Hellobee Boards

we're another nyc couple in the "haven't bought yet" camp! we have savings to buy, but it's so expensive (mortgage + condo fees are usually much more than rent here) that we aren't buying until we move out of the city, which won't be until i finish grad school, at least 2 more years. luckily we rent an awesome apartment!

eta I'm 29 and dh is 30...so we'll be well into our 30s by the time we move and buy...

@Mrs. Pen: We make too much for any of the "low to mid income" affordable housing units. We are looking to buy an apartment in a co-op and I haven't seen anything that accepts an FHA loan, I've seen 1 or 2 accepting 10% minimum down but most want 20% or more.

@winniebee: my former boss lives in Boston and I told him that I'm ready to start looking for a job on the east coast and he seemed very hopeful that I could find a job in Boston.

As much as I would love to be near my boss, I'm afraid the money we have saved up won't be enough in the Boston area.

Do you know if there is a fairly good suburb of Boston with houses in the 200-300k range? Or am I kidding myself here? I know I won't be able to afford anything in the city.

@plantains: Please don't get me started on that! I'm married to a teacher who makes more money than I do and yet we make too much money for the low to mid bracket. Jokers.

@mrsjazz: DH is a teacher too, the whole system is a mess. Now in our neighbourhood they are building 'affordable' rental for 'low to mid' income families. 2 bedrooms starting at $3200 per month, yup, super affordable! Ugh.

@Mrs. Pen: We aren't in a rural area. More of a small city/suburb. I grew up in the type of house you describe. My parents spent a lot of their working lives just getting to work, and we were in a fairly close-in suburb. Commuting in most larger U.S. cities stinks, whether by car or mass transit. When we were big city dwellers, DH and I always lived almost right next to our jobs so that we could avoid that, and we were generally fairly happy about where we lived. We liked being close to nice restaurants, museums, and theatres, and we went to them often because they were basically next door (and we paid for that convenience, in rent and in space). But my friends and family in the 'burbs? They almost never went, except when people visited, because it was such a pain to get there and they'd already spent hours and hours during the week on the road/rail.

Now that we live in a smaller city/'burb, we have 2x as much space for 1/2 the rent and we're super close to a bunch of things we like and need to do (also, the things we like to do have changed a bit, so the attraction of three theatres within a 2-blocks radius isn't quite as compelling as it was before). I would definitely recommend renting in a new city before you commit to buying there. It could save you a lot of money!

It was in 2005 and I was 22, I loved that house and really really miss owning my own home. It's a long story but my name was "taken" off the mortgage, and then during our divorce my ex quit making the payments so it worked out in my favor!

My husband and I are waiting until later this year to see if we'll be needing to relocate with his job then we'll start really looking. Real estate has always been a passion of mine so I'm always perusing the mls listings!

We were 25 & 26. It took us a while to find a house like we were looking for.

I was 20 and DH was 19 when we bought our first condo. Now that house is a rental property, we sold our second home purchase and just bought our third home. I'm ready to be in the same place for a while!

@Mrs. Pen: I'm not a NYC person, I'm in the SF bay area (California) which is slightly more affordable from what is said here from the NYC peeps out there.

Like a few people in NYC said we make way too much money for those types of loans. It's a tough place to be... we make way too much money to get those types of loans meaning we are not poor enough but we don't make enough to actually afford what we want. like mrsjazz said we could probably pay cash for a huge house anywhere else in the nation. : ) But it's where we choose to live so can't really whine too much.

We were both 26 when we purchased our first home.

I was 30 when I bought my first house with my then fiance. I live in the Boston area so cost was a huge factor, not only just saving a decent down payment, but haven't a good amount of savings on top of that for emergency fund comfort level.

24
we bought a home and sold it 6 years later. we would love to live where we're renting now but it's so expensive. we'll probably have to wait awhile (and that's with us still holding onto our investment on our last house, lol).

26- both of us !

I bought my condo on my own at 25. We'll be buying our actual house this year. We're both 33.

dh bought our house when he was 22.

We haven't bought yet, but it will be a few years still. I'm 28 and DH is 32. We have been pretty transient for most of our 20s, never staying anywhere for more than 2 years. In my 20s I've lived in California, Utah, Bolivia, Ecuador, and Indiana! Now that I've finished grad school, we'll be settling in a permanent location just as soon as I find a job :). It will take us a while to save for a down payment since I have lots of student debt hanging over our head.

We may very well purchase a home in Ecuador before purchasing one in the states. In the city we'd like to live in (someday, haha), nice homes in nice neighborhoods are only $85,000 or so. Ecuador FTW!!