here are your options in l.a.
I can confirm that. I am in philly suburbs (one of the top counties and townships in the us) and that is probably a million dollar house out here, just based off your pics. You aren't touching new construction out here for less than 7-800k, even new townhomes and carriage homes are 400k+. We paid 370k for our 3 br 2.5 ba house, completely rennovated, but its about half the sq ft of yours. I think housing is expensive here but I can't even fathom living in sf, Seattle, boston, etc.
maybe Pittsburgh and philly, but there is a whole lot of nothing in pa. I could have gotten a beautifuk new construction in the 400k range but I would be 45-60 min from where I'm at now and I'm already ~40 min from downtown. I work from home now, but I've worked with people before that live out there in their nice houses but they drive 1.5 hrs to work every day. No thanks. And no one wants to come visit you when you live in the middle of nowhere.
maybe Pittsburgh and philly, but there is a whole lot of nothing in pa. I could have gotten a beautifuk new construction in the 400k range but I would be 45-60 min from where I'm at now and I'm already ~40 min from downtown. I work from home now, but I've worked with people before that live out there in their nice houses but they drive 1.5 hrs to work every day. No thanks. And no one wants to come visit you when you live in the middle of nowhere.
My next place will be a lake house in the poconos. You can get those things for dirt cheap. Screw the jersey shore and those exorbitant prices.
the people that way out the way fight to get on the bus to get the park 'n ride because they know it's a 45min wait for the next one. I like the convenience of being close too much that's why I'm not buying until we move out of state. I want a nice house for a great price that's not too far from everything and you really can't get that in PA, not to mention, the property taxes here are crazy. Add that w/ the bad roads, inspections, emissions, vehicle registration, gas tax, liquor tax, etc...Yea, it's time for me to go
I'd want out of Pittsburgh tooExactly
. I'm kidding, I've spent a good amount of time in Pittsburgh and always enjoyed it. My property taxes are dirt cheap in my school district, but if you go to any of the surrounding ones it's significantly more.
Stay with a fixed rate loan. Interest rates for Adjustable rate mortgages (ARM) may be slightly less, but rates have never been lower, so once the rate adjusts in 5-7 years, your payment is almost guaranteed to go up unless the economy takes another dive, in which case your home may be be worth less than you owe and you won't be able to refinance anyways.
A good excel sheet should work fine for what you need. How come the closing costs are so high? A reasonable amount would be in the range of $2000.
I did some research and there's a lot of scams out there but dude won't listen. The owner of the lots is even talking about writing the up contract and not going through the bank . We even showed him that dude is behind on the property taxes so that will become your burden. He thinks we are being negative because it sounds too good to be true. The seller is even willing to take a loss on it. So many red flags, venting in a real estate thread
They can be a good investment. However, you're generally going to get more competition from other buyers when bidding on the property. You'll also likely get a better deal if you're able to buy a fixer upper and do the work yourself or pay someone you know to do it. Most home buyers don't want to go into it having to do much work on the property, so you'll might be able to negotiate a lower price on something that needs a little work or at the very least waiting until it's a buyer's market to buy the property.
