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I'm torn on the starter house debate. We did buy what we consider a "starter" house. But it has 2.5 baths, and 3 beds + a loft that could become a 4th bed so we certainly COULD have 2 or 3 kids in the house if we wanted to. But we want a bigger home so now we are looking to sell and buy again. It's definitely a headache... but we've gained a pretty sweet amount of equity in our home since we bought 3 years ago!
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I can't afford to own yet in the city we live in. At least not something that would accommodate a family with kids.
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Rent. We'd love to own one day...hopefully one day soon.
My mom and step-dad just bought their first home, sometimes that's the nature of big-city living.
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We own, but plan to sell our house a year from now when we move, and not buy until we are sure we are in a place we love enough to stay long term, and/or are ready to have a second child (2-5 years)
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@MamaMoose: Torn in what way? I wouldn't consider your home a starter house, I'd be more thinking along the lines of a one floor cape, 2 bed/1 bath as starter.
Technically our house is a starter house because it's the first one we bought, but it's got plenty of space at 4 bed/2bath.
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@MamaMoose: we own our starter home. We could stay here permanently, but do wish we had more space.
We bought at the height of the stock market crash and got a bitchin' deal on this place. We couldn't pass it up.
We bought with this criteria: could be our starter home but has to be big enough to be our 10+ year home. Must be in a good enough school district or mortgage has to be low enough we can easily afford private school. Must be able to afford on one income.
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We waited until we had enough money to buy a "could be forever" home. (One of our criteria was that we could be a comfortable even with 2 kids in the home). We haven't decided if we will live here forever or if we will upgrade at some point.
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We own. I bought my first house when I was 22.
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I have lived in apts all my life, i own and live in a house for the first time since 2012! We got married in 2010, lived in a condo his parents own for investment purposes for 2 years and bought our cute little house. Needs so much improvement though!
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We own
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We own. We bought our house when we were 24.
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Question for those of you who don't want a starter home - how is the housing market where you live? Versus the rental market? I get a feeling this might be geographical.
Because there is *no way* DH and I would be able to afford to buy a forever house soon if we didn't already own - our house has improved a ton in value since we bought it, and we are relying on that equity/rise in value to buy our second home. (Because where we live housing is ungodly expensive.)
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We own. We closed on our house 6 weeks after we got married. Our earnest money was due on the Friday before our wedding. We came home on Monday, met our realtor, exchanged money and cupcakes.
I should mention that I wouldn't buy any real estate with him without an engagement ring. We had heard way too many horror stories of couples buying homes without a commitment when we started the process. We became engaged on Christmas, then started wedding and house hunting started soon after.
It's getting too small with three of us in there plus so much baby stuff. Condos next to us have sold quickly, so with the right cleaning and staging, we could move quickly.
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@septca: I think it's totally regional...as an example, a starter home when I was in my 20's would have been a condo that was maybe 1 bed/1 bath and I didn't want the hassle in having to sell later. Not to mention I was single and didn't have the down payment.
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@looch: Torn in that it's a real pain in the butt to try to sell our current house and buy a new house all at the same time and part of me wishes we had just kept renting until we were ready to commit to a forever home here. But the other part of me is happy about all the equity we've built up and the profit we'll make on the house so I feel like the hassle is probably worth it. I definitely wouldn't ever buy a two bedroom house or something we couldn't at least do SOME growing into.
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@MamaMoose: yeah, the timing of selling your house/buying the new one can be stressful. I mean, let's say you don't find something, but you have an offer on your house and it's too good to pass up...or if you find the perfect house for yourself, but no bites on your current house? It's enough to make a sane person crazy!
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We own, but we always think that if we lived with our parents, how much money we'd be saving even after we help out with utilities, groceries, etc.! haha, but we love living on our own.
