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How much are you willing to pay for a house?

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ProfJohn said:
Average income in this country is around $50k so that means we should all be living in $100k homes???
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Using those criteria is pretty silly as it doesn't take in consideration a number of other factors. Example downpayment - if I make only $50k but have a $60k downpayment, I should only buy a $100k home? Another example is property taxes - in one town property taxes can be $1k/month while in another it can $100/month.
 
That's quite a bit of money...idk, I'd rather just stick with 2.5x my income, which right now is about $37k/yr, so about $90-100k. Not much, I know :\
 
DougK62 said:
I paid $77k for my house about 7 years ago. If I had to buy a house now I'd look around the $80k range. That will buy you a nice country house in the midwest.
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eh, in the country around here ~120k will get you a decent old farmhouse, if you want any land, it doubles.

the 200K range in my area is the sweet spot, you can get a *very* nice house for 200k on a decent lot
 
TwiceOver said:
1.3M is ridiculous on 80K salary no matter how much you have to put down.
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I tend to agree with this, but I'd expect it varies WIDELY by area. Just the maintenance and taxes here on a $1.3 million house would be untenable for an $80k household.
 
I'm perfectly fine with renting an apartment. You can't really "own" a house anyway as long as you owe someone money for it.
 
The taxes in Canada are much lower I believe because their income taxes are much higher... so I think with their 80k they could do it as of course taxes on 1.3milli in the US would be nutso for only 80k salaries as 1/3 of their salaries would go just to property taxes, LOL.
 
bargetrav said:
The taxes in Canada are much lower I believe because their income taxes are much higher... so I think with their 80k they could do it as of course taxes on 1.3milli in the US would be nutso for only 80k salaries as 1/3 of their salaries would go just to property taxes, LOL.
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For reals. There's a 1.2 million "luxury retreat" for sale near me. Taxes on that are over $35,000 a year.

http://www.maloofrealty.com/search/listing.asp?mls=1117966&MLSArea=1

It was 1.2 million a few years ago when they couldn't sell it. So it looks like their latest strategy to sell is to make it *more* expensive. It's been on the market for like 4 years.
 
Average list price in my town is over $2M. In 2010, houses sold at 98% of list on average.

I would not pay that much for a house, but a lot of people do. :shrug:


This whole question is pretty dumb. It all depends on an individual's income, an individual's accumulated wealth, local market conditions, local tax rates, income rates, and what the purchaser's wife wants.
 
Even if I inherited the money I wouldn't sink it into an expensive house. We're still in our "starter" home, but it's paid off, and instead of moving up I'm thinking about early retirement instead. Not having a mortgage is making it easy to rack up retirement savings. If I inherited enough money to buy a million-dollar home I would just retire now instead.
 
vi edit said:
Wow. Those taxes are cheap. I pay double that on a house worth about 1/3 of theirs.

As for the comment...if it's paid off and their monthly bills are less than a grand...that's not bad at all honestly. Lots of people making a lot less than that are paying that much or more on rent.

I only question repair bills. I know that 1.3million in Vancouver isn't a sprawling luxury mansion like in other places, so it's not like there is a major amount of upkeep, but can they afford a $50,000 roof replacement if one is needed in 10 years?
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I'm not sure what kind of budget they have, but the house is 18 year old and need some immediate attention on the exterior.

It look like the house foundation settled a couple of inches (I didn't get to see the basement for cracks, and didn't want to say things that they don't want to hear). The driveway and walk way around the house has settled 4~5" at places (up to 1.5" wide cracks), balcony/supporting patio/hot tub deck settled several inches and shown 3/4" cracks at many places across the slap & retainer walls.

Interior are dated, pink tubs/toilets/showers/tiles/carpet/walls/ceilings/windows/doors/cabinets/chandeliers (the entire house is pink and it includes the basement and garage).

And they wants to have a reno that I think will cost at least $110~120K, but $160~200k is a more realistic number.
 
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ProfJohn said:
If someone gave me $1.3 million I might use half of it on a house and buy a car or two and save the rest.

To spend it ALL on a house it nuts. (unless they are in San Fran or NYC etc)

$600k would put me on the lake...
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I would take my paid off house and I would retire (seriously).
 
Well, that could be a good deal if that is a former 2.5m house they got for 1.3m, but if I was making 80k a year and inherited 1.3m, I'd buy a much smaller house without gigantic taxes, insurance, and utilities for maybe 250k, put the other million in investments and start planning early retirement.
 
Jadow said:
Well, that could be a good deal if that is a former 2.5m house they got for 1.3m, but if I was making 80k a year and inherited 1.3m, I'd buy a much smaller house without gigantic taxes, insurance, and utilities for maybe 250k, put the other million in investments and start planning early retirement.
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The "average" home sale price in Vancouver is like $450k. It's like California...but even more expensive. 1.3 million in many parts of Vancouver does not get you anything remotely close to what you would expect it to get.
 
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vi edit said:
The "average" home sale price in Vancouver is like $450k. It's like California...but even more expensive.
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Average Selling Price Graphs -- Victoria

It is much higher than $450K (in the current condition, houses/shed in bad neighborhoods are selling instead of better neighborhoods and expensive homes).

Vancouver price is a round 5~10% higher than Victoria.

REBGV reports increased housing demand in February -- Vancouver

Between November 2010 and February 2011, the MLSLink® Housing Price Index (HPI) benchmark price of a detached home in Richmond increased $190,739 to $1,099,679; in Vancouver West, detached home prices increased $222,185 to $1,850,072. In comparison, detached home prices across the region increased $51,762 between November 2010 and February 2011 to $848,645.
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I looked at the wrong number in the link I saw...it was $450k in 2007...it's now $474k...

and that was only for 1 bedroom condo's.

:O

EDIT....people buying that shit are off their fucking rockers....I can not fathom paying that much for so relatively little/old/ugly/ect.
 
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vi edit said:
Wow. Those taxes are cheap. I pay double that on a house worth about 1/3 of theirs.

As for the comment...if it's paid off and their monthly bills are less than a grand...that's not bad at all honestly. Lots of people making a lot less than that are paying that much or more on rent.

I only question repair bills. I know that 1.3million in Vancouver isn't a sprawling luxury mansion like in other places, so it's not like there is a major amount of upkeep, but can they afford a $50,000 roof replacement if one is needed in 10 years?
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Ouch. What kind of roof costs $50,000 to replace??? Jesus H Christ. That's insane.
 
Our household income is significantly higher than that, but we bought a house/land that was what we could afford, $225,000. Property taxes are about a hundred bucks a month, insurance is around 700/year. Then again, we didn't inherit a million bucks, but even if we did, we wouldn't just blow it on a million dollar house.
 
Generally speaking I figure a house should cost $100,000-200,000 max.

Obviously it depends on what you're getting for the money...I mean, find me 100 acres of pristine wilderness on a lake with high speed internet available and I'd happily double or maybe even triple my limit.
 
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