Posted on 02/18/2023 7:22:50 AM PST by SaxxonWoods
Question: I was a victim of FOMO during the housing market craziness and bought a house for $200,000 over the asking price. Now house prices are coming back to reality, and I feel like I lost my hard-earned money. I don’t know what to do as I am living with constant stress thinking that I made a big financial mistake, and I’m not sure if I should consult a financing adviser for better decision-making and long-term investment planning.
My wife and I are in our 30s and are working in the Bay Area and making about $320,000 combined yearly. We live an average life and watch every dollar that we spend.
(Excerpt) Read more at marketwatch.com ...
True, although $320k in Cali allows you to afford a 3 bed house!
“Great people, like going back in time 50 years.”
I was lucky enough to be born and raised in the San Joaquin Valley of California. Born in Dinuba and at age 10, moved to Visalia.
The town of Dinuba has never had more than 25K+ a little change, in its history even today. Everyone knew everyone, and was protective of each other. Tulare County is a huge agricultural district with some of their top crops representing over one billion dollars in direct income to the county. Oranges, grapes, plumbs, nectarines, peaches, walnuts are part of what they represent. So you know there are fruit stands all over in season. And you’re right, that fresh fruit was great. My great great grandfather was a meat hunter for the railroads when they first went through in the mid to later 1800’s. Glad he stayed. It was great growing up on a ranch.
wy69
It’s a beautiful area! My mom lived in Bradley County close to the Polk Co. line. Benton is in Polk Co. I’m in McMinn. I worked for almost 40 years in Cleveland before I retired. The population of Cleveland is exploding because of out-of-towners moving there for the jobs. Not as many come to Athens. Too small and “farmy” I guess.
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The county seat in the county where I live is McMinnville, Oregon, named by William Newby who named it after his hometown of McMinnville, Tennessee.
Three groups that were a very important part of the westward migration that settled what became the Oregon Territory prior to statehood. Were people from New England, people that pretended they were from New England, & Southerners.
“Having said that. Nothing sucks like a Big Orange!
Roll Tide!”
LOL
Basic economics isn’t taught in schools anymore, although it is really just common sense to not spend more than you make and only take on debt when absolutely necessary. Always, ALWAYS live below your means and you stand a very good chance of being “rich” someday. FOMO is just greed and wanting to impress other people.
I bought my first house in CA when I was 25. A converted 1 bedroom cabin in the Santa Cruz mountains. Every 5-10 years when the markets - real estate and mortgage - were favorable my wife and I would roll our increased equity into a nicer, but still modest, property. Our monthly payments were about the same over the last 25 years.
Last year we sold our house to some FOMOs after increasing our equity by $400k in 8 years, and bought a 3k square foot house with barns, a shop, and a couple outbuildings on 12 acres in central Texas - for cash.
Never bought a new car in my life, don’t need fancy toys, rarely eat out, don’t wear (or even own) fancy clothes, and have saved enough money to send my daughter to college in a couple years. It wasn’t hard. Modesty pays off in the long term.
I read that a lot of Southerners migrated West after the war.
McMinn Co. and McMinnville TN were both named after Joseph McMinn. McMinn Co. was established in 1819.
My ancestors were Scottish immigrants that came here before the Revolutionary War and they settled in North Carolina before migrating South to Tennessee. A few of them eventually migrated West but most stayed in the Appalachian Mountains. Some were moonshiners. None were from any of the famous clans. They were Welsh, Dane, Irish, and Normans that went to Scotland in the 12th century and became Scots, from what I have found out. No New Englanders unless it’s on my mom’s side. That doesn’t mean it didn’t happen, but my family preferred the mountains so most stayed in the Appalachians.
A lot of the Southern accent/dialect comes from Scot/Irish immigrants from way back. My own grandmother used a lot of the old words and phrases. I can remember my grandfather calling city people “flatlanders” when I was little. :-)
Well there is that. If collections went past due after a month or so for big shots, the Rolodex file was sent up the chain of command to deal with it...
