What type of House is the best Investment

[PricklyPete]

I might be looking into buying a house in the near future.

I really want to move into the nice "old" part of town, but not sure the prices there are not already higher then justified. I really don't want to move into a cookie cutter place out in the far out suburbs...although that would probably be the easiest to get into.

From a purely investment point of view, what is the best type of house to look into? Just a note on where I live, the whole area is growing and doing fairly well economically.

 

[Fingers]

any sort of complex for the rent is one of the better investments. Factor in living there I'd just go for whatever you want but try to stick with the up and comming area's. If there is a military base near by then thats good, when you move it can be easily rented out to a family with a big fat housing allowance.

 

[MadPeriot]

Your like in the same boat as I am. Best to buy I think is probably investment property. But if you are looking for housing a single family home is the way to go. Condos you don't actually own the land and pay a price for the association fee. Look in to PUDs which is townhouse/single family homes.

 

[chrisms]

I'm talking out of my ass, but it seems to me a place with a good location (the nice "old" part of town) will grow in value more than some cookie cutter place on the outskirts of town. They can always build more cookie cutter places but the number of houses in the old district will stay the same, creating a higher demand.

Even if the prices are really high priced, they will only continue to grow.

 

[HomeBrewerDude]

Originally posted by: PricklyPete
What type of House is the best Investment

The White House!

 

[Rudee]

The best investment is always the house in which you are not living in. i.e. buying a house and renting it out.

 

[LeadMagnet]

pure financialy - Multi-family and rent out the other half

 

[Leejai]

Location! Location! Location!

 

[dullard]

The best investment is the "looks bad but runs good" type of house. A house where the furnace, water heater, AC, insulation, roofing, electrical system etc are all in good condition. A house where there are serious paint/wallpaper/tile issues and cheap to fix landscaping problems. A house that is selling below the average price in the neighborhood (since it looks bad). Dump in $500 of paint and a few weekends of manual labor and you will add possibly tens of thousands of dollars to the house value.

Old houses have extra issues to think about (assuming you are planning on living in the house). Your heating/AC bills may be $500 a month vs. $100 a month for the same size newer house. Sure the up-front price is right for the older houses, but you will likely pay far more each month for that house.

I would definately avoid the cookie-cutter houses built in the last 10 or so years. They were built as cheaply as possible and as quickly as possible. Many of those are beginning to crumble due to shoddy materials and workmanship. I know some suckers who bought them and before the house is 5 years old it needed ~$30,000 structural repair bills.

 

[Triforceofcourage]

Cardboard box

 

[Doggiedog]

Another positive about old houses is the taxes may be cheaper.

You need to consider the tax implications before buying a place.

They've been reassessing like crazy around here and the tax payments that are listed in the listing may not be accurate. My bro-in-law bought a new brand new development and found out he had to pay $26K a year in taxes! A similar older place would run about $6K.

From what I hear, brokers are not being upfront about taxes because they are afraid they wil scare off buyers. They will only tell them the original tax payment from when the property was last sold which could have been a decade ago.

 

[Modeps]

Buy the worst house in the best neighborhood, fix it up, instant super profit.

 

[PricklyPete]

Originally posted by: Leejai
Location! Location! Location!

Exactly...but what is generally the best location (under the assumption that where I live has just about every possible Resedential possibility).

 

[mugs]

Originally posted by: Doggiedog
From what I hear, brokers are not being upfront about taxes because they are afraid they wil scare off buyers. They will only tell them the original tax payment from when the property was last sold which could have been a decade ago.

Can you find out the actual taxes through public records?

 

[PricklyPete]

Originally posted by: Modeps
Buy the worst house in the best neighborhood, fix it up, instant super profit.

yeah...I've been told similar.

 

[dderidex]

Originally posted by: PricklyPete

Originally posted by: Modeps
Buy the worst house in the best neighborhood, fix it up, instant super profit.

yeah...I've been told similar.

Sounds good on paper, but...WOW, a lot of work. You really have to be a 'hands on' kinda guy that likes woodworking more than the internet for fun to make it plausible, IMHO.

 

[everman]

Originally posted by: PricklyPete

Originally posted by: Modeps
Buy the worst house in the best neighborhood, fix it up, instant super profit.

yeah...I've been told similar.

You're basically looking for the best value.
Right now we have areas in the courtry that seem extremely overvalued, while others still look good. It's certainly not all about location. Do some good research.

 

[ZippyDan]

the best House worth investing in is on Fox Tuesday nights

 

[Svnla]

Rule #1 in real estate: location, location, location.

Get a decent house in the BEST neighborhood you can afford. It is much better than a BEST house in a decent neighborhood.

 

[V00DOO]

Whore house!