Twenty plus years ago when we bought our first home, we were just so excited to own our own home! We scraped the bottom of the barrell and squeezed by the qualifying game as a newlywed couple. Woo hoo!!!! We did it! But then the real estate market came to a halt and houses weren't moving up much in value and we looked around and realized the neighbors were renting houses like ours for $300 LESS than what we were paying in our mortgage. At the time I thought, big OOPS, we probably should have researched rents first before we took this plunge.
As you well know, housing values have taken a beating the past few years and now we are in an uptrend, yeah! We have a unique situation here, values appear to be sustaining growth while interest rates are still hovering at historical lows. While I can tell you it's a great time to buy, it's more important that you know it for yourself.
So my advice if you're contemplating purchasing a home is to do what I didn't do twenty years ago. Do some research!
Here's what you need to know:
What's your current rent?
What's the value of your current place?
Or if you don't like where you're at, find out how much what you need costs to rent and what it costs to buy.
There's a handy little rent vs buy calculator on the New York Times website. Go there. Plug your information in, you will need to make some assumptions about your interest rate and your property taxes. I would go with 1% on your property taxes, that's somewhat typically around here. This tool will give you a fairly in depth analysis of whethere it makes sense to buy or continue renting. Have fun checking it out and be sure to call me if you have any questions!
Susanne Schlador
Mortgage Loan Specialist NMLS 929383
susanne@capitalmortgageboise.com
208-854-7806
No comments:
Post a Comment