DW and I are experiencing sticker shock from home shopping in Houston. Because our jobs are on vasty different sides of town, the locations we'll consider are limited (2 hours of commuting per day is not acceptable to either of us). But housing stock in these areas is very limited, the market consists of (a) older 1950-60s homes that need +$100k of work to be modernized and (b) brand new homes on teardown lots that are probably more house than we need. No one is tearing down homes and building reasonable ones, they are all going for the top of the market.
Coming into this I wanted to spend $400-450k. But after looking around, newer homes we like are close to $600k. Seems outrageous but the market is what it is. To some extent, the new homes are bigger than we would prefer but can't control that. We don't have the time/energy to supervise a massive renovation project right now, so buying a $350k home and putting $150k into it isn't appealing.
Our financial info is in this thread. For now we are both working but that may not continue forever. I don't want to buy so much house that we both must work forever.
http://www.early-retirement.org/forums/f28/finance-house-or-pay-cash-64621.html
So, would you buy a $600k house? Or keep renting a house for $2.4k/month that is ok temporarily but not really the space we want. I'm not only concerned with the sales price and the higher ongoing property tax/maintenance/insurance bills that will accompany it.
Coming into this I wanted to spend $400-450k. But after looking around, newer homes we like are close to $600k. Seems outrageous but the market is what it is. To some extent, the new homes are bigger than we would prefer but can't control that. We don't have the time/energy to supervise a massive renovation project right now, so buying a $350k home and putting $150k into it isn't appealing.
Our financial info is in this thread. For now we are both working but that may not continue forever. I don't want to buy so much house that we both must work forever.
http://www.early-retirement.org/forums/f28/finance-house-or-pay-cash-64621.html
So, would you buy a $600k house? Or keep renting a house for $2.4k/month that is ok temporarily but not really the space we want. I'm not only concerned with the sales price and the higher ongoing property tax/maintenance/insurance bills that will accompany it.