New England B.S. Thread

Pure insanity right now.
I've been looking for a house for a year and a half .
I "thought" it would be a painless process as I "thought" I was in a good position to buy.
My present house is not my concern. It's been paid off for years and will sell in a couple of days to some invading New Yorker.

Buying another one is the problem. We've bid on a lot of houses and the bidding wars are still a thing. We lost out on one for only 1k.
I'm a cash buyer but it seems like it doesn't matter as some New Yorker always comes in with a bigger wheelbarrow full of cash.
The search continues...

 

Same here, paid about $150k for the house - figured in 5-10 years, I'd look for my dream house. At the time, that would have been maybe 350k. Now, my house is pushing 300 and what I really want is more like 600. 600 wouldn't be a good financial decision with what we make.

We're staying put too - 10 years left on a 3% mortgage since I refinanced to a bi-weekly 15 year (so really 13.5 year) at the start of COVID. Had I waited, I probably could have gotten a bi-weekly 10 year at 2% and had around 6 years left now which would be wild - but who knew rates would keep dropping?

 

Oh if mine went on the market it would be gone in a couple days easy, especially with the location. But for 2.6% for the next 28 years (27?) - it's a great location, we'd probably invest a bit in it and then rent it out and keep it in case we wanted it back eventually.

Our friends sold theirs about a month ago/2 months ago, in Providence. Over ask, made a butt load, and the inspection was waived/for information only. They DID ask that something be moved/removed/changed (I think old pallets stored under the deck or something) because the bank flagged it for safety or something like that, otherwise the inspection was just for fun.

It's bananas man.

1200 sq ft on 1/3 acre, I figured about now we'd look to go to about 2k sqft max, but with a pool maybe. We want an inground if we do it, but they cost about 50k and only add 0k to the value, so just buy it. Plus a bunch of work to do - sistering joists, etc. But F it, I'll spend 20k-30k on work on the house and then keep it for another many years. The small house thing is awesome, so much easier to clean and such. No stairs. Huge (relatively) back yard, all fenced in for the dog. Great area. Not so great school district but no kids now so we're at minimum 8 years from needing that if she pissed hot TODAY, and we aren't "trying" so, don't care.

There's a 2k sqft house, 1/3 acre, in the "nice" town one over, with direct access to the bike path I use a lot, for 645 will probably go for 655-660. Sold for 280 in Dec 2019 (talk about nailing the timing!) Might go check it out but




Anyway. Beautiful weekend. Making salsa and sourdough this weekend. No need to keep the doom spiral going.

Who's doing what this weekend? We usually do NMW this weekend - looks B E A UUUUTIFUL for that trip this year but we did ours a couple weeks back. Mid 70s and then 50s at night, no rain....

 

House in back of me is going on the market tomorrow. Same house as mine, but my property is in better shape.
They're starting at 535k,let's see how high it goes as this will be a barometer for when I sell.
Let's just say I paid about 240k when i bought mine.

 

Im headed out to the Somerset Reservoir Area, not sure exactlly where we are going but lookin to do some wheeling and camping.

 

We're 1500 sq ft on 2/3 of an acre. We don't need more house, but I'd like more land and a bigger garage - mine is 24x24, something like 36x26 would be awesome. Something a little newer/higher architectural quality would be nice, but we can basically accomplish that end result with ours if we put some money into renovations. A visit to the snip doctor a couple years ago made the area schools irrelevant to our future.

 

The only thing with houses that I've noticed is the delta is the same, at least roughly. When I bought the dream house was 250-300k more than I had available. My house may have doubled in value, but the next step up house is still 250-300k more than what I can get mine for. So my mortgage would effectively be the same then as it would be now (rates being equal) if I were to buy the monster house, if I took all the profit in the house and put it into the new place.

The rates and child care costs are what's keeping me from moving. The rates are what they are and buying with high rates isn't always the worst thing if they drive the prices down. It's the fact they're both up that's driving the difficulty factor. I like my house, I dislike my location. I'd be more apt to turn my house into what I want if I had a location I'd like.

To try and get into the market as a new buyer right now would be insanity, though. Between that and the cost of child care, I couldn't imagine starting over and my kids are still very young.

 

Which is why we're selling and moving south. We can get a house comparable to what we have for about half (maybe) what we'll (hopefully) get for this place. Which is why I've spent the last several years updating and repairing as many things as I can.

 

My wife and I refinanced in 2020 and locked in a 2.375% fixed 30-year rate. The term 'golden handcuffs' really applies here - luckily we are in a nice Town with good schools, but our starter home is starting look like our forever home. Thankfully my wife understands the situation we are in and knows what moving and upgrading our house would do to our mortgage payment (additional +$1,400/month); frustrating that we didn't pull the trigger 5 years ago when we were seriously looking at upgrading....however everyone would be rich if they could predict tomorrow. Not to mention that getting a different house and paying that additional $1,400 would be a minimal upgrade in the size and quality of home.

I have no idea how someone buys their first time home in this market without having that large down payment from selling their current home.

 

We bought our "starter home" in 1980 with a 12% mortgage. The going rate was closer to 20%, but we lucked into that lower rate.

We're still in that starter home. Life happens unexpectedly and we never got the opportunity to move until now.

 

I've been at several showings where "kids" in their 20s are looking at half million dollar houses.
Also seen parents doing walkabouts using FaceTime looking at properties for their kids.
Insane.

 

Best part of all this(tongue in cheek I guess)...
Is, we can start the countdown to when the markets become saturated, with defaults, repo's, blah blah.

