Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with housing and buying

First-time home buyer seeks help making a good investment

mintchip — Fri, 22 May 2009 19:08:57 -0800

First-time home buyer seeks help making a good investment I am interested in purchasing a short sale property. I am a first time home buyer. I'm hoping to buy an undervalued condo, live there for a few years to build equity, and hopefully trade up in a few years if (when?) prices begin to bounce back. The places I've been looking at would cost approximately the same or slightly less than renting the same type of unit...so my hope is that this is a low-risk proposition since I need somewhere to live anyway.

I am just learning about all of this so I have a lot of questions.

1. How can I tell if a property is undervalued? For example, I recently saw one that sold only a few years ago for approximately twice what I could get it for now. Assuming the inspection is clear, can I reasonably conclude that this short-sale property is undervalued?

2. What do I need to know about purchasing a short sale property? If they are a good value, why aren't more people buying them?

3. How much does the "assessed value" tell you? For example, I looked at one property that will sell for $150k less than last year's assessed value versus one that's only $35k less than the assessed value. In other words, if the sale price is close to the assessed value, am I less likely to make a profit upon resale?

4. I have substantial fixed-rate student loan debt. I can lower my monthly payments by consolidating over a longer repayment term (25 years). However, this will cost me more interest in the long run. What would make a bank look upon me more favorably--lower monthly payments or my attempt to pay it off faster?

5. What are the best resources to learn what I need to know?

How to Buy a Flat in Australia

LongDrive — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 21:41:10 -0800

I'm currently looking to buy my first small flat in Melbourne, Australia and having no luck. Apart from the big two online sources, are there any other sources to see what's on the market, or to find places before they get listed? I have a buyers advocate on board, but due to dodgy pre-auction policies on offers, I seem to be constantly missing out on good places, and right now it seems like nothing is out there. Maybe its my small budget or the fact that the market is really quiet until after the holidays, but it seems like there is nothing on the market right now. Am I just missing something, or are there other places or methods that I should be looking into?

Should I buy now?

matthelm — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 14:08:37 -0800

In the market of Buying a Condo in the Los Angeles areas and want to know how to research best. Need to find out sites that keep me up to date with the housing market, when its good to buy etc...for with the economy right now I don't really know what to do.....please help I held off from buying a condo cause I was having a wedding and now that that's over I wanted to start looking for a condo. But now the economy just sucks and now when I have the time to devout to finding a place I feel it might be wise to hold off. I need to find sites that can get me in touch with whats going on with the housing market out here in the LA areas. My plan was to get a condo by end of year or beginning of next...i manage a apt complex so rent is free and I have saved a lot, but we are soooo tired of the small one bedroom that to keep our sanity I was maybe even thinking that getting a 2 bedroom apt for a year might be more wise and when the lease is up maybe the economy will be too and we can buy a condo then....any help would be greatly appreciated

Housing in Los Angeles: Build or Buy?

rybreadmed — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 16:26:14 -0800

Would it be more cost effective to build a house or buy a house in Los Angeles? The price of Los Angeles real estate has been dropping. I'm most interested in a 3 bedroom 2 bath house (or something close) around 1,500 square feet or so. I've been wondering: Would buying a piece of land in Los Angeles and building on it be more cost effective than buying a pre-built house?

We're of course talking in hypotheticals, but let's say you found a piece of land in a somewhat desirable location (a place like Silver Lake, west San Gabriel Valley, Glendale, Burbank, Pasadena, Sherman Oaks, or Hollywood (as in NOT South Central, Long Beach, or some place way far out of town)). Maybe a house was already on that spot and it burnt down. The point is that there is a piece of land, and no house (but maybe remnants).

This hypothetical house: we're not talking anything super fancy, but something that's designed for low energy usage (good insulation, double paned glass, etc.). I'm not referring to a totally solar house or full grey water system. Just a one story, 1500 square foot house that's good with energy. You got me?

Any ideas of the cost I'd be looking at? Any parts of Los Angeles where building a house would be cheaper than another? Would buying an already existing home be a better economic choice?

Keep in mind, I'm not looking at cheapest--I'm looking at most cost effective. The cheapest house would be made out of straw and Saran wrap; a cost effective house would be well built and be designed to minimize energy usage for heating and cooling.

Should we buy?

larry_darrell — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 11:20:52 -0800

Buying a house during a boom. Wife says right away. I say wait. Help convince us either way. We are buying to live not to speculate. Both financially secure. Have a good size down payment.

Because of the commodity boom? housing prices here (Vancouver) have, (in my opinion) gone nuts, increasing about 10% a year for the past decade. I don't know if this is a bubble or not...

Anyways, I say that if prices can go up this fast it's possible that they can go down a lot too; hence we should rent a bit longer. She says we're wasting our money renting.

I figure that even a 10% downturn would save us $30-50k: several years rent.

Am I wrong? Is a correction like this unlikely? Am I thinking too much about Money and not enough about a Home?

California Housing Market

matthelm — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 10:46:17 -0800

How does one monitor the Housing Market of Southern California? I would like to purchase a condo in the next couple of years and would like to know when the "best" time to buy is. I am a first time buyer and slowly picking up the knowledge to what it takes to buying a place.