Comments on: Death of the Starter Home? http://blog.franklyrealty.com/2009/09/no-more-starter-home.html Tue, 02 Mar 2010 02:11:05 -0800 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 hourly 1 By: jason http://blog.franklyrealty.com/2009/09/no-more-starter-home.html/comment-page-1#comment-4195 jason Sun, 01 Nov 2009 00:08:00 +0000 http://blog.franklyrealty.com/?p=298#comment-4195 i wonder if people have considered maybe buying isn't the best thing they can do? with most people have to move to be able to move up in their career? i wonder if people have considered maybe buying isn’t the best thing they can do? with most people have to move to be able to move up in their career?

]]> By: Steven Angelil http://blog.franklyrealty.com/2009/09/no-more-starter-home.html/comment-page-1#comment-4088 Steven Angelil Mon, 14 Sep 2009 00:22:37 +0000 http://blog.franklyrealty.com/?p=298#comment-4088 Hi Frank, Just doing my daily required reading of your blog. Again, good work as always. People down here in South Florida are simply "buying, buying, buying". I agree that renting is the least risky bet. Here's to informed buyers. By the way, we just started using your Client Bill of Rights and the buyer/broker agreement this weekend. Thanks for all of your counseling to a fellow Realtor! Hi Frank,

Just doing my daily required reading of your blog. Again, good work
as always. People down here in South Florida are simply “buying, buying, buying”. I agree that renting is the least risky bet. Here’s to informed buyers. By the way, we just started using your Client Bill of Rights and the buyer/broker agreement this weekend. Thanks for all of your counseling to a fellow Realtor!

]]> By: cara http://blog.franklyrealty.com/2009/09/no-more-starter-home.html/comment-page-1#comment-4087 cara Sun, 13 Sep 2009 17:05:54 +0000 http://blog.franklyrealty.com/?p=298#comment-4087 Rent and rent I think is the most overlooked of all those options, and yet I think it's a really good one. It accomplishes what the owners want, (to get out of their tiny place and into something more appropriate for their growing family, or lifestyle or whatever) while avoiding what they don't want to face or don't have the cash to face, of realizing a loss on the starter condo. We tried to advise someone on the blog to do that last year, but I don't think we convinced them. The NYtimes or Washington Post had an article on the 7 new rules for buying. One of which was very similar to the idea here, buy best or buy cheapest. If you can afford your dream house now, go ahead and buy it, but if you can't don't buy the next best thing and be paying out way more in monthly housing costs than you have to and have higher utility and transaction costs to boot while still not having the home you really want, buy the cheapest thing that will meet your needs for the next 5-10 years and save like a bandit. In relationship to what you said here, I'd add if you only buy a $150k home, you can only lose $150k. (plus carrying costs...). The problem really is that a lot of these starter condos were not $150k, they were $350k or more. That's the rub. Rent and rent I think is the most overlooked of all those options, and yet I think it’s a really good one. It accomplishes what the owners want, (to get out of their tiny place and into something more appropriate for their growing family, or lifestyle or whatever) while avoiding what they don’t want to face or don’t have the cash to face, of realizing a loss on the starter condo.

We tried to advise someone on the blog to do that last year, but I don’t think we convinced them.

The NYtimes or Washington Post had an article on the 7 new rules for buying. One of which was very similar to the idea here, buy best or buy cheapest. If you can afford your dream house now, go ahead and buy it, but if you can’t don’t buy the next best thing and be paying out way more in monthly housing costs than you have to and have higher utility and transaction costs to boot while still not having the home you really want, buy the cheapest thing that will meet your needs for the next 5-10 years and save like a bandit.

In relationship to what you said here, I’d add if you only buy a $150k home, you can only lose $150k. (plus carrying costs…). The problem really is that a lot of these starter condos were not $150k, they were $350k or more. That’s the rub.

]]>