It is a bad time to be a buyer and new real estate agent right now.

[Zan15]

again you go with discounting amenities. pool is a money sink, granted, but private pool is a bfd. also, you do not need to get a place with a pool in a first place. apartments with pool acess either charge you extra for acess or cost more in a first place. when you said minus the bedroom, you didn't specify number of rooms, total.

what kind of maintenance are you talking about that takes 10-15 hours a week??? that is exclusive to home ownership rather then renting? cleaning you do either way. trash you take out either way.

.

I've never mowed the lawn once in any apartment i owned.
Weed pulling, leaf blowing, snow shoveling, edging, fertilize, cleaning out gutters, trimming, raking, aerating, mulch management, etc etc.

damn son you ever really own a home? I said my time took 3 hours a week, but a 400k house with more property, yah i can see it taking 10 hours.
So even at 3 hours a week its a tremendous amount of $

I won't even go into pool maintenance because if you have to even ask a question about maintenance, i can't imagine you know about pool maintenance. What a cluster fuck owning one, especially in ground.

right because anyone who ever moves has acess to a warehouse they are working at that they can just borrow supplies from.
yes I buy separate insurance on a moving truck, because I do not want it to go on my personal car insurance. as I said - someone is an ass and your personal premiums go up. and hilarious part is.. you admit it yourself that you buy a separate insurance on a moving truck as well. you just failed to mention it in your previous post, so you are arguing with me over.. what exactly here? I've moved 4 times before we bought our house and moved for the last time. it wasn't once a year, but it was still an undertaking each and every time. and it was twice the amount you mentioned because not all of us are lucky with acess to a warehouse, and all that jazz. yeah we went to a supermarket to see if they had boxes. they didn't, at least not the kind that were useful to us. and places like that compact their boxes every day, break them down as they go, and then compact at the end of the day for recycling. getting enough boxes of the right size from supermarkets is again a matter of pure luck. we ended up buying boxes from uhaul at $2 each. doesn't seem like much but it still adds up. tolls add up. etc etc et, there are a lot of little costs that you may not notice right away, but they are there. adding up.

.

Sorry you can't find free boxes and did not bother to save the boxes from all your prior moves planning for the future.


Failed to mention $8 dollars additional cost of a moving truck i mean really? You got me now, totally bad faith poster here!!! /s

rider mower? WHY? if you say your lawn in your house was less then an acre, why were you using a rider mower??? we have front and back lawn probably about half an acre (you did mention shed, etc, so not all of your acreage was a lawn) and it takes like an hour to mow once a week with a regular old hand mower even for me, less for my SO. its fairly efficient so we spend $20 tops for gas for the entire mowing season (wasn't particularly expensive either, about $150 when we bought it 4 years ago, and its going to keep going for us for a few more years at least). shoveling doesn't take all that much time either, with a snow blower. also... prices vary as does weather depending on location. we had almost no snow to shovel this entire winter, except for couple of weeks in feb. but no mowing either, cause it was too cold for grass to grow. there is also always an option of doing your lawn in a way that doesn't require mowing at all. that said, your apartment comes with 15 acres you say? is that 15 acres you can do whatever the hell you want with? is this your personal acreage? because.... I do not buy it. and if we are talking shared space within the apartment complex its like me claiming that the park and the public woods behind my house is part of my space and included in my property. which... its not, even though I have full acess to it.

.

Because my time is valuable and it takes way less of it with a rider mower? Raising a kid at the time so it made it the right choice.

Front yard was also .55-.65 with no shade. Was a nightmare in the summer even if you woke up early or mowed it late. the design on the property was shit, no idea why they did not place the house about 3/4 close to the street and enhanced the back yard.

As for shoveling, L shaped driveway in New England. Yah it never "doesn't take all that much time".

As for the property, what are you expecting me to do with it that the landowner won't let me? they have open space for play and a BBQ pit for cookouts. Never has anyone had a problem using the space for standard things home owners use space for.

if rent includes heat/ trash you bet your ass its reflected in your rent amount. I keep saying, dude. landlords are not in it for the charity. they are not going to charge you at a loss to themselves.

right and it was included in my calculations. its not like i took my rent and then took out 50 dollars for heat then compared it to the housing cost. Not sure what you are trying to do here?

roofs last for decades. you don't just replace it constantly, and if you buy a house with relatively new roof, you have years and years and years to go before you need to replace it again. same for all the other stuff. just don't abuse your place and it will last. and that kind of general maintenance of your living space is something you are responsible for in a rental as well, only the major stuff gets fixed by a landlord.

