Buy a house now or wait

machine528

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I am looking for some advice me and my girlfriend just recently started to look for houses. I am hearing from alot of older, wiser people that NOW is not the time to even think about purchasing a home and to wait for a year. I am looking for some of your input. My girlfriend is gungho about getting "our" house but i am extremely leary until the market settles.
 
BodyWizard

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WAIT!!!!

You *really* want to rent for a couple of years;
wish I didn't own the house I'm in - now is the worst time since the Depression to own mortgaged property

The next few years are going to be very different
 
KingMeso

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Whether the market is low or not, make sure of a couple things first.

1) Are YOU ready to buy a house?

2) Who is going to put their name on the loan/deed? Or are both of you?

3) If it's in your name, will you be able to afford it by yourself if things go sour between you and your g/f?

Recently, I made the mistake of buying a home with my then g/f in mind. Two months after I bought the house, I broke up with her (horrible relationship). I was sure I could swing it on my own, and I can, but it's more space than I need for myself and money is tight. Now I am trying to sell the house so I can get something smaller/cheaper for just me.

Not trying to lecture or say you aren't thinking things through, I just wouldn't want to see anyone make the same mistake I did.
 
KingMeso

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WAIT!!!!

You *really* want to rent for a couple of years;
wish I didn't own the house I'm in - now is the worst time since the Depression to own mortgaged property

The next few years are going to be very different
lol, you beat me to it. I totally agree man.
 
EasyEJL

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I am looking for some advice me and my girlfriend just recently started to look for houses. I am hearing from alot of older, wiser people that NOW is not the time to even think about purchasing a home and to wait for a year. I am looking for some of your input. My girlfriend is gungho about getting "our" house but i am extremely leary until the market settles.
you could wait forever....

right now interest rates are low, and there are desperate people out there who will sell cheap rather than get forclosed on. Look into getting a list of forclosure sales from the county, and you can approach the current owners and make them an offer. The liens on the house are usually public record too, so you can see how much they owe.

Sometime in mid 2008 is where forclosures will peak.
 
BodyWizard

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sure, interest rates are low, and you can cut a deal on a foreclosure; thing is, we're about due for a major correction in property values - and that's going to change everything.

I expect martial law within 5 years.
 
xjsynx

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WAIT!!!!

You *really* want to rent for a couple of years;

wish I didn't own the house I'm in - now is the worst time since the Depression to own mortgaged property

The next few years are going to be very different
Yeah I wish I was still renting....
 
EasyEJL

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sure, interest rates are low, and you can cut a deal on a foreclosure; thing is, we're about due for a major correction in property values - and that's going to change everything.

I expect martial law within 5 years.
whats funny is, every generation says that, I said it 15 years ago too :)

I don't think there will be a major correction in property values in all areas, just in some. Where do you live? With catching a deal on a foreclosure, and locking the lower interest rate, you can do just as well as if there was a 15% correction and you waited but had to pay an extra 1.5% in interest for 30 years.
 
bioman

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If you are looking at living in the house long term..it doesn't matter too much whether you buy now or wait IMO. If you buy now or soon, you can get a pretty good deal. Waiting till late winter or spring and you'll see some real desperation cases and be able to score great deals.

If you buy before values bottom out entirely, its less of a concern if you are going to live there long term..ie you'll likely regain the value and then some if you buy wisely and stay for an appreciable time.

I would not buy with short term investment in mind until spring and even then only after watching the market closely.

There might be a continued trend of devaluation, but even that is region and city specific. There's way too many people speaking generally about the trends seen nationally which are an average. The stats for AZ say we are down by over 6% for the year, yet where I live..we are remaining steady with no real value lost for the year. Nothing gained, but no big plunge and that boils down to the old "location location location" mantra. People simply want to live here bad enough.

People like to talk doom and gloom about the real estate markets but the trends in it are less volatile by far than stock markets. yes, IMO, there's been way too many speculators in RE ****ing things up with the aid of cheap money. But the cheap money is drying up and the speculators are slithering over to other markets.

Some markets are going to be hit hard..ie the midwest in places that shot up too fast, had too many developers putting too much inventory on the market et cetera, and IMO they're going to see a slump followed by stagnicity as many people leave for even cheaper markets or the sunbelt for retirement.
 
machine528

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Well i live in the south. The houses in my area tend to be alot cheaper than the same types of houses in area of the city. When i worked closer to the city I saw tons of houses that wouldnt have cracked the 200,000 mark but in my county those same types of houses go for around 130-160. Just alittle back ground i am definatly looking to keep the house for awhile, i wont be selling it in 2-5 years.
 
