Not helping?? I thought that was to show you what it's "really like" .

I'm planning on buying a foreclosure in about 2 years.. right before I'm projecting the market to spike but we'll see how it goes. In the area I live.. houses averaged 600k at the peak, now they average like 300-400k. Foreclosures can be had 10 miles away in a decent city (Union City, Milpitas) for about 175-225k. But I'm going to rent it out, forget living in it . (btw I'm 19.. unlike my parents I'm looking at the bigger picture)

 

Doesn't matter how much you put down. What matters is what you bought the house for. If your house depreciates $100k, your net worth will be $100k lower whether you put 0% down or bought the house cash. To be honest, and as morally rotten as it sounds, I'd rather be upside down by $100k on a loan than be $100k out of cash. You can pretty much guess why...

Fortunately neither one seems to be your case thanks to your market

 

I agree as long as you can afford the payments. Because the market WILL go back up. If you can make the payments, and live comfortably then I'd rather be upside down too. It's a give/take.

 

Or if you can't make the payments, hopefully Obama will take care of you.

 

I think what you would want to do is get into a loan that is 3x the amount you bring in a month riiiighht before a bailout for homeowners gets sent through

 

i just bought a house last november, via a FHA loan w/ 4.5% interest... My house appraised for only 30k more than i paid for it and it wasnt in great shape, i turned around and put 10k into it (this doesnt include labor, i did everything myself), but then again, our housing market isnt horrible.. yet.
I have an appt tomorrow to get my taxes done, im hoping to be eligible for the $7500 tax credit Obama's giving first-time homeowners.

 

Dallas has had even less run-up on home prices than Austin, and as far as I can tell no real drop in prices - in fact it seems like there's still some appreciation going on. We put about 15% down in '05 on a 30yr fixed, and have a nice bit of equity right now.

 

I built a house just passed the peak of the bubble. Prices were high, but builders were starting to discount.

I put down 40% by moving out of a house I had built a few years earlier (that skyrocketed ridiculously because of the area code it was in) and used it to build the nicer house in a less "desirable" area code two miles away.

After that I finished the basement, landscaped and made several improvements, but the value is less than what I paid originally.

Even though the appraisal I had done last month lists the home for $10k less than I paid after about $40k in improvements, I still only owe two thirds of the value (I made the improvements out of pocket not equity loans). I recently refinanced for oh geez, 4.75% I think on a thirty year and am paying at a rate that will retire the debt in 20 yrs.

All things considered, I have decent equity, a rock bottom rate, and a low payment. Sure I could be upset about the drop in value on paper, but since I am not going anywhwere it will sort itself out over time.

The builder wanted to me buy a much nicer house in the sister development across the street for about $200K more than I spent because I "qualified" but I did not want any part of that game.

 

What did "Dave Ramsey" do for you?

 

We bought a little over two years ago... we made a very very good profit on the house we sold and we had convinced ourselves / fallen in love with a house that would have cost twice as much as the house we are in now. About the time we sold, my wife started listening to Dave and I think that is one of the major reasons we bought the much cheaper house. With the profits from our previous house we put a big down payment on our house so the payments would be cheap and used the other portion of the profits to pay off all debt. In short if it weren't for Dave I would probably be panicking and really stressed out right now. I do not listen to Dave all the time, but I recommend him. His radio show is archived on his website: http://www.daveramsey.com/radio/home/?strMode=listen