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@looch: AMEN. BOTH of my next door neighbors just sold their houses for asking in less than a week! So since our neighborhood is hot right now I kind of want to go ahead and sell. Plus it would be nice to totally have our equity out and not have to worry about making a contingent offer for a purchase. But I so don't want to move TWICE with a toddler. Not to mention what if it takes a while to find a house I love and then I'm stuck in a rental for months! GGRRRRR
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We rent. We could have owned at this point but we knew our current city is not where we wanted to stay for a long time. There was always plans of moving back east. So I'm fine with renting at this point. Once we move back east, I could definitely see myself owning if I liked my job. I do hate when homeowners frown upon my renting situation. Homeowning isn't right for everyone. We have our reasons on renting.
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We rent, and honestly, I have no idea when we will be able to own. It is not even on our radar yet. One, because my job will move us around a lot at first, and two, because we both started our forever careers late. We are working on paying off debt and saving before we even consider owning. Maybe in 5 years? Maybe more? Who knows at this point. We will both be 30 this year.
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We own but live in a very expensive housing market. We were able to buy due to an inheritance, otherwise it would have been hard to save enough for a down payment. We are definitely going to outgrow our house after LO and we will have to move when/if LO #2 comes along so we have to keep saving and saving and hope our current place earns a lot of equity in order to get what we want.
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@bluestriped bee: it is not right for us right now!
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@LovelyPlum: Yup, exactly!
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We own. We bought at 31.
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We own, but bought later. We didn't get married until I was almost 30 and DH was 39. We bought the house last spring when I was 31 and DH was 40 (turning 41 in a couple of months).
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We own and bought during the crash, so we got a pretty good deal. When we bought, our realtor said it was a "good starter home" and we both looked at her like she was crazy. Our house is 4 bedrooms and 2700 sqft. It's not a starter home in any sense of the word.
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We own. Bought our house when we were both 24 and not yet engaged (we'd been together for 5 years already). The cable guy scolded me for buying a house with my boyfriend, and then proceeded to tell me about how his wife was 16 when they got married :eyeroll:
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Own. But it's true I didn't buy until later in life, 30, and I lived at home with my parents until then.
@septca: We also went straight to our forever home. My husband (then bf/fi) was renting a 2 bedroom for $1800, which is just about our mortgage not including taxes. But a decent house in a nice area runs at least 500k, and even then only a handful to choose from. We were only able to afford it because I could live at home for so long and save up enough to make the mortgage manageable.. -
We rent. But then again, most everyone we know that lives in nyc rents. My close friend's parents have rented for their entire life. It's more the norm here'
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We bought/built when we were 23.
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I got married & bought a house at 28 and before that I was living at home!
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We rent (we are in our early 30s) but are scheduled to close our our "maybe forever" house at the end of June
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Own. Our "starter home" we bought when we got married was a 1 bedroom condo in the city. When we couldn't sell that to move to a real starter house home, we rented it out and lived in a rental for 6 years. We just bought and moved into what will hopefully be our forever home!
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@MrsF: yay! congrats!!
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We own (as of last March) but we've been house hunting sonce before we were married. ..over 3 years ago. We just let the rest of life happen (marriage, babies) while we were looking.
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We own and have for the last 7 years (we bought at 21/26). Rentals in our rural area are hard to find, if we lived in a City it might be different.
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@septca: We own, and in our city, it makes no sense to rent a house (or even a townhouse or condo). The cheapest rental houses are 4-500$ a month more expensive than owning a similar house (even if you include insurance, PMI, etc), because this is a college town where they rent by the bedroom.
We bought 3 years ago. It's interesting that you bring up how people are waiting to do things, because in my group, we are the only homeowners and only parents. It seems like a large portion of my generation is waiting to settle down, so I feel like an anomaly in my social group!
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Own; we bought together before we were married. DH is looking into selling/buying, but like @MamaMoose: I don't want to deal with that hassle or the time contraints. The market is hot here, so homes sell for full asking price within days of listing {often with bidding wars}.
I would actually prefer to wait until the market comes down a little and pay less {and sell for less} so that our property taxes are a bit lower.
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We own, but a LOT of my coworkers have children in their mid-20's living with them,,,
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We're renting...primarily because we move frequently for DH's job, so we never know how long we'll be in one place. We'd love to buy where we are now, but it's insanely expensive.
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