The housing market and us

I wrote a little bit about this on MySpace the other day, but I wanted to talk some more about this. The housing market is in a really bad place right now. And really, I'm sorry for that. I'm sorry for the people who didn't read all the fine print and all the people who just assumed they would be making $400, $500, $1000 more a month to be able to cover their mortgage payment when it ballooned out of control. Nobody thought it would be so bad. I did. If you've listened to me talk about houses and Real Estate over the last 5-8 years, you would have heard me say the bubble is going to burst, the bottom is going to fall out as soon as these adjustable mortgages adjust. These houses aren't worth $250,000 or more. It's absolutely ridiculous. Now, as much as I said all of that, I know most people only heard me with half an ear or didn't hear me at all, or just plain didn't want to believe it. I mean, the husband and I did make an awful Real Estate decision ourselves, and we wouldn't be where we are today, more than likely, if my parents hadn't bailed us out. Honestly, I never expected the bailout, I am very grateful and relieved for it, and it answered a lot of our prayers, but I didn't expect it. I sure didn't expect the government to bail us out of our stupid decision. Hopefully, it's all worked out now and eventually the future will show that it was to everyone's benefit. I continually worry about it and hope for that anyway.

We are now in a position that we can put a nice size down payment on a house and we are pre-approved for a decent amount, and we can get a decent rate with a good payment on a 15 year fixed rate home. That's right folks, if we find the right place, we could finally own our own home outright, shortly after the husband retires! He might even stay in just a little bit longer if it helps us pay off the house. And while retiring in Twentynine Palms wasn't the original plan, we are flexible if it's the right house. So, we've gotten our pre-approval, we've been in contact with our bank who has a program where they will set us up with a Real Estate Agent, we've researched what our potential electric (both in summer and winter), gas/propane, water, trash, and insurance bills will be to make sure that we get something where we can not only afford the mortgage payment but also all of those other household expenses on our BAH. Our cable/satellite, phone, we already know that we usually can make those come out of our base pay at some point. We've researched the market trends here in Thentynine Palms enough to know that people are still trying to get an assload out of houses that they just aren't going to get because they paid far more than they were worth, unless they find a buyer who hasn't done any research. We've researched enough to know that about 30% of the houses on the market are actually in foreclosure or are short-sells, and that they are not getting any offers on most of these, so the banks, etc are pretty much at our mercy. So, we are going to go out there and take full advantage of this buyers market and get the most house we can for our money, and actually, we aren't going to try to get a huge ass house that's going to take an assload of money to heat/cool, etc. We just really want a nice newer house that will allow us to have some fun doing a few upgrades but doesn't NEED a lot of work, raise our kids and entertain on occassion and that we will either be able to retire in if we so choose or to actually be able to get some equity in and sell if we decide that we want to retire somewhere else. God knows where the housing market in 29 Palms will be in 15 years or so, but hopefully if we are smart and careful we will have a house that is still worth something. If not, I guess we will be retiring here, lol.

Stay tuned and I'll definitely let you know how everything goes.

Real Estate

For the first time in either of our lives the husband and I are looking at purchasing a home. With the markets in dire straits, housing values are finally coming down to what they are actually worth, not some inflated version of everyone needs to be rich to afford them. I still think $140,000 is quite a lot of money, however, I'm more willing to pay it than $250,000 for a house. So, the fact that the original owner paid $181,000 for the house doesn't really bother me, either. It wasn't worth that. I think there is a lot of stupidity on the side of homebuyers in the last 10-15 years, and the fact that they bought houses at inflated prices on some baloon ass mortgage, well, their loss is our gain. We are finally in a position to put a good chunk of money down on a house and get a mortgage payment well below our BAH and the fact that by the time the husband retires we will almost have it totally paid off, IF NOT paid off, is not lost on us at all. We still have a lot of work to do if we are even going to make an offer, so we will see how things progress.

Don't get me wrong, living on base is great. I like the safety, I like the fact that when shit breaks, someone comes to fix it and it doesn't cost us money out of our pocket, I love the fact that for the most part we have pretty good neighbors, and I like that Meghan has the opportunity to play with some many kids her own age, and that we are close to things like the commissary and the hospital, etc. However, for all of those pluses, the huge downside is that we are paying $1244 basically in rent that in the end, we won't have anything to show for it. Now, the way the housing market was even just a year ago, we were better off. But with the way the market is falling so drastically, the fact that husband is already selected for the next rank, and the fact that we have this chunk of money we can throw at a house, the benefits for buying start to outweigh the benefits of living on base. I know that many houses still have a great deal farther to fall, but if we are smart, I think we can get a good deal and still be able to sell, if we want to, when husband is ready to retire. This does mean we would make Twentynine Palms our home for the forseeable future. While that may have bothered me at one time, it doesn't bug me at much any longer. Living on the coast until retirement isn't an option, we could be there for three years but then they'd move him, but since most people don't want to stay in the desert for any longer than what they have to, it provides us greater options to go from unit to unit if necessary to stay there. And while I sometimes hate the fact that nothing is close, at the same time, it's not undoable. The heat is a factor, but air conditioning makes it bearable. And hot is all relative. I don't like humidity at all, I hate being wet all day long. 95 or 100 degrees plus humidity is just as awful as 116 with no humidity. There's no snow. Well, snow is all fun and games when you are a kid, but when you are an adult, with snow comes ice, and I've been on my ass due to ice enough for one lifetime, thank you very much. And I lucked out, because at least I didn't twist my ankle or anything really serious. Now, yes, you can find ice in the desert, and at that it's usually black ice, but you have to be really lucky to run across something like that, it's very rare. Watch out for sprinklers, those will get you every time. ;0)

Anyway, we have lots of stuff to think about and consider. And we have some time to do it, I think.