Stressed about buying a home

[olive]

My husband and I would like to start a family soon and we have begun looking at homes in the suburbs of New York City. We have been shocked, almost into paralysis, by the asking price of these suburban homes.

Although we have two incomes right now, we are hoping to buy on my DH's income only -- because I would like to change jobs or even work part time once we have a family which would result in a substantial decrease in our combined income.

We currently live in NYC in a very small one bedroom apartment that I bought a few years ago before we were married that we could sell to generate additional money for a downpayment, limiting our monthly payments, but even so -- there's just not enough to keep our monthly expenses doable!

My DH has to be at work 7:00am so -- we don't want to move too far from the city to make his commute unbearable. Also, both of our families live in the tristate area and we are very close to them -- so we wouldn't want to move too far.

My DH is extremely handy so we are looking for homes that are older and need to be improved upon. We would like to buy in a decent school district but even so, sacrificying on square footage, outdoor space and condition of the home -- the homes are all above $600,000 requiring substantial improvements.

Then, there is always the constant fear that there is a housing bubble and the homes pricing market will crash. It sure does seem like these homes are overvalued -- we saw a home in nice town this past weekend that hasn't been renovated since the 70s and had less than 2000 square feet and no property at all for $870,000!!! This is surely overpriced.

We have been so stressed about this...has anyone else experienced this? What did you do? How have you coped? Please tell me that there is a house and we will find one.

[Asha]

hi olive! i totally understand what you are going through. we live in nyc. it was very discouraging looking for a home bc i consider our income to be good, but we were made to feel poor bc we couldn't afford hardly anything. what we did is we moved to a "transitional" neighborhood. the subway commute to manhattan stinks, but i just go into school a few days a week, and my dh works in queens where we live. we were able to afford a good sized home doing this, but we don't want to stay here forever bc it is too isolated with not much to do around here. this home, so far, seems to have been a good investment, and it will help us buy our dream home in the future. what we are considering doing to be able to afford to live closer to manhattan is to buy a multi family home. of course, we will have to buy something that needs work, but that's okay with us bc then we will be able to make it to suit our needs. also, we will be able to afford the monthly payments bc we will be collecting rent from tenants of the other units. the main obstacle now is saving for a down payment for buying a multi family house. some "better" neighborhoods where the price of multi family houses aren't ridiculously expensive are astoria, park slope, and long island city.

i wouldn't worry about the housing bubble too much. if you plan on staying in the house for a long time, the prices always go up. people aren't going to be selling their houses at a huge loss unless they are going bankrupt. rumor is that long island (particularly suffolk county) will probably have the biggest drop if prices go down.

[kris97]

hi olive! I'm sorry you're experiencing this. we followed an eerily similar path -i'm a lawyer too, but in the public sector, and dh is a finance guy, yet we could barely afford our median priced small cape here in nj. that said, it was doable - we were able to find our little house for under 400K, in a town that we love. i'm two minutes from the nj transit train line (my commute to downtown is a little over an hour, which is completely doable) , the schools are great, and, though we defintiely lucked out, the house did not need a ton of work. have you considered nj at all? i know there are a good many decent, though not fabulous, houses out here under 400. If you have any specific questions, i'd be happy to try to answer them. good luck!

[olive]

Hi rebjc! We actually don't know too much about NJ. We were both raised in Brooklyn and we have some family and friends that have moved to NJ. We visited friends in Monmouth County recently (Old Bridge) and while the house they bought was very nice and a good price (however, the property taxes are insane!!) -- it is really a long commute from the city. We thought we would move to NJ and I even took and passed the NJ bar in preparation for our eventual move!

DH is an electrician and works in Brooklyn. His commute to Brooklyn would actually not be that long and I could work in NJ; however, he freaked out when he though about paying the tolls everyday to get to Brooklyn. I know we will have to sacrifice something eventually to buy a home (which I am anxious to do because I really want to start a family soon -- I'm getting old!!); but I just wish it wasn't so difficult!


