Home buying first time, humbly asking advice

[Irace86.2.0]

Originally Posted by Spuds

I could ask where you suppose that money to do so would come from, but that is a far more political discussion than would be appropriate here.

Talking about the practicality of public projects doesn’t have to be political if the too sides don’t get into bitter rants about philosophies.

Money doesn’t have to come from taxes. Private investors looking to build can be incentivized.

Where I live, the average home price is around $750k and the average new home is also very expensive. Even the cheapest, used homes are converted apartments with $300/month HOAs in the $350k+. Home ownership should be possible even at the lowest income levels. A 500square foot apartment home shouldn’t be untouchable or leave the buyer paying 50+% of their income to a bank and to HOAs. The housing market tends to be tied to the rental market, which is also tight and expensive.

The problem is that the county keeps giving contracts to builders who want to build large homes. This is good for the county for higher taxes and good for the builder who wants to maximize or guarantee a profit. The county could choose not to give public land to builders who choose to build big homes. If they wanted to incentivize these builders then they could guarantee a certain profit regardless of market fluctuations, which would remove the risk to builders, obviously, potentially at the cost to tax payers in the market goes sour. And yes, the government could use taxpayer money to build, but they could also sell the homes to recover the money. The actual cost to build cheap housing is very little, and it gets people off the streets and away from predatory individuals and institutions that prey on the poor and vulnerable with sky high rents, payday loans, subprime lending, overdraft fees, etc. We could fix the homelessness problem with cheap housing too, and it could actually save us money. In a similar way, building cheap housing to free buyers from putting so much of their income to rent or mortgages could stimulate the economy, as that money could be used for other things from savings, investing, buying products, paying for education to advance one’s carrier, etc.

https://www.theguardian.com/housing-...-housing-first

https://endhomelessness.org/study-da...s-money-lives/

Originally Posted by p1l0t

Yes we do have to be careful here.And yes the govt basically does guarantee just about "anybody" could buy a house if they want to. If you take an FHA (or in CT we also have CFHA) loan you can put down as little as 3.5%! That's $3500 per $100,000 of house. Real people can afford that. Having good enough credit is the harder part. Ironically though allowing people to put down very little allows them to spend more than they really should. This actually drives the price of houses up. Someone paying cash or a normal 20% down is not going to pay nearly as much as someone who only has to put very little down... until they have to compete with them. Like I said every time we mess with the free market there are consequences and often more bad ones then good.

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My brother just bought a house at $400k up north in a far cheaper county where property taxes are much cheaper and a small home is much more affordable. He said everything out the door was $28k, and that was with a FHA loan after all down payment, closing costs, taxes, fees, everything. His wife and him make over $80k-100k+, so this purchase wasn’t a hard purchase for them, but that is a lot of money for many people. According to this article, people don’t have much savings. From a 2019 article from a small survey of 846 people.

The economy might be strong in the U.S., but nearly 70 percent of Americans have less than $1,000 stashed away, according to GOBankingRates’ 2019 savings survey. The poll, released December 16, revealed 45 percent have nothing saved. The survey questioned 846 respondents November 25 to 26.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.sta...-lack-savings/

Renting doesn’t have to be bad. Someone can build their retirement and potentially end up with more savings than a buyer, depending on a lot of variables, but two things are problems: when supply is so low that renters don’t have cheap options then that is a problem, and when buying becomes prohibitive except to the well-off who pay cash and intend to rent or flip the home for a profit then that is a problem. We are seeing both of these issues right now. And if buying is so cheap and easy then why does the US have only 65% of homes being occupied by home owners, or why does the US rank lower in housing than other developed countries?

In 1990, the United States ranked 10th of the 18 countries, solidly in the middle of the group and, with a 63.9 percent homeownership rate, just above the average. By 2015, however, the US was the fifth lowest, with a rate of 63.7 percent, well below the 69.6 percent average.

https://www.urban.org/urban-wire/us-...oped-countries

[Irace86.2.0]

[p1l0t]

Not sure how we jumped from the average Joe affording a house to fixing the homeless crisis, lol. I'm sure it's related in a way but damn I sure don't want live anywhere near public housing projects. Connecticut keeps trying to find ways to force towns into making affordable housing areas. It may seem fair to the people who want to live wherever they want and have someone else pay for it but for the people who pay a lot of money to live in a quiet town away from the bullshit it's not fair at all. The town I live in does seem to manage to do both to an extent, but that's our choice and I think it should be each town's right to choose. (Of course I also bought land on the opposite side of town now so I can get away from it when I'm done building). I'm sorry if I sound like an asshole but the houses around me are becoming increasingly renters and much of them don't even work. So they don't give a shit about anything. Loud music at all hours, increased break-ins, people walking in the middle of street with no intention of moving out of the way. And not far from me more 'affordable housing' buildings are being built near the the train tracks. Which is a great idea since they won't need to have cars, but I can just see 'civilization' taking over. The writing is on the wall, time to move a bit further away. Same distance to the center of town but opposite direction from the big city. I guess my point is I understand exactly why these small towns want to stay small towns regardless of the fact that humans want to develop everything into urban sprawl.

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[Irace86.2.0]

They are very connected. The supply of cheap or even moderately priced housing or rentals is the problem.



And the videos discuss how a large percentage of some societies live in public housing. This is because the public housing is desirable. Moreover, the only difference between the two can be a private investor building the home through a contractor at profit and the government building the home through a contractor at a wash, which is more affordable to the buyer, but typically they reduce costs even more by producing more multifamily buildings and ones that don’t cater to the top of the market. The American experience with public housing is very different than in other nations. I could show video after video or images of amazing, cheap, public housing around the world that people rent or own.

