“If you can’t afford a house at current prices, RENT! Nobody is entitled to a single family home at a reasonable price. If anyone outbids you whether an individual or a fund, tough feces”
This “let them eat cake” comment is why people are voting for socialism. The problem is a smaller and smaller amount of people can afford the price of current homes.
My niece and her husband live in NVA, played by all the rules, marriage before kids, both have above average jobs but to buy a homes in that area is 750-900k. Nearly all the single family homes in their neighborhood, probably 300 homes are rentals.
That is not good for a country.
It’s not good for northern Virginia but it probably IS good for the country. That overpriced residential real estate market only exists because it is a bedroom community for a fascist Federal government that has grown out of control.
I’m in the process of moving my home — AND MY BUSINESS — out of an overpriced Democrat stronghold to a place where I can earn an honest living without paying exorbitant taxes to feed a dysfunctional nanny-state.
Tutorial for whomever might be a first time buyer looking at say, a $250,000 home.
The first 5 years or so of a new mortgage goes mainly to interest.
Then factor in property tax - varies wildly depending on the state/town - but lets use an average of $2500 annually. This tends to increase a bit annually, so your mortgage will not remain the same as when you sign on the dotted line.
Lets say one has only a 5% down payment, then one HAS to have PMI for at least 2 years - so about $150 (unless it’s a VA loan) per month added to the mortgage, then add the insurance (meh, say $900. yearly) and taxes, and if you qualify for a 2.9% interest rate, you are at $1,422. per month before utilities and such. That’s if you don’t have condo or HOA fees too.
Around here we could rent a nice apartment for that, or even a decent house. True, no equity, but no upkeep either!
Anyway, total ~interest~ paid in the full 30 years on that above scenario is $118,000. ish. Total for all IF they get the PMI off after 2 years is $462,000 (not including property tax increases) paid over 30 years. Many people move after 5 to 7 years though, and have very little true equity built up.
And right now people are overpaying for fixers that are actually money pits from hell. We backed out of a contract on one such place - it had tons of charm, and tons of not very obvious BIG money problems revealed by a good home inspection. Just looked at another the other day - it’s the sort of place I itch to restore, but not worth the outlay.
NVA is a unique market, unfortunately.
For what it’s worth - we are homeowners, looking at buying in our target area to retire to, and about as qualified as can be for our target price range, but everything is getting snapped up within a day of hitting the market - anything on the market that had been languishing for a while - suddenly snapped up. A ton of that inventory is garbage, and now what is coming on is overpriced crap. We are waiting. Part of “earning” a home is patience.