Kris97 - We have been considering a multi-family home and we did look at park slope, prospect heights, windsor terrace and kensington -- but what we saw was definitely way out of our price range. I think it is great that you have chosen a transitional place and I hope that if we can't find something in our first choice; I hope we find something in a transitional neighborhood.

Kris97 and Rebcj - Thank you for you supporting words -- I really appreciate it! DH and I coudn't sleep last night -- so it is good to know that others have had the same obstacles and have overcome it in some way!

[CurlyT]

Hello Olive!

We are moving to the suburbs of Houston, TX so that we can afford to buy a house of our dreams with great school districts. We are sickened by how the NY real estate market has become. Paying an average of $600K for a freakin' fixer-upper is beyond us. Even if we could afford it, I don't think we would have bought it anyway! If you look around the country (other than CA) you will find that $600K fixer-upper in NYC would get you a HUGE mansion elsewhere!

We settled for a co-op unit back in 2004 in Westchester, but b/c of the same sickening real estate market, our unit can go for double now:D

Good luck to you in your search. Would you consider moving to a more affordable place like PA?

[vancouvergirl]

olive, i can relate to the stress you are feeling. it is so hard when you are considering providing for your children! we wanted to stay in an urban area and after much soul searching ended up in a spacious townhouse with outdoor space as opposed to a house. hmmm...the only advice i can suggest is to keep an open mind. keep asking yourselves what you could give on. maybe you could live with a less than ideal yard, or fewer bedrooms, or an ugly exterior, or a place which needs renovations, or a bit farther commute, or whatever. make lists of what is non-negotiable and compare with each other. it can be a long process which changes course several times. it can also be very exciting. i wish you the best of luck!!

[Asha]

(however, the property taxes are insane!!)

i don't know your tax bracket, but dh and i figured though property taxes are insane in places like westchester, you have to also keep in mind you are not paying new york city income taxes there, so when you factor that in there is not too much difference in taxes overall. only a few places in westchester have income tax, off the top of mind i know yonkers does.

[Asha]

curlyt - it is interesting to hear your decision to move to texas bc dh and i have seriously considered moving to another part of the country bc of the insane price of everything in the nyc area. we have thought of texas especially the austin area. we have also considered oregon and washington state too.

[KristieW]

This is so completely familiar, as we're in exactly the same boat WRT jobs and family plans. At this point, we can barely afford to buy in a neighborhood that I'd never have thought of before (lots of people with tricked out pickups, pitbulls, and yards filled with junk.) There are more affordable areas, but because of DH's job (which is government, so it's quite stable) and the nature of the work he does (which make his skills not easily transferrable to another area), we can't move there without subjecting him to a 3+ hour/day commute. It's the major stressor in my life and in our relationship. I'm sorry I have nothing constructive to add, I just thought I'd commiserate. :rolleyes:

[MLA]

I totally feel your pain. DH and I were living in Los Angeles and completely unable to afford a decent home in a good area -- and we were making pretty good money. Anyway, after thinking about it a LOT, we decided to relocate. We now live in North Carolina, and are in the process of purchasing our first house. It's really nice out here, and my parents plan to move out in the next couple of years. My best friend's also considering it.

Of course, if you're really close with your family, relocation may not be an option for you. It takes a lot of guts to break away and do something like this (believe me, I was scared out of my mind!).

Anyway, I'll keep my fingers crossed for you and hope that you find a solution to the problem that works for you. Good luck!

[Evie]

MLA My DH and I are thinking of doing the same thing. Moving to a less expensive area.

I just had a couple of questions if you did not mind me asking. 1) Did you see a large decrease in salary? 2) How was it adjusting to life in the south? Is it a lot slower there? Are people really more friendly? (of course I am coming from Washington, DC, so that is a lot different from LA) and 3) Are there a lot of things to do in Durham, such as museums, parks, etc.?

Anyway - sorry for hijacking the thread. I definitely feel everyone's pain as far as purchasing a nice house in a nice area, although I know it is not as bad here as it is in NYC or LA!