Yep been used for years NY had a lot of it.
If you say so it’s your story got data?.
Eve Plumb from the tv show “The Brady Bunch” bought a small 850sq/ft home in Malibu in 1969 for $55,300 and sold it for $3.9 million in 2016.
See the photos. Basically a trailer home on the beach.
https://www.today.com/home/brady-bunch-star-eve-plumb-sells-malibu-home-she-bought-t101957
https://people.com/home/the-brady-bunch-eve-plumb-sells-malibu-house/
I wonder what that couples property tax is on the new home?
They are liars, not victims.
The first line of the article starts with “I was a victim of FOMO” and that’s just simply a lie. Didn’t they read their contract before they signed it where it spelled out how much they are going to have to pay on principal/interest over the life of the loan? The responsible thing to have done was to actually read it way before signing and making sure they know what they are signing. He wasn’t a victim. He was a contract-signer who had plenty of opportunity up front to do his due diligence to make sure that he and his wife were ready to do it & meet their obligations.
And then he throws his employer and his wife’s employer under the bus when he writes “my wife and I are in our 30s and are working in the Bay Area and making about $320,000 combined yearly”. What kind of employer would hire such fools and pay them such very high salaries that is way above average salaries in the USA and even much higher than average salaries worldwide? Such employers don’t need to be so wasteful on hiring and keeping staff who are so irresponsible like this, especially calling himself a victim? If a job location’s home prices have become too much to support a family then its time to go find somewhere else to live or just live with much less.
Even the “expert” in the article falls for the mentality that so many get into with rental real estate when they write “we know you’re losing $14,400” regarding his $4450 monthly mortgage and $3250 monthly rent. What about vacancy factors? Costs of re-renting the place? Utilities during vacancy? Repairs/maintenance? What if the tenant decides to not pay the rent and you can’t evict for years due to some pandemic? The roof, HVAC, appliances, and so much more will eventually all need to be replaced & there will always be plenty of other bills that come with rental property ownership. What if the rent price can never be raised enough to keep up with the costs of ownership?
The most important thing that every prospective landlord must keep in mind is this - blue hives are uninvestable. The woke mobs go vote and their politicians do their bidding in decimating the Middle Class. So many places have been kalifornicated in America.
There’s 0% chance they were victims. They were being greedy in signing a contract (with lots of leverage and risks which they purposely chose to ignore during the bubble) and until they accept responsibility for getting themselves into this mess and stop playing the victim card then they’ll just keep going on being dishonest scumbags who think the world owes them everything.
There’s a mega philathropist named SBF who is planning on giving away almost all his wealth who started a cryptocurrency empire. Maybe they could do a swap of their home for some of FTX’s tokens? SBF is back there in the Bay Area living in a multimillions mansion now as he awaits his big day of some dunces in a jury room being fooled into saying “not guilty”.
This is part of why wise people will save up at least 20% down + 6 months of living expenses when they buy a house. Anything less than this is a recipe for very elevated disaster risks in the long run.
I'm old too ... and I know I've seen FOMO before ... but I'm old (did I say that already?); I had no recollection at all what it meant!
Fair enough
My daughter is young so I may be more up to date than I should be
Sell the condo and put the profits towards
the $200,000 overcharge. Move to the
purchased home. The difference in housing
cost vs traveling will be noticeable.
Out here in the west it is not uncommon
to drive 50 miles each way. Your circle
of friends should take a back seat to
your financial well being. If they’re
true friends, they’ll stay in touch.
True liberal attitude going on here.
They made the deal, they should learn
to live with it.
Wow! Cute but a little close to the neighbors for me. :-) It would make a good homeless shack.
Prices out there must be ridiculous. It’s no wonder there are so many homeless. My former friend lived in Burbank and had a large home, pool, etc. so I can only imagine the cost.
The sad part is that it didn’t have to be that way. I grew up in the Bay Area (Vallejo) in the 1960s and early 1970s, and it was a great place to live.
How much is my home worth? - Zillowhttps://www.zillow.com ›
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