How shall we buy our first house?

[an]

[quote=FormerSanDiegan]
Zero $. As a homeowner, mainrtenance becomes your new hobby, so you are essentially replacing your current expensive hobbies and travel (like say a twice-yearly ski trip to Utah or Mammoth) with painting, replacing water heaters and other fun houshold maintenance projects.[/quote]
I totally agree with this. I’ve repainted the master bedroom 3 times, the other 2 rooms 2 times, replacing appliances before they’re broken (tax credit), upgrading stuff to my liking. So, in term of pure maintenance, I’ve spent $0 over the last 2 years but in term of upgrades, it’s a lot more than $0.

[Scarlett]

Zero for maintenance?? I am shaking my head. Ok, I can see painting DIY. Forget about handiness (which we don’t have). What about plumbing and wiring issues? Fixing, or maybe replacing a roof? The materials cost a ton even if you do it yourself. Let’s say you buy an older house that needs the roof to be replaced? How much is that? can you pay it out of one of your monthly paychecks?

[Scarlett]

Zero for maintenance?? I am shaking my head. Ok, I can see painting DIY. Forget about handiness (which we don’t have). What about plumbing and wiring issues? Fixing, or maybe replacing a roof? The materials cost a ton even if you do it yourself. Let’s say you buy an older house that needs the roof to be replaced? How much is that? can you pay it out of one of your monthly paychecks?

[Scarlett]

Zero for maintenance?? I am shaking my head. Ok, I can see painting DIY. Forget about handiness (which we don’t have). What about plumbing and wiring issues? Fixing, or maybe replacing a roof? The materials cost a ton even if you do it yourself. Let’s say you buy an older house that needs the roof to be replaced? How much is that? can you pay it out of one of your monthly paychecks?

[Scarlett]

Zero for maintenance?? I am shaking my head. Ok, I can see painting DIY. Forget about handiness (which we don’t have). What about plumbing and wiring issues? Fixing, or maybe replacing a roof? The materials cost a ton even if you do it yourself. Let’s say you buy an older house that needs the roof to be replaced? How much is that? can you pay it out of one of your monthly paychecks?

[Scarlett]

Zero for maintenance?? I am shaking my head. Ok, I can see painting DIY. Forget about handiness (which we don’t have). What about plumbing and wiring issues? Fixing, or maybe replacing a roof? The materials cost a ton even if you do it yourself. Let’s say you buy an older house that needs the roof to be replaced? How much is that? can you pay it out of one of your monthly paychecks?

[Scarlett]

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[UCguy]

Bearishgurl,

I have 2 kids in elementary school. From what I’ve seen, $2200 is pretty average for PQ for detached homes. We have a pool and nice big yard. We need 3 bdr because we need an office/workout room/guest bdr. Grandparents visit often for extended time, so we are actually packed pretty tight then.

Speaking of good preschool/daycare combo, I haven’t seen good ones for that low as what are you suggesting. We used several, including the UCSD subsidized daycare center, and a home care one, and Montessori, and they were all close to $1000. We are glad those days are over, and started saving money when kids entered public school.

I appreciate your advice. Moving is expensive, disruptive (for kids) and takes a lot of time – so it’s not worth to save only a couple hundred bucks a month at most. There isn’t anything decent for what we need under $2000/mo in PQ.

I think once we have 20% down in cash we would start looking even if we don’t have other cash reserves. I believe banks count 401k as reserves for their purposes. We should be able to get to that amount in 3 years max. even without cutting down in rent.

To answer an earlier post, we will probably look at 4 bdr places – 1 bdr for guests/parents, 1 for 2 kids, 1 master, and 1 for office/gym. We should be able to find what we want for low $500s.

My only concern with waiting 3 more years is that the kids will be in middle school by then and moving them then might traumatize them…unless we buy in the same attendance area in PQ.

