Buying a house in brooklyn

amother

Wine

Wed, May 24 2017, 1:56 pm

amother wrote:

A $600000 mortgage is a jumbo loan - banks are very hesitant to give those. An older house will cost a lot to maintain, heat and cool.
$100k a year, with kids is not gonna cut it.

Is thus accurate? Are banks "very reluctant to give jumbo loans"? I always assumed if you have decent credit you can get a jumbo loan but at a higher interest rate. Are you sure jumbo loans are difficult to get entirely?

amother

Blush

Wed, May 24 2017, 1:58 pm

There is a lot of misinformation in this thread. Brooklyn is a whole different world when it comes to real estate.

Basement apartments in Brooklyn don't sit vacant. They are snapped up and rented out for anywhere between $800-$1500 depending on condition, location, etc.

600k is not considered a jumbo loan when real estate pricing is so high in the first place.

An 800k house in Brooklyn will be worth 1.2 million in 5 years. Waiting to save up more money would be a mistake. Housing in Brooklyn rises faster than you can save up money.

OP it's possible that you can afford the house by pinching pennies. The question is if you will be happy. It can be a miserable feeling to be "house poor" with a huge chunk of your income going toward the house every month. On the other hand some people are happy to make sacrifices knowing that they have their own house and that the house value will keep rising.

It's also not wise to put all your savings into the house. Old houses need ongoing repairs and you should have a $5-$10k cushion put aside just for house maintenance. In addition you should have another $20k put aside as emergency money. If you don't have this extra money put aside you'll be tearing your hair out every time something goes wrong (and with an old house, something always does.)

amother

Azure

Wed, May 24 2017, 2:00 pm

amother wrote:

not accurate as a rule. 600,000 loan would be hard to get if you show 25K of annual income. It would not be hard to get if you had 200K of annual income, and decent credit. I'm not a Brooklyn based loan officer - I don't know what income to debt ratio they look for (but have a good sense that my extremes are accurate).

doctorima

Wed, May 24 2017, 2:54 pm

amother wrote:

If you can legitimately demonstrate the ability to make the payments and the house is worth what you're paying for it, you shouldn't have a problem getting a 600k mortgage.

amother

Puce

Wed, May 24 2017, 3:15 pm

amother wrote:

if you live in the basement and rent the top why cant she do it? also many many people live in basements that are not legal in brooklyn. apartments get eaten up before you know it you will have a tenant if you decide to go upstairs. and owners dont need to give a lot to get a tenant in brooklyn because its such high demand. you need to do your math. and figure it out.

I have been a owner in brooklyn and seriously you can get a tenant before you blink an eye. people are searching for apartments. the houses that are that cheap is probably old and needs a lot of repairs. I sold a house that was almost a 100yrs old. I had tons of people that wanted to buy it. I sold it for more then a million. and the new owner made two not legal apartments out of the basement and has now three tenants to and he lives in the main floor. he also had a cosigner. couldnt afford it on his own. gets ssi. so that helps too. but seriously you need to look around and see whats availbale. all houses have expenses like others mentioned.

many people have not legal basements and have tenants there.

http://www1.nyc.gov/site/hpd/r......page
Sad that people are not following the laws. I understand people have to make money, but there are laws for safety reasons. Most of those basements the agents are showing are not legal.

mille

Wed, May 24 2017, 9:04 pm

Unless mortgage lenders work very differently in NY, I would be surprised if you were able to get the mortgage TBH. I also think you would be cutting it quite close - a lot of expenses increase with homeownership that you don't deal with in an apartment.