.

or you end up with a house that needs two roof replacements. I'll take your tact, if you buy a house with a newer roof you can expect to pay more and it will be reflected in the price of the house....

Sorry but the abuse of the roof was done by mother nature in good old new England.

also, what the hell is that property tax payment? MONTHLY?? what location are we talking about here for that property tax to be THAT high?? even my parents who live in NYC do not pay NEARLY that much monthly. and if property taxes are that high there? then so will be the rental prices. because... and i repeat.... yet again... landlords are NOT going to rent at a loss. they are in it for the profit.

.

Welcome to new England and NY.

NYC would all depend on assessed value of the property and its classification. Property taxes in NYC are really not that horrible vs the outlying counties and some counties in upstate NY. (lived in NY/NYC/LI for first 25 or so years)

the relative averages of property taxes in NYC vs say CT or NJ/NY suburbs could be as much as 150-200% difference. Its a strange thing NY the further you go away from the city the more expensive property taxes get. The opposite of what most people believe because NYC is always expected to be sooooo expensive.

Nassau $460,700 $10,000+ 2.11%
New York $944,600 $8,980 0.95%
Suffolk $386,800 $9,157 2.37%
The average effective property tax rate in the Big Apple is just 0.88% – more than half the statewide average rate of 1.69%. In fact, many New York counties (outside of New York City) have rates exceeding 2.50%, which is more than double the national average of 1.07%.


CT

County Median Home Value Median Annual Property Tax Payment Average Effective Property Tax Rate
Fairfield County $422,300 $7,393 1.75%
Hartford County $237,700 $5,430 2.28%
Litchfield County $251,500 $4,829 1.92%
Middlesex County $284,900 $5,565 1.95%
New Haven County $246,700 $5,744 2.33%
New London County $239,000 $4,425 1.85%
Tolland County $251,300 $5,458 2.17%
Windham County $198,000 $3,671 1.85%


NJ + NY
https://smartasset.com/taxes/new-jer...tax-calculator
https://smartasset.com/taxes/new-yor...tax-calculator


So its not something super rare, it effects what 50 million people in this area?

in any case. whatever you chose to do - own or rent, you are trading something off. renting is not some amazing loophole that lets you pay less while getting the same or more. you are trading something off. whether its privacy, security, amount of space, costs, or all of the above, its a tradeoff. you merely CHOSE what you are willing to trade off and what's more beneficial to you in your personal circumstances. I know I'm never going to rent again if I can help it. the amount of effort it takes just to find a place that is ok with big dogs, is enough of an incentive not to put myself at that much of a mercy of other people. the fact that I have actual genuine privacy and don't have to ask for permission to plant tomatoes or change my flower beds in a spring or keep my thermostat at the temperature I wanted to be, rather then what landlord choses for me - is enough of an incentive. but that's just me. you do you. just don't try to claim that your way is unequivocally better by using incomplete math.

.

Never said it was super amazing and where in the world did you live that your landlord controlled your temperature, Moscow??. I was using the math relative to my example never meant for it to be the end all. Hell i know outright living in a whole lot of states i could cut my rental cost in half by owning a home easy. Of course, jobs.....

- - - Updated - - -

Where I currently am:
400k purchase
3.21% rate 30 year fixed
3.5% down is 14k
P.I = 1671
Insurance = 66
Property tax = 263
TOTAL = $2000

again, you are simply bad at math. everything you are saying in this thread is bad information, and you clearly dont have a clue about real estate or investing if you think renting is ever financially better than owning. lmfao you dont even realize most lenders have programs for 3.5% down without PMI.

Oh so now my math is bad because I have to qualify for a PMI free program in order to knock down my rate. Don't have to ever pay PMI on a rental.
Oh i know all about those programs and let me tell you, denied denied denied.
I paid PMI for a whole bunch of years just like you did.
Guess i should have joined the military.....

You left PMI out of the calculation and did not even make a notation about it, but my information is bad.


and my math is bad because property rates in my state and the 3 around me are double-triple what you list? not to mention insurance is more expensive obviously around here then by you even though you mentioned California so its not that much better then some area's.


