I bought mine when I was uni I knew my time was up (living at home with my parents) when they started to look for a house for me. I was resistant at the time (21) and wanted to buy a campervan and tinny. I took it for granted at the time but they really did set me up.
BTW I paid the deposit and all the mortgage payments I never asked for any money and never will.
Peter . You can
1) pay someone else house of via renting
or
2) You can pay your own house of buy buying
Once your house is paid of :
No one can tell you what you can and cant
do no one can kick you out
no once can increase the rent
No one can ever take it away from you. and you have something to leave your kids and give them a headstart (if you care)
housing price falling and rising is irrelevant you still need a roof over your head.
I have a house for sale in Melbourne, built in the 70's, brick veneer. It would be a perfect candidate for one of those reno show's - it would be a great burden off my chest if someone will buy it from me in as - is condition (so I can go windsurfing and surfing more
).
There are plenty of houses in the area that are getting reno'd - as all the oldies are moving into retirement homes young blood is moving into the area and spending money.
Asking price $500k negotiable. PM me if interested.
buster i'm no expert on this renting v buying...... but if you buy a house you have to put a cash deposit down,then likely take a large loan from the bank----this loan i do believe is called DEBT!!!
now if interest rates were to double to say 15% like they have done in the past,your monthly repayments will double.[for possibly duration of loan]
if the house were to depreciate in value like it obviously will,as no ct has any money these days [and can't afford to buy], then effectively you have lost your deposit and are also in DEBT to the bank for hundreds of thousands.
the potential emotional stress of paying of a big 20-30 year mortgage DEBT,with huge monthly interest payments to whoever owns the banks....well no f...ing thanks.
as certain as climate change is a fraud,house prices and the stock market are going to crash soon,bigger than you will ever believe.
in the past buying a house has been a better choice than renting,but not any more.
I would add on top of some possible long-term monetary gain, there is an associated change in lifestyle - not for the best.
Buying a house makes you stale. You start cocooning, you stop doing sport and going out. Can't go with the old mates: gotta mow the lawn. You start renovating (and much, much worse: you watch renovation programs on TV). When after 5 years you're done going around the house renovating each room, you start all over again. Unlike what you see on TV, most of the renovation adds little to the value of the house: the next buyer won't like the colours and walls anyways. You will also build a nice deck with pretty flowers all over the yard, where you will spend more and more time, with ever less going out. However you will visit other friends that have decks, so you can compare your respective abodes. This becomes your new social life.
If you're with a missus, and she watches more TV than you or gets clucky, then multiply the cocooning effect by 2 or 3. Set aside also a fair chunk of add'l $$ for furniture: it's a lot more expensive for garnish your own home than a rented condo - curtains, everything.
After 15-20 years of fixing and refixing, you start relaxing a bit. You start living again. Seems to happen when people reach 45-50 or so.
Don't get me wrong, I'm a homeowner myself, but I look around my street and a large % of their time is not spent living. Yes they will most likely have more equity when they're older - I know I will.
You guessed it, I haven't painted the walls in 12 years. It's been a long fight with the missus, but she don't windsurf - I do.
^^^ i don't agree with that. boring beige people are boring and beige whether they own a house, rent, or live in a tent.
400k for house on the outer burbs is ridiculous.
I know people buying houses at the moment and I want to scream 'don't do it!'
The main reason for expensive housing now is not the mining boom but dual income households. This is something which has been socially engineered into the population (feminism) as has divorce. It's not about equal rights it's about transfer of wealth to the rich.
From my perspective it seems a better financial decision to rent rather than buy at the moment.
The house i rent just sold for 550k. An interst only loan @ 7% equals 38.5k a year in payments (not paying any of the house off)
My rent is 460 a week, which equals roughly 24k a year. Plus i don't pay rates, insurance or maintenence. Essentially that makes me at least 15k better off per year providing house prices don't rise.
