home owners- down payment

Seraph

Mon, Dec 24 2007, 11:43 am

for those of you that own a house/apt, how did you have money to cover the down payment? loans? help from parents?
how many years worth of saving?

because at this rate, I dunno where we'll ever have enough money for a down payment...
also- how much was your house; how much was your down payment?
how many years after marriage were you able to buy?

amother

Mon, Dec 24 2007, 12:20 pm

Amother becuase I don't want people to know my financial situation.

We purchased our home on Long Island 7 years ago for $273,000 after being married for 3.5 years

We put down $73,000 - so our mortgage was $200,000

We got $10,000 from each of our parents

the other $53,000 was a combination of wedding money, and money we saved from before and after we were married.

My husband and I don't know how a couple getting married today will ever be able to afford to buy a home. There is no way we could afford to buy a house now. Our house would probably be worth upper $400,000 today. (Our mortgage would be almost double!) Also, the taxes on Long Island are very high (close to $10,000 a year)

Tamiri

Mon, Dec 24 2007, 12:47 pm

Breslov, in Israel there are a few ways for a young couple to buy a place

(1) Parents on one or (usually) both sides put up a hefty amount so the couple can buy something
(2) The couple lives somewhere very cheap for "x" number of years (think ashkubit on a yishuv), both of the spouses work like crazy and then put something down for an apt. then keep working like meshugga to keep paying for it
(3) Yerusha
(4) Couple who marries not-so-young already has a little savings
(5) You buy in an inexpensive area (read: over in the Shomron, Beer Sheva etc.) and get major help from Amana homes, gvt. whatever
(6) Somehow you had a small place already (see above) which suddenly got to be worth much more so you buy up without too much trouble.

Does that cover it all?

chocolate moose

Mon, Dec 24 2007, 1:02 pm

breslov wrote:

I've spoken about it before, but here goes:
We rolled over our Roth IRAs for the downpayment, which was 20%.
Every penny was ours, and it was when we were married 20 years !!!

amother

Mon, Dec 24 2007, 1:05 pm

Ummm I'm in Israel....

(1) Parents on one or (usually) both sides put up a hefty amount so the couple can buy something

I dont know many ppl for whom this is true. It sure isnt for me, and I can assure you I wont have the money to do a "hefty" amount for my kids.

(2) The couple lives somewhere very cheap for "x" number of years (think ashkubit on a yishuv),
So how do all the ppl in Y-m own?

Tamiri

Mon, Dec 24 2007, 1:15 pm

amother wrote:

Read all the others.
I know my sister: she rented a year or two, then ILs put down all or most of a small apt. in K. Moshe. That appreciated greatly, and they "moved up" to Givat Shaul, I guess they had some more family money plus some savings from over the years. The family grew, they moved again to a place with 2 apts (duplex) by borrowing from everyone. But it all started with that nice downpayment from the ILs....
In my case, no one put down anything for us in Israel...we don't own here.

TwinsMommy

Mon, Dec 24 2007, 4:58 pm

we're 33, married 10 years, and are still renting. We're in MAJOR debt, so the question of WHETHER to save for a down payment when we have debt to pay is a real one for us. We moved to a community where homes are very affordable and we've even found the real estate agent we want to use, but it's still going to be YEARS before we have a down payment. Maybe in our 40's.

Those of you who did save for a downpayment, were you in debt? Is it worth it to pay down debt while saving, or is it better to just kick everything towards the debt? When we DO have a mortgage someday I'd like it to be our only debt-- I don't want to have that PLUS the student loans and credit cards.

Parental help? Funny. My parents disowned me years ago and didn't even show up at my wedding. My husband's parents are wonderful people who have no money-- we probably make more than they do.

chocolate moose

Mon, Dec 24 2007, 5:14 pm

We paid off our credit card debt for years, but I continued to work full time as my income was always needed. It was really only later in life, when my kids were big enough for me to get a good job in the city, that we could save real money.

Until then, we used watered down shampoo, ate chicken only in casseroles, I made all our bread myself, I counted every spoonful of mayo, etc. just to get by.

rosehill

Mon, Dec 24 2007, 5:23 pm

TwinsMommy wrote:

Those of you who did save for a downpayment, were you in debt? Is it worth it to pay down debt while saving, or is it better to just kick everything towards the debt? When we DO have a mortgage someday I'd like it to be our only debt-- I don't want to have that PLUS the student loans and credit cards.

