[Python49]

Wow, lots of good information in here.

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It depends on where you are trying to buy property. For houses in the $120k range it sounds like you're probably 50+ miles from a large city. A reliable rent vs. buy calculator will be much more valuable than anything anyone can tell you about the market. It's different for everyone, and it's hard to give good input without a lot of the variables.

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Friend of mine told me that if you got a good deal on a foreclosure you can get a good house for around $110k thats like 10mins from the night life in Austin. I'll look into this soon.

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I'd try to find some roommates, and rent out a bedroom or too. If this isn't possible, not a big deal, but it'd be nice to have.

Finally, I would commit to owning the place for 5 years, barring something unforseen in your financial situation. Over the first year or two, I'd make some small improvements in the house and monitor the market situation. If things look okay, I'd keep making improvements and then possibly start to look at acquiring another house.


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I already have a room mate that's moving down there with me so that would be good. The only concern for me is that since I plan to do alot of traveling for fun, some for poker (don't poker players who travel alot to poker events own houses?), that I don't want to really commit myself to staying in a certain location for the long term.

That's something I only want to do when i'm older with a wife and ready to settle down, I kind of feel like right now i'm not even sure where I want to live long term. I could end up wanting to move to Vegas after 2 years or something, but since I figure my option would either be to rent or buy a house I thought buying the house was assumed to always be the better option. Instead of paying rent to a landlord i'd be paying it towards something I own that I could get back when selling... was my logic. I guess though if I plan to be traveling and changing locations then common sense would say renting is the better option. I could commit to 2 years but 5 is a bit much.

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And no one needs to buy a house. They need rationally gauge the cost of renting vs. buying and make the best decision based on their specific circumstances. Typically renting is cheaper than owning over the short run, but appreciation makes up for it. But today any appreciation looks very iffy over the next 2-5 years.

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This part i'm not really understanding, if I were to lets say buy a house being foreclosed for $110k thats worth $180k and I live there for 2 years and I sell in 2 years for $180k because there was no appreciation then I would be profiting like $70k right? Maybe more if I fix the place up some. I would also have a place to live basically while making money.. whereas if I rent that same house I could just end up paying $700 a month for 2 years and have a net loss of $700 x 24.

Even if a house didn't appreciate and you can't get a good deal on it... wouldn't it just be, you buy it for $120k, you live there for 2 years, you sell for $120k and pretty much break even vs paying rent for 2 years? Or I guess the fees TC mentioned along with:
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your transactions costs, home improvements, repairs, taxes

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can come out to make buying more expensive.

A friend of mine I was just talking to says that one of the worst declines in property value in housing markets has been like 3%, so even if you were to buy a $120k house and take a 3% loss, thats $3600 loss in value, but wouldn't that still be cheaper than the amount of money you'd pay in renting? Also, thats a "worst" case scenario... so don't you just save money as opposed to renting, while giving your self a possible chance that it might even go up within 2 years? Seems like a free roll in that sense?

Yeah, i'm inexperienced obviously, just trying to make sense of this stuff [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]