EasyEJL

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if you are talking about 1500+ sqft houses with decent yards, then yeah, your area probably didn't see a huge jump up, so wont see a huge drop either even if one happens. See if you can look at what some of the same houses went for in 2002. if you can pick one up no more than 25-30% higher than the 2002 price, buy it :) normal property expectation is for it to go up at 5% a year. its areas like parts of florida that saw 20% per year (with peaks over 30%) for multiple years in a row. I bought a house in 97 for 94,000 that I sold for 197 in 2005. Whats funny was that in 2002 it only appraised at 126k, so I decided to stay in it a couple more years.
 
Iron Warrior

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I'm in a similar situation. I've been looking at a condo but they're asking for 450K. I just don't want to use most of my savings on a deal that could go sour and put me in financial trouble. The Bay Area real estate costs are pretty scary so messing up will be extremely expensive.
 
bombBoogie

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Its true that the interest rates are low currently, but I read from NY Times or some type of business newspaper that rates might continue to be reduced.
Well that is not official, but it was a comment by an Economist.

Also, know how people say your house is an asset? But to who really? It is an asset based on the banks perspective, as it is an asset to them. You flop, they come in and swoop it over. For most new home owners, it could become a liability or the situation is a liability already. I suggest that you either have a good friend that is familiar at fixer uppers, and for you to get some basic knowledge of carpentry works, and etc.
 
Lacradocious

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Don't do it

2 issues: The market and your not married
-I am in Arizona. I am no expert, but there are tons of homes on the market and not as many buyers. It isn't easy getting a loan anymore like it used to be because of all the defaults and foreclosures
-Don't buy a house with a girl until you are married - unless the property is in only your name or hers. That way, you can leave or throw her ass out if things go bad.

I bought a house with my girlfriend at the time and both of us are on the Mortgage. Moved in last year in August, we broke up in February this year and I am still waiting for her to re-finance the house to get my name off the loan. It is a royal pain in the ass.

It was definitely one of the stupidest mistakes of my life.
 
CDB

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I am looking for some advice me and my girlfriend just recently started to look for houses. I am hearing from alot of older, wiser people that NOW is not the time to even think about purchasing a home and to wait for a year. I am looking for some of your input. My girlfriend is gungho about getting "our" house but i am extremely leary until the market settles.
The reason you get conflicting information is because people think houses are investments. They're not. They are durable consumer goods. Inflation jacks their prices up over time and so people consider them 'investments'. They'd do the same if there was a bubble in the automobile market and they're prices went up consistently for a good while, allowing you to 'build equity' in a Honda.

What you need to consider is do you want it, and can you afford it? The P & I on the loan is only part of the payment. Take all the taxes and insurance and everything else that will be tacked on, divide it by twelve, add at least double that to the P & I portion of your payment, and if you can't afford that easily, keep renting no matter how badly you want the house. And if you can and go forward, do not consider it an investment. It is a place to live, nothing more. If you go in knowing that and accepting it you don't give a **** when a market bubble bursts and all of a sudden it's worth less because you won't be funding debt based on its nominal value.
 
EasyEJL

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I'm in a similar situation. I've been looking at a condo but they're asking for 450K. I just don't want to use most of my savings on a deal that could go sour and put me in financial trouble. The Bay Area real estate costs are pretty scary so messing up will be extremely expensive.
Well, again tho, did condos in that same building sell for 375 + in 2002? then your margin of being inflated isn't that high
 
EasyEJL

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The reason you get conflicting information is because people think houses are investments. They're not. They are durable consumer goods. Inflation jacks their prices up over time and so people consider them 'investments'. They'd do the same if there was a bubble in the automobile market and they're prices went up consistently for a good while, allowing you to 'build equity' in a Honda.

What you need to consider is do you want it, and can you afford it? The P & I on the loan is only part of the payment. Take all the taxes and insurance and everything else that will be tacked on, divide it by twelve, add at least double that to the P & I portion of your payment, and if you can't afford that easily, keep renting no matter how badly you want the house. And if you can and go forward, do not consider it an investment. It is a place to live, nothing more. If you go in knowing that and accepting it you don't give a **** when a market bubble bursts and all of a sudden it's worth less because you won't be funding debt based on its nominal value.
Basically all true, however a home is an investment in the sense over time that it is your cheapest source of money. a home equity loan is usually cheaper than a car loan, and any home loan is cheaper once you factor in tax difference. That sometimes gets left out of the math, but the interest paid, plus real estate taxes, etc all are tax deductible.
 
