>>The cruelest difference with a house is that if you miss the perfect house, it may not
be on the market again in your lifetime.<<
paul, be careful with the "one of a kind" mentality. rarely is it true, though it often
seems true. that is an agent's great selling point to extract the most dollars from the
buyer. broker's use it too. "this may be the one of a kind deal that gets you to
retirement...."
imho, bid like it was a business (i do this and hate competing with emotional
homebuyers!). how much is rental value? figure in some repairs and depreciation. more
than likely you will have to buy above that number but if you buy too much above it
then you may take a huge loss in the future. you may anyway, but we all understand the
concept of reducing risk.
it is ok to buy something smaller that you can easily afford. why? well, my wife and i
started out with a small condo. now we rent it and own a nice one story home. we plan on
paying off the condo (and doing without a lot of other stuff until we do - no $15k
mortgage payments here ;-) and saving enough in about 5 more years to buy a
nice two story home (the one we origianlly wanted! ;-) while renting the condo (and receiving the proceeds) and about
breaking even on renting the home.
we will have three homes then. eventually they will all be paid off and be tangible asset income
producers.
we didn't get what we wanted at first but, imho, we will get a lot more in the end. one
caveat, don't be as dumb a landlord as i was in the beginning. it is better to let a
property sit idle waiting for the right tenant than to rent to anybody just to get some
immediate cash. that lesson cost me a little. but, i've learned (the hard way as usual ;-).
just another perspective. btw, the two story rests on the premise of continued personal
employment ;-) |
