Bought my first house

Nice. My wife and I have been wanting to get a house soon. How soon, we don't know. :( Living in an APT is nice and all but I'd like to live in a house one day.
 
Congrats! Hopefully, your place appreciates over time and you make some good equity on it. And make sure to save cash to pay off property tax!
 
Cool. That's a pricey one. What's the median price range, where you live?

Owning a house is good, especially if you're married and plan a family. Enjoy. It feels very different than apartment living, that's for sure.
 
I wish I could buy a house for $370K! Where I'm at in Vancouver it'll cost you upwards of 500K for a condo. You're guaranteed to be looking in the 900K to a million range for a house. I guess you can mover further out from the core but even then a newer home with an OK sized lot is around 600K.

Regardless, welcome to the club of home ownership!
 
Andy said:
Cool. That's a pricey one. What's the median price range, where you live?

Owning a house is good, especially if you're married and plan a family. Enjoy. It feels very different than apartment living, that's for sure.
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Median is about the 400g mark but because were getting into a new development area early we got a good deal. Prices are expected to jump as much as 10 percent here in the next year and abit so that helps reinforce that we made the right descission to buy now.
 
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callmeshawnp said:
I wish I could buy a house for $370K! Where I'm at in Vancouver it'll cost you upwards of 500K for a condo. You're guaranteed to be looking in the 900K to a million range for a house. I guess you can mover further out from the core but even then a newer home with an OK sized lot is around 600K.

Regardless, welcome to the club of home ownership!
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Thanks man. And yes Vancouver is insanely priced.
 
DJ Deadscope said:
Median is about the 400g mark but because were getting into a new development area early we got a good deal. Prices are expected to jump as much as 10 percent here in the next year and abit so that helps reinforce that we made the right descission to buy now.
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Good stuff.

Best way to build up money (equity) is through asset appreciation on real estate. That's where most people make their money. Very few people make it big trying to save money from their pay cheques. Maybe if someone is a VP or Director level they have tons of leftover salary to spare, but for working people making $100,000 or less, there isn't that much to save after paying for everything.

As soon as anyone has enough money to go after a home, do it. Life time renting is a suckers bet. You get nothing out of it. I know some guys back in the late 90s trying to "time the market". Renting thinking the market is too hot and hoping prices will drop. And then they'd come swooping in buying properties from desperate landlords. They lost big time because at that time prices were still cheap to get into. In the Toronto area, home prices have probably 2x or more in the past 15 years. And anyone trying to flip new properties got rich buying anything I'd say around 2006 or beforehand. Property companies didn't smarten up and hike up new property prices accordingly until maybe 2007. So now it's harder to make flip money.

Unless the market tanks and you live in a touristy area like Arizona, Vegas and Florida where tons of people have second properties, most people's homes appreciate in value over time. All that fear back in 2008 with homes dropping 50% was limited to those kinds of places. Just about every other area had pretty stable home prices. I sure didn't see real estate prices drop 20%, 30% or 50% here in the Toronto area. It's actually at all time highs now.
 
callmeshawnp said:
I wish I could buy a house for $370K! Where I'm at in Vancouver it'll cost you upwards of 500K for a condo. You're guaranteed to be looking in the 900K to a million range for a house. I guess you can mover further out from the core but even then a newer home with an OK sized lot is around 600K.

Regardless, welcome to the club of home ownership!
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Vancouver is insane. What's the going rate for good condos downtown? $1,000 per sq ft?
 
Congrats. I'm 24 and live in an apartment. I'm in no hurry to get a house though. I don't even know where (what state) I ultimately want to live in yet. Plus, it's nice not having to mow the lawn or shovel any driveways.
 
Intellivision said:
Vancouver is insane. What's the going rate for good condos downtown? $1,000 per sq ft?
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Depends on the age of the condo I suppose but it's close to that. A new micro-condo (300 sq ft or even less) right in the heart of the city would likely run into the high 200s to low 3s. It's ridiculously overpriced but it is the price you pay to live in one of the most beautiful cities in the world!

PS - Come visit... it REALLY IS that nice.
 
Z A C K said:
Congrats. I'm 24 and live in an apartment. I'm in no hurry to get a house though. I don't even know where (what state) I ultimately want to live in yet. Plus, it's nice not having to mow the lawn or shovel any driveways.
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You will probably wanted your own house when you have kids I guess.

I am also saving to get my own house, but as you would have guess, its also a little more expensive here, even off the main city, & presuming more strict requirements. But its not too bad.
 
starseeker said:
You will probably wanted your own house when you have kids I guess..
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Yeah something like that. My gf is still in grad school and she doesn't know where she'll end up working, so for now I just don't want to be commit to anything.
 
yay! you're living the american dream......... in Canada!
I don't care what people others say, home ownership is where its at!
Im working on getting off grid and go solar! looking at financing options or maybe just lease the solar install
 
Congrats man! Having a house is like a child, it'll always need something, so just be ready for that an you'll love owning your own place.
 
rankandfile said:
yay! you're living the american dream......... in Canada!
I don't care what people others say, home ownership is where its at!
Im working on getting off grid and go solar! looking at financing options or maybe just lease the solar install
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I've looked into solar pretty deep over the past six months. It's still not close to being usable for a consumer. It can be used for heating water, pricy though. For electricity, it's still got a very long way to go until it's consumer viable.
 
