OT - Buying a House

[mike012]

The Shuttle Meadow Rd area in Kensington, New Britain, Southington line... if you don't have kids you can find a lot of house with a lot of yard in the New Britain side. The Shuttle Meadow Golf Course is right there also.

 

[Dove]

Not if you work at the bowling alley on Bear Swamp Rd

I grew up riding my bike up and down that road.

 

[MadDogRevival]

Which mill did you live in? I lived with a roommate in Clocktower for 4 years, from '99 to '03 and had a good friend in Velvet.

Velvet.
Store was at the South end of Pine, on Hartford IIRC. Google maps does not show it - may have been knocked down.
Different strokes for different folks, I guess - lived in a lot of different areas, including Willimantic and downtown D.C., and something about Manchester gave me the willies - just did not like the feel of the non-working people hanging all about.

 

[uconnfan68]

The Shuttle Meadow Rd area in Kensington, New Britain, Southington line... if you don't have kids you can find a lot of house with a lot of yard in the New Britain side. The Shuttle Meadow Golf Course is right there also.

Isn’t the course private?

 

[Yardigan]

Not sure if South Windsor is too much of a location stretch...lived there for 19 years...good schools and nice town to raise the kids.

 

[husky8273]

Isn’t the course private?

Yes

 

[goodgameed]

Velvet.
Store was at the South end of Pine, on Hartford IIRC. Google maps does not show it - may have been knocked down.
Different strokes for different folks, I guess - lived in a lot of different areas, including Willimantic and downtown D.C., and something about Manchester gave me the willies - just did not like the feel of the non-working people hanging all about.

Used to be a DB Mart. It blew up.

 

[Milo65]

It’s all about location, location, location. Better to get a small house or a home that needs work in a nice town with good schools on a quiet street. Try to find the worst house in a nice neighborhood. Don’t fall for the trap of buying a nicer home in a depressed town or the nicest home on the street, you will regret it over time.

 

[jleves]

I was being kind only gently mocking your post.

Maybe advice like this is useful in California but this has no bearing on the reality of Connecticut:

Sell your first house in 2 to 5 years depending on market conditions. If you can get 250k in profit, it's not taxable. That profit is in your pocket tax free.

Spoiler alert: Here, if your house appreciates enough in 2-5 years to pay the realtor’s commissions you got lucky.

I guess you can ignore the dozens of people posting about the reality of real estate values in Connecticut and tell us about the benefits of tax free profits up to a quarter of a million dollars. Just like people all over the country get to tell us about attendance and UConn. Super accurate.

So let's not call each other names. I wasn't suggesting that he could get 250k equity in his first home in 2-3 years. I was suggesting that sweat equity in a crumby house in a great neighborhood he could/should get some profit that he could parlay into the next house. Even if it's 50,000 as a result of a lot of work, that means he can move up to a 350,000 house after his initial 300,000 house and that 50k is free and clear of taxes. Take the 350k crumby house in a great neighborhood and with more sweat equity and hopefully rising prices, he might get 100k or so in 5 years and then keep doing that to the point that hopefully after 4 flips or so in 20 years, he could get actually see 250k. The point is get a crappy house in a great neighborhood which you can handle the updates and over time you can actually see a significant gain.

 

[whaler11]

So let's not call each other names. I wasn't suggesting that he could get 250k equity in his first home in 2-3 years. I was suggesting that sweat equity in a crumby house in a great neighborhood he could/should get some profit that he could parlay into the next house. Even if it's 50,000 as a result of a lot of work, that means he can move up to a 350,000 house after his initial 300,000 house and that 50k is free and clear of taxes. Take the 350k crumby house in a great neighborhood and with more sweat equity and hopefully rising prices, he might get 100k or so in 5 years and then keep doing that to the point that hopefully after 4 flips or so in 20 years, he could get actually see 250k. The point is get a crappy house in a great neighborhood which you can handle the updates and over time you can actually see a significant gain.

These are things that might be true in other places. Not true here.

If you follow the logic in this thread nobody would live in any house but the worst house in any neighborhood and every other house would be empty. This would actually lead to the worst houses in a neighborhood being overpriced on demand. Do people really think there are handyman specials sitting in Simsbury or West Hartford or Glastonbury that you can pick up cheap and rehabilitate for profit? Maybe if you had a time machine that could take you back a few decades. I sold a Glastonbury condo to a friend in 2007 for 190k. She struggled to get 140 last year when she moved.

Nobody except someone selling houses would attempt to convince someone in 99% of Connecticut that you get equity through flipping houses on sweat equity.

The towns budgets are getting hammered because the state has moved education money from the suburbs to the cities. More pressure on property taxes in the desirable towns. If my house and cars were a mile east over the Glastonbury line my property
taxes would be 20k a year.

If the federal tax law doesn’t get overturned home values here are going to down. The combination of the higher standard deduction and the elimination of the SALT deduction is straight murder. Essentially CT property taxes went up by your effective federal tax rate.

If you could find a non-condemned home in West Hartford that came with a 10k property tax bill - it’s now 12 or 13k. Your 15k state tax liability is now 20k.

Things change. This thread is filled with some terrible advice for people considering buying a house in Connecticut.

If you really want to buy a house here cool your heels for a year and watch the prices drop when people understand the impact of losing SALT next April. People are going to run for the hills when they see how expensive it is.

The reality here for the past decade and going forward: Buy a house because you want that house. It is not a way to build wealth, it’s a place you live.

 

[MadDogRevival]

If you follow the logic in this thread nobody would live in any house but the worst house in any neighborhood and every other house would be empty. . . .

Are you this extreme with everything in life? Is everything so black and white from your perspective?
If everybody listened to advice on this board, everybody would be a UConn Men's Basketball fan, and nobody would be any other kind of fan. Lol.
Seriously, you seem very tightly wound on this and other things (e.g. don't cut your own grass, throw yourself into your work).