And the investors can see it, they're starting to buy up stuff, and convert into apartments, etc, etc....

I'm just torn on selling now, while I am WAY ahead... or waiting it out.

We have elsewhere to go, but, would rather wait until our youngest (11) is done with school, unless we can guarantee she'd get back into the school she was in last....

 

Agree.
The nice part about my situation is that I want to get out of here rather than I have to get out of here.

 

South is a different animal. Not knocking it, we looked at it too.

Then my wife did an internship in NC last year, 14 hours away. The difference in climate was....maybe noticeable when it snowed? Otherwise....

I've posted this before. That light green stretches all the way from the bible belt up to Rhode Island. Obviously it's a little bit of a wide zone, but the difference from RI to NC was negligible, whereas RI to southern NH, 90 minutes away, is significant. We're pretty happy here. Austin didn't work out and I'm okay with that.

Dang, you're one of the only people I've seen lower on a 30. Jan 2021 refi'd, 2.625

Put it into perspective - if you did 1400 a month for a year, that's (shade under) 17k. Two years, 33.5k.

What can you do to your house for 33.5k and only need two years of paying that extra 1400 vs 30 years of paying that extra 1400?

First off, this will sound pompous as hell - I'm an engineer, my wife is a physical therapist. Combined, we could make it happen. PROBABLY be on PMI (we were when we bought in 2017, it went away when we refi'd). But, between PMI, VA loan options, etc - there's potentials. The neighbors house is going for (likely) 350. 35K 10% is doable. You'll have PMI, but, there have been FAR worse financial decisions (my neighbor bought a Kia Stinger, for example).

family we bought our house from raised at least 1 kid, I think 2, in this house as is. If they can do it, so can we, so we're not that worried. Schools are meh though. (see above, no prospects on kids though).

Some places half mil is all there is.

But it can also be that they are dividing and conquering too. Parents go check out these 3-4 open houses, kids go check out there 4-5, friends check out these 2-3, meet back up for pizza, call the buyers if there's a HOLY CRAP BUY THIS HOUSE option, or tell them "yeah there's a sewage treatment plant two houses down, no go" type of thing.

I count us as LUCKY. There was only moderate skill, it was almost all LUCK, for timing and finding this house. It was under contract, fell through (I think Hubbard), back up for -10k, it was an open house a few houses down from one we actually wanted to see, the pictures were terrible.

Oh, have faith, they can drop out at 16.

You're ahead, but so are the other markets you'd move to.

 

I'm south of Boston, in most towns a half mil gets you a house that's not currently on fire. Metro Boston it is on fire at a half mil. I have a friend that's looking in the low point range closer to the city and losing bidding wars.

EDIT: For most people it's not even the mortgage that's the killer, it's the ancillary costs especially if you've got a family. More than two kids you need a minivan / 3rd row. My child care for my two at it's peak was nearly $600/week and we had cheap daycare. I have a co-worker closer to Boston that was paying almost $500/week for 1(!) kid.

 

Happy Labor Day week-end everyone from the Dacks

 

I'm quite familiar with the south. My son lives in SC just over the state line from Charlotte, NC. It gets cold there during the winter, but not as cold and not for as long as up here. The summers are hotter and generally more humid. If they get a 1/4" of snow the place shuts down. The grandkids had a "Hurricane Day" yesterday.

For me it's about a 17 hour drive if I'm with my wife. I could shave two hours off of that if I were alone or with a good co driver.

Despite what that map shows, I can tell you that weather in central TX is nothing like up here. That's why I'm not bringing my snow blower, roof rake, shovels, etc. In fact, I'm not sure I'm bring my ice scrapers. It's been 100+ every day since late June in the Austin area. No rain, either. The temperatures are starting to cool now, but it won't be cold. Our daughter lives there, so I follow the news and weather fairly close.

For the record Austin is a long three day drive from eastern MA.


[Quote ="GarlicFarts]South is a different animal. Not knocking it, we looked at it too.

Then my wife did an internship in NC last year, 14 hours away. The difference in climate was....maybe noticeable when it snowed? Otherwise....[/QUOTE]

We're in a sweet zone because Sharon, Canton, Easton are all more expensive and Brockton is, uh, Brockton. More and more Randolph is, uh, Brockton too. Decent schools, Route 24, Commuter Rail all add to the value. We'll see how much we end up with when all is said and done.

As I mentioned, where we are in Texas a decent 3BR, 3BA on a small lot is in the $350,000 range. Are kids are grown, so we don't need a big yard. We also don't want a place with interior stairs, which a lot of people still seem to want. Ideally we'd be in an area without an HOA, but if we have to we have to.

 

Yeah there's definitely some libterties on the map as you get further south. At least down to NC/SC and toward TN. Here's another map for green thumbs (hardiness) which shows another set of bands, RI is still significantly different than southern NH, but similar all the way down to NC.

Either way, RI <> NC I feel is pretty similar, and not worth moving for the weather. We are significantly different down here in the "south"





Texas is completely different. Was there in the winter and summer. In the hills toward Austin and west there's definitely some cooler days in the winters. The Research Triangle in NC was about the same as Providence area, maybe missing a few of the "cold snap" weeks we get down here time to time.

That checks out. I think it was 14 hours seat time for me.

 

as someone that lived in charlotte it's definitely worth moving to just on the weather alone. we used to ride year round down there. even if it's cold in the am it's warm by noon

 

Funny, perspectives. I hated Charlotte. At least Asheville there was some seasons.
But I love the cold. Abhor the heat. As they say, different strokes.

3/4 of the year above 85f is .. not fun for me at least