Here is an awesome blog post on "Why Renting is a bad idea" - Read Here
NY Times had an article on Aug 19th about the rising rents all around the US. Specifically mentioning Seattle Read Here
1 comment:
Anonymous
said...
I'm not sure I agree with the rent vs buy article. There were several parts of the article that I had to disagree with. The first is that in 2002 rental prices decreased quite a bit.The second reason is that several cases I've seen, people who've needed to move around two years after their purchase have lost money on their house purchases. Also, if you get an ARM to finance your house purchase, it is based on prime when it comes off the arm and that is not under the buyers control. Also, most people I know do not rent the equivalent to what they might buy, because when you buy, you're stuck there. Finally Dupre + Scott an Apartment Data Resource group for the Puget Sound said that they expect twice as many condos to come on the market in 2008 creating a glut in an already slower market. If you buy now and then need to sell, you could lose money. One last thing. House values have gone down in the Puget Sound before. In 1991, house values dropped considerably. There were many people who owed thousands more dollars on their mortgages than their homes were worth. Some homes did not come back to their pre 1991 levels for almost 10 years. I still think that there are some major advantages to buying, they just need to be weighed against realistic understandings of the risk. If you aren't planning on moving again for at least 5 years or more, than it probably does make sense to buy if you can realistically afford the payments and it is some place that you really really like. We are not expecting appreciation to occur as much as it has these last years anymore.
1 comment:
I'm not sure I agree with the rent vs buy article. There were several parts of the article that I had to disagree with. The first is that in 2002 rental prices decreased quite a bit.The second reason is that several cases I've seen, people who've needed to move around two years after their purchase have lost money on their house purchases. Also, if you get an ARM to finance your house purchase, it is based on prime when it comes off the arm and that is not under the buyers control. Also, most people I know do not rent the equivalent to what they might buy, because when you buy, you're stuck there. Finally Dupre + Scott an Apartment Data Resource group for the Puget Sound said that they expect twice as many condos to come on the market in 2008 creating a glut in an already slower market. If you buy now and then need to sell, you could lose money. One last thing. House values have gone down in the Puget Sound before. In 1991, house values dropped considerably. There were many people who owed thousands more dollars on their mortgages than their homes were worth. Some homes did not come back to their pre 1991 levels for almost 10 years. I still think that there are some major advantages to buying, they just need to be weighed against realistic understandings of the risk. If you aren't planning on moving again for at least 5 years or more, than it probably does make sense to buy if you can realistically afford the payments and it is some place that you really really like. We are not expecting appreciation to occur as much as it has these last years anymore.
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