CDB

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Basically all true, however a home is an investment in the sense over time that it is your cheapest source of money.
An investment is an allocation of resources to productive as opposed to exhausted spending. That a house builds 'equity' is a side effect of nominal price inflation, not a productive use of resources. If inflation shunts into other channels it causes prices there to rise too, and if that becomes long term you may as well call those goods 'investments' too, even if they're waffles. Afterall, if you buy a waffle for a buck and sell it for two, you've made some money haven't you? It only means anything to people who ignore the decreased buying power of the money they're getting.

There is nothing about a house that makes it an investment except the fact that it's nominal price tends to increase and so people see it as a source of money, as you say, and so the government set up a legal fiction to make interest payments in your stead so as to make it seem like you're turning a profit. So you cash in on the nominal price gains and dissapate those on more exhausted spending and are now further in debt than you were before. That, in and of itself, belies the idea of a house being an investment. Monetizing a nominal gain in an asset price spiral, no matter how prolonged, and using the proceeds to fund more debt based spending is a destruction of wealth, not a creation of wealth.

If you truly think a house is an investment capable of creating wealth ask anyone who is now first, second and third mortgaged to the ears beyond the nominal value of their home how wealthy they feel, especially after the bank takes their house, car, SUV, ATV, camper, snowmobile, and dips into their savings - if they have any - to cover the debt that now reflects how massively beyond their means they were truly living. And the people who sold them all that crap, living well before no doubt, will be short a sh*tload of debt funded buyers, production will slow, capital and labor will devalue and be liquidated. And thanks to a wonderful Fed intent on correcting the effects of policy that was too loose for too long with more loose policy, nominal prices likely won't sink except in the most inflated markets as they try to manufacture another bubble so people can keep buying instead of saving, which is what they really should do. So people won't even have a strong dollar to comfort them, something they would otherwise enjoy.

I any case, the test for buying any consumer good is do you want it and can you afford it? No one is *****ing because their computer costs half as much now as it did when they bought it, because there's no bubble in the computer market tricking them into buying it for the purposes of selling it later, or using nominal price gains to finance debt to cover more spending, which, when the inevitable collpase in the price does occur, get exposed as exceedingly bad decisions. That's all that's happening here. That said, so long as you don't want to play Vegas Casino with your life, now could be the perfect time to buy a house before capital up the market gets liquidated and inventory starts declining and demand plus inflation, often times funded by it, starts jacking prices up again. Esepcially if the dollar falls more broadly against other currencies which it just might.
 
bioman

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Agreed Gixxer. It's also important to note that "houses" may or may not appreciate due to the condition they are kept in, but "property" is almost always appreciating. Both can be investments after taking into consideration numerous factors..location, condition, are you going to be underwater in 20 years? Et cetera.

If you want to argue that all values are arbitrary and based on fictitious monetary policy..hey go ahead. But people make money more often than they lose it on real estate despite all the doom and gloom. That's real enough for me.
 
CDB

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Well a house CAN be an investment in the certain instance that you are buying it to flip it. In that case you are (should) be making money over buying a house, fixing it up, and re-selling it. I don't think your same theory can apply to computers and such like because technology is always changing. They don't want to buy it "now" and sell it "later" because "later" it could be outdated technology. What could be "new" technology in one week could be old news in 2 weeks.
Doesn't matter. A house is a consumer good, not an investment. Even for people who flip them, they are simply refurbishing a consumer good, and no different than the people who swap mother boards on computers. You're confusing plays on nominal price changes with actual investment into productive activities.
 
CDB

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Agreed Gixxer. It's also important to note that "houses" may or may not appreciate due to the condition they are kept in, but "property" is almost always appreciating. Both can be investments after taking into consideration numerous factors..location, condition, are you going to be underwater in 20 years? Et cetera.

