Congrats drapg! Owning a home is a wonderful thing. I'm 26 and my wife and I just purchased our second home. We only stayed in the other one for 2 years, and still came out with a nice profit from the sell. As long as you are in a decent area, owning a home is a great investment. The thing I love most about being in a house is I can make any changes I want and really make it look how I want. Have fun!
Thanks all! The furniture is currently being moved in. I bought a place in the Galleria near Westheimer and Chimney Rock (just by Treasures) I'm still freakin' out a bit about how much money I'm spending right now. On top of the closing costs and down payment, I'm having the patio demolished and built again from the ground up (it used to be a horrible nightmare of a jungular mess), I've had a lot of interior upgrades done, installed a security system, new doors and sliding glass doors, the pool table, and so much more. my bank account is dwindling. but i'll survive!
Congrats on the new digs. I'm in my second week of our our new house and loving it. I have a bar out side next to the pool, and a wet bar upstairs in the game room by the HD big screen and the pool table I'm going to buy soon. We went from 1450 sq foot in the heights to 3450 sq ft in cypress. I'm loving every min of it. A good friend of mine from high school lives 3 doors down and across the street. I can smell it when he has some ribs on the bbq and somehow he always shows up when I turn on the blender out by the pool. Anyone who thinks owning a house is not a good idea is crazy. we bought out last house for 130 and sold it 6 years later for 200. We are now debt free (other than the house note), have more in savings than ever before and upgraded our living conditions. My 2 kids have their own rooms, are going to have better schools, and I'm looking forward shooting off fireworks in front of my house this 4th of July. Congratulations again on the new house... I'm off to buy a kitchen table.
Suddenly life sucks. Movers were supposed to move my big furniture yesterday. Their scheduled arrival time was from 8am to 10am. I waited until noon and kept making calls to the office. All I got was an answering machine. I kept leaving messages until 6pm yesterday, and NOT A SOUL answered the phone. for future reference, DO NOT USE ALLSTAR MOVERS in Houston, TX. They never replied to my messages and never showed up. Allstar? Pshh... more like Darko Milicic movers. So around 4pm yesterday, I make reservations with another mover. A national mover this time. I tell the guy on the phone my saga from yesterday, and he says that at the price quote I was given, he wasn't surprised. He went on to say that they were very professional and thus would cost a few hundred bucks more. Whatever. I didn't care about the cost. I just wanted my freakin' furniture in my new house! So I tell him, "you better not screw me like these other movers." he goes on to tell me there's no way in the world his company would do that to a customer. Guess what? They did. That's right They freakin' screwed me! My move was scheduled from 2-4pm today. I waited until 6pm and made several calls to the moving company. The guy I talked to was not working today, but I sent him a SCATHING email about his lack of professional ethics and how he was a worst human being than Drew Rosenhaus. I talked to another lady on the phone. She made several attempts to call the men who were supposed to do my move. After 1 hour, she finally got a hold of them (6:00pm tonight), and they told her my name and address weren't even on their FREAKIN' LIST!!! are you kidding me? Now she says she's searching for some other movers to come move my furniture tonight. It's now 7:30pm and I have yet to hear from her. I've gotten so desperate, that I moved 35 boxes and a bookshelf with my parents in the past hour. I still have no TV and no couches. I'm sleeping on the carpet. I HATE MOVERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Did I say "Life is Great" No, life sucks It's now Sunday morning. I waited for 2 hours at my apartment for the movers to show up on day 3 of this saga. I just called them and they told me that though my info was in the system and I was scheduled for a move this morning, no one would be coming b/c its Father's Day and all the movers are off. ARE YOU ****ING KIDDING ME? I hate movers. I hate life. Now the week starts and I'll never get my furniture here. I took 2 days off last week to do this move. I can't wait to hear my bosses reaction when he hears I need to take another day off this week. Life sucks.
Cheer up drapg. It may be a pain in the ass now, but once you get everything done and settled you'll be much happier. Congrats on the new house.
Congrats drapg, when I bought mine the only thing that shocked me was how much the electric bill was each month in the summer.. now I'm on a plan that keeps your bill around the same price each month all year long.. it saves me from going crazy when I would get a huge bills in the summer...
While there is SOME risk to owning your home, I disagree with your statement. Your risk isn't real dollars, its the opportunity cost of renting vs buying. Lets say you rent for 5 years at $1,000 a month. After 5 years, you've spend $60,000 in rent that will never ever come back to you. That means you could live in a house for 5 years that you bought, and as long as that house doesn't decrease in value more than $60,000, your still doing better than renting. Also, you have a much better chance of your house increasing in value or at least staying the same + you build equity. Also remember the singe GREATEST tax break for folks out there that buy and sell their own homes...any capital gains on your primary residence is TAX FREE if it has been your primary residence for 24 months. There are very few investments like that.
