Quote:
Originally posted by Drago
How many people with $175K in the bank are renting? I think you can safely assume that most people who are renting are doing so because they can't afford a down payment....at least amongst the people I know. Of course YMMV.
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Precisely. This is EXACTLY the predicament I'm in. The choices both suck - either do "creative financing" to get into some uber-risky sucker loan like an interest-only or something or hold out and keep renting while everyone else buys and (in theory) gets equity, nice tax write-offs, etc.
Someone please explain to me how it's possible to live in Southern California (even on a decent two-wage-earner salary) and manage to save more than $5k or $10k a year. . .
I've calc-ed it out. Even if we cut EVERYTHING out except absolute necessities and bills, the most we could save is $10k a year. At that rate you're still looking at 10+ years just to save up for a standard down payment at current prices. Screw that. Not worth it, IMO. There has to be SOME kind of balance between quality of life and affording to borrow someone else's money in order to pretend you own a home.
In the meantime I'm saving what I can and waiting for the crash.