At worst you could argue that my information is too personal and i should have went with national averages, or even regional and framed my argument around "it depends" better.

You even attacked my using of benchmarks to compare too. Seems you just disagree about everyone for the sake of disagreeing? They are benchmarks for a reason.


Seems neither one of us are perfect, just one of us is not making this personal with insults.

[ghotihook]

-snip-

I am not trying to sound like a jerk, but do most people only save 3.5% as a down payment?
Did you have to pay PMI till you hit 20%?

[Zan15]

Likely because of expansion of remote work. We have vacation properties in Catalina, Ft. Bragg and Carmel. For the most part, we did not see much growth with those properties pre-pandemic. Since the pandemic, we have been getting unsolicited cash offers left and right for double of their values pre-pandemic. The Ft. Bragg house was surprising because it is an 8-hr drive from SF.

did you own a home prior to the crash of 08-09 ish?
Seems like this has so many shared examples to that time.

I still remember thinking about selling in 2006-2007 because after 5 years they were telling me my house was worth 300k from 171k.

My brother in law lucked out, because of a divorce (one can argue lucked out twice lol) and was forced to sell his house under the divorce agreement right at the peak.
It was insane the house sold in about three hours at 20% higher than posted which was already 70% appreciation on the 250 ish they paid on the house.


Houses in central, western parts of CT are not lasting much longer.
My zillow addiction and house spotting/hunting trips through the north western part of the state just amazes me how fast these houses are turning around.


Yes, even after all i posted i am still not apposed to buying a home at this point for retirement.

But that is because i am starting to suffer from the 'get off my lawn you young punks' disease already. I don't even have a lawn of my own either!!!! Noise and nonsense is just starting to really bother me. I think i am done with semi-urban living very soon.

[Witchblade77]

I've never mowed the lawn once in any apartment i owned.
Weed pulling, leaf blowing, snow shoveling, edging, fertilize, cleaning out gutters, trimming, raking, aerating, mulch management, etc etc.

damn son you ever really own a home? I said my time took 3 hours a week, but a 400k house with more property, yah i can see it taking 10 hours.
So even at 3 hours a week its a tremendous amount of $

I won't even go into pool maintenance because if you have to even ask a question about maintenance, i can't imagine you know about pool maintenance. What a cluster fuck owning one, especially in ground.



Sorry you can't find free boxes and did not bother to save the boxes from all your prior moves planning for the future.


Failed to mention $8 dollars additional cost of a moving truck i mean really? You got me now, totally bad faith poster here!!! /s




Because my time is valuable and it takes way less of it with a rider mower? Raising a kid at the time so it made it the right choice.

Front yard was also .55-.65 with no shade. Was a nightmare in the summer even if you woke up early or mowed it late. the design on the property was shit, no idea why they did not place the house about 3/4 close to the street and enhanced the back yard.

As for shoveling, L shaped driveway in New England. Yah it never "doesn't take all that much time".

As for the property, what are you expecting me to do with it that the landowner won't let me? they have open space for play and a BBQ pit for cookouts. Never has anyone had a problem using the space for standard things home owners use space for.







right and it was included in my calculations. its not like i took my rent and then took out 50 dollars for heat then compared it to the housing cost. Not sure what you are trying to do here?





or you end up with a house that needs two roof replacements. I'll take your tact, if you buy a house with a newer roof you can expect to pay more and it will be reflected in the price of the house....

Sorry but the abuse of the roof was done by mother nature in good old new England.



Welcome to new England and NY.

NYC would all depend on assessed value of the property and its classification. Property taxes in NYC are really not that horrible vs the outlying counties and some counties in upstate NY. (lived in NY/NYC/LI for first 25 or so years)

the relative averages of property taxes in NYC vs say CT or NJ/NY suburbs could be as much as 150-200% difference. Its a strange thing NY the further you go away from the city the more expensive property taxes get. The opposite of what most people believe because NYC is always expected to be sooooo expensive.

Nassau $460,700 $10,000+ 2.11%
New York $944,600 $8,980 0.95%
Suffolk $386,800 $9,157 2.37%
The average effective property tax rate in the Big Apple is just 0.88% – more than half the statewide average rate of 1.69%. In fact, many New York counties (outside of New York City) have rates exceeding 2.50%, which is more than double the national average of 1.07%.