Wow, this is incredible guys... drapg just called me and said his townhome caught on fire after they had moved everything in. Everything is a loss!!! kidding
Poor old drapg - will he ever win?? Just messing with ya dude - you know I got mad props for you (hmm, I sound like Stuart Scott with that saying). Hope things get better here.
LOL - you basically said what I stated. My point stands. If you don't plan on living there long term, owning a house is merely a leveraged investment. There are benefits in the form of tax breaks and potential capital appreciation, and there are downsides in the form of home values declining. As in any investment, you better hope the upsides outweigh the downsides. My point is that there can certainly be downsides to purchasing a home. These real estate agents are preying on people with no knowledge of investing or finance by saying that owning is always better than buying since you are "building equity". It's purely a sales technique. My personal opinion (shared by many, I might add) is that home values will decrease as interest rates rise, meaning there is potential downside to buying right now.
Update for those still interested. After getting stiffed by the movers, I decided to hit the gym for a 3 hour workout to get out my frustration. I took my new Dell 700m and watched season 5 of the Sopranos while running away my anger. After 1 hour, my parents called me and said they found movers who could come out in the afternoon and do the move today. I told them I was working out and didn't want to stop! Being the kind, loving, and unbelievably supportive parents they are, they offered to come to the gym, pick up my apartment key and let the movers in. I agreed and my poor parents drove all the way from Cypress to help with the move while I selfishly continued to exercise. After my 3 hour workout, I glanced at my phone and realized it was in "Wireless Mode Off" mode. WTF?? This is why I HATE cell phones. I turned the damn thing back on and had 15 voice mails! Apparently my parents kept calling me b/c the movers had broken the water supply valve to the washer upstairs in my apartment. There was a flood, which caused water to leak downstairs. Just f'ing great! So I rush over there, and my loving parents stay back to sop up the mess and clean the apartment up so that I get some kind of deposit back, while I take the movers to my new house to set everything up. My parents show up an hour later, sweaty as can be and tired as dogs, explaining that they took care of everything that they could and that the apartment manger wanted to talk to me. I tell them fine and to sit down and relax, b/c they had worked harder the past four days than I had. (Both took off Wed., Thurs., and Fri. from work to be with me at closing and to help with the move.) Well, after the movers put everything in my new house, my parents wanted to take me to Home Depot to show me around and to buy some small things (new light bulbs, toilet seats, air filters, all that good stuff I had no idea was needed for a house) After an hour at Home Depot my parents realized they were starving. B/c I only eat at Subway, the graciously offered to go there. When I tried to pay for their meal (it was the VERY least I could do), they told me to save my money for the house. We got back to the townhouse, as my parents hooked up my washer and dryer, and my mom installed new toilet seats and door stoppers, I selfishly began setting up my home theater system. It is now 9:18pm and I am done. THe house is officially moved in to. I freakin' love this place. Time to take a shower and play some pool. Oh, and the moral of this story is that parents are the greatest thing on the planet. If I had a child like me who delegated responsibilities and was so selfish, I'd smack him around. But my parents realize I'm so freakin' busy at work that I don't have time to take care of the little things. So they make it their business to do so. I kept thanking them over and over, but they wouldn't hear of it. I even forgot that today was Father's Day and my mom sweetly had to remind me to wish my dad a Happy Father's Day right in front of him while he was setting up my washer. Seriously, what did I do to deserve such loving parents? I really don't deserve their support. But I do accept it.
Damn - why for some reason was Doug Christie, his wife, and "pussywhipped" all running through my mind as I read that last post??
So, instead of his townhome catching on fire after moving everything in, his apartment actually flooded before they moved everything out. That's kind of eerie.
Wow dude you went through hell to move! Glad everything worked out for ya and congrats on the new pad! Im planning on buying something in July but cant decide between a house or a condo.
Congrats, drapg. You'll be proud to call something your own. I've been in my house since 9/04 and I'm turning 27 at the end of July. It's a great feeling to start off young w/ a house because you'll reap the rewards. The maintenance is there, but at least you're not in a stinking apt. where you pay rent and it goes to someone else. If you have a 30 year note, make an extra payment every year and you'll cut that 30 years down to 22 (from what I heard). And after paying off your 15 year/30 year note (depending on what you set up), you'll barely be 40 and you have a paid off house in your name. Congrats once again, drapg!
