Moving-bigger and better?

amother

Wed, Aug 28 2013, 2:00 pm

I need to vent.
Bh I own a home. however, it is small, no guest room, 1 full bathroom, no extra space. we basically do not fit in the home. I know some people would love it, but for us it is not ideal. Another house close by came on the market and is perfect for what we want. However, it is out of our price range. But I realllllly want it. its a perfect long term home! how do people afford houses with 80k-100k as a down payment?
im not looking for criticism and "be hapy with what you have."
Any advice? again, I really want/need/like the home!

amother

Wed, Aug 28 2013, 2:02 pm

How do people afford big homes? Well, we had two parents die and leave inheritance (not a happy reason) and then we moved to a low cost city where we could buy a very large house. Where we are very happy.

pesek zman

Wed, Aug 28 2013, 2:08 pm

A lot of people have money from parents or grandparents to use as a down payment

Others who perhaps marry a bit later were able to save a lot of money before they buy a home

I personally wouldnt' want to be house poor, so despite not having a spare bedroom/bathroom, I'd advise to stay in your current home until you can properly afford (at minimum) a 20% downpayment. Afterall, so many people in the housing bust several years ago got burned whn they got in over their heads on homes they couldn't truly afford.

Good luck.

amother

Wed, Aug 28 2013, 2:21 pm

we have no family that can help us and no savings. ironically, bh my husband has a great job and making a nice parnassa, I just dont understand how we can save so much and have enough to live and buy a nice home.

amother

Wed, Aug 28 2013, 2:30 pm

I don't know where you live currently, but if, despite your husband's income you are unable to save enough for a bigger/better home, you may want to consider looking into an out of town community where housing costs are much cheaper than they are in the NY/NJ area. An example: my sister lives in Clevland, and their 3 bedroom/2 bath plus den brick home in the Jewish neighborhood cost $80,000. In NY, where I live, I think my toilet cost that much! There are lots of parts of the country where housing is cheap (in addition to Cleveland: Detroit, Dallas, etc.) and you don't need to be rich to have a nice home. Good luck!

amother

Wed, Aug 28 2013, 4:50 pm

I don't think applying for a 2nd mortgage is going to work. And we are not considering moving, I am just curious how people do it. Is there someone they are doing, that I do not know about, or how to do?
thanks

amother

Wed, Aug 28 2013, 6:56 pm

I worked as a teenager and saved a lot of money. I saved the birthday money I got, my bat mitzvah money etc. You would be surprised how far it goes. Then I invested it.

We also got some money as a present from family.

TwinsMommy

Wed, Aug 28 2013, 8:09 pm

we are almost 40, no savings, plenty of debt, no family with $$, and are planning on purchasing the home we're currently renting within the next year. We're in Cleveland so a reasonable downpayment will be about $12,000. Our city gives $10,000 to first time home buyers so we'll need to come up with $2000 or so. Totally do-able. $100,000? yeah.... NOT do-able!

amother

Wed, Aug 28 2013, 8:14 pm

I often wonder this. How do people afford houses at all (at least in Brooklyn)? I see people buying homes, fixing them up, living normal lives I.e. not scrimping and saving for 15 years. Is it a rich grandparent? Life insurance? Mortgaged up the WAZU? Living on borrowed money???

I just don't know.

We recently bought a house bh, not what I wanted, much smaller and different but that was with quite a few years of myself and dh working like crazy, saving as much as possible and with no help except a small loan from a friend for some fixing up.

I think it's a combination of things. I remember someone told me not to make myself crazy with trying to save but live life because those few thousand dollars a year would not make a difference long term. And I thought to myself, how do you do it? House, several kids k'ah all in beautiful clothing, no shopping at sales for either groceries or clothing, regular cleaning help, not working very high paying jobs? I later found out that her husband borrowed really large amounts of money in the five figures several times from my husband and has never paid back. I wonder if she knows, I doubt it or she would not tell me that, be saving more etc...

amother

Wed, Aug 28 2013, 8:37 pm

amother wrote:

Does it never occur to anyone that some people just have a good income from a professional career or a successful business? It's as simple as that.

Not usually because life and frum life in general is quite expensive. For a family with four kids in school to pay for tuition at full price plus weekday and shabbos clothing and accessories and two pairs of shoes and glasses and orthodontics and regular groceries and cleaning help, car, occasional eating out, occasional vacations, going to the country etc..... is often over $200,000 a year after taxes. Do you know that many people that make that plus taxes and tzedaka and savings etc...? Still have enough to save for a million plus dollar home and pay the mortgage and all utilities, fees and taxes associated?

We are talking close the mid 6 figures here. It's ridiculous!

amother

Wed, Aug 28 2013, 10:42 pm

When we got married we each had savings. DH started a really good professional job. We lived in student housing with really cheap rent ($400 for a tiny apt). We saved a lot of the money we got as wedding presents, some of which we invested well. We didn't take expensive vacations or buy a lot of stuff. We lived simply and only splurged occasionally. We didn't have kids right away.

When it was time to move out of student housing, we had enough money saved to buy a decent house (for NY) with $100,000 down. We opted not to get a starter home because we didn't want to have to move again in a few years and we didn't know how our finances would look later on. And when the economy tanked, we were able to refinance the mortgage to get a much better rate.

amother

Wed, Aug 28 2013, 11:04 pm

I Am married four years with two kids. I bought a house 2 years ago. A small house....two bathrooms and four bedrooms( I rent out my downstairs so only have three teeny bedrooms and one bathroom an no guest room) I had a bit of savings and borrowed 20 k and got 15k in gifts. Now I am considering moving and will need to either sell my house or borrow money to come up with a down payment ( in addition to 50 k in savings)

amother

Mon, Sep 16 2013, 3:39 pm

Life sends some people twists and turns - I had secondary infertility and during the years before my DS started yeshiva I had a good job, lived sparingly and put away around $3-4k a month in savings. Then I had more kids, B"H, lost my good job, and put every drop of those savings into a down payment for a house. Sure, during those 3 1/2 years I was trying desperately to have another kid, but Hashem had other plans and now I have a house ...

abby1776

Mon, Sep 16 2013, 5:04 pm

Its a lot cheaper to expand your house than buy a whole new one. How llong have you owned your home? Do you have equity in it? Can you refiance your mortgage to take out some equity and build an extension?

amother

Mon, Sep 16 2013, 10:11 pm

amother wrote:

Does it never occur to anyone that some people just have a good income from a professional career or a successful business? It's as simple as that.

thank you for posting what is obvious to half the world but unheard of on this site.