CT

County Median Home Value Median Annual Property Tax Payment Average Effective Property Tax Rate
Fairfield County $422,300 $7,393 1.75%
Hartford County $237,700 $5,430 2.28%
Litchfield County $251,500 $4,829 1.92%
Middlesex County $284,900 $5,565 1.95%
New Haven County $246,700 $5,744 2.33%
New London County $239,000 $4,425 1.85%
Tolland County $251,300 $5,458 2.17%
Windham County $198,000 $3,671 1.85%


NJ + NY
https://smartasset.com/taxes/new-jer...tax-calculator
https://smartasset.com/taxes/new-yor...tax-calculator


So its not something super rare, it effects what 50 million people in this area?






Never said it was super amazing and where in the world did you live that your landlord controlled your temperature, Moscow??. I was using the math relative to my example never meant for it to be the end all. Hell i know outright living in a whole lot of states i could cut my rental cost in half by owning a home easy. Of course, jobs.....

it sounds like you bought a money pit and decided that that's how homeownership in general is. but seriously, new England didn't just develop that sort of weather, so that tells me whatever roof they added and then you added was not good enough to deal with that weather. they have covered gutters nowadays, makes maintenance much easier. etc etc, you CHOSE to get yourself a rider mower (I've seen some people around use them, not seeing that much of a speed increase. they do get tired less I suppose, since you are not pushing one around, but I tend to look at it as a bit of extra exercise)

and i did mention that pool maintenance is a money pit, but the tradeoff is your own personal pool that strangers do not pee into (or you could just buy a membership to a communal pool and NOT buy a house with a pool, not only you save on maintenance, but your insurance rates go down as well).

how much extra space did you have to just store the boxes in an apartment for the next move in a few years??? who has that?

what I do on my property? change flowerbeds for the fun of it, experiment of planting variety of veggies, first year we were there, we dug up the bushes that property came with and planted a bunch of fruit trees instead, we have chickens in our backyard for our own eggs and then there is a matter of dogs playing outside. something as simple as fencing in the area for the animals even as homeowner can require permission from municipality (depending on a scope of additions our chicken coup and fencing is not tall enough to require one in our area, but anything above 6 feet - does require permits) landlords tend to frown upon it even more. just to name a few things.

I lived in new york and new jersey. we had oil heater in a basement and those whistling water radiators in apartments themselves. landlord set the timer on the boiler and if you wanted warmer - had to get space heaters. our last place we had electric heat with our own thermostat, but it was also not included into the rent, so our flexibility in temperatures came at a cost.

those taxes are bonkers, but even the highest tax rate on your very least is 100 per month less then your originally stated number. and I also have to wonder what kind of rental prices they have in those areas to compensate. or do people just not rent there?


essentially you are comparing worst possible home ownership scenario, to best possible rental scenario. nice.


and again, homeownership is not right for everyone anymore then renting is. but your comparisons are skewed as heck, among other things.

[Zan15]

I am not trying to sound like a jerk, but do most people only save 3.5% as a down payment?
Did you have to pay PMI till you hit 20%?

we had 15% and could not qualify for one of those programs because of income.

I had moved and got promoted to NYC salary rates even though i lived 150 miles away from NYC.

didn't take long to pay enough to get rid of PMI.

You could also refinance the house if the value dramatically increased thus recalculating the PMI threshold.


not sure on "most", but now I sure would not buy unless I had the 20% or could qualify.

[ghotihook]

we had 15% and could not qualify for one of those programs because of income.

I had moved and got promoted to NYC salary rates even though i lived 150 miles away from NYC.

didn't take long to pay enough to get rid of PMI.

You could also refinance the house if the value dramatically increased thus recalculating the PMI threshold.


not sure on "most", but now I sure would not buy unless I had the 20% or could qualify.

I thought you were saying you put down 3.5%. There is no way in hell I would buy a house if that's all I had.

I was just trying to understand. I was able to save 40K so I didn't have to pay PMI, and I would have probably saved longer if housing prices were higher. Cause I was only making 45K a year when I purchased. But if you're making good money and get out of PMI quick it's a perfectly good choice.

