Open House Picks
Clinton Hill 86 Cambridge Place Archive! Corcoran Sunday 1:30-2:30 $2,590,000 GMAP P*Shark Windsor Terrace 272 Windsor Place Warren Lewis Sunday 2:30-4:30 $1,595,000 GMAP P*Shark Prospect Lefferts Gardens 30 Midwood Street Brown Harris Stevens Sunday 2:30-4:30 $1,475,000 GMAP P*Shark Prospect Lefferts Gardens 401 Parkside Avenue Corcoran Sunday 12-1:30 $1,250,000 GMAP P*Shark
Clinton Hill
86 Cambridge Place Archive!
Corcoran
Sunday 1:30-2:30
$2,590,000
GMAP P*Shark
Windsor Terrace
272 Windsor Place
Warren Lewis
Sunday 2:30-4:30
$1,595,000
GMAP P*Shark
Prospect Lefferts Gardens
30 Midwood Street
Brown Harris Stevens
Sunday 2:30-4:30
$1,475,000
GMAP P*Shark
Prospect Lefferts Gardens
401 Parkside Avenue
Corcoran
Sunday 12-1:30
$1,250,000
GMAP P*Shark
Being bound to the bank is hardly any freer than being bound to a landlord. In fact, it’s much less free — ask the millions of Americans who are now underwater on their homes, and can’t move because because they can’t find a buyer for their homes.
Tell how many of the richest people in the U.S. have a mortgage on their homes and get back to me. Tell me how many of the richest people in the U.S. rent out part of their homes to other people and then get back to me. Tell me how many of the richest people in the U.S. bought their homes at the top of the market — which you guys are recommending people do — and then get back to me.
As for the “dumpy apartment” idea — what a joke. Brooklyn is full of beautiful apartments to rent, precisely because there are so many overly indebted owners who have to rent out part of their homes in order to pay the mortgage.
Five years from now, you will have paid hundreds of thousands of dollars in interest to the bank, tens of thousands of dollars to the state, and your homes will be worth slightly more than they are today. If you think that’s the way to get rich, more power to you.
No person who aspires to any sortof wealth in their lives will be a lifelong renter. Financial freedom (not bound to a landlord) is part of the American dream. One in which I’m happy to be a part of.
Tell me how many of the richest people in the U.S. are renters and get back to me.
The whole rent vs. buy argument is laughable. I regularly get applications for apartments from lifelong renters now in their forties and even fifties who have been paying below market rent for years and now are forced to pay market rents because they never bought a house. Perhaps the money they saved all these years makes it worth it to be looking to rent some dumpy apartment when you’re fifty years old. What a joke.
I wasn’t the one who brought up stress — you were, saying it was more stressful to rent than to buy. I think that in most circumstances that’s crazy — particularly in a renter-friendly city like New York.
As for the thousands I’m paying to my landlord, they’re going to be much much less than the thousands I would otherwise be paying to the bank. And if you factor in the tens of thousands I’ll be making every year in investment income on the $300K I would otherwise have to shell out as a down payment, there’s little doubt renting is going to be far far cheaper.
I’m not saying you made a bad decision to buy. I am saying that people on this thread — and in many other threads — who insist that there’s “no way” renting in this market is cheaper have absolutely no idea what they’re talking about. With housing prices as high as they are — after five years of historically unprecedented price appreciation — renting is, in almost all cases, the economically sensible thing to do.
because in those 5 years you’ve waited to buy there are two things at play:
1. you’re paying thousands to a landlord
2. what if they stay still for 4 years…you will have missed the lowpoint and not even known it. this is not an exact science. might be 5 years. might be 3. might be one.
like i said, clearly renting is for you. it is not for 70% of the american population, but in this city you are in the majority so if it works for you, keep at it.
all i said, was that i’m a lot happier now. stuff breaks…that’s life. it’s not a big stress when there are people starving, dying, at war.
i can handle getting a new fridge.
Prices are not low now — they’re sky-high. For prices in New York to return to anything like their historical norm — in terms of price-income ratios or price-rent ratios — home prices will end up staying still for at least five years. So why would I want to give up hundreds of thousands of dollars — literally — when I’ll be able to buy at roughly the same price five years from now? Piece of mind — well, I guess for some that’s worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. But I’m not even convinced ownership does bring piece of mind — if something breaks, I don’t worry about it, because the landlord takes care of it. Daily maintenance — landlord. Dealing with the city, with sanitation, etc. — landlord. I can guarantee that if you took a survey of renters and owners, many more owners would say they were stressed out.
so 1:10…if prices are low now, wouldn’t it make more sense to buy now than to wait and pay higher prices when they start rising again in 18-24 months?
because that is the predictions, you know.
or do you prefer to buy when the market is at the top??
and for the record, most homeowners i know in new york…whether they’ve “made” 200% or 2% are a lot happier knowing they have the piece of mind to stay put, not deal with a landlord, do as they please to their apartment and know that they will pay the same amount for the next 30 years.
piece of mind goes far in this crazy city for some.
maybe not you. but lots.
buying was the best thing i ever did for myself.
and my future for that matter.
People say “you will always be a renter” like it’s an obviously bad thing. But this is exactly what I’m asking: how does it make more economic sense, at this point, to buy? Why should renters feel like they’re somehow messing up when it seems pretty clear that buying is just a mistake?
Obviously, this wouldn’t have been true five years ago, when the economic calculus was clearly in favor of buying. But housing prices in NYC have risen much much faster over the past five years than rents have — no one’s rent in Brooklyn has gone up 200% since 2003, while plenty of people’s homes have. So the question is: why should someone buy now? Just saying: “you’ll always be a renter” isn’t an answer. Nor is “I own six brownstones.” If you bought those six brownstones in the late 1990s or, even better, in the late 1980s, more power to you. But it’s not relevant or interesting when the question is: should you buy now? I think it’s pretty safe to say that if you’d bought six brownstones in 2007, you wouldn’t be all that happy right now.
Simple, 11:45. I had no specific information at all. Just a ‘red flag’ that made me very paranoid. I talked to my inspector about it, who came to share my worries, and he consequently did a more thorough inspection than he normally would. Granted, I also paid him a bit more, but in the long run it was worth it, and that anonymous post on this blog was a great help.