Quote:
Originally Posted by medicalfox
My boyfriend wants to buy a home that's cheap (under $100,00) because it would come out to be $500 ish a month which is about the same as a cheap apartment in my area, but I'm not sure if it's a good idea. He really wants to move because our landlord is ripping us off and we can't get a studio apartment since everyone keeps turning us down. Everywhere we reply to for studios and one bedroom apartments tell us it's not big enough for two people even though it's 800 sqf which is frustrating. We live in a room share and pay $850 a month which is a lot for a room share since most rooms shares are $300 ish per person and includes everything. My boyfriend doesn't want to do a roomshare with a stranger because he's worried about them seeing my symptoms (like autistic hand flapping and such) and just wants our own place. With all utilities on our own I think it would come out to $300 or less a month which wouldn't be bad. I wish the landlord was nice and cared about us, my boyfriend and him fight a bit because the landlord is dumb about things. He tried to charge us an extra $100 for gas or something, but he's the one that takes a bath and shower twice daily and uses the heat, we live in the basement and just use a electric heater. What do you guys think?
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Ok so I own a condo---that $500 a month is just the mortgage right---well you also have to pay property taxes and a monthly fee. For me the mortgage is $400 but property taxes spread out over the year equal $200 a month and the condo fee is $265 and it can increase randomly and there can be special assessments for building repairs etc. So a $400 fee per moths ends up at $865 and I have to take care of anything that breaks in the unit. Also you will need a down payment(for me $20,000 for a conventional loan) so unless he has money saved this isn't even going to be an option. Now here is the big problem you're going to have to sell at some point. Due to closing fees etc ie you pay your agents and lawyer and you can't do this without them---those fees make it so if you aren't planning on staying at least 5 years you will definitely lose money when you try to sell. The way the market is now its also really hard to sell so you may have to take an even greater loss. My condo has lost around 1/3 of its value in the 3 years I've lived in it so if I sold it now I would lose $30,000. This is why people rent....if you are going to move in a few years its not worth owning anything...