Yes, AN, I should have clarified that I didn’t necessarily mean you were particularly guilty of number tweaking in this thread, but generally, I would say you have been. I post so infrequently now, I just chose to bring it up here.
I’d seen that esmith introduced the rent number, but you had no problem latching onto it since it supports your point even though, as you admit, you don’t really know the area.
Asking rents in craigslist are often not at market and you can see this with the listings that linger and just re-post after re-post. The last place I was in, the owner tried to rent it out for $900 more than we were paying–9 months later he gave up.
And, you are giving advice, whether you think you are or not. And what I notice (and it may just be me) is you keep popping your head up “when the numbers pencil in.”
Heck, you even introduced the notion of opportunity cost being the missed opportunity of not buying. Something along the lines of if you can get yourself to buying sooner, you’ll get to the point of owning free and clear that much sooner. “Live rent free, woohoo.” Yeah, please come back and post when you get there.
What you repeatedly conveniently gloss over is that when properties priced near a half million dollars depreciate 5%, one will have lost $25,000. That easily blows away the awesome savings of eight grand that the government is so happy to throw at the problem.
Save the big boy and girl card, you’re certainly not going to influence me, but there are many who could be led down a primrose path by some of what you’ve been putting forth–most likely not the frequent posters.
and, BTW, MM is decidely in the blue, at least with the link you provided. Okay, maybe it’s periwinkle. But that said, if _you_ didn’t think it was blue, then you can’t be guilty of what I accused you of.
Oh, and I found some curious stuff with just the most basic interweb research on aimloan. I’m curious, are they a solid outfit?
(and don’t sweat it, rates appear to be at least in the rough neighborhod you’ve put out there. bankrate says 5.15. Is that useful at all? I used to mostly look at freddiemac for the pulse. they say the national average right now is 4.98 with .7 points…)
