WTB – only one caller (LOL) mentioned selling expenses…
Don’t forget that you are already underwater due to the future cost of selling the condo. (4% – 5% – 6% – 7%???)
There is a hidden cost to owning (or not so hidden) one that directly impacts most couples because of a wifes need to nest… If you own this condo you will probably make changes / decorate. Window treatments alone can cost thousands of dollars. My wife chimed in on this one: She said that the same reason driving your wife to want the 4S Ranch house will be the reason that she will want to put her own stamp on the condo – a condo which probably you will not end up keeping.
Anyway – a rental will automatically stop you from spending money on it – a purchase will require you to start ‘doing things’.
Your analysis of the 10% depreciation is, in my opinion, not reasonable. You should always be conservative in these these decisions for 2 reasons. Always push for the worst case scenario in budgeting and you are moving to a much more illiquid asset class. (Renting is very liquid, owning a house/condo isn’t).
To the large screaming masses which are telling you to grow balls – nuts to them! I agree with much of what SD Realtor is saying. A good marriage is about compromise and there are WAY too many variables associated with your life and lifestyle. Your wife might be much less concerned with your economic situation than with the social situation. Many people (men and women) would like the perceived social advantage of putting down roots and owning. I don’t think, in my opinion, that buying a condo is really a social ladder, welcome to the neighborhood, keeping up with the Jones’ thing. There are reasons to buy (but not now with the much larger issue of economic suicide) for long term neighbors, children’s schools, having a permanent home base, etc.
WTB… If you do buy, you possibly couldn’t pick a worse time… Correction… This is a better time then last year, but it’s a much worse time compared to the future. Even an optimist would agree that whatever prices you are seeing now, for the the next year or so, you will always find something better. Problem with a bubble is that on the starting downward trend no one looks at the future. You think that the price for the condo is good in relation to a recent past. But its a terrible bargain compared to where the market should go.