[ks_piper]

We were living in SoCal with 2 small kids living in an apartment watching housing prices skyrocket around us and we decided to pick-up and move. We simply couldn't afford to pay over $300,000 for a tiny fixer-upper house in the Inland Empire of SoCal. Not worth it at all!

So we took a 50% pay cut and moved to Wichita, KS. Crazy huh? We were never making tons of money, so now we're making even less - tiny tiny income - but we just bought our first house the day before Thanksgiving. :)

We had friends who relocated to Iowa about a year before we moved and they sort of inspired us to take the plunge.

Of course, some folks can't and won't relocate for various reasons, but for us having the ability to raise our kids in a house with a yard was motivation enough.

If you aren't dead-set on staying in New York, or can stomach the idea of a few years away from New York, you might take a look at some other areas in the country. Most of them are a lot more affordable and having lots of nice affordable homes.

Best of luck!

[CurlyT]

Rebjc, we also considered Tampa, FL b/c I have family and we have investments there, but FL is slowly becoming NY! LOL! The prices have gone up so much so we can't get the kinda of house we wanted from a few years back.

Texas on a whole does not appreciate *as* much which can be good and bad. Bad if you want to invest and want a big return, but good if you plan on buying a house and living it it for years to come. We figure it is worth it in the end for us b/c if we were to stay in Westchester we would have to shell out tuition for private schools, pay high property taxes, and I will NEVER be able to stay at home with the kids for a bit. It's just what we feel we need to do and we are soooo looking forward to it!

I personally believe that NYC area is driving out young families. We just can't afford the lifestyle that we grew up with! I grew up in a house so I want my kids to grow up in a house as well and have the backyard I had, and so forth. You just can't do that around NYC anymore and it's so sad. I only know *2* people with houses in Westchester/Long Island. Everyone else I know has a co-op like us :rolleyes:

[longislandlolita]

I personally believe that NYC area is driving out young families. We just can't afford the lifestyle that we grew up with! I grew up in a house so I want my kids to grow up in a house as well and have the backyard I had, and so forth. You just can't do that around NYC anymore and it's so sad. I only know *2* people with houses in Westchester/Long Island. Everyone else I know has a co-op like us :rolleyes:

I totally agree! We are two private-sector lawyers with high incomes and we can't afford to live in many towns in Westchester/NJ, let alone in NYC! I'm not as concerned about our getting the money together for the down payment -- looks like we will be able to do that -- but it's the mortgage, taxes, closing costs, repairs, insurance, etc. that all add up to . . yikes! Plus I'm not sure if we are going to be in the private sector forever. What if one of us changes jobs? OK, I'm done stressing myself out here. Glad you were all able to make the leap -- I think we will get there eventually!

[Asha]

closing costs

i get so jealous when i hear ladies here saying that the seller paid closing costs or their closing costs were only couple thousand dollars. of course, they are not from the nyc area. we paid close to $13k for our closing costs!!! yikes!!

repairs
figure that it will be about 1% of the value of your home each year. when we first bought the house, we thought no way, but i did end up being just about that for repairs. unfortunately, my do it yourself skills don't go beyond painting, so we have to hire someone to fix EVERYTHING!!

insurance
if you buy a condo or coop, you will save major bucks on insurance. you only have to buy insurance to cover what is inside the walls since your condo or coop association will have insurance to cover the exterior walls and outside property.

[Lauren23]

I live in the suburbs of NYC (Westchester actually) so I can relate! FH and I are going to be buying later this year...definitely something like a co-op, and probably in either Dutchess County or in CT. Nothing around here is affordable, and it's really frustrating.

I want to relocate somewhere else but DH refuses. Neither of us has a dream job that we can't afford to give up. He just loves NY too much. I love it too, but it's just not worth it!

