Is the housing boom over?

[A//// Guy]

Yea I would rather have a house too, and I have been looking at houses in the same price range and unless you go way out of town you will get a shack for under 200k... Compared to a newer or brand new town home from 140-200k that are usually in nice areas. It all depends on what you want to sacrifice- small lot and house with 1 garage in crappy neighborhood for 170k or a really nice townhome in a nice location with more than 1 garage attached.

One thing that I have been looking at also, which I would be sold on if they had separate garag-ing would be a loft downtown. I think that would be sweet to live right downtown in a redone old building with huge ceilings and get up everyday to see the busy life outside.

[slowbubblecar]

the loft would be spendy though

[AJ]

Jana and I spent a few weeks looking at lofts downtown. There are A LOT of options but in reality is just a big spendy apartment with more room, sweet views, and resale value. We looked at 5 or 6 different buildings on the outskirts of downtown (past the Vu), and everything we liked would have been 500K plus. And that's just to have something with a little more room (200-300 sq feet more) than we already have. Anythign in the low range (300Kish) wasn't as appealing. Anything we fell in love with was 750k + Go figure. We won't be living downtown anytime soon.

[A//// Guy]

Yea I found a few from 170k and up but it is basically an apartment you own, and I dont think I would end up liking that too much. I just think it would be awesome to live downtown.

Well I still have more than a year to figure things out so no problem yet...

[Halon]

Going to a second showing on the ones I'm looking at today. I am pretty close to owning one! Gotta find me a damn roommate to help with these payments!!

[Goat Blower]

Going to a second showing on the ones I'm looking at today. I am pretty close to owning one! Gotta find me a damn roommate to help with these payments!!
Smart man. Get a three bedroom, rent out to two of your buddies, and your portion of the mortgage cost is almost free. To be young and single again. :rolleyes:

[JET]

I wouldn't go quite that far, but it does help a lot. Basically for every $10k extra you put into a home, you are paying an extra $100/mo. It sounds like a lot in the beginning, but once you figure it out it isn't so bad. I was looking at houses around $180k and couldn't find anything I liked. I got mine for $210k not quite 2 years ago. It ended up being $1,800/mo instead of $1,500/mo, will all the house bills. Really not that huge of a difference and it was well worth it. A bigger investment will just gain that much more!

[MATCHBX]

I'm glad we got into ours when we did. Granted it's a little out of the way. But it's nice and quiet here. We don't hear the "Thump, thump, thump" from the little teenie-boppers' cars all nite long like we did in our rental in Burnsville.

We got our townhome for $120K. We did a 100% mortgage. We went through FHA and they hooked us up with down payment assistance. We paid $600 at closing. The builders paid all the closing costs (allowable by law) and are picking up the first year of assoc. dues ($128 a month).

On the bad side, we only get a one stall garage. But on the good side, our mortgage is for $120K while the property was appraised at $133K. So we have equity going into it. Also, being that it is a brand new build, our taxes are for the "unimproved lot value" for the first year or so. Next years taxes are somewhere in the neighborhood of $600-700. It's a 2-bedroom, 1200 sq-ft, 2-bath townhouse. We have a middle unit so it's easy to heat. The association takes care of the water, sewer and garbage. We got a fireplace in the livingroom, ceiling fan up in the bedroom and walk-in closets in both bedrooms. Also a huge amount of storage space. We have 5 good size closets in this place.

[Halon]

Went to my showings today. I think I've made my decision. We will look at one more, but I think I've made my choice. Kinda exciting!!

[A//// Guy]

Party at Brandons!!! ;)