[Zan15]

it sounds like you bought a money pit and decided that that's how homeownership in general is. but seriously, new England didn't just develop that sort of weather, so that tells me whatever roof they added and then you added was not good enough to deal with that weather. they have covered gutters nowadays, makes maintenance much easier. etc etc, you CHOSE to get yourself a rider mower (I've seen some people around use them, not seeing that much of a speed increase. they do get tired less I suppose, since you are not pushing one around, but I tend to look at it as a bit of extra exercise)

.

didn't cheap out on the roof, invested in a quality roof.
If i got a house with a brand new roof the price would not have been 171k. I mean even my bad math can figure that out.

Covered gutters just added to that 171k. Never needed covers on my apartment, though they could use a clearing because the water is leaking on to my AC slot and it sounds like a drum when it rains

Yah might not have been the best, but again no where did i say this was the average house or the standard by which everything should be measured. you are just taking it that way.

i

and i did mention that pool maintenance is a money pit, but the tradeoff is your own personal pool that strangers do not pee into (or you could just buy a membership to a communal pool and NOT buy a house with a pool, not only you save on maintenance, but your insurance rates go down as well).

You'll get no argument from me on this one. There is no one i talk to about home ownership that i don't start off with DO NOT BUY A HOUSE WITH A POOL.
Cost, liability, insurance, actual negative impact on property value in some cases, etc etc.

i
how much extra space did you have to just store the boxes in an apartment for the next move in a few years??? who has that?

.

last 3 places i lived we had assigned storage spaces in the basement. enough to store folded up boxes. Guess i am lucky.

i


what I do on my property? change flowerbeds for the fun of it, experiment of planting variety of veggies, first year we were there, we dug up the bushes that property came with and planted a bunch of fruit trees instead, we have chickens in our backyard for our own eggs and then there is a matter of dogs playing outside. something as simple as fencing in the area for the animals even as homeowner can require permission from municipality (depending on a scope of additions our chicken coup and fencing is not tall enough to require one in our area, but anything above 6 feet - does require permits) landlords tend to frown upon it even more. just to name a few things.

well my last place did have a community garden and you could sign up for assigned plots. got out of there because it was a very 'old' oriented place, lol.

As for pets, yah renting is a nightmare.

i


those taxes are bonkers, but even the highest tax rate on your very least is 100 per month less then your originally stated number. and I also have to wonder what kind of rental prices they have in those areas to compensate. or do people just not rent there?

essentially you are comparing worst possible home ownership scenario, to best possible rental scenario. nice.

and again, homeownership is not right for everyone anymore then renting is. but your comparisons are skewed as heck, among other things.

assessments on rental properties and complex's tend to be very low compared to private residences. They milk the hell out of homeowners.



Worst possible? Nah, very standard for tens of millions of people. Hell NY alone has 20 million people. Northeast, which is New England, New York, Pennsylvania and New Jersey is around 56 million.
Then you can take a few other places with high taxes as well and easily get near 100 million people or a third of the country.



400k house in new haven county @ 2.33% = 776.00
i said 760. my example was the outer parts of Hartford County 2.28%
Not even the highest.



I do agree its skewed.... its skewed as it relates to comparing my experience to yours. My locality to yours.

- - - Updated - - -

I thought you were saying you put down 3.5%. There is no way in hell I would buy a house if that's all I had.

I was just trying to understand. I was able to save 40K so I didn't have to pay PMI, and I would have probably saved longer if housing prices were higher. Cause I was only making 45K a year when I purchased. But if you're making good money and get out of PMI quick it's a perfectly good choice.

No no that was someone else who used 3.5% as an example.

i would have loved to qualify for a low down payment loan with no pmi.

Would have used that extra money on a new porch about a decade sooner then i got it :P

[Zan15]

Yeah owning a home.

i used to like owning a home when i could get the kids next door to mow my lawn and shovel my walk.

Now you can't get kids to do shit.




i also could yell at them to get off my lawn, one of my favorite past times.

[Lane]

We were saving up for home ownership, but I just don't see how it's possible anymore. Homes in our area of Florida that were around $150k a couple of years ago are now in the $400k range with people paying substantially over asking price. This isn't like the early 2000s either with people qualifying for loans they can't afford, it seems to be wealthy people from CA and the northeast who don't seem to have a problem paying double listing price in some cases. At this point, I'm worried we're going to be priced out of the area since I don't see how rent won't go up significantly here as a result.

