DO you own a house in America?

[JimVaPhuong 4,863]

I bought a house almost 6 years ago. I watched it's market value go from 25% above what I paid for it down to 22% below what I paid. It's now around 17% under water, and gradually coming back up. Foreclosures are deflating the market right now, which is good for new home buyers, assuming you can get a mortgage. Where I live, lender owned properties are about 65% of the homes on the market. When these properties are finally shaken out, I figure the market will settle down and my home's value will be around what I originally paid for it.

The downside will be that I essentially just rented from the bank for years. The upside will be that much of that "rent" was tax deductible. I've also seen my property taxes slashed, and my mortgage interest rate cut substantially, which has made it easier to make bigger payments against the principal, so it's not all bad.

[Dai. 7]

We bought a new 2800 sq ft house and closed in November of 2009. Our house was built by Perry Homes, a well high-end respected builder and our house is so spacious for just Me, my wife, and our little baby daughter. We live in a master planned community and we are expecting the value to go up since housing in Texas is kinda of stable. Today I just went to the bank and paid off the whole house after just buying it 6 months ago. I was so tired of throwing away 500-600 in interest each month for mortgage so paying it off lifts so much off my chest financially. Now my only major debt is my wife's car but we have 0% interest for 60 months on the car so I don't mind making payments on it.

[Dr. Obvious 49]

no we don't own a house and have no plans to in the near future...

Ditto.

It think we'll probably inherit property before we buy it.

[NigeriaorBust 4,087]

We ( Me the USC) own 2 places in California, one is a condo and the other is an equestrian estate( fancy name for lots of mowing). The other half inherited his family properties ( acres and acres with a living structure that we intend to demolish and build something a bit nicer. ) and he owns some land in the nearest city where will will construct a hotel. We are also shopping for something to buy jointly here in Southern California.

[tweety 1]

Yeah, we bought a place - cheaper than renting and we got a nice low fixed interest rate! Huzzah!

Things I have learned:

Basements, while nice in theory, can be a real pain in the ####.

Home inspectors are mostly useless

Avoid popcorn ceilings at all costs if in older homes

Just because they put in a fancy pants load of granite and stainless steel appliances doesn't mean they did a good job

Make sure your dryer is properly vented

Make sure your upstairs bathroom fan is actually connected to the outside world

Errr there are plenty more. But it's nice to have your own place

lol... one learns so much after buying the first... I could add to the list, but I'm too lazy

[zenaxe 22]

My wife owns a townhouse. I own a place here in Canada; our real estate is still pretty good and Arizona's housing market has collapsed. That means very good buys for me, soooo I'll sell my house and buy a great house in Arizona for an amazing price. Plus we'll keep the townhouse for rental income.

That's the plan anyway...I'm not quite there yet lol

[MelissaJulian 30]

We're going to buy a house for when he gets here -- I live in a little one-bed apartment right now and it's not really suitable for both of us. We're very lucky that he has a flat in London to sell so we'll be able to use that money, plus some from his trust fund as well. He said he would prefer to have as little mortgage as possible and to buy outright if we can. It will be my first place that I own, and I am already starting to look online at houses in the area we want to live in. I want to stay in Pasadena but my fiance said that if we do, we need to move to the "right" side of the tracks (or in my case, the 210 freeway! ). He also wants to look at Santa Monica but all my family is up here in the Burbank and Pasadena area and I would like to stay here. He also has a house in England, right near his parents' house on the Suffolk coast, but he is holding on to that one and will be renting it out for a while. If we decide to move to back to England, we'll probably end up there for a while.