Plainview said:
I've looked into solar pretty deep over the past six months. It's still not close to being usable for a consumer. It can be used for heating water, pricy though. For electricity, it's still got a very long way to go until it's consumer viable.
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It also depends on where you live too. Here in Ma. we have some pretty generous subsidies and grants for energy efficiency, which can make solar affordable.
 
BDaddyK said:
It also depends on where you live too. Here in Ma. we have some pretty generous subsidies and grants for energy efficiency, which can make solar affordable.
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It's the storing of the energy that makes it for out out of consumer reach. Were talking about $75,000 -$100,000 to start to be able to be 50% off the grid for a single family home.
 
DJ Deadscope said:
Median is about the 400g mark but because were getting into a new development area early we got a good deal. Prices are expected to jump as much as 10 percent here in the next year and abit so that helps reinforce that we made the right descission to buy now.
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Yeah, it's a good time to buy, generally speaking. Sounds like you got a good deal and are in a growing neighborhood. I'm glad for you.

I live in a 50K house in inner city Detroit. f*** you all. (j/k)
 
Plainview said:
It's the storing of the energy that makes it for out out of consumer reach. Were talking about $75,000 -$100,000 to start to be able to be 50% off the grid for a single family home.
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Dude
you're talking to the wrong Solar contractor, or you have a weird roof or your house is positioned in such a way as to not make it economically viable.
I can lease option which means ZERO money but then I don't get the energy credits or the tax deductions just a lower overall monthly bill accrued over time (you don't start realizing savings until half way theough the life span of a solar panel , 20-25 years)
Or I can do a cash deal which would be 34-45,000 cash and get about 30-40% in tax deductions so I would basically be paying 25k for a fully operational and a system that would bring my $190 monthly average bill to basically nothing.

Or get a loan at about 6.5% and pay about $235 per month for the next 12 years and enjoy the benefits now of the tax shelter AND pay little to nothing on my electric bill right away. according to the companies I have consulted it would add about $15,000 in value into the home immediately and then up to $30,000 in ten years.
really not sure how yours is that expensive but maybe that is with NO help from the government and the IRS I dunno.

Keep in mind that future prices of Electricity could be doubling by the year 2024
 
rankandfile said:
Dude
you're talking to the wrong Solar contractor, or you have a weird roof or your house is positioned in such a way as to not make it economically viable.
I can lease option which means ZERO money but then I don't get the energy credits or the tax deductions just a lower overall monthly bill accrued over time (you don't start realizing savings until half way theough the life span of a solar panel , 20-25 years)
Or I can do a cash deal which would be 34-45,000 cash and get about 30-40% in tax deductions so I would basically be paying 25k for a fully operational and a system that would bring my $190 monthly average bill to basically nothing.

Or get a loan at about 6.5% and pay about $235 per month for the next 12 years and enjoy the benefits now of the tax shelter AND pay little to nothing on my electric bill right away. according to the companies I have consulted it would add about $15,000 in value into the home immediately and then up to $30,000 in ten years.
really not sure how yours is that expensive but maybe that is with NO help from the government and the IRS I dunno.

Keep in mind that future prices of Electricity could be doubling by the year 2024
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The systems you were quoted are without energy storage which is prohibitively expensive and not viable for consumers when powering a house. That means no solar no power and you have to pull from the grid. At night you're gonna have to use the grid or gas generators. Your daytime energy bill may be nothing. At night it will be the same as it ever was. Most power usage is at night when there's no solar power.
 
Plainview said:
The systems you were quoted are without energy storage which is prohibitively expensive and not viable for consumers when powering a house. That means no solar no power and you have to pull from the grid. At night you're gonna have to use the grid or gas generators. Your daytime energy bill may be nothing. At night it will be the same as it ever was. Most power usage is at night when there's no solar power.
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Well I ll have to look into that but all the models and graphs I have been reviewing have shown that even at 50% savings on my electric bill and the tax credits the system will have paid for itself in 10-12 years. Keep in mind that I work from home and have a pool. Most of my energy consumption is in the daytime.
My home faces SSE. I have a great spot for it and in the winter I use a wood burning stove for my primary source of heat and an oil furnace as my backup.
 
Plainview said:
I've looked into solar pretty deep over the past six months. It's still not close to being usable for a consumer. It can be used for heating water, pricy though. For electricity, it's still got a very long way to go until it's consumer viable.
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Wind turbines are a viable option over here (sun would never work for us). About 20k will get you setup from the last time I checked, and that would give you full power and in most cases, you can give power back to the grid and get paid for it.
 
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