[Witchblade77]

didn't cheap out on the roof, invested in a quality roof.
If i got a house with a brand new roof the price would not have been 171k. I mean even my bad math can figure that out.

Covered gutters just added to that 171k. Never needed covers on my apartment, though they could use a clearing because the water is leaking on to my AC slot and it sounds like a drum when it rains

Yah might not have been the best, but again no where did i say this was the average house or the standard by which everything should be measured. you are just taking it that way.




You'll get no argument from me on this one. There is no one i talk to about home ownership that i don't start off with DO NOT BUY A HOUSE WITH A POOL.
Cost, liability, insurance, actual negative impact on property value in some cases, etc etc.



last 3 places i lived we had assigned storage spaces in the basement. enough to store folded up boxes. Guess i am lucky.




well my last place did have a community garden and you could sign up for assigned plots. got out of there because it was a very 'old' oriented place, lol.

As for pets, yah renting is a nightmare.





assessments on rental properties and complex's tend to be very low compared to private residences. They milk the hell out of homeowners.



Worst possible? Nah, very standard for tens of millions of people. Hell NY alone has 20 million people. Northeast, which is New England, New York, Pennsylvania and New Jersey is around 56 million.
Then you can take a few other places with high taxes as well and easily get near 100 million people or a third of the country.



400k house in new haven county @ 2.33% = 776.00
i said 760. my example was the outer parts of Hartford County 2.28%
Not even the highest.



I do agree its skewed.... its skewed as it relates to comparing my experience to yours. My locality to yours.

- - - Updated - - -



No no that was someone else who used 3.5% as an example.

i would have loved to qualify for a low down payment loan with no pmi.

Would have used that extra money on a new porch about a decade sooner then i got it :P

ok, so you are talking in terms of personal preference and experience vs general outlook.

incidentally, my house cost less then yours and it came with covered gutters as well as those snow melting wire things, whose name i cannot remember, but that we use every winter whenever there is snow - helps to preserve the roof, a LOT. again, personal experience and all that, but if we are comparing personal experiences here ...

I'm still in northeast myself, btw and if you have an opportunity to buy a house, property taxes SHOULD be one of your considerations. it certainly was one of ours (and why we didn't buy a house in NJ, btw). also, as far as I can tell - property taxes on rental property are NOT lower, but rather you get a variety of extra deductions - due to maintenance of said property being a business expense, basically, and then there is depreciation deduction. but for the life of me i cannot find ANY sources that back up your claim that assessment on rental property can be low compared to personal residential home (on the contrary one of the benefits of us having just one primary residence is that we get property tax discount on it vs having more then one house). that said, your personal experience was not just taxes it was also apparently property layout among other things. we passed on a LOT of promising houses (one of which I still think about sometimes, because the house itself was gorgeous and damn near perfect AND within our budget, but the location and property layout was absolute ass), because even early on we could tell that the layout of the outside was NOT going to work for us, at all.

I will say this much, speaking of deductions and taxes. due to how and where we bought our property, its actualy easier and better for us to go with a standard deduction (or had been so far) with higher property taxes, higher mortgage, etc - you often get better returns via itemized deductions and credits on your personal tax return... which also becomes a consideration when calculating pros and cons (I would still recommend NOT buying in high property tax area though)

as for rentals and storage space. lucky and probably had more options without pets. our rental options were fairly limited, unless we were willing to give up our dogs and neither me nor SO was willing to do that. you adopt an animal? its your responsibility for the rest of their life, you don't get to just discard them because they are inconvenient now. just like not everyone can benefit from ownership (or renting) not everyone should have pets either.

honestly, it also feels like a lot of people just do not do enough research before buying. it IS a particular kind of commitment. there are a lot of things to consider there. and even with the best preparations, its still possible to miss things, but it still helps to avoid a LOT of pitfalls. if there is one unquestionable benefit to renting, its that your commitment is generally NOT so long term and you can get out of it much easier then having to sell a house with issues.

[Forogil]

Too many real estate agents. Never been a fan of a middleman industry that skims 3-6% of the sales price.

Is it just me or does the US have a disproportionate number of real estate agents?

2 million real estate agents mean that 0.6% of the population are real estate agents; some claim it's because they sell 5 million home each year, which would only be 2.5 homes per estate agent and year. Even if you only count the active members of the organization it's still less than 4 homes per agent and year.

