see prices go down so much, it makes me wonder if I could save a TON of money by moving. At the time I bought, I didn’t feel that renting was a cheaper alternative…it might have bee a bit cheaper, but not a ton.
buying a house at 280k…. for 3200 sq ft.. makes me start to think that buying that sucker might be cheaper than renting it. and when it gets that walking away from my house and eithe renting or buying another one will start to save me not a couple hundred.. .but a THOUSAND or MORE per month, it’s gonna be pretty hard to convince myself to stay
