the random musings not worthy of new thread thread

[Diomedes]

this turned out to be pretty cool

http://www.chromeexperiments.com/arcadefire/

[Seabiscuit36]

I'm homeless, paperwork was completed yesterday at the title place, now the fun part trying to buy. 

[Rome]

at this point i'd happily rent a 2-br apartment for $500/month.

the real estate market is bad but it's about to get much, much worse.  like armageddon bad.

[Diomedes]

I sometimes wonder if my family wouldn't be better in the long run if we just stopped paying our mortgage and squatted down here until they force us out.  We could save a lot of money, take a rental somewhere, and be done with this home ownership scam.

If we--as in American homeowners--don't get a bail out of some kind, we'll take one anyway.  The rich crooks at the top got their bailout and they're sitting pretty on their piles of money.  Folks like me, who took reasonable mortgages on modest homes within our means are getting farged and not liking it.

[ice grillin you]

mortgage rates are unbelievably low...if you currently own you are golden...i passed on it to buy a car instead but i was this close to refinancing to a 15 year johnson....thats how low the rates are

the market only sucks if you have to sell

[Diomedes]

We couldn't afford the payment on a 15 year note otherwise we'd consider it. 

A lot of people like us are thinking the same thing:  this system is a scam. 

[rjs246]

The system is a scam. And yet I've bought in and am now chained to a nice piece of propert for the next 29 years and am fine with it. There's value in having a place to live, especially if you actually like that place. The problem is with thinking about a house as an investment and nothing else, which seems to be the mindset that we all have. Buying a house you can afford as a place to live will always be a good idea. Buying a house with the intention of jumping from place to place trying to maximize your dollars ain't in the cards for the foreseeable future.

[Seabiscuit36]

Whatever the house is that we buy next, our plan is to live there for 20 years and make the move down to the beach.  Its scary how far some of the house prices have dropped, but for us its nice to be in the drivers seat knowing what we can afford, and where we'd like to be.  Rome is 100% correct about the market and its fall, its gonna be bad in 2011.  The banks for the most part have been holding onto the properties, they're about to flood the market, and a bunch of the last ARM's are coming up for their change in rates soon, so its a double whammy. 

DIO is right about the folks who are squatting, the problem is your credit being farged for your next purchase, but when half the population has bad credit, those with the most cash in hand win. 

[Diomedes]

My house is 110 years old.  FML.

[SD]

Is it haunted?

[Diomedes]

It will be after I kill myself the next time I find something that requires $30k to fix.

So, by this time next week.

[Susquehanna Birder]

There's no real reason to go for a 15 year. Get a 30 year and pay extra toward the principal.

[Diomedes]

The mistake I made was in buying too soon.  We were sick of renting, and being treated like renters.  Prices were down and we wanted to start a family.  So we bought a house.  It's not going to fall down or anything, but it needs work.  Right now, I'm replacing 2nd story windows and with hour I work, I uncover more shtein that needs to be replaced or fixed.  I know how to do this stuff now, and I have help, but it's a lot of hassle and no small amount of money.

Meanwhile the value of the house is tanking and my family is growing.

In short, I was stupid stupid stupid.

[SD]

This article was just posted on Yahoo: 5 Home Repairs you shouldn't ignore

[hbionic]

Rome is 100% correct about the market and its fall, its gonna be bad in 2011.  The banks for the most part have been holding onto the properties, they're about to flood the market, and a bunch of the last ARM's are coming up for their change in rates soon, so its a double whammy. 

We've all been expecting this since May of 2009. No such luck.

Inventories are slowly growing and or stagnate. Prices are on the rise in some areas here and competition is farging stiff. I know that the Souther California Real Estate market is different than most...but banks know that any flooding of markets will cause this whole economy to crash. Better said would be that, "Banks have been leaking properties onto the market".