Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion The Water Cooler Totally OT: financial advisor

If you can locate anything worth buying below $300K in the Bay Area, I want to know about it...

You could get mine for about that in Iowa I know the cost of living out there is nutzzzz.

i would wait a little while before making a first home purchase
the whole real estate market is out of control,it has to calm down soon.i dont think it will be like the 80s but prices have to come down 15-20%(just my oppinion)to put a decent house in a affordable price range for the middle class- younger people and ftb's

We're certainly not buying now--but we need to save efficiently in order to buy at some point. I have my doubts about a housing crash, as nice as that might be for me, so we're going to need some pretty serious dough by the time it's time to buy.

not so much a crash,but at least it has to settle to a comfortable level so people can live decently.
if i had to start now id s&^t

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If you can locate anything worth buying below $300K in the Bay Area, I want to know about it...

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Yes, I would ask the same favor for Washington DC metro area as well...

Also, waiting is a valid option for now. However, I don't think the prices will ever go down in DC area. They may flatten out, that means decrease in real terms though. As such, waiting will do nothing other than saving some more money, which, on the other hand is not substantial when talking about a 300K loan. Dilemas, dilemas...

I had the pleasure of saving for a house a couple of years ago, right at the beginning of teh big real estate run-up here in the Metro-NYC area. My best advice to you is to put your savings into a high-yield money market account where you do not have easy access to such as a ATM or debit card. I would recommend opening up a money market account with INGDirect.com . The yield is very high and their website gives you the ability to transfer in cash from another account seamlessly, making it easier to add to your savings. With the stock market so volitile now, it is best not to invest your home savings into a mutual fund right now. I have a bunch of friends who did that in 2000 and are still renting 5 years later.

You sound just like me. I just bough a townhome in Leesburg, VA for $300k. It's a little smaller than I would like, but it will work just fine for the less than 5 years I hope to be living there. I've already got a list a mile long of things I'd like to improve in the house. I've been waiting a long time to have my own house to work on, so I don't see the house's shortcomings as that much of a bad thing. They're all fixable.

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but prices have to come down 15-20%

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I am highly doubtful that prices will come down that much, but I totally agree. The market in the DC area has settled a great deal in the last 6 months. I had no competition for my townhome and got it for less than asking. Not much less, but that would have been impossible earlier in the year. Still, I paid about double what the previous owner bought the place for 2 years ago. And from the looks of it, she put absolutely zero work into improving it.

Waiting also means higher interest rates.