It depends on so many things, like the interest rates on your debt, the tax implications, etc. It's possible that rolling your high interest credit card debt into a home mortgage may make sense, if you are committed to lifestyle changes. You should find a financial advisor who can help you answer these questions.

amother

Mon, Dec 24 2007, 5:51 pm

We did not get any money from our parents. We bought our house for very high 400s, about half a year ago. The money for the down payment came from years of working and saving up, many of which were while I was single.

amother

Mon, Dec 24 2007, 7:00 pm

We're just married 2 years and with our growing family looking to move. The rents where we live are 2,000 + Utilities + Parking so the cheapest you can get away with is 2,500 a month and there is very little on the market. We recently came to the conclusion buying in the high 400's might be to our advantage since our money will go towards something we own. As for the down-payment, we put all our wedding money in a savings account as well as some other money we had from before our wedding. It will just cover a down payment of approximately 50K yet we need to move. To just keep renting for 2,500 is sort of useless. Once we move, to cover our mortgage, we are each professionals and will bring in money to pay it off. As for previous debt we don't have much credit card debt but we do have around 100K in student loans and 30K in a business loan. The business loan is on 1% and we should pay if off with-in the year. As for student loans they are inevitable living in America and being college educated, but hopefully with our good degrees comes along good jobs and good salarys and we'll be able to pay it all off over the next 5-10 years. As for buying a house with 130K in debt, I find that they were both investments and I'm not going to sit and waste my money on rent so that I can first pay off our loans.

amother

Mon, Dec 24 2007, 7:18 pm

425,000 house + 60,000 in initial renovations, 5 years ago.

85,000 downpayment= 50,000 from my FIL who set aside money for his kids for this purpose + 35,000 from a mutual fund that my parents opened when I was born and contributed to (my bday money over the years went in here too)

Renovations were paid for with our wedding money.

We didn't buy a house until my dh started working, and his starting salary was 125,000. Our taxes are very high too (about 15,000 a year)

House is worth in the high sixes now.

amother

Mon, Dec 24 2007, 7:41 pm

We bought our house at the height of the market, about 2 1/2 years ago - low 4's. We had been renting for 8 years (as students/in kollel) and saw the money going nowhere.

DH got a new job paying high enough that we could afford to make the monthly payments (just) and a parent of mine was very ill and wanted to be able to "See us enjoy our yerusha" rather than give it to us when they passed away so they gave as 25k for teh downpayment, and we used savings and wedding money for another 20k, and the ILs helped us with the last 5k. Although my parent was since niftar they were able to see us in our home for 2 years - and we are extremely grateful...otherwise who knows when we'd have saved up enough money for a downpayment...certainly would have been a long time in the tri-state area...we would have probably moved "out of town" (although we may still do so.

TightRopeWalker

Mon, Dec 24 2007, 8:06 pm

We didn't receive much in the way of wedding money (3 k), and neither set of parents could help. It took several years of marriage and being careful just to put away 5% and closing costs (for the smallest,most affordable house we could find). Our house is not a long term solution, but we both continue to work hard to pay the mortgage and hope somehow one day that things will change.

lamplighter

Mon, Dec 24 2007, 8:41 pm

this thread is just freaking me out.
I don't know how we will ever own a house. We aren't getting help from our parents (unless we move across the world, then we would get some help, but no where near the number that are being quoted here), and our wedding money wasn't almost 3k.
hmmmm

TightRopeWalker

Mon, Dec 24 2007, 10:01 pm

la456 wrote:

Are you saying you got less than $3,000? I thought we were the exception I'm not sure how long you're married la, but there are lots of variables here. Motivation, spending habits, and fields of work to name a few. It's not easy, take it from someone who has been there and in many way still is, but chances are you will get there.

chocolate moose

Mon, Dec 24 2007, 10:05 pm

We got so few gifts - hardly any money or anything - I didn't even get thank you notes when we ordered wedding invitations.

You just save and hope for the best, that's all, and hopefully not deprive yourselves of too many things. It's always good to have money put aside.

amother

Mon, Dec 24 2007, 11:52 pm

we were married 3 yrs when we bought our house. Neither of us had worked yet because we had both been in school. We were very fortunate and both sets of our parents had set aside money. My dh had an account (icluding bar mitzvah money, etc) that was around $100,000 and my parents gave us around $100,000. My father had set aside and invested money for us throughout our childhoods. All birthday money, chanuka money, etc went into these accounts. My grandfather had purchased stocks for us over the yrs too. The money acucmulated to an nice amunt. (prob 50,000). The other 50,000 my parents had set aside for each child for buying houses. my grandmother gave us $10,000. We bought a house in the 5's, which is now worth mid-high 6's.

if not for the money given to us, I have no idea how we would buy a house. Me and Dh work but we dont save much. I guess if I needed to, I would work longer hours and he would get a second job to get enuf to save for a downpayment.

Also- I dont understand how ppl let themselves get into debt. If u cant afford it- dont buy it! It seems pretty basic to me.