How long did it take you to save up a down payment for a house?

[Dinsdale]

@pbbth

We did speak with the bank and they offered us a 3.5% FHA loan on significantly more than we thought we could get but we don’t want to put down such a small amount if we can avoid it and we also want to avoid PMI if possible.

Yet more choices…

Sounds like you are doing a lot of things right (IMO).

[gravitycrash]

Jeez, I thought I did great getting a conventional loan at 4.25%. I doubt it will ever get much better than 3.5% financing pbbth.

Plus that PMI that you see tacked on to your statement each month will give you added incentive to pay down the principal faster. It did for me anyway.

[Hello_Again]

@pbbth

The second is because after living in various apartments with shitty landlords we want to be somewhere we have some control. 2 months ago our ceiling collapsed and we had to wait a month for someone to come out and fix it. Our landlord doesn’t answer our calls and we have near constant flooding that is in a perpetual state of repairs. If this was our place we could have invested in proper inspection and repair to guarantee we wouldn’t have the problem again but because someone else controls that we are at their mercy and they don’t seem to give a fuck about our living situation.

Not to disagree with your points, but as this seems to be “Educate People About NYC Housing Law Day”, I will only point out, that you could have reported him to the City via 311 and they would have sent an inspector. If the inspector perceived an emergency in need of repair, and the landlord failed to treat it as an emergency, the City would fix it themselves and charge the landlord, and lien the property if he doesn’t pay.

http://www.nyc.gov/html/hpd/html/tenants/how_to_report.shtml

if the flooding presented a persistent health hazard, you can also seek a rent reduction in Housing Court ($45 to file).

[Wallenstein]

We have a £150k mortgage on a £172000 house. My parents paid off their mortgage a few years ago so put £20k down as a deposit. They now own 11% of the equity in the house but it allowed us to get on the ladder.

We pay £750/month repayments on the house, but the mortgage term is over 35 years so we have paid next to nothing off the capital (just interest).

Effectively we’re renting our house from the bank but we have more security that renting in the private sector.

My wife is in her final year of medical school, so we have a single income (mine) but need to pay full-time childcare and med school fees, so we are maxed out in terms of monthly finances… this means it’ll be several years before we can even think of moving again, and that assumes we save my wife’s entire salary for a couple of years.

[sugar_and_spice]

@pbbth

The third reason is because we don’t really have access to rent stabilised or rent controlled apartments so the $1400 we pay per month now will go up to $1512 at our renewal and it will go up to $1650 at the renewal after that. Owning a place would allow us to maintain basically the same payment every month for the next 30 years. We think ownership would be well worth it given the opportunity.

If I may ask, why do you say you don’t have access to a rent stabilized apartment? If you both have jobs and not-horrible credit then that shouldn’t be a problem. And actually I knew people with only one of the two, who get leases back when (AIUI) the market was hotter than it is now.

[iamthewalrus_3]

@Cluricaun

Realistically we never could have done it otherwise. We did buy before the market collapsed and the banks coffers slammed shut, but as we both work in the industry we weren’t dumb enough to finance everything, so we put down…$40k on a $180k townhouse I think it was. All that managed to save us is that we’re not upside down now three years later.

It sounds like you’d have been better off financing everything. If you’d done that, you’d have the option to walk away (assuming you’re in a non-recourse state) and you’d still have the inheritance.

[Hello_Again]

@sugar_and_spice

If I may ask, why do you say you don’t have access to a rent stabilized apartment? If you both have jobs and not-horrible credit then that shouldn’t be a problem. And actually I knew people with only one of the two, who get leases back when (AIUI) the market was hotter than it is now.

I took that to mean there are no Stabilized units in the areas where pbbth wants to live. For those following along at home, access to Rent Stabilization is not tied to income.

[pbbth]

@Hello_Again

Not to disagree with your points, but as this seems to be “Educate People About NYC Housing Law Day”, I will only point out, that you could have reported him to the City via 311 and they would have sent an inspector. If the inspector perceived an emergency in need of repair, and the landlord failed to treat it as an emergency, the City would fix it themselves and charge the landlord, and lien the property if he doesn’t pay.

http://www.nyc.gov/html/hpd/html/tenants/how_to_report.shtml

if the flooding presented a persistent health hazard, you can also seek a rent reduction in Housing Court ($45 to file).

BWAHAHAHAHA! wipes away tear

We have had no fewer than 4 city inspectors in our apartment. We have called 311 no fewer than 18 times in regards to various violations. We have worked with 3 different lawyers just to get our landlord to answer basic questions. The courts don’t care and will not send anyone to fix the problem. They won’t let us out of our lease. They won’t even fine our landlord for the closet that is so full of black mold we can’t even open the door without breaking into hives. It is our experience that if you aren’t pregnant and/or you don’t have a child under 5 they could care less if your living situation is so bad it kills you. Of course then they would probably fine the landlord for having to clean up corpses.