[UCguy]

Bearishgurl,

I have 2 kids in elementary school. From what I’ve seen, $2200 is pretty average for PQ for detached homes. We have a pool and nice big yard. We need 3 bdr because we need an office/workout room/guest bdr. Grandparents visit often for extended time, so we are actually packed pretty tight then.

Speaking of good preschool/daycare combo, I haven’t seen good ones for that low as what are you suggesting. We used several, including the UCSD subsidized daycare center, and a home care one, and Montessori, and they were all close to $1000. We are glad those days are over, and started saving money when kids entered public school.

I appreciate your advice. Moving is expensive, disruptive (for kids) and takes a lot of time – so it’s not worth to save only a couple hundred bucks a month at most. There isn’t anything decent for what we need under $2000/mo in PQ.

I think once we have 20% down in cash we would start looking even if we don’t have other cash reserves. I believe banks count 401k as reserves for their purposes. We should be able to get to that amount in 3 years max. even without cutting down in rent.

To answer an earlier post, we will probably look at 4 bdr places – 1 bdr for guests/parents, 1 for 2 kids, 1 master, and 1 for office/gym. We should be able to find what we want for low $500s.

My only concern with waiting 3 more years is that the kids will be in middle school by then and moving them then might traumatize them…unless we buy in the same attendance area in PQ.

[UCguy]

Bearishgurl,

I have 2 kids in elementary school. From what I’ve seen, $2200 is pretty average for PQ for detached homes. We have a pool and nice big yard. We need 3 bdr because we need an office/workout room/guest bdr. Grandparents visit often for extended time, so we are actually packed pretty tight then.

Speaking of good preschool/daycare combo, I haven’t seen good ones for that low as what are you suggesting. We used several, including the UCSD subsidized daycare center, and a home care one, and Montessori, and they were all close to $1000. We are glad those days are over, and started saving money when kids entered public school.

I appreciate your advice. Moving is expensive, disruptive (for kids) and takes a lot of time – so it’s not worth to save only a couple hundred bucks a month at most. There isn’t anything decent for what we need under $2000/mo in PQ.

I think once we have 20% down in cash we would start looking even if we don’t have other cash reserves. I believe banks count 401k as reserves for their purposes. We should be able to get to that amount in 3 years max. even without cutting down in rent.

To answer an earlier post, we will probably look at 4 bdr places – 1 bdr for guests/parents, 1 for 2 kids, 1 master, and 1 for office/gym. We should be able to find what we want for low $500s.

My only concern with waiting 3 more years is that the kids will be in middle school by then and moving them then might traumatize them…unless we buy in the same attendance area in PQ.

[UCguy]

Bearishgurl,

I have 2 kids in elementary school. From what I’ve seen, $2200 is pretty average for PQ for detached homes. We have a pool and nice big yard. We need 3 bdr because we need an office/workout room/guest bdr. Grandparents visit often for extended time, so we are actually packed pretty tight then.

Speaking of good preschool/daycare combo, I haven’t seen good ones for that low as what are you suggesting. We used several, including the UCSD subsidized daycare center, and a home care one, and Montessori, and they were all close to $1000. We are glad those days are over, and started saving money when kids entered public school.

I appreciate your advice. Moving is expensive, disruptive (for kids) and takes a lot of time – so it’s not worth to save only a couple hundred bucks a month at most. There isn’t anything decent for what we need under $2000/mo in PQ.

I think once we have 20% down in cash we would start looking even if we don’t have other cash reserves. I believe banks count 401k as reserves for their purposes. We should be able to get to that amount in 3 years max. even without cutting down in rent.

To answer an earlier post, we will probably look at 4 bdr places – 1 bdr for guests/parents, 1 for 2 kids, 1 master, and 1 for office/gym. We should be able to find what we want for low $500s.

My only concern with waiting 3 more years is that the kids will be in middle school by then and moving them then might traumatize them…unless we buy in the same attendance area in PQ.

[Author]

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