New England B.S. Thread

Pugga speaks truth here.
It's also important to remember that part of why housing in AZ is so cheap is because they just had a huge real estate bubble pop out there because so many people were having trouble finding work and couldn't pay their mortgages. So jobs can be hard to find/keep out there. And you have to remember that the minimum wage may only be a nickel less out there, but the average wage is a lot lower. Average household income for you Massholes in 2011 was $62k; in AZ it was $46k.

 

Having a $450 or so payment is still not bad, you don't wanna see mine. Sick that it still is less than rent though.

My trick is pay a 13th payment over the course of a year, takes 7 yrs off a 30 year. Especially important at my age..and hers

 

Long term I figure to move south, by then if this all is still true I can pay cash for a house.

 

It's really not. Even with the taxes it's still only around $700 a month. I know a few people that are paying more in one month than I pay in three. I have pretty decent credit, so I got a rate of 3.25% on a 30 year.

If I was going to be in this place long-term I'd probably do the extra yearly payment, but my plan is to buy land and build on it within the next 5 years, so I won't be in this place long enough for the extra payment to have any benefit.

 

rent fucking sucks I hate it but since I've moved out (18) I've probably spent close too 15K a year on rent along with utilities a year. Where I am now I like it 6.75 acres, shoot-able land, privacy. For a 5 bedroom 3 bath house it's not bad it is about 2000sq. ft so its tight now with 4 other roomates. We have a massive wood stove in the main room and it gets the entire 1st floor. Down stair (basement) one open studio with a wood stove (gets TOASTY) The garage is a 2 car garage on a slab. Had a wood stove but that's in the basement now. I have a 135,000BTU kero/diesel heater in there that came with the house. I am in here now and it's about 98 and it took a hour and 15min from 20 degrees. Id rather own this house than split rent I'm sure it's not that much if rent is 1700 total

 

gas tank successfully welded, nerve racking. Read all about how too do it pretty scary process. I had the hose running from the water heater and an extinguisher right on hand

 

One of the techs at work just came from Arizona. He loved it out there but moved back because of the pay. There are PLENTY of legal Hispanics down there that are more than willing to do the same quilty of work for cheaper. Also the working conditions the service bays are a 3 walled building with a roof. It gets hot down there.

 

Damn I wish my mortgage was $700 a month. multiply that by 3....

 

LOL

 

Alex, you could always find out where this "house" is going ....
This "River traffic" can still surprise me everyday....

 

Haha! House boat!

 

.....and another person paying my mortgage three times a month. Not jealous at all. I'm sure your house is nice and all, but...
No thanks.

Plus, my house is only 40 minutes from where you work. Neener neener...
But to be fair, I cheated and bought a foreclosure both times I've bought homes. I can do the work, and it's saved me a crapton on mortgage payments.


Funny video. Who hasn't done this in the parts store at some point? Hell, when I was working in one we used to do it every time a new part came in. Had to 'test the tone'
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=49__d8fTEPQ

 

The trick is move to one of those states that is cheap but keep your Boston salary. Then your ahead of the game.

 

I was waiting for a chuckle out of you.

 

Thats a good point. I agree there is still alot of benefits to renting. No unexpected repair bills and stuff like that is nice. My best friend bought a house last summer and realized the heating system and all the plumbing was done by the previuos homeowner and he FUBARed it lol. Luckily he has a good pellet stove to heat the house. Plus i am not %100 positve i want to live in this area my whole life and if i am going to make a move the sooner the better. My girlfriend could probably land a job anywhere because of her fancy expensive pieces of paper, but in my field, residential construction, it really helps to know the right people. I have some great connections around here and alot of smaller side work all comes from word of mouth and repeat customers.

 

Come up to my house this summer I got some side work for you. I pay in beer and truck work.

 

You had me at beer.

 

I do miss the seemingly unlimited free time now and then, but I mostly spent it working for other people (friends and relatives, typically). Now if I've got spare time I've got something that could be done around the house. Usually I enjoy it, but every so often I ignore it and go camping or something.
With a residential construction background you could certainly look into foreclosure properties, too. They're a lot less expensive (at least around here they are) and a good way to build equity in a house fairly quickly. We got our house in October of last year, and I estimate (and unfortunately the town's property tax assessor agrees with me, the bastard) that I've increased the property value by about $50k through repairs and upgrades, and I've probably only put about $3k in materials into it.

 

It's amazing what you find after you move in, and it's terrifying sometimes what people do.

I have no heat in my master bedroom. Seems that when the PO decided to widen the doorway between the kitchen and dining room (a beautiful move, one of the nicer parts of the house) the heating duct to the second floor was in the way. Instead of moving the ducting or narrowing the doorway, they elected to just cut the vent piping make a floor register in the first floor. To remedy the heat situation they cut some holes in the ceiling of the kitchen and dining room.

When I moved in I had to replace every single light bulb in the house. More than 50% of the bulbs were blown, and of the ones that weren't, none of them matched the fixtures. A dual bulb fixture rated at 60W max per bulb had a 75W bulb and a 25W bulb.

I'm slowly fixing the other BS (like no downspouts), but those were my favorites.

 

lol...
I can totally see the guy doing the math on that and saying "well, 25 and 75 is only 100, and 60 and 60 is 120, so this will work fine!"