[dobler88]

I totally feel your pain!! we live in suburban NJ and just bought our first house. We are 2 lawyers working in NYC...and our house is SMALL!! But, the town we live in is great--we are in the south orange/maplewood area, which has a ton of brooklyn and NYC transplants. The only bummer is that taxes are indeed very high...

It IS doable, it just takes a very long time to find something that will work for you!

[keska]

I'm feeling the pain too! DH and I just moved back to San Francisco and we're renting right now but we'd like to buy in about a year. I just passed the bar, and I don't even have a job yet, so I'm not sure how soon we'll be able to start looking. We're renting a loft in SOMA, right in downtown, which is a great area, but every other condo on our floor has sold in the last 8 months for about $800-900,000!!! There's no way we could afford to buy in the building we're living in.

To be able to afford a place with more than 1,000 square feet, I think we're going to have to look outside the city - probably in Oakland. I'd love to own a house, but I really can't see that happening. We'll probably look for a condo or a loft.

[amd1005]

DH and I are in the same boat. The housing market in New England is pretty high, too. Not as bad as NY or CA, but it's still pretty high. Unless you buy in a less than desirable neighborhood, or make more than 6 figures with no other debt, you can expect to be mortgage-broke. It's very frustrating. :(

[MLA]

MLA My DH and I are thinking of doing the same thing. Moving to a less expensive area.

I just had a couple of questions if you did not mind me asking. 1) Did you see a large decrease in salary? 2) How was it adjusting to life in the south? Is it a lot slower there? Are people really more friendly? (of course I am coming from Washington, DC, so that is a lot different from LA) and 3) Are there a lot of things to do in Durham, such as museums, parks, etc.?

Anyway - sorry for hijacking the thread. I definitely feel everyone's pain as far as purchasing a nice house in a nice area, although I know it is not as bad here as it is in NYC or LA!

Sorry for not getting back to you sooner -- I havent' been back in this thread for a while. The pace is a lot slower, which suits me just fine. Things were a little too hectic for me in LA. My salary has decreased some, but DH's actually sky rocketed. He was underpaid in LA, and when we moved here the company that brought us here increased his salary by about 25%, not to mention all of the additional perks (like bonuses and great 401K matching program) that came along with it. People here are pretty friendly, though LA was actually pretty friendly, too. I guess the thing that struck me here is that people are friendly to you on the street. In LA, no one would ever just say hello to you when you were walking by them. Here people start conversations with me waiting for a light to change to cross the street. It sort of freaked me out at first. ;)

Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill (all sort of the same area) have lots of things to do. I worked for a major arts organization in LA, so it was important to me to have arts opportunities out here. There's not as much as there would be in a big city like DC or LA or NY, but considering the size of the community, there's quite a lot. There's a really nice art museum as well as other museums (history and such). They have a prettydecent symphony orchestra (and I have really discerning tastes when it comes to orchestras). They have theaters that bring in Broadway touring productions. And Duke and UNC Chapel Hill offer a lot of interesting cultural options in their performing arts series. They get some of the best classical, blue grass and folk musicians in the world at those series. So, yeah, I like it here. Feel free to PM me if you have more questions. :)

[ahavnes]

Originally posted by rebjc
it is interesting to hear your decision to move to texas bc dh and i have seriously considered moving to another part of the country bc of the insane price of everything in the nyc area. we have thought of texas especially the austin area.

That is exactly what we are doing. We now live about 20 mins. south of San Francisco, where $600K will get you a total fixer upper that is significantly less than 1,000sf. Next month we're moving to Austin, TX, where we're paying half that for a 2,700sf home that is nearly new. IMO, housing costs are getting to be just ridiculous in certain areas of the country. :rolleyes:

[olive]

Well, I'm glad to know that we are not alone. It has been very difficult. We went house hunting last weekend to see what the price ranges were for homes in Westchester. They were outrageous!

I admire you who have moved to another state where living is more affordable. I have friends and family members that have left NY for Florida and Arizona but my DH and I are so incredibly close to our families that we can't imagine leaving them behind. In addition, we feel that we are at such important points in our careers that leaving now may damage our future.