The uk allegedly have between 20k and 100k (depending on how you count) selling 1.2 million homes; so between 0.03% and 0.15% and between 12 and 60 homes per agent and year.

(And I didn't mind my agent skimming of about 4% as there are legal documents, and marketing.)

[PC2]

Is it just me or does the US have a disproportionate number of real estate agents?

2 million real estate agents mean that 0.6% of the population are real estate agents; some claim it's because they sell 5 million home each year, which would only be 2.5 homes per estate agent and year. Even if you only count the active members of the organization it's still less than 4 homes per agent and year.

The uk allegedly have between 20k and 100k (depending on how you count) selling 1.2 million homes; so between 0.03% and 0.15% and between 12 and 60 homes per agent and year.

I think it's because it's really easy to become a real estate agent in the US so a lot of people pursue it as a side job. It's a feast or famine situation where some people sell a lot but some people rarely close a sell. The "Realtor" designation is kind of a scam because even after they get their real estate license they still kind of need to pay a fee every year just to be a part of the club and it costs hundreds of dollars.

(And I didn't mind my agent skimming of about 4% as there are legal documents, and marketing.)

They often try to get 5-6% here and I complain about them but the truth is the average person is clueless about real estate exchanges, checking for liens, getting buildings inspected, and marketing so it's not usually realistic to do things without going through an agent.

[smityx]

even in those countries, you cannot just paint your walls whatever you want, knock them down, replace major appliances/kitchen cabinets/etc, have pets - without landlord's approval.

Careful now. People do live in HOA hellholes with Karen's not even allowing you to have a couple flower pots.

[Doctor Amadeus]

Is there any actual benefit in buying a home?

Yes, but it depends on a few details, because buying a house is a bit like buying a used car over all you have to have a plan and contingency set up in case of all plausible outcomes.

IF NOT then no, a home can be a money pit. The truth is the biggest reason married people get divorced is finance and almost always always it's not too long after the purchase of a home together.

As to benefit yes, the very home you have if you pay off early or on time, you build equity but again that is only IF you plan ahead.

Otherwise like so many you will hitch yourself to a massive debt that requires monthly considerations as well as maintenance. Keep in mind real estate is a volatile market filled with a lot of landmines

[Witchblade77]

Careful now. People do live in HOA hellholes with Karen's not even allowing you to have a couple flower pots.

oh I'm aware. painfuly so. which is why when shopping for a house, we very unequivocally told our real estate agent - absolutely positively NO HOA. EVER. up to and including dropping first agent for not getting the memo and finding another one.

HOA is honestly closer to renting then owning, IMO. so...yeah...

[Wrecktangle]

Could get in the 2's easy with high credit and a few points or something outside 30 year fixed, but we were talking 30 year and the lower rates could have additional cost upfront. I assumed at 3.5% down there was no money to buy down the rate.

Just an FYI, I got 2.74% 30yr fixed 2 months ago, no points and no fee loan refi and closed in less than a week. I do have 800+ CS.

It is pretty crazy how much a house costs in this country. You'd think, at least in NJ, there was something we could do about it. We are creeping on a 50/50 split between home owners, and renters. It was roughly a 60/40 split in 2018.

That should say a lot about the state of finances in our state.

I own a townhome with an hoa (sadface), and the units identical to mine are selling at ~230-240k right now, when I paid 171k (about 5k over list price and was only on market for 1 day 6 years ago. My all in (PITI) is about 1,000 on the dot. Rent for a 3br 2ba luxury townhome in my county is ~ 1,800 on the LOW end.

[Rasulis]

did you own a home prior to the crash of 08-09 ish?
Seems like this has so many shared examples to that time.

I still remember thinking about selling in 2006-2007 because after 5 years they were telling me my house was worth 300k from 171k.

My brother in law lucked out, because of a divorce (one can argue lucked out twice lol) and was forced to sell his house under the divorce agreement right at the peak.
It was insane the house sold in about three hours at 20% higher than posted which was already 70% appreciation on the 250 ish they paid on the house.


Houses in central, western parts of CT are not lasting much longer.
My zillow addiction and house spotting/hunting trips through the north western part of the state just amazes me how fast these houses are turning around.


Yes, even after all i posted i am still not apposed to buying a home at this point for retirement.