[EAGLE5]

Originally Posted by p1l0t

Yes we do have to be careful here.And yes the govt basically does guarantee just about "anybody" could buy a house if they want to. If you take an FHA (or in CT we also have CFHA) loan you can put down as little as 3.5%! That's $3500 per $100,000 of house. Real people can afford that. Having good enough credit is the harder part. Ironically though allowing people to put down very little allows them to spend more than they really should. This actually drives the price of houses up. Someone paying cash or a normal 20% down is not going to pay nearly as much as someone who only has to put very little down... until they have to compete with them. Like I said every time we mess with the free market there are consequences and often more bad ones then good.

Regulations have winners and losers, and regulations have unintended consequences. However, the "free market" is a misnomer. There is no such thing. You have fraud protection? That's not a free market. Get rid of the rules? Stronger actors move in and manipulate the market, making it not only operate poorly but effectively not free even without government oversight. It's a complicated game.

Originally Posted by p1l0t

Not sure how we jumped from the average Joe affording a house to fixing the homeless crisis, lol. I'm sure it's related in a way but damn I sure don't want live anywhere near public housing projects. Connecticut keeps trying to find ways to force towns into making affordable housing areas. It may seem fair to the people who want to live wherever they want and have someone else pay for it but for the people who pay a lot of money to live in a quiet town away from the bullshit it's not fair at all. The town I live in does seem to manage to do both to an extent, but that's our choice and I think it should be each town's right to choose. (Of course I also bought land on the opposite side of town now so I can get away from it when I'm done building). I'm sorry if I sound like an asshole but the houses around me are becoming increasingly renters and much of them don't even work. So they don't give a shit about anything. Loud music at all hours, increased break-ins, people walking in the middle of street with no intention of moving out of the way. And not far from me more 'affordable housing' buildings are being built near the the train tracks. Which is a great idea since they won't need to have cars, but I can just see 'civilization' taking over. The writing is on the wall, time to move a bit further away. Same distance to the center of town but opposite direction from the big city. I guess my point is I understand exactly why these small towns want to stay small towns regardless of the fact that humans want to develop everything into urban sprawl.

Yeah, nobody wants other people in their backyard, and nobody wants to be crowded in or deal with annoying people. That's all pretty understandable. It's also just reality that people need places to live, unless we're going to regulate reproduction. Oh wait...

Besides, would you rather have those people in tents on the street or in motorhomes? That's what you get when you don't build enough homes with enough density.

Originally Posted by Irace86.2.0

They are very connected. The supply of cheap or even moderately priced housing or rentals is the problem.

And the videos discuss how a large percentage of some societies live in public housing. This is because the public housing is desirable. Moreover, the only difference between the two can be a private investor building the home through a contractor at profit and the government building the home through a contractor at a wash, which is more affordable to the buyer, but typically they reduce costs even more by producing more multifamily buildings and ones that don’t cater to the top of the market. The American experience with public housing is very different than in other nations. I could show video after video or images of amazing, cheap, public housing around the world that people rent or own.

My friend in Denmark has an apartment owned by a non-profit. It's pretty nice and insanely cheap. Seems like a decent life. He doesn't work as hard and gets to be happier than having to run harder on the mouse wheel.

[ZionsWrath]

I'm under contract.
4th property i bid on.
Will see if it goes through.

Thanks for the input, learned a lot.

[soundman98]

congrats!

it's almost all over but the paying part!

[humfrz]

Originally Posted by ZionsWrath

I'm under contract.
4th property i bid on.
Will see if it goes through.

Thanks for the input, learned a lot.

Are you having a home inspection?

[Atmo]

Originally Posted by humfrz

Are you having a home inspection?

By someone other than the selling agent's relative?

[soundman98]

Originally Posted by Atmo

By someone other than the selling agent's relative?

don't involve relatives in home buying unless they're the ones that will be doing the repair work later for you for cheap/free/pizza.

the selling agents only interest is in getting as much for the house as soon as possible for their client. once you sign, they ain't care.

[Atmo]

Originally Posted by soundman98

don't involve relatives in home buying unless they're the ones that will be doing the repair work later for you for cheap/free/pizza.

the selling agents only interest is in getting as much for the house as soon as possible for their client. once you sign, they ain't care.

When I buy a house, I always include contingencies beyond normal disclosures including acceptance and approval of an inspection by a licensed, certified professional. I was fooled once by an unethical seller's agent who had a different last name than the inspector she highly recommended who turned out to be her live-in boyfriend. I only found out when a competing agent arrived with another buyer not knowing the house was under contract and revealed the relationship. We got it straightened out.

[humfrz]

Originally Posted by soundman98

don't involve relatives in home buying unless they're the ones that will be doing the repair work later for you for cheap/free/pizza.

the selling agents only interest is in getting as much for the house as soon as possible for their client. once you sign, they ain't care.

Note: In this part of the country, the "selling agent" (selling office) is the agent/office representing the buyer.

[soundman98]

Originally Posted by humfrz

Note: In this part of the country, the "selling agent" (selling office) is the agent/office representing the buyer.

ya'll just use conflicting terms just to confuddle everyone!

[humfrz]

Originally Posted by soundman98

ya'll just use conflicting terms just to confuddle everyone!

Yep, especially a new escrow person.

Hey, new escrow person, since I'm the agent that's listing the sellers property, I get the listing office commission. AND, since I allowed the sale to happen for the selling office, I get the selling office commission. Never you mind that the seller and buyer are two different people.

I'll take the total sum of both commissions, in cash, out in the parking lot -

Then I'll be ........

(oh, that other agent standing there, I don't know what the fuck he has to do with it)