Help! – I rent and landlord wants to sell to me

[23109VC]

I rent a 1900 sq ft house in Temecula.

I pay $1400/month in rent. (The rent was probably rented a bit on the cheap side, I bet in the current market it would rent for $1500-1700)

the owner of the house wants to sell it to me.
I was told that if I don’t buy the house, it will be list4ed for sale next week. the hous will be listed at $440k.

the owner bought the house new in 2005 for $440k. (property records show that amount…a neighbor said the owner had a family member working for the builder and got a 10% or more discount…so the records may show $440k..but it’s possible the owner is only into it for $400 or maybe a bit less…i’ll never know what they really paid) Tax assessor records say $440k, and showed a loan of $390k.

It is in a large community in Temecula called Harveston. Nice area with a manmade lake, parks..very family oriented place. clean and nice.

My wife and I like the house a lot and would like to stay in it. If we could buy it CHEAP enough – we would like to buy it. We don’t want to buy it and then see it fall in value below what we pay.

Question: If I make an offer, what would you bid???

Here is some of my thinking/logic-

House sold in 2005 for $440k.

The most recent comp is a model match/identical house up the street. It sold for $430k a couple of months ago. (this house that sold at 430…was originally listed in the high 400s…480 or 485….)

offers right now are not full price. i figure if someone did make the owner an offer, it would be less than the 440k asking price. maybe 400k or so….or less.??

the owner would have to use an agent…and pay commmisiosn of roughly 6% if it was sold. if *I* bought it w/out agents involved, i could effectively put that 6% in my pocket… on top of my lowball offer.

if you figure this house rents now for $1400..and value is approx 200 x rent..then it’s worth $280k. If you assume rent could be as high as 1700…then it’s worth $340k.

I was considering offering $350k. Let’s assume for the sake of argument that the seller said OK…and I actually bought the hosue at 350k.

I would do 100% financing. given the current int rates…doing an 80/20…. with an income of $130,000/year…. and almost 2% property tax rate…and $100/HOAs….. would it be cheaper to buy the house at $350k or to rent it at $1700? facting in my tax deduction…vs renting with no deduction???

I honestly don’t know if the seller would even go as low as 350k. when i originaly told the owner that at 440 i was NOT interested..and told them that candidly..i wouldn’t be interested even at 400…then i said that I figured it was worth more like the 350-375 range MAX… i was told to “submit an offer via fax and we’ll consider it”. not sure if that means they just want to counter me and try to bring me up or if they would really consider an offer that far below waht they paid.

i know the owner can’t be making their monthly nut with what i pay in rent and every month they must be losing money..even if they refi’d with an ARM or neg am loan…. plus taxes and hoas and they are losing money… but at 350k…would i be ok?

i mean..i guess thsi house could drop in price below even that… are there many of you here who really think hosuing in temecula…is going to drop back to late 90s levels…like high 100s…low to mid 200s…??

i’m sure in 1998 or 1999 this hosue would be worth 200k max. in 2002 when the boom was underway or getting going..maybe it would have been in the 300s…. if prices don’t go far below that..then buying it now..at that price…i might wind up doing alright..

or am i totally looking at this the wrong way.

i’m OPEN to ALL suggestiosn and advice.

[waiting hawk]

I have been following Temecula for over a year each day and sometimes 5 hours a day. $350 is way too high. MOVE! Don’t even think about buying that thing. He is under water and he won’t sell. On my site I had over 100 listings that were listing under what they paid in 2004.

It is worth what it rents for. So anything under 250k wouldn’t be bad but at 300k? That’s plus 2000 a month at 300k and you were saying 350k? Man ur crazy.

Pull up zipreality.com (sign in with fake name because realtors will call the hell out of ur phone) and check all the foreclosures. That is just the start. I am actually waiting longer now to think about buying there because with all the scams and foreclosures already listing that I’m afraid Temecula could be the next Moreno valley. Don’t jump on anything just to not pack. I’d bail. Good luck

[Sandi Egan]

I concur with waiting hawk.

Actually, I’d tell your landlord, that I am willing to stay in the house while he is trying to sell it for $1K a month. If you move out right away, he will be losing money while the house is on sale. And something’s telling me that’s gonna take a while 🙂

[lendingbubblecontinues]

waiting hawk-

Dude, what happened to your website? It was awesome!! Did you just get too busy to maintain it?

LBC

[ocrenter]

depends on whether you think this could be a forever home for you. If yes, 350 might be ok. however, seeing that you make $130,000, somehow I don’t think you are thinking of this home as a forever home.