But that is because i am starting to suffer from the 'get off my lawn you young punks' disease already. I don't even have a lawn of my own either!!!! Noise and nonsense is just starting to really bother me. I think i am done with semi-urban living very soon.

I bought my first property in 1987 in SF. It was an apartment converted to condo. Very popular back then. Sold in in early 90s to help my sister with the down payment for her house.

Second was a newly constructed townhouse in Mission Bay, SD. Still has that one as rental. First stand alone house in 1990 in a suburb east of San Diego. We sold than one in 2012 and used the proceed to build the current house which was completed in 2014.

We purchased all of the vacation properties, with the exception of one, in the 90s. For our own use and rent when we were not using them. We bought the Ft. Bragg property at the wrong time. As soon as we bought it the real estate market in CA crashed. We kept it because we love the house and the property. Right at the beach, sea of grass as the backyard bordering a redwood forest, national parks within walking/biking distance to the north and south. One day we will retire there.

The same with the one and only commercial office building we ever purchased. We bought it at the wrong time. The one good thing about the 2005 - 2008 crash was that my wife was able to lower the property tax on all of our properties. Those tax rates were never readjusted as the price recovered and actually went up past the previous highs.

I do agree with you. Investing in the stock market especially through roth 401k and IRA would have provided a better return for your investment.

[Kathandira]

Just an FYI, I got 2.74% 30yr fixed 2 months ago, no points and no fee loan refi and closed in less than a week. I do have 800+ CS.



I own a townhome with an hoa (sadface), and the units identical to mine are selling at ~230-240k right now, when I paid 171k (about 5k over list price and was only on market for 1 day 6 years ago. My all in (PITI) is about 1,000 on the dot. Rent for a 3br 2ba luxury townhome in my county is ~ 1,800 on the LOW end.

Is this in New Jersey? I'd love to find a nice home like that for $1,000 a month

[Veggie50]

Is there any actual benefit in buying a home?

Short answer;
Yes.

Slightly longer answer;
HEEELLLLLLL YEES

Long answer;
I would argue that renting homes is one of the primary ways in which poor people are kept poor.

Let’s compare costs. I’ll do this from reference numbers in Netherlands, since I’m more familiar here, but I have no reason to assume things are different in the USA.

I live in an appartment building. These appartments are rented out at 1100 euro per month, with 80 going to the home owners association for structural upkeep of the building, so 1180 a month in total.

I bought my apartment, and pay 500 euro in morgage, plus 80 for that same home owners association, so 580 in total. So that’s a 600 a month difference straight off the bat.

But it goes beyond that. Of the 500 euro morgage payment, about 400 is paying off the total loan, over 30 years. The remaining 100 is interest. This means that 400 out of 580 is actually savings, that fall free when/if I ever decide to sell.

This effectively means that my living costs are 100 (interest) + 80 for HOA, for a total of 180 euro. Compare that to the 1180 my renting neighbour pays.

[MCMLXXXII]

Short answer;
Yes.

Slightly longer answer;
HEEELLLLLLL YEES

Long answer;
I would argue that renting homes is one of the primary ways in which poor people are kept poor.

Let’s compare costs. I’ll do this from reference numbers in Netherlands, since I’m more familiar here, but I have no reason to assume things are different in the USA.

I live in an appartment building. These appartments are rented out at 1100 euro per month, with 80 going to the home owners association for structural upkeep of the building, so 1180 a month in total.

I bought my apartment, and pay 500 euro in morgage, plus 80 for that same home owners association, so 580 in total. So that’s a 600 a month difference straight off the bat.

But it goes beyond that. Of the 500 euro morgage payment, about 400 is paying off the total loan, over 30 years. The remaining 100 is interest. This means that 400 out of 580 is actually savings, that fall free when/if I ever decide to sell.

This effectively means that my living costs are 100 (interest) + 80 for HOA, for a total of 180 euro. Compare that to the 1180 my renting neighbour pays.

I'm in the exact same situation. All the costs you mentioned are the sam for me. I bought my apartment 13 years ago for 135k euro. Now they sell for at least 210k and people actually bid on the spot sometimes to 230k. I'm going to sell it now. So that's at least 75k profit and about 80k I already paid on mortgage. I'll live with my girlfriend for a while , who rents, till the market settles down.