Anyone else trying to buy a house these days?
Discussion
no, doesn’t make sense with interest rates being so high. best time to buy would be immediately after the rates come down because prices won’t adjust upwards due to market inertia.
We're being very cautious with our budget, for that reason. Our hope is to take out a 20-year mortgage and pay it off like a 10-year. Due to amortization schedules, the regular monthly payments are mostly interest until you pay down a decent chunk of the principal. If we can throw a bunch of money at principal early on, we'll be able to build equity faster.
yes, that is smart. It is a good time to buy if you’re buying with all cash.
Yes and no. More looking for property because housing inflated out of my price range.
Is buying property then building a house on it more affordable than buying an existing house?
Depends. Right now, I don't think so, also I think depends on the area too and who you know. I'm looking in completely new areas (far from here) where I don't know a soul. Probably living in a trailer or building something cheap and temporary for a little while.
I was trying to avoid a mortgage if I could but that's looking like an impossibility anymore.
Not quite in the official process yet but been doing initial scouting of areas to see what’s the right fit. Hard to nail down a particular location given there’s so many variables, not to mention how it all comes down to market availability.
My wife and I have managed to identify a few areas we like that should have some homes at our price point. Now we're just monitoring listings and waiting to jump on the right one.
It may be different where you live, but in our area, it's definitely a seller's market.
Nice! From what I hear, properties get snatched up quick because there’s so many people “passively” in the market with apps like Zillow, Redfin, etc. now. Previously, people would formally enter the housing market and the pipeline was ~30 days with a possible bidding war. Nowadays because of the number of people on the sideline at all times, it can take even up to a year to find a home from when one first starts. Crazy.
Nope. Just land to build on. In a few years. Maybe after the real estate market bubble pops and land is cheap again. Heh.
I'm not convinced the bubble will "pop" everywhere.
Where we live, prices have come down a bit since 2021-2022, but that's only because interest rates are up. It seems that demand is way ahead of supply in most US cities, and it's likely to remain so for some time.
Cities are collapsing under the dead weight of their corruption and poor governance.
The dollar will collapse in our lifetime, I think.
After that, real estate is going to be cheaper for anyone not stuck in fiat.
For better or worse, I tend to think the dollar is backed by America's status as a global superpower. So the collapse of the dollar would imply the collapse of America's military might. Which is possible, but not a guarantee, IMO.
Real Estate as an investment is going to go away as everything falls to utility value against BTC. I agree that the fiat dollar will collapse, hopefully before we get to the point that $1 = 1 sat.
Seriously considering selling our house soon, would accept some of the payment in bitcoin... Probably the wrong country for you 😊😅
Yeah we're pretty set on the place where we want to live 😅
I tend to see real estate as a more concrete store of value than Bitcoin, since, you can live on it and make practical use of it while you hold it, but selling a house for a decent chunk of Bitcoin could be a good proposition for growing wealth over the next few years.
Yup. Then buying a place outright in a few years.. It has more to do with the sudden jump in equity we have in our home and high interest rates. My personal opinion is that there's little growth left in the Aussie capital cities market for the next 15-20 years. So we take our cut now, put it into somewhere with growth, hold on for a few years and buy a place mortgage free. If we can time it.. Of course there's lots of things that can go wrong in there and lots of risk. But we will likely have to move to a new city if I want work in my chosen field too so there's no need to hodl our house.
That could totally make sense, as long as Bitcoin trends upwards over the right timespan. Especially if you plan to move cities sooner or later.
My wife and I are pretty set on staying where we are for the forseeable future, so the home is an investment, but it's also a *home*. If it increases in value, that's great, but that's not the first or only concern.
Yeah the sudden equity in our place was a surprise brought about by the effects of gov policy surrounding covid. We bought this place 9.5 years ago assuming we'd be here for maybe 20-30 years... That was well before covid and we'll before I started university. You never really know what will happen. It's been a real blessing for us but maybe it will be time to move on soon.