We've spoken about texas and arizona and new mexico (but I am embarrassed to admit) I have only been to one of the 3 states! I'm not quite sure what life is like out there or if I would like it. I was raised in Brooklyn and I hardly ever drive anywhere! I can't imagine having to get in my car to drive places. We were looking for suburbs of NY with commute times at less than an hour -- where walking to town, etc is doable.

The problem is that these type of places are so incredibly expensive! Oh, well, DH and I need to regroup and think of a new strategy. I guess we can wait to see if the asking prices of homes come down as many economists have been predicting (even more so of late!).

Best of luck to you all who have moved and best of luck you who are house hunting in the nyc metropolitan area!

[Anitsiva]

Hi, we recently moved from a NYC CO-OP to a house in northern NJ (Nutley). The price for the house was somewhat affordable (low $400's) however, taxes are rather high ($8000). One thing that helps me stomach the taxes is that the schools are fantastic and I will not need to put my children into private school which I would have to do if I was still in NYC. That is saving me a ton of money. With 2 young kids, private school was going to cost well over $10,000. I guess its all how you look at it.

We are also a 20 minute ride to Manhattan and very close to public transaportation.

Sometimes the suburbs of NYC are more managable than you think.

[Asha]

Hi, we recently moved from a NYC CO-OP to a house in northern NJ (Nutley). The price for the house was somewhat affordable (low $400's) however, taxes are rather high ($8000).

i don't know if i had said this in this thread or not, but property taxes in the suburbs usually equal new york city income taxes, so it usually levels out in the end especially if you in a high income tax bracket.

[{b}]

Olive, I feel your pain.

DH and I are educated professionals, renting a small ground floor one-bedroom apartment in Westchester. We just got PG, so this living situation will very soon not be suitable any longer.

We're hoping to move closer to our jobs (We're both in the White Plains area) but oh my, houses in that area are outrageous. Plus taxes, plus adding in monthly costs for things we don't pay for now, like heat/ac, water, sewer, cable, etc. the costs are overwhelming.

What area are you looking in? We're definitely staying in this area, because DH is self-employed and can't just pack up and move. Plus, his family is here and we have made a committment to them to stay.

Have you talk to a mortgage broker yet? Getting a pre-approval can help tremendously - both in getting your offers taken seriously and for knowing about how much you can afford/what your price range is.

I really hope to be able to cut back to part time (Or SAH altogether) once baby is here, but with these housing prices, I don't see how that's possible.

Anyways, just wanted to say I feel your pain, I'm in the same boat, and man, what happened to the middle class in Westchester? You have to be Section 8or very wealthy to buy here.

[flygirl]

Yet another here who left the ridiculous housing prices behind for a new state. DH & I are very close to our families, both of which are in CA. We *loved* living in the Bay Area, and I admit it was tough to adjust to living in TX. But the housing prices were just too good to pass up. Sitting here on my front porch, in a house not two years old, across from a very quiet park in a gorgeous, unique neighborhood (not to mention the mild weather and bright blue skies), I can't imagine wanting anything else right now.

Luckily, I can still travel back to CA quite often and remain very close to my family. The incredible friendships I've developed here don't exactly make up for the physical closeness of family, but they are an amazing support network.

[kedzieb]

hi olive - i'm new here, but wanted to mention an option in NYC. i live in sunnyside queens and love it here. we're looking at buying an apartment soon and the 2 bedroom apartments here go for around 250-300.

you could also look into buying a 2 or 3 family and renting out the other apartment for $$$, with the idea that you could eventually convert it later to a 1 family once you guys are more secure moneywise or need more space. a full town house in sunnyside gardens (the area we live in, it's very nice-yards, park, trees, quiet) would be around 700.

i love it here and it's 10-15 minutes to midtown manhattan so it would be quick to commute.

i didn't read through the thread yet, so maybe someone else has mentioned sunnyside. it's a very family area with good restaurants and bars too.