Get over the need to plant flowers and start loving things like increasing your savings and getting more than 10% gains, don’t become one of the saps that thinks with their heart strings only. You are def. not in a good position to buy right now. Tour the neighborhoods, find one that you absolutly love, and rent. If it needs a few things change them and call the money you spend savings compared to what you would lose if you bought.
Hey, I have an intense desire to own a new Ferrari and I have good credit, so I can get a loan at these low interest rates and “buy” one and “afford” the payments. But I douse this desire as well as the desire to own a home with the realization that this imprudent decision would affect me financially for years to come.
I do not think the market will plunge 50% like many on this list, and I did buy a house this year. Disclaimer: it was right for my situation, not in general, and I am not telling anyone on this to buy!
I would still recommend you do not buy for the following reasons:
1. You need a time frame of at least 7 years, probably 10. If you are leaving in 2-3 years, you will incur a loss.
2. You definitely want to get familiar with the area, especially the traffic patterns and neighborhood demographics. I would rent for at least another year. Make some friends at work, check out some neighborhoods.
Don’t be in a rush to buy anything. Prices are not headed up, and neither are interest rates in the near term.
You already know the answer to your question . . .
But, just for the fun of it, the question could be stated another way, “should I lose money or should I not lose money.”
You’ve waited this long, wait! Go to Home Depot, buy some nice planter boxes, or better yet, you and your husband and kids make some really cool ones. Play in the dirt and plant your seeds!
Just think how you will feel 3 years from now when you find that one true home that you know you didn’t become a servant to! That is unless of course you like to be dominated in painful ways.
If this market corrects from it’s peak 2005 –it could be 6 years till it fully bottoms out. Unless the Feds do a miracle of some sort.–Still the fundamentals of pricing in SD are out of line.
I’ve been looking at the latest Case-Shiller data for San Diego home prices, and they back up the idea of a long wait for the bottom. From their data, the previous peak (before this last boom) was July 1990. Prices didn’t hit bottom until March 1996. The peak for the latest boom was November 2005. Using the prior bust as a guide suggests the bottom will be sometime in 2011. Recovery to current prices, keeping in mind that we’re over a year into the drop, would be around 2013.
Wow, thanks RO. I appreciate this data. If it changes during the coming months (if things escalate), please share.
Hmmmm, do I want to wait around until 2011 to begin buying my new castle? probably not. But, who knows, maybe I can resist the urge to buy before then. At some point between now and then if I do buy, I will at least have a clearer picture of what I am getting into.
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