If you want to argue that all values are arbitrary and based on fictitious monetary policy..hey go ahead. But people make money more often than they lose it on real estate despite all the doom and gloom. That's real enough for me.
It's not a matter of subjective value, it's a matter of productive vs exhausted spending. Just because a nominal price shift means you made a gain if you sell something doesn't mean you've done anything productive. Productive spending (investment) increases the supply of real goods and services in the economy to meet demand. If you buy a car that becomes a collector's item it is not an investment all of a sudden, just a highly valued consumer good. And it is the misconception that making gains on nominal price changes due to inflation that is one of the major problems with our economy these days, because it teaches people to treat liabilities as 'investments', and to value nominal monetary gains over increases in actual wealth, that is purchasing power. Money gains are only worth the value of the money itself, which if it is continually depreciating belies any gains supposedly made by trading on nominal price changes. It's only a gain if you spend it right away at the current value, or in other words if you immediately convert it into real goods and services before it's devalued, in which case you made a 'gain' but total utility in society falls as the money value drops. Which is why all that 'wealth' that people freed up to spend was wasted and is now exposed as such. Just another way the Fed manufactures money out of thin air: asset price spirals.
 
bioman

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Economics is a topic lacking in my repetiore.

Then what about "property" itself? Kinda hard to imagine land as a consumer good.
 
EasyEJL

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It's not a matter of subjective value, it's a matter of productive vs exhausted spending. Just because a nominal price shift means you made a gain if you sell something doesn't mean you've done anything productive. Productive spending (investment) increases the supply of real goods and services in the economy to meet demand. If you buy a car that becomes a collector's item it is not an investment all of a sudden, just a highly valued consumer good. And it is the misconception that making gains on nominal price changes due to inflation that is one of the major problems with our economy these days, because it teaches people to treat liabilities as 'investments', and to value nominal monetary gains over increases in actual wealth, that is purchasing power. Money gains are only worth the value of the money itself, which if it is continually depreciating belies any gains supposedly made by trading on nominal price changes. It's only a gain if you spend it right away at the current value, or in other words if you immediately convert it into real goods and services before it's devalued, in which case you made a 'gain' but total utility in society falls as the money value drops. Which is why all that 'wealth' that people freed up to spend was wasted and is now exposed as such. Just another way the Fed manufactures money out of thin air: asset price spirals.
According to this, investments aren't investments either. As you are "just buying a fractional share of ownership of a business in the hope that they turn a profit, and that you can sell that ownership before inflation has eaten up what you've received". Even the better funds taken over 30+ years are pretty much equivalent to climb in value of homes, after taking into account tax advantages on the home.
 
CDB

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Economics is a topic lacking in my repetiore.

Then what about "property" itself? Kinda hard to imagine land as a consumer good.
Depends on how it's used. If you throw a factory on it it could possibly be considered a producer good in some respects. By nature though it tends to be an exhausted expense. Now the tools and labor used to make previously unusable land into usable land, that is productive spending.
 
CDB

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I see what you are saying. I think the term "investment" was being used in a loose form, not the strict definition that you are interpretting it as. To "invest" means to spend money to get money, basically...but you get it back in "interest". Interest could be definined as:
"price of house" - "price of house when you bought it" = hopefully a +number divide this number by number of years you lived in the house and this could be your "interest" in house value over the years. You can make an "investment" into anything
Again, that's quite mixed up from what happens though. A nominal gain could count as a profit absent inflation, but absent inflation a price rise in one area also means a price decrease in others with no change in the spending power of money. Interest is just a rate of return on a capital outlay due to the difference between the value of future and current goods. And money is just the medium. In the end goods and services are paid for with other goods and services. When you make a gain due to a price shift under inflationary conditions not only has nothing been added to the productive output of the economy, the profit you got evaporates if you don't spend it right then before it gets devalued. The only reason you can gain from such nominal price shifts is because paper money doesn't devalue instantaneously. It's not a bad thing, but it doesn't add anything to the economy, and in fact can take away from it under certain circumstances. Under noninflationary circumastances you'd be allocating scarce goods to higher valued ends. Under inflationary conditions you're just taking advantage of false market signals, the overall effect of which will be misallocation of resources with some lucky people getting a short term advantage of spending money gains before devaluation.
 
BodyWizard

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CDB - but after we've paved & wired & sewered everything, then what? That sounds like the wrong road to travel - any alternatives you like?
 
CDB

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According to this, investments aren't investments either. As you are "just buying a fractional share of ownership of a business in the hope that they turn a profit, and that you can sell that ownership before inflation has eaten up what you've received". Even the better funds taken over 30+ years are pretty much equivalent to climb in value of homes, after taking into account tax advantages on the home.
Incorrect. You're ignoring productivity. Productive spending is an allocation of current funds to the production process to satisfy future demand. At some point in the future productive output will be increased and the supply of real goods and services will be increased thanks to your investment. You get a return on that investment because it's your resources being used to fund the process before production is complete, and the people doing the production for you take a discount on wages earned to get paid now rather than later when the process is done. The end result is more goods and services and an increase in the purchasing power of money. That is in no way the same as buying a house and then selling it when inflation jacks the price up.

