It feels so obviously stupid to look at a tiny condo that sold for $100k at 3% interest four years ago listing now for $300k at 7% interest and think now is a good time to buy, but my realtor keeps insisting this is the new normal, and that anything I don’t buy today is just going to be exponentially more unaffordable every year forever. I need to move soon, and I know my rent will increase 50%-100% anywhere else I rent, but I just can’t stomach the idea that if I empty my savings and commit to a mortgage payment that’s 70% of my net monthly income, I’ll eventually break even with the cost of renting after 15-20 years as long as home values continue to increase at the same rate forever. I feel like the alternative is to rent forever until rising rents eventually bleed my savings dry and price me out of commuting distance from my job. Unless the housing market spontaneously collapses in the next two years, I genuinely don’t know what to do.
straight up, i can’t imagine signing up along the lines of traditional financing anymore. saving up 60k to borrow 240k at 7% over 30 years is a shit deal. that’s $334,821 in interest, over and above the initial $240k. the only logic to it is trying to avoid being cannibalized by landlords, essentially gambling that the housing situation is only going to get worse for working class people. i defy anyone to save up $60k and then hand it over to someone else while fully accepting “everything is going to get much worse for everyone except me”.
what it tells me is that the housing market is closing off for people who rely on traditional financing to buy a home, and it’s becoming the exclusive arena of larger corporate entities with their own financing / capital access (larger landlords), heirs, and very high net worth individuals who can “pay cash”.
It feels so obviously stupid to look at a tiny condo that sold for $100k at 3% interest four years ago listing now for $300k at 7% interest and think now is a good time to buy, but my realtor keeps insisting this is the new normal, and that anything I don’t buy today is just going to be exponentially more unaffordable every year forever. I need to move soon, and I know my rent will increase 50%-100% anywhere else I rent, but I just can’t stomach the idea that if I empty my savings and commit to a mortgage payment that’s 70% of my net monthly income, I’ll eventually break even with the cost of renting after 15-20 years as long as home values continue to increase at the same rate forever. I feel like the alternative is to rent forever until rising rents eventually bleed my savings dry and price me out of commuting distance from my job. Unless the housing market spontaneously collapses in the next two years, I genuinely don’t know what to do.
straight up, i can’t imagine signing up along the lines of traditional financing anymore. saving up 60k to borrow 240k at 7% over 30 years is a shit deal. that’s $334,821 in interest, over and above the initial $240k. the only logic to it is trying to avoid being cannibalized by landlords, essentially gambling that the housing situation is only going to get worse for working class people. i defy anyone to save up $60k and then hand it over to someone else while fully accepting “everything is going to get much worse for everyone except me”.
what it tells me is that the housing market is closing off for people who rely on traditional financing to buy a home, and it’s becoming the exclusive arena of larger corporate entities with their own financing / capital access (larger landlords), heirs, and very high net worth individuals who can “pay cash”.