said by sholling :

You will never get house payment lower than rent payments unless you can afford to put 30% or more down. And not many of us can save up $120,000 while making someone else's house payments for them! My advice is not to count on appreciation but instead to buy a home to live in long-term so you don't have to pay inflated rent when you retire. And hey if it's value does go up you can chalk that up as a bonus.

I'll use my home (it'll soon be for sale) as an example. The people that buy it (assuming 5% down) will have a $2,500 house payment (PITI) partly offset by $200/mo in tax savings. These townhomes rent for $1,500. Assuming rents continue to rise at 8% then that means in 6 years their house payment will be cheaper than rent. It also means that in 30 years they won't be eating cat food because they can't afford 4000/mo for rent. Their house will be paid off.

said by laserjobs :

It happens quite frequently where you can buy a house with no or little of your own equity and the mortgage payments are still less than rent. We are in an upside down market right now due to speculation of price appreciation.

said by dogma :

Gee, you are right; 31035 Lakeview Ave E, Nuevo, CA 92567
(never heard of Nuevo), 1900s.f. house on 1 Acre sold last summer for $464K.

Here on Zillow
plus a bunch more there.

Unfortunately, I need to be 20min physically from one of my DC's. So looks like the desert for me.

said by sholling :

I'm not doubting you, but I'm curious... How many homes do you own that you have bought for below the going rental price for the same home/area - in southern California? You'd be crazy not to own 8 or 9 with that built-in income stream. I'm actually impressed. What's your technique?

There are parts of the country where one might pick up a foreclosure at well below market but they are pretty rare here. Not unknown - just rare because of the thousands of people closely following the foreclosure market.

Once I move I will I'll be in a better position to dig deeper because I'll be going into real estate - more as a hobby than a career. Maybe I'll get lucky and score a couple of those. Anyway if I can't find a broker willing to let me limit my work week to 2-3 days a week than I'll just have to get my brokers license.

said by laserjobs :

It is all a numbers game, just keep running the numbers on income properties and you will see when the buying opportunity becomes available.

said by dogma :

Gee, you are right; 31035 Lakeview Ave E, Nuevo, CA 92567
(never heard of Nuevo), 1900s.f. house on 1 Acre sold last summer for $464K.

Here on Zillow
plus a bunch more there.

Unfortunately, I need to be 20min physically from one of my DC's. So looks like the desert for me.

said by sholling :

So.... you're saying you haven't bought 8 or 9 properties for less than they rent for? Why not? It would seem incredibly silly not too if you keep tripping over them... Was this something you perhaps read about or attended a seminar about? One of those advertised on TV at 3AM telling you that you can get rich with no down while buying property for less than what it rents for? Because you sound like one of their (out $399 for the tapes/"system") true believers.

Why? What is so important about owning your "own" home here? I imagine your SoCal salary would be less in other area's where housing and the overall cost of living is significantly less. So if you worked in some other area of the country, you may make less than here, however housing would be much more affordable.

Owning your own home here positives:

1. Potential tax benefits
2. You can fix it up the way you want.
3. Potential increase in value/equity
4. (I can't think of anything else, can you?)

said by laserjobs :

Sorry I did not attend the get rich quick make money in Real Estate seminar. It doesn't matter if it is real estate, stocks, pork bellies, businesses etc, I just like to run numbers and find buying into value and cash flows. If you don't believe me then you have never looked at purchasing apartment or commercial buildings. The first thing that should be handed to you is a cash flow sheet. It takes a lot of market research and will be the "wrong" time to be buying property unlike now which is the "right" time.

To give you a clue it is when cash is harder to come by, pristine credit is required and the real estate market is slow. I always find measuring volume is a great way to gauge the buying opportunities.

said by HappyBunny :

I will probably end up living in a shack on the beach in Mexico--where I will probably see most of my friends, as none of them can afford to buy a house either.

said by sholling :

Bunny, come join the 909 world and commute, or better yet find a job out here. One of my neighbors would be happy to sell you their 3 bedroom 2-1/2 bath 2 car garage single shared wall townhomes for $350-370k, I believe 2 units are currently on the market. See my math earlier in the thread...

said by HappyBunny :

Yeesh, I cant afford that! Almost $400,000 for a townhouse in the 909 and the privelege of a commute to Irvine?

If I had to go live in the IE, I would just go back to Ohio, where its all cheaper.

said by sholling :

Bunny, it's a not bad a drive down the 71 (they just widened it) to about a mile or two of 91 hell and then a 70mph run down the 241 to Irvine. It's probably a quicker commute than you put up with now, and you'll own your home. This is Chino, not BFE! It's lots nicer than most of Long Beach. Hey, I'm from the OC and you couldn't drag me back.

Besides it really is a great place to live. I'm really, really going to miss it. Where else in socal does the mayor and the city council publish their home phone numbers on the city website? The pace of life is a little slower, the school systems is pretty good, there's great shopping, we have Verizon FIOS super high speed internet, and real full sized parking spaces - plus friendly people. Ok, well that might be a problem, but you're from Ohio and have delt with friendly people before.

said by sholling :

This is Chino, not Fontana!