As for asset allocation there is certainly a valuable function in buying goods and holding them and releasing them when the price goes up to realize a profit. However in a noninflationary economy your price rise means someone else's price fall and no implicit drop in the purchasing power of the money that's changing hands. Under inflation prices rise in general, some more than others and for all you know the qualitative value of the goods you're holding hasn't changed at all when you sell for a gain, you could just as well have been the happy recipient of an nice inflation boosted price as you may be the wise asset allocator. The people who buy your goods at the high price and then get killed when the inflation stops or switches channels don't do well at all, and unless you spend your gains right away they will devalue along with all other money as its purchasing power drops over time. That's much different from what happens absent inflation.
 
CDB

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CDB - but after we've paved & wired & sewered everything, then what? That sounds like the wrong road to travel - any alternatives you like?
There's never a shortage of wants to satisfy in the world. We're never going to be done producing things or finding better, more productive ways of using things already in our possession. The key here is that a home is not an investment. At most it's future price speculation in a distorted market where inflation makes it more or less a sure thing for nominal gains most of the time. In the end no different than buying baseball cards on the notion that you think they will appreciate in value. Just because the government has set the market up so the nominal return is more or less guaranteed most of the time, it doesn't change the nature of what's being done.
 
CROWLER

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I am looking for some advice me and my girlfriend just recently started to look for houses. I am hearing from alot of older, wiser people that NOW is not the time to even think about purchasing a home and to wait for a year. I am looking for some of your input. My girlfriend is gungho about getting "our" house but i am extremely leary until the market settles.
It depends upon quite a few things. What part of the country being one of the big things, current income, current cost of rent, if you are engaged to be married, if you will own the house entirely in your name, how soon you would look to move, how much do you make per month etc etc.

If you don't want to say in public feel free to email me. I started investing in real estate over 20 years ago and know a thing or two.


CROWLER
 
CROWLER

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I think we are really splitting hairs over what an investment is. Clearly an investment means different things to different people in this discussion.

By definition In finance, the purchase of a financial product or other item of value with an expectation of favorable future returns. In general terms, investment means the use money in the hope of making more money.

So if we all accept that as the definition of investment we can go from there.


CROWLER
 
CDB

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I think we are really splitting hairs over what an investment is. Clearly an investment means different things to different people in this discussion.

By definition In finance, the purchase of a financial product or other item of value with an expectation of favorable future returns. In general terms, investment means the use money in the hope of making more money.

So if we all accept that as the definition of investment we can go from there.

CROWLER
That's not really the issue as much as the source of the returns. You can invest in anything you want, houses or other goods or some productive undertaking. If the only reason for your expected return was due to inflationary distortion and the your investment is now performing submarginally, you're screwed.
 
bioman

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If i have no one to argue with, I cease to exist.
Well you're schhhmarter than I am in economics so I'll just sit back and do some learnin'.

Unless you start talking about ecology maybe with references to Nash's Chaos Theory then it could bridge the gap for my linear little brain. lol
 
CDB

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Well you're schhhmarter than I am in economics so I'll just sit back and do some learnin'.

Unless you start talking about ecology maybe with references to Nash's Chaos Theory then it could bridge the gap for my linear little brain. lol
Nash annoys me, as do all macromancer mathameticians. Economics ain't math, it's just the study of how people try and achieve their goals. As far as ecology, no idea. I like to fish.
 
bioman

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Fish are good :trout:

Actually I despise ecological principles that require a pHD in statistics to interpret. If you can't make your point with T test or anova..f off and go count some beans. lol
 
EasyEJL

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I'm just going to go back to "if renting is so much better than owning, then who owns the building that you are renting in?"
 
CDB

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I'm just going to go back to "if renting is so much better than owning, then who owns the building that you are renting in?"
And what was the down payment on the mortgage for that building? And the cost of the maintenance? Both have their ups and downs.
 
EasyEJL

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But still, if ownership is bad, and not an investment, how do REITs work?
 
BodyWizard

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REITs are basically collectors of financially distressed properties.

IIRC they acquire property at devalued rates, not inflated ones; rental & property mangement are extremely profitable as long as rates & values don't invert - which would leave them (or anyone) "upside-down" (ie, owing more on the mortgage than the property could be sold or rented for).

