Houses cost too damn much

[The_Real_Crunk]

Out here in BC a crappy little house on a crowded suburban street on a half acre of land can easily go for over $350,000. Its ****ing ridiculous. How can they expect people to afford a house when it will sometimes take them the rest of their lives to pay it off?

Everybody tells me I should find and buy a place out here. Usually its the old people telling me. Theres a few of people in this town that own like 5 or 6 houses and are only like 40 and never have to work for the rest of their lives if they dont want to. Its crazy.

Ive always thought about buying houses and fixing them up to resell them for a profit, but damn. I just dont have the cash to start something like that. And besides a bunch of new mortgage laws just kicked in today in Canada that seem to only please all the people who already own homes. I think you now need at least a 20% downpayment to get a mortgage and some other stuff that they are saying is ment to keep people out of housese they cnat afford.

I dunno. Im just ranting. Id love to own a home, but the prices are bat**** insane. My mother says our entire family should buy one piece of empty land somewhere and build one big, or a few small houses on it and we can all live there like a european or east indian family and all chip in on the mortgage. It seems like a good idea, but you need to find a location that makes everybody happy.

[Big Rick Cook]

Re: Houses cost too damn much

My mother says our entire family should buy one piece of empty land somewhere and build one big, or a few small houses on it and we can all live there like a european or east indian family and all chip in on the mortgage. It seems like a good idea, but you need to find a location that makes everybody happy.

And people who won't **** you on the various bills. Which family will do.

[Adrian Foley]

Re: Houses cost too damn much

jeeze, canadian houses are expensive. My six and her fiancée bought a foreclosed house for 100k. It isn't even a ****hole either.

[Kire]

Re: Houses cost too damn much

woah...I can see my house from here...

http://chicago.blockshopper.com/prop...ourt_unit_407/

[Caciss]

Re: Houses cost too damn much

move somewhere else

[Kefka Jr.]

Re: Houses cost too damn much

Old people are stupid and don't know anything.

[The Toecutter]

Re: Houses cost too damn much

Out here in BC a crappy little house on a crowded suburban street on a half acre of land can easily go for over $350,000. Its ****ing ridiculous. How can they expect people to afford a house when it will sometimes take them the rest of their lives to pay it off?

That is sort of the whole idea; the banks WANT you to keep paying as long as possible. This is why America is in the crisis it is in; the prices of homes have been artificially inflated since the 1970s by at least a factor of 3, and people had to take out loans they couldn't afford just to be able to buy a home. Now that their jobs have been outsourced, their income has declined to a point where they cannot afford to make the minimum payments, and thus the foreclosure crisis here in the United States.

To make matters worse, the government is attempted to artificially prop up the prices of unaffordable homes by bailing out the banks who made fraudulent loans to people they knew could not afford them...

Housing prices need to collapse to a realistic level. The fair market value for many $300,000+ homes in the U.S. would not exceed $80,000. Case in point, my step mom bought a home before the prices skyrocketed in the 1990s and 2000s. Her mortgage on a two-bedroom one basement home costs LESS than it did for me to rent a slumlord apartment in Texas. Had she tried to buy this same home today, she'd be paying 3x as much. This is ridiculous.

House prices need to drop to the levels that reality would dictate, and if that means the banks will have to take the losses, so be it! It's their own fault to begin with! Instead, our tax dollars are being squandered to help keep the prices high, so it's doubly screwing over the American people who not only cannot afford the homes and are losing them, but also are paying unnecessary taxes to artificially prop up the cost of the homes.

All of these abandoned forclosed homes should be given away for free(otherwise, they only get stripped of materials and rendered worthless). There is no real housing shortage in the U.S., and noone should go homeless.

[Kire]

Re: Houses cost too damn much

Housing prices need to collapse to a realistic level. The fair market value for many $300,000+ homes in the U.S. would not exceed $80,000.

LOL, that would really suck for people like me who have already bought in. Eh, if it happens I'll live. I was forced into it by my parents in the "its stupid to rent" camp. Still, man that would suck.

[John Mora]

Re: Houses cost too damn much

Yeah, owning a house is a sucker's move in this economy.

[Shard]

Re: Houses cost too damn much

Yeah, owning a house is a sucker's move in this economy.

Entirely dependent on when and where you bought.

I picked up a condo Jan. of '09 for less than half its previous listing in an upscale neighborhood, with a fixed APR just under 5%. There's literally nothing but upside for me.

If I'd bought in '07 though, I'd be underwater and looking to refinance my loan.

Renting is ONLY good if you need to stay mobile. I've only ever had one landlord that wasn't trying to fist me with the lease agreement. Most leasing companies don't allow their on-site management to negotiate terms, instead they're used as a complaint buffer.

There are some massive tax benefits for mortgages, about the only thing better is getting married.

[John Mora]

Re: Houses cost too damn much

But then YOU'RE responsible if crap breaks down. And you constantly need to be on top of maintainance.

[Shard]

Re: Houses cost too damn much

That's going to vary a lot by the property. Do your homework beforehand, just like you do when you buy anything else.

For my part, I'm paying about $400/mo less on my mortgage than I was paying rent, in a better neighborhood with tax breaks. I'll deal with the maintenance issues.

I'm not saying everyone needs to go out and buy a Victorian era home located next to a lot of trees on a slope in a quake-prone area (ie San Francisco).

[John Mora]

Re: Houses cost too damn much

I am not handy at all.

[John Mora]

Re: Houses cost too damn much

I am not handy at all.

[highwind]

Re: Houses cost too damn much

are you handy at all?