In the longer term house prices will probably rise (being the long term trend) so the maths doesn't add up. However, at the moment it doesn't look like house prices will rise for a while, and i don't see any reason to take a 'punt' that they will. Especially when the only financial benefit is capital gains, or the hope that someone will pay more than i do for an asset thats financial returns are less than cash.
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Sort-of agree, but because my wife (then girlfriend) & I bought our 1st place at age 19, we don't know any different. You could use the same analogy for having kids. We've renovated (put 15sqs on top), and had 3 kids in the past 8 years, and only now getting back to having what you call an easy lifestyle (although with a 1yr old - not so easy). W/surfing, suping, camping, fishing etc. every weekend.
I don't think we're in the 'beige' category - but we both work (me full-time, my wife 3 days a week), 2 kids at school and a toddler at daycare 2 days a week. By purchasing our house pre-2000, our house is worth over 3 times what we bought it for and spent on renos, which has given us equity (mate) to allow us to invest in more property, most of which is tenanted, so basically pays for itself. We regularly get letters from our RE agent to increase the tenant's rent, but choose not to, as it keeps the places full, and although it might prop up our bank balance...that's not what we're about.
My wife (who is a home finance manager, which saves me from trying to get my head around it) has set up the loans so that (in theory) by the time we're ready to retire, the mortgages will be paid off, and we can retire comfortably on either the rental income, or sell. In the meantime, we're scratching coins together to afford little luxuries (2nd-hand w/surfing gear etc.) like everyone else?!
There's positives & negatives for owning your own home, but I'm glad we bought young (1st home in '94 = $60k)...I feel for young people trying to get money together to buy the same home now for $200k (local market value of same house), I couldn't even imagine trying to buy in the city at urban prices ($400k+).
My father also told me to "buy young", and I always remember what an old property developer told me, "if you buy a block of land, and things go pear-shaped...you can always pitch a tent on that block of land and live there, you can't pitch a tent on a share portfolio".
Good points sailhack. 20 years ago people where complaining about high house prices. when I got my first home in 1989 interest rates were 17%. What we need to do is live within our means. Back in 89 I had no plasma, iphone, internet. Start small and work your way up, people want to much too quickly now. I'm lucky I live in a debt free house and I would tell everyone to try and get a start no matter how small the unit or house. Invest in the best quality you can for your future. I send my kids to private schools but drive an old commodore so they can. Remeber we can't have it all.
It used to be that the banks would lend you the balance for housing if you had 25-30% of the purchase price . [ 1980 ]
any less of a deposit and it was considered to risky.
so what now ?
So how are you going to retire happily without a pension peter?
I could understand if you save and place it in fixed term bank deposits.?
Do you think the stock market has a greater return?
You could always take out a loan and take a hit in the retail sector. Least you wouldn't have a house to loose.
What are your plans ? Are you going to depend on a pension?
Like busterwa is saying. How do you intend spending your retirement years or more to the point, at what age do you plan to retire.
Keep in mind the old "one, four, five, forty, fifty plan". It is based on and proven by statistics and banks and insurance companies have been using it for centuries in formulating their strategies.
If you don't think it is the way things are and have been for yonks, go to the Aus Buro Stats site and you will find it confirmed.
It goes like this:-
Out of every 100 people born, 65 years later,
ONE is rich................................Has more money than he can spend.
FOUR are independant................Living comfortably within their means.
FIVE are still working..................Gubment want to raise retire age to 75.
FORTY are dead.........................Some don't make it. No probs or worries.
FIFTY are dead broke..................Pension cheque to pension cheque.
The question you need to ask yourself is:- Where do you PLAN to be at age 65 and what is your PLAN?????????
No PLAN and no ACTION and you nearly garenteed to be one of the FIFTY or the FIVE still working.
If you have a PLAN and you WORK it you have a good likelihood of being one of the FOUR or the ONE. If you are careful there is a fair chance you will not be one of the FORTY.
Last time I checked the REAL ESTATE PLAN seemed to be still working.
THINK REAL ESTATE. Like SEX, you should get as much of it as you possibly can while you are still young. Don't wait till you are thirsty to start digging your well.