REITs are in many ways immune to devaluation, though, as they can deduct the loss in value as a cost of doing business (something you can't do if you bought the property just to live on); likewise, if they can't rent it for what they want, thay can deduct the rent they *aren't* getting as a loss.

Compare this with residential property, which retains value in the sense that you can build on it and stay on it (if you're lucky), but only increases in book value when the demand for that sort of property in that general ares is high enough to inflate prices. That's an increase in the price, but not in the actual value. Like CDB says (check me on this, dude), the value only changes when the owner is able to extract value from the property beyond personal utility: by developing a productive capacity, for example, or extracting or developing a resource of the property.
 
EasyEJL

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There is no production of new dirt. Yes the house itself is theoretically a a depreciating asset. Yet it is protected to some extent as with inflation of both materials and labor the cost of building a new structure to match continues to rise over time. The real value is in the dirt itself - no matter what we can produce, we are not able to increase the amount of landmass available. Therefore as population perpetually CONTINUES to climb, the value of the remaining property also does. In a small area, in a given span of time, the property may become less valuable (as population declines in that area as say for instance Boston currently has happening) however birth rate remains higher than death rate, and lifespans in general are still continuing to climb, so population will continue to rise.

If anything, as the baby boomers begin to die off (10-20 years from now) there may be a depression in the market at that point as the death rate may for a short time overrun birth rate (but I doubt it). Outside of that bump however, property has (when adjusted for taxation, the cost of renting, and rate of interest on borrowed money) stayed pretty well even with the S&P 500 since it has been established.
 

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Im glad we decided to put off buying a place here in Vegas. Would have lost my 3x my down payment and homes in the valley are projected to drop another 18% by Q4 2008
 
EasyEJL

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yeah, but the vegas market has been slightly different from 2002 to today than the rural pennsylvania market :)
 
Iron Warrior

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Well, again tho, did condos in that same building sell for 375 + in 2002? then your margin of being inflated isn't that high
I have no clue but my dad bought a 3 bed, 2 bath house that is 2,000 sq.ft. for 170K in 1984 and it's now worth 800K. Real Estate prices are stupid high out here. The condo I was looking at is 900 sq.ft. 1 bed, 1 bath and a little a$$ 8 by 3 patio.
 
EasyEJL

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you can generally look up property sales online to see prior sales. More or less, all the "crazy" price inflation happened between 2002-2005. So if you subtract that out, and just go up 5 % each year instead, you should get a "reasonable" price for today
 

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from a financial persepctive, buying right now is a solid time. Prices are low, its a buyers market etc... However a few things to realize is that if the economy sits stagnate for a while, you are not going to gain on your investment, also, with regard to your relationship just becareful as to who is going on what documentation. If you really think you going to marry this girl then I say go for it. If not, go rent for a bit. Also another benefit I am sure you are aware of is the tax plusses from owning
 
CDB

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A house is not an investment. A house with a well stocked bomb shelter in which you can survive a nuclear attack or a zombie invasion is an investment.
 
EasyEJL

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A house is not an investment. A house with a well stocked bomb shelter in which you can survive a nuclear attack or a zombie invasion is an investment.

all you really need to do is have a 2 story house with wooden stairs, and keep an axe at the top of the stairs. in the event of a zombie invasion, use the axe to chop away the stairs. zombies aren't smart enough to use a ladder.
 
CDB

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all you really need to do is have a 2 story house with wooden stairs, and keep an axe at the top of the stairs. in the event of a zombie invasion, use the axe to chop away the stairs. zombies aren't smart enough to use a ladder.
Not adequate. According to the Zombie Survival Guide if you're going to pull something like that you need an entire village elevated on stilts basically, and an enclosed self sufficient farm of sorts. Otherwise you're better off underground until it blows over, or mobile so you can high tail it out of any place that gets too hot. If you're above ground they'll still occasionally see you, and come after you, and even if they don't get to you they make life miserable and more difficult than it has to be.

No, a bomb shelter or the north where they freeze is the only way to go.
 
EasyEJL

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Not adequate. According to the Zombie Survival Guide if you're going to pull something like that you need an entire village elevated on stilts basically, and an enclosed self sufficient farm of sorts. Otherwise you're better off underground until it blows over, or mobile so you can high tail it out of any place that gets too hot. If you're above ground they'll still occasionally see you, and come after you, and even if they don't get to you they make life miserable and more difficult than it has to be.

No, a bomb shelter or the north where they freeze is the only way to go.
I knew I should have read it instead of just skimming.
 

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