If you are thinking of living in it for a few years, and then rent it out, then the math wouldn’t work. 350,000 at 6% would be 2100. plus that 2% property tax and MR = 3500 + 4400 = 7900/year = 660/month + $100/month in HOA = $760/month. So you’ll be looking at $2100 in mortgage + $760 in hoa/MR/property tax = $2860/month. your current rent is $1400, so the price to own would be 100% of your current rent. meaning you will be putting in another $1400 a month on top of what your tenant pays monthly. that will prevent you from moving out of this house ever again. this goes back to my first question: do you see this as a forever home?

waiting hawk: what happened to you? let me know if you decide to change your mind and re-activate your blog so I can put you back on my links.

[Anonymous]

In five years this house at best will be worth 250K. You do the math.

[LookoutBelow]

There is NO such thing as a "forever home"….you'd have to have a gene missing or something, people, all of us, want something different after a few years with housing…things change, neighbors change, situations change…….One thing I've learned in my life is to ALWAYS leave yourself an "out"….graceful exits are worth their weight in gold at some point in your life.

[gn]

Given the following:

1. It is difficult to sell in Temecula
2. The owner’s asking price is unrealistic
3. He is probably underwater
4. He is probably having an exotic mortgage that is resetting (payment amount going up).

There is a decent chance that the owner will default. In some of these situations, the owner continues to collect the rent from the tenant (even though he stops making payment to the lender).

When the lender forecloses on the house, the tenant will be given a notice to move. I am not saying that this will happen. But you need to be aware of that possibity.

[SD Realtor]

Temecula is getting pounded pretty hard. I would wait.

SD Realtor

[ocrenter]

lookout, well, if he can actually see himself and his family being in that home for the next 20-30 years, and his career is solid enough and the commute easy enough that there’s no major changes foreseeable, I would say that qualifies as a forever home.

now it is alwasy important to have an exit strategy. but if he is willing to consider this as a “forever home” and never exit this house under any circumstances, then I think $350000 is a decent buy.

would I want to get into a situation where I have no exit strategy and locked in forever? no. but some people are ok with that, and they should buy if they are ok with that.

[Doofrat]

The only difference between the owner selling to you directly or selling on the open market is the savings of the commission and the hassle of the owner having to list, which doesn’t amount to much. In fairly priced market, this would be an advantage, in this market, it’s more like a a Ferrari dealer giving you a free CD player with your purchase.

I’d look at it like that. It’s just another listing with a slight discount.

[Anonymous]

Does anybody really want to live in Temecula for 30+ years? Give me a break..

[23109VC]

I posted this thread…

I work in temecula. I have a stable gov’t job and don’t expect to move. I have a good 15-20 years to do before I retire…and I will probably retire from THIS job. Great pension, and I’m in too far to pull the plug now. 🙂

the house is probably NOT the perfect house. it’s very nice, but not THE house.

if i move out – i can always rent something else. there are so many rentals here in Temecula, you can take your pick. prices for rentals range from $1500 for smaller homes up to $2000-2400 for large very upscale “executive” homes.

even if I moved “up” to a larger $2000/month home, I’d probably wind up out of pocket less money than if I bought a house in the 300s…. i haven’t crunched all the numbers to figure out what my tax writeoff would be..and how that would offset the increased numbers.

can someone advise me this: suppose I wound up with $2100 in mortgage payments, another 800 or so in taxes and HOAs…so I’m at $3000/month or so in total costs.. figure of that… almost all is deductible in teh first years of the loan.. and at my $130k income level…

how much do i save in taxes by “buying” and having a writoff?

if i can rent a nice house for $1700-1800… I’d need to “save” about $1200 in taxes per month just to break even… right???

[Anonymous]

Wouldn’t you rather hold off and take advantage of someone else’s misfortune? Getting a property for a steal at the bottom of the slump and riding the appreciation up is always so much more satisfying than paying X price and watching the market go below what you paid.

And this way you’ll be buying into a neighborhood that’s acceptable to you at the bottom of the slump instead of buying into a nice neighborhood now and watching it descend to “sofa on the front porch and beater car on blocks on the front lawn” status. (And don’t even think your HOA will prevent that from happening either. They won’t and they can’t. Think back to what happened to all those nice, new planned communities in Palmdale/Lancaster in the last slump)

[4plexowner]

When you are calculating tax savings don’t forget that you will be giving up your standard deduction of $5000 as a single or $10,000 as a couple

So instead of gaining tax benefits as a homedebtor you are actually LOSING your standard deduction!!!

That’s $416/mo and $833/mo LOSS, LOSS, LOSS!!!!

~

Sorry, but many people seem to ignore this lost tax benefit when they are trying to justify buying an overpriced property in a declining market

[Author]

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