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Also, we're considering a property with income potential. There are some, but very few, that have a legal apartment. Does anyone know how easy it is to get a C/O and what are the laws in terms of zoning for having an apartment? Having that extra income from a rental will definitely help with costs.
Just to be clear: the mortgage would just be for a couple of months hopefully. As soon as we sell our house here we will pre-pay off the mortgage, giving us complete title to the house.
Thanks to all those with constructive comments re: neighborhoods and what you can get for 200K.
Also, I didn't ask for personal finance advice per se. Thanks.
Location: The place where the road & the sky collide
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Quote:
Originally Posted by plucky3388
Also, we're considering a property with income potential. There are some, but very few, that have a legal apartment. Does anyone know how easy it is to get a C/O and what are the laws in terms of zoning for having an apartment? Having that extra income from a rental will definitely help with costs.
Just to be clear: the mortgage would just be for a couple of months hopefully. As soon as we sell our house here we will pre-pay off the mortgage, giving us complete title to the house.
Thanks to all those with constructive comments re: neighborhoods and what you can get for 200K.
Also, I didn't ask for personal finance advice per se. Thanks.
My comments were not personal. You said that your husband wants to pay down the debt. I explained why he has a good point. If you only wanted people to agree with you, you should have said so & I wouldn't have posted.
My comments were not personal. You said that your husband wants to pay down the debt. I explained why he has a good point. If you only wanted people to agree with you, you should have said so & I wouldn't have posted.
I also agree with Southbound. My comments were not personal either, they were logical. You think educational debt is somehow different; you need a wake up call...debt is debt. Besides a realtor, you might consider talking to a financial advisor.
And, you have no idea what your house will sell for until it sells. Don't count your chickens before they hatch.
Count me in with everyone else, getting everything you both want for $200k is a stretch. In terms of communities; Collingswood, Oaklyn, Audubun, Haddon Township, Haddon Heights and Barrington are probably the ones you want to look into the most. Also, you might as well include Stratford and Laurel Springs on that list as well as both have good elementary school systems.
You CAN find something for $200k in those towns, but it will probably mean giving up on the 2,000 sq.ft. and/or buying a house that needs work. As far as homes with income suites, they are out there and the process to create one is relatively straight forward in terms of CO's and things, but they are not very common in that area at all, especially among $200k range homes. A big part of the problem is that within the neighborhoods you are looking at, "new construction" probably means 1970-1980 vintage housing. Most of the housing stock in those towns is much older pre-war or immediate post-war housing and not exactly conducive to having an income suite.
Also, while you don't want a financial lesson, if you are only going to be here for a couple of years max, then you need to very much consider the cost of property taxes and realtor fees on owning a home short term like you are planning. If you will be here for two years, property taxes could easily be $12k+ over that time and then you have the costs of buying and selling. Selling a $200k house, is instantly a $12k expense with commissions and then tack on another $3k or so for incidentals and fees (not counting concessions which most buyers want these days). On the buying side, you are talking at least $3k-$4k to close and/or "overpaying" by asking for a closing concession. All told, just buying a house and then selling it two years later could easily cost you $30k+ on a $200k house between fees, concessions, property taxes and real estate commissions. That money would go a long way towards paying rent over that time period, not to mention the benefits of retiring other debt and/or the profits from investing the money. I think if the move is short term, you really need to reconsider the buy vs. rent choice. Most would say, buying isn't something you do with less then a 7-10 year commitment.
I missed the part about only staying a few years. It would be almost impossible to make a profit on the house in that amount of time. As Goat pointed out, the numbers just don't work in your favor in that short time frame unless you find buried treasure in the backyard.
None of those houses are in Haddonfield proper. Three are apart of Haddon Twp. district and the other Barrington.
Okay, thanks for the correction. I thought these were too cheap for Haddonfield. Are those just the mailing addresses? Are the homes physically located on the fringe of Haddonfield? I guess you could live there and "pretend" you live in Haddonfield.
I missed the part about only staying a few years. It would be almost impossible to make a profit on the house in that amount of time. As Goat pointed out, the numbers just don't work in your favor in that short time frame unless you find buried treasure in the backyard.
The OP included this in post #10...
Quote:
We are trying to build equity here and it would make more sense for us to buy, even if we are staying in the area for a couple of years than rent.
I'm not sure what they really meant by that. I took it that they felt it was better to buy, even though they may only be here a couple of years. However, it may just have been a rhetorical statement about how it was better to buy in their opinion then rent. Maybe the OP can clarify.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Daydrmer
None of those houses are in Haddonfield proper. Three are apart of Haddon Twp. district and the other Barrington.
Good point. When doing searches by zipcode you can get some odd results in South Jersey. Zipcodes are assigned based on post office, not necessarily the town. Sections of Barrington, Haddon Twp. and even Audubon all use a Haddonfield zipcode, but are not in Haddonfield. Making it even more confusing, people can list their address as being Haddonfield, NJ if they have a Haddonfield zipcode and many real estate listings do that.
Haddon Township is the worst as the town encompasses at least five different zip codes:
08033 - Primarily Haddonfield, but includes parts of Haddon Township, Barrington and Audubon.
08059 - Primarily Mount Ephraim, but includes the part of Haddon Township known as "West Collingswood Heights".
08104 - Primarily Camden, but includes small slivers of Haddon Township on the western side of Route 130.
08107 - Primarily Oaklyn, but includes Woodlynne and parts of Haddon Township and Collingswood west of Route 30, aