Confused with the current market

[Scarlett]

[quote=patientrenter][quote=Scarlett]….In my case, I don’t have a big pile of cash at all, just enough for a 20% downpayment. ….. But realistically, with kids, for us is very hard to save money at a significant rate (other than for college/retirement), so our downpayment won’t increase substantially in the next couple of years. That’s why I *might* buy in the next year or so while rates are low.[/quote]

Not to pick on you Scarlett, but here is a person who cannot pay the price of a home (at least, not the home they want), and yet wants to buy one. That our system allows that is nuts.[/quote]

What do you mean? Is it better to rent for the rest of my life? I don’t think so. Might as well pay the mortgage and own the house in the end. I really got tired of renting not-so-great places for 2500 a month, when that could be my mortgage. So if I can afford to rent, then I can afford to buy at this monthly payment, won’t you agree?

FYI – I am looking for a house price no more than 3x our gross income, with a debt to gross income ratio less than 30% and with 20% downpayment . So I don’t understand why you say I can’t pay for it or that I shouldn’t be “allowed” to buy it. Do you mean pay all cash???

If a couple of professionals with PhD degrees and successful careers cannot afford a house when they are in their forties and have finally 170K income, then, yeah, the system is nuts, I agree. When I grew up, people like us, at our age, were well settled in a decent house.

[Scarlett]

[quote=AN][quote=Arraya]I think prices will get cut in half again.[/quote]
I’d love to see that. I doubt it’ll ever happen though. If it does happen, at least 50% of us probably won’t have a job and the other 48% won’t be able to buy the house anyways since it’ll be cash only deal.[/quote]

I am afraid you’d be right – so let’s be careful what we wish for…

[Scarlett]

[quote=AN][quote=Arraya]I think prices will get cut in half again.[/quote]
I’d love to see that. I doubt it’ll ever happen though. If it does happen, at least 50% of us probably won’t have a job and the other 48% won’t be able to buy the house anyways since it’ll be cash only deal.[/quote]

I am afraid you’d be right – so let’s be careful what we wish for…

[Scarlett]

[quote=AN][quote=Arraya]I think prices will get cut in half again.[/quote]
I’d love to see that. I doubt it’ll ever happen though. If it does happen, at least 50% of us probably won’t have a job and the other 48% won’t be able to buy the house anyways since it’ll be cash only deal.[/quote]

I am afraid you’d be right – so let’s be careful what we wish for…

[Scarlett]

[quote=AN][quote=Arraya]I think prices will get cut in half again.[/quote]
I’d love to see that. I doubt it’ll ever happen though. If it does happen, at least 50% of us probably won’t have a job and the other 48% won’t be able to buy the house anyways since it’ll be cash only deal.[/quote]

I am afraid you’d be right – so let’s be careful what we wish for…

[Scarlett]

[quote=AN][quote=Arraya]I think prices will get cut in half again.[/quote]
I’d love to see that. I doubt it’ll ever happen though. If it does happen, at least 50% of us probably won’t have a job and the other 48% won’t be able to buy the house anyways since it’ll be cash only deal.[/quote]

I am afraid you’d be right – so let’s be careful what we wish for…

[patientrenter]

Scarlett,

I was saying that your situation is an example of why our system is nuts. Why? For one, because you say that you won’t be able to increase your downpayment much over the next few years, so that means you have little future savings available to pay for housing. Since you also don’t have the current price of what you want to buy in cash, my conclusion is that you cannot afford to buy a house for that price. You don’t have the money now, nor do you have the saving power necessary to pay for it in the near future. Yet you consider it normal and rational to buy it anyway. You probably are not unusual. That this kind of behavior is normal in our society is, to me, nuts.

Now, there is a second reason why your situation shows that our system is nuts. You earn a good income, and hopefully have some (small) saving power, so you can afford a modestly priced home. That a modestly priced home is one that few middle class professionals would want to live in is also nuts. It’s the radical overpricing of housing problem. The causes are many, but the vast river of govt money going into measures designed to support sky-high home prices certainly doesn’t help. Without that river, you could actually afford a decent home at a decent price. Yet we all pretend that the complicated and expensive system we’ve constructed to keep home prices sky-high is rational. That too is nuts.

[patientrenter]

Scarlett,

I was saying that your situation is an example of why our system is nuts. Why? For one, because you say that you won’t be able to increase your downpayment much over the next few years, so that means you have little future savings available to pay for housing. Since you also don’t have the current price of what you want to buy in cash, my conclusion is that you cannot afford to buy a house for that price. You don’t have the money now, nor do you have the saving power necessary to pay for it in the near future. Yet you consider it normal and rational to buy it anyway. You probably are not unusual. That this kind of behavior is normal in our society is, to me, nuts.

Now, there is a second reason why your situation shows that our system is nuts. You earn a good income, and hopefully have some (small) saving power, so you can afford a modestly priced home. That a modestly priced home is one that few middle class professionals would want to live in is also nuts. It’s the radical overpricing of housing problem. The causes are many, but the vast river of govt money going into measures designed to support sky-high home prices certainly doesn’t help. Without that river, you could actually afford a decent home at a decent price. Yet we all pretend that the complicated and expensive system we’ve constructed to keep home prices sky-high is rational. That too is nuts.

[patientrenter]

Scarlett,

I was saying that your situation is an example of why our system is nuts. Why? For one, because you say that you won’t be able to increase your downpayment much over the next few years, so that means you have little future savings available to pay for housing. Since you also don’t have the current price of what you want to buy in cash, my conclusion is that you cannot afford to buy a house for that price. You don’t have the money now, nor do you have the saving power necessary to pay for it in the near future. Yet you consider it normal and rational to buy it anyway. You probably are not unusual. That this kind of behavior is normal in our society is, to me, nuts.

Now, there is a second reason why your situation shows that our system is nuts. You earn a good income, and hopefully have some (small) saving power, so you can afford a modestly priced home. That a modestly priced home is one that few middle class professionals would want to live in is also nuts. It’s the radical overpricing of housing problem. The causes are many, but the vast river of govt money going into measures designed to support sky-high home prices certainly doesn’t help. Without that river, you could actually afford a decent home at a decent price. Yet we all pretend that the complicated and expensive system we’ve constructed to keep home prices sky-high is rational. That too is nuts.

[patientrenter]

Scarlett,

I was saying that your situation is an example of why our system is nuts. Why? For one, because you say that you won’t be able to increase your downpayment much over the next few years, so that means you have little future savings available to pay for housing. Since you also don’t have the current price of what you want to buy in cash, my conclusion is that you cannot afford to buy a house for that price. You don’t have the money now, nor do you have the saving power necessary to pay for it in the near future. Yet you consider it normal and rational to buy it anyway. You probably are not unusual. That this kind of behavior is normal in our society is, to me, nuts.

Now, there is a second reason why your situation shows that our system is nuts. You earn a good income, and hopefully have some (small) saving power, so you can afford a modestly priced home. That a modestly priced home is one that few middle class professionals would want to live in is also nuts. It’s the radical overpricing of housing problem. The causes are many, but the vast river of govt money going into measures designed to support sky-high home prices certainly doesn’t help. Without that river, you could actually afford a decent home at a decent price. Yet we all pretend that the complicated and expensive system we’ve constructed to keep home prices sky-high is rational. That too is nuts.

[patientrenter]

Scarlett,

I was saying that your situation is an example of why our system is nuts. Why? For one, because you say that you won’t be able to increase your downpayment much over the next few years, so that means you have little future savings available to pay for housing. Since you also don’t have the current price of what you want to buy in cash, my conclusion is that you cannot afford to buy a house for that price. You don’t have the money now, nor do you have the saving power necessary to pay for it in the near future. Yet you consider it normal and rational to buy it anyway. You probably are not unusual. That this kind of behavior is normal in our society is, to me, nuts.

Now, there is a second reason why your situation shows that our system is nuts. You earn a good income, and hopefully have some (small) saving power, so you can afford a modestly priced home. That a modestly priced home is one that few middle class professionals would want to live in is also nuts. It’s the radical overpricing of housing problem. The causes are many, but the vast river of govt money going into measures designed to support sky-high home prices certainly doesn’t help. Without that river, you could actually afford a decent home at a decent price. Yet we all pretend that the complicated and expensive system we’ve constructed to keep home prices sky-high is rational. That too is nuts.

[patientrenter]

[quote=AN][quote=Arraya]I think prices will get cut in half again.[/quote]
I’d love to see that. I doubt it’ll ever happen though. If it does happen, at least 50% of us probably won’t have a job and the other 48% won’t be able to buy the house anyways since it’ll be cash only deal.[/quote]

Home prices in So Cal have been half of what they are now most of the time. It’s only in the recent mega-bubble, and during the frothier peaks of the prior bubble in the late 1980’s that they reached their current level (which is down from the ridiculous all-time peak of 2007). During all those “normal” years in So Cal, people worked, slept, ate, laughed, bought homes, sold homes, etc.

What is truly nutty is that people think that reverting to normal will lead to the world falling apart. Nonsense.

[patientrenter]

[quote=AN][quote=Arraya]I think prices will get cut in half again.[/quote]
I’d love to see that. I doubt it’ll ever happen though. If it does happen, at least 50% of us probably won’t have a job and the other 48% won’t be able to buy the house anyways since it’ll be cash only deal.[/quote]

Home prices in So Cal have been half of what they are now most of the time. It’s only in the recent mega-bubble, and during the frothier peaks of the prior bubble in the late 1980’s that they reached their current level (which is down from the ridiculous all-time peak of 2007). During all those “normal” years in So Cal, people worked, slept, ate, laughed, bought homes, sold homes, etc.

What is truly nutty is that people think that reverting to normal will lead to the world falling apart. Nonsense.

[patientrenter]

[quote=AN][quote=Arraya]I think prices will get cut in half again.[/quote]
I’d love to see that. I doubt it’ll ever happen though. If it does happen, at least 50% of us probably won’t have a job and the other 48% won’t be able to buy the house anyways since it’ll be cash only deal.[/quote]

Home prices in So Cal have been half of what they are now most of the time. It’s only in the recent mega-bubble, and during the frothier peaks of the prior bubble in the late 1980’s that they reached their current level (which is down from the ridiculous all-time peak of 2007). During all those “normal” years in So Cal, people worked, slept, ate, laughed, bought homes, sold homes, etc.

What is truly nutty is that people think that reverting to normal will lead to the world falling apart. Nonsense.

[patientrenter]

[quote=AN][quote=Arraya]I think prices will get cut in half again.[/quote]
I’d love to see that. I doubt it’ll ever happen though. If it does happen, at least 50% of us probably won’t have a job and the other 48% won’t be able to buy the house anyways since it’ll be cash only deal.[/quote]

Home prices in So Cal have been half of what they are now most of the time. It’s only in the recent mega-bubble, and during the frothier peaks of the prior bubble in the late 1980’s that they reached their current level (which is down from the ridiculous all-time peak of 2007). During all those “normal” years in So Cal, people worked, slept, ate, laughed, bought homes, sold homes, etc.

What is truly nutty is that people think that reverting to normal will lead to the world falling apart. Nonsense.

[Author]

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