Buy a house because you want that house. It is not a way to build wealth, it’s a place you live.

Yeah man, you're arguing against yourself. Nobody is pitching home ownership as a primary investment. Most of the advice in this thread is an attempt to help the OP get into a house that will best suit him. That's it. Nobody is telling him to empty his 401k and buy the biggest house in New Canaan he can finance.
The advice to "buy the fixer-upper in a nice neighborhood" was just advice for him, with his particular set of facts, and where he's at in life. Not advice for everybody in every situation.
Have a beer. Or something.

 

[polycom]

Not sure if South Windsor is too much of a location stretch...lived there for 19 years...good schools and nice town to raise the kids.

Hello neighbor

 

[CTBasketball]

So to clear some stuff up. I want to decide what’s the better call for the next 5-ish years.

Buying a single family home?

Buying a condo?

Wait a year, rent, and see what the new tax implications do to the market? At the expense of the growing interest rate?

Renting?

Selling my Audi?

I’m trying to make good financial decisions now, so that in 5 years I can buy a house that I really want to live in.

 

[boog204]

So to clear some stuff up. I want to decide what’s the better call for the next 5-ish years.

Buying a single family home?

Buying a condo?

Wait a year, rent, and see what the new tax implications do to the market? At the expense of the growing interest rate?

Renting?

Selling my Audi?

I’m trying to make good financial decisions now, so that in 5 years I can buy a house that I really want to live in.

I'm in Cromwell... You should buy my condo! Seriously. Do it.

 

[whaler11]

Are you this extreme with everything in life? Is everything so black and white from your perspective?
If everybody listened to advice on this board, everybody would be a UConn Men's Basketball fan, and nobody would be any other kind of fan. Lol.
Seriously, you seem very tightly wound on this and other things (e.g. don't cut your own grass, throw yourself into your work).

Yeah man, you're arguing against yourself. Nobody is pitching home ownership as a primary investment. Most of the advice in this thread is an attempt to help the OP get into a house that will best suit him. That's it. Nobody is telling him to empty his 401k and buy the biggest house in New Canaan he can finance.
The advice to "buy the fixer-upper in a nice neighborhood" was just advice for him, with his particular set of facts, and where he's at in life. Not advice for everybody in every situation.
Have a beer. Or something.

You see Frank... the guy asked some questions and some of the advice was mindless generalities that expired during the Clinton administration and some of it was just dead wrong. So I pointed that out.

The thread is essentially about the financial ‘advantage of buying’ - which is something math and financial illiterates parrot without any examination.

 

[MadDogRevival]

You see Frank...

I do see.

 

[CTBasketball]

I'm in Cromwell... You should buy my condo! Seriously. Do it.

What’re your condo fees like?

 

[SubbaBub]

Before reddit ever existed. But, I do recommend r/personalfinance to young people who for some reason (ahem..helicopter parents) never learned the basics of handling their own money.

If there is anyone here who doesn't know their monthly income number and their required monthly expenditure number off the top of their head then you should definitely check it out. It may save your life.

My second one is 14k, the first one is more than that.

 

[Bryan Lord]

Join us in southington, we have fritters.

 

[uconnric]

The Shuttle Meadow Rd area in Kensington, New Britain, Southington line... if you don't have kids you can find a lot of house with a lot of yard in the New Britain side. The Shuttle Meadow Golf Course is right there also.

Great neighborhood! It's where I live, on the Kensington side. Shuttle Meadow is a really nice private club with golf, tennis, paddle tennis, pool.

 

[Husky25]

Yeah for someone like me (no clue about home repair) it seems like a real money pit.

You learn right quick what you can do on your own and what you should hire out. What takes a little time is determining what you can do on your own, but should have hired someone else to do.

Our first house had seven rooms, 2.5 bathrooms, and what seemed like wall-to-wall wallpaper (kitchen, dining room, 2 baths, a bedroom, and hallway/stairwell, which don't even qualify as rooms.). We took it all down and painted, but grossly underestimated the time and effort to do so. We've since moved, so it is a moot point, but in the future I would hire that out. If we buy another property (e.g. vacation/investment property), it won't have wallpaper.

 

[Husky25]

The only reason I can justify buying a condo is it is easy to rent it out after I move on to a bigger house after 4-6 years.

It is difficult to rent out a house. Selling before 5 years is not financially smart.

The only reason to rent a house is if you are unsure you are staying in the area (read: state) for more than a year or two. The rent will be almost as much as a mortgage and for a couple hundred more, you can build equity.

 

[the Q]

Before reddit ever existed. But, I do recommend r/personalfinance to young people who for some reason (ahem..helicopter parents) never learned the basics of handling their own money.

If there is anyone here who doesn't know their monthly income number and their required monthly expenditure number off the top of their head then you should definitely check it out. It may save your life.

My second one is 14k, the first one is more than that.

Are you a hedge fund guy or a self employed genius?

Either way, teach me your ways.

 

[the Q]

The only reason to rent a house is if you are unsure you are staying in the area (read: state) for more than a year or two. The rent will be almost as much as a mortgage and for a couple couple more you can build equity.

what does the actual monthly number look like when you factor in all the costs you have to do for maintenance and upkeep though?

I think it's a bigger difference than most think it is.

 

[boog204]

What’re your condo fees like?

Higher than average, a little over $300... However, the HOA covers landscaping, snow removal, trash, recycling, pool, clubhouse, and various other things and it's a nice complex. Even though the HOA fee is on the high, they are always making improvements and putting that $$ to good use. We have new patios, newer decks, siding, etc.

My wife, daughter, and zoo of elderly animals have outgrown it so we'll be jumping ship quite soon.