Keep cool, and carpe diem !

I really hope for you to never have to buy a haunted house ;P

it is more then terrifying man, house prices are so high here and people end up selling way over the asking price makes it very hard to get a decent house and dont get started on the bloody transfer tax

You can buy an apartment in New York for $500,000 - $1,000,000. That doesn't mean it's a good investment. If you looked for homes out in the middle of nowhere or in another state you'd get more bang for your buck.

http://money.uk.msn.com/mortgages-and-homes/bargain-buys-amazingly-cheap-uk-homes - There are cheaper options, but if you want to be in a popular city with all of the bells and whistles you'll have to be able to pay for it. Wanting quality and being able to afford quality are 2 different things, and the smart people don't make investments that will be a lifelong endeavor or hinges on things that they can't guarantee.

If you can secure the $480,000 place + interest in a timely manner then all the power to you. I'm just saying that there are options for the less able. :)

Relax and take it easy.

Nothing to be glad about because cheap houses here = really bad neighborhood... Yeah, in the Netherlands there are no cheap houses but then again, there are no areas in the Netherlands(not yet anyway), where you have to watch out for drive by shootings or people who will kill you for $5.

Indeed it's always good to have a general idea on how to do things around the house. I'm not an expert craftsman or anything but I'm detail oriented and can do a little of everything. It can be hard work though, doing a mass eviction, and doing a full scrub and touch-up on the whole building interior before putting the place back on the market. Doesn't happen often but I have (once or twice, specifically during the big bust five years ago) put the places on Craigslist with a listing akin to "crackhead wanted, cheap rentz!"

Howdy neighbor! I hear you on Bay Area housing prices. If I could get a decent house for $100,000 I'd be ready to put down cash for it, but as it is around here a condo can easily run $500,000 (as you're well aware), with proper homes listing at at least $750,000 (for the small ones) and usually selling above list price. Provides quite a reality check every time I toy with the idea of getting a condo instead of renting (not that current rental prices are any more sane).

Man those are some cheap houses. The one I'm living in is estimated at around 450 grand. Damn northern Virginia and its closeness to the capital.

This post came out as "Damn Cyrodiil and it's closeness to The Imperial City." inside my head. :)

Yeah. I've practically despaired of buying here. I tend to believe we'll rent until we have enough to retire on (hopefully in 5 years; I'm 48 now), then move to some other state (or country) where we can buy a home for probably less than half the price here.

That sounds cheap... do you live in the countryside?

We are also looking for a bigger apartment now (possibly go for an apartment house due to peace of mind, and because single houses (what do you call them, "town house"?) are just far too pricey here, unless you buy one that you need to scrap and build a new).

My definite max is 200.000€, that is the highest my bank will allow for me anyway, and I'd like to go far below that. But even that really restricts what I can look for here, the new and good apartments cost more like 300-400.000€. This is for apartments with three bedrooms, a living room and kitchen, I figure we will buy big enough so that there definitely won't be need to swap for yet bigger, ever.

I already have a small apartment worth of maybe 100.000€ (no pending loans anymore, it is mine now), but I am unsure what to do with it. I don't want to sell it before we move due to ease, but I'll have to see then if I just rent it to someone, or sell it afterwards in order to make my new loan much smaller. Good news is that small flats here seem to be in high demand now (bigger apartments, which I am looking for, less so) so neither renting or selling it should be a problem.

Still, having that big loan (e.g. around 150-170.000€) scares me shitless, especially as the interest rates are now all time low here, and could shoot up. I have to think about it, maybe I just keep saving money instead and we try to get by on the current apartment, and maybe get back to shopping next year. The longer we stay here, the more money we are saving (as I don't have any pending loans anymore).

As long as I don't have to live on rental... It has been a silly situation here for years, for instance what I paid monthly before for my current apartment to cut its loans, interests and the maintenance charge towards the housing company, was about the same that I would have paid rent for the same flat. Duh, I basically paid the same as rent for about 8 years, and now it is mine? You do the math. Now I pay a bit per month for the maintenance charges, and naturally at some point there will be some big maintenances here probably, but not yet.

Have you signed a contract? If so, isn't it too late to pull out? Won't you get sued if you do? Wouldn't that be a lot worse than going ahead with the deal?

Also, in America aren't mortgages structured so that if you default on a loan, they can only foreclose on the property and if there is a shortfall, the banks lose out? Doesn't that give you some peace of mind? (I could be wrong on that)

If it makes you feel any better, I have over $800,000 in home loans in my name (plus one non income earning dependant) and in Australia if banks foreclose and there is a shortfall, they sue me for the difference.

Well, here where i live 150 000€ gets you maybe fourty+ years old house with three rooms, which is going to need additional +- 20-50k €'s worth of repair (pipes n stuff) in the next 5 years or so.

If you want to buy -new- apartment with three rooms, better have double that amount. Sort of light suburb area i suppose.

insane. absolutely insane. When my parents bought their first house the debt was for like 15 years. These days you can expect closer to 25-30 years. ...and this is still cheaper than renting.

The way I see it now, if the money you are paying per month to cut your loan + other expenses, are anywhere close to the same ballpark as you would pay rent for that same apartment, then it makes little sense to rent it. That was very true at least for my current apartment that I own now, but I admit I have been quite lucky with it too, e.g. the interests rates went all the way down after 2006 when I bought it (even though also back then everyone thought they'd shoot up instead), and the value of the flat has risen around 30% from what I paid for it, and at this very moment it still seems to be on rise (while bigger apartment prices are flat or might even come down now a bit).

I don't know if that is the case elsewhere in the world (or even elsewhere in this country), but e.g. when I've negotiated my current loan (max 190.000€ or so), I've calculated that as long as the running expenses per month are e.g. 1200€/month or less with e.g. a 20 year loan (and higher calculated interest rate as the current ultra-low rate, of course), I should have nothing to worry about because that is about the same I would have to pay on rental on a similar apartment here. You have to take into account e.g. big maintenances, if any, coming during that 20 years though (have to be careful not to buy an old expensive flat that will have a major plumbing overhaul in 10 years).

I guess the rental prices here are outrageous, have been that way for a long time (lots of students, and also workers, still moving here).

that is true but we have a new trend where innocent people get kicked in the head by usually a group of youngsters and can happen to anyone regardless where you live. people are becoming alot more violent here too (mixture of bad economy with very low sentences). i would not really call it a safe country anymore.

it is ridiculous one has to pay so much for a bunch of bricks though.