How much have your rates gone up since Katrina? My midtown apartment that I rented for approx. $1/ sq.ft. six months ago has gone up 30%. My lease is expires in September and this truely sucks because I really want to renew for one more year.
are you insinuating your rates went up b/c of Katrina, or are you just asking what your rate is since Katrina?
They probably did go up because of Katrina. More people/more demand/more money they can charge. Mine went up $100 from $880.
How the hell did you get an apartment at Holly Springs for 880? I was looking there before and I thought the price was around 1500.00 for a 2-2 with a garage..
Anyone paying $900 a month in rent in Houston needs to buy a f*cking house!!! Your money should work for you, not for someone else.
sometimes those people have roommates and are sharing rent. so that would knock your house payment down to $450.
I hear ya. I'm just saying that if you are going to piss away $900 a month, you ought to make it work for you by purchasing a house.
Obviously, if it were that easy, I'd have done that already. We won't have any problem being approved for a house, but I want to be completely out of personal debt, have money saved up for the things you don't think of when you're used to renting, and I want to be able to buy a house in the area I want instead of settling for a starter house in an area I don't really want to live. The personal debt part is the most serious for me, though. We have one without a garage. We got close to two months free last March.
It's the best thing we ever did. Everytime I see an apartment fire on TV, I know we made the right decision.
my dad has rented a place for $900/month. though he does not plan on living there too long(in Houston for year or two), so he has no option. Others are in same position, so buying a house is not really an option. so take it e z.
If you want to get out of debt, the time you spend on this BBS you could work two jobs and make double the money. Just a thought.
It's not the money coming in now that's a problem. It's the money spent when I was a dumb college kid. But thanks for your concern.
well to be honest from the few financial books i have read they make it very clear that if you have the money to buy a house to freaking do so. so im not disagreeing with you. but there are a lot of variables to reasons to buy or not to. as you know also... so im not really sure why im typing this post. blah blah blah
What about the people that buy houses with intrest only loans and live 80+ miles away from work and drop a few hundred a month on gas driving to and from work?? It's not always as simple as houses are better than apartments..
Houses are a decent investment but they are expensive. I was in the boat renters are in right now, everyone told me to buy a house, its such a better investment, etc, etc... So I did. But damn. The expenses are way more than anyone ever estimates. Even if you buy a new house, you still end up ugrading this and that, landscaping, hardwood floors or whatever, the list goes on and on. If you buy a house for $130k and sell it 5 years later for $160k, most people would say you made 30k. I don't look at it that way. Say with your house payment, taxes, and homeowners insurance, you pay $1500 per month (thats about right for a 130k house). 1500 per month for 5 years is 90K. Actually you lost 60K if you look at it that way because you made 30k when you sold it but put 90K worth of payments over the years. Thats not counting all of the repairs & upgrades you've done over the years. If you are renting for 5 years at 800/month, then you lost $48K down the drain in rent. So, you lost more by having the house.
That's exactly right. Unless you're investing in the right area, it's possible that your property values apreciate enough to cover the added expenses of home ownership. In my case, I didn't want to be tied down to a house, since I want the flexibility to change jobs or return to grad school.
Well being 26 married with 2 kids I wanted to get a house in a good area for schools and didn't want to "waste" my money paying another 3 years for an apartment. It is not that easy though. It took looking around for a while to find a decently priced house that was in a good area. Finally I found my current home it is 2 bedrooms with a very nice sized yard and the house itself it a decent size for being a 2 bedroom. It is a great starter home and that is exactly what we have used it for. I pay about $750 a month in Katy for my home and my kids are in the cypress-fairbanks school district which I love. We bought it knowing it would be a starter home for us and now 2 years later we are starting to look for a newer and bigger home in the same neighborhood. There are pro's and con's about having your home though. There is a huge amount of work to do in your own home. No more calling the apartment office to get the repair guy to fix what is wrong. Now you have to call and get bids. There are other tedious things like mowing the yard, keeping up the flower beds, Homeowners association(which can be good to keep the value of your home), there seems to be at least 1 thing that I need to replace every year(I spent all last evening tearing down one side of my fence that collapsed in on my neighbors back yard so that we can have that side replaced), etc. All in all I can say that I made the right decision to own my house although I wouldn't mind being back in the apartment sometimes.
Well I just think its funny when people say a house is such a great investment without thinking everything thru. I bought mine in 02 for 131k and today it appraises for 170k. If I sold it right now, i'd lose my ass based on my calculations above. While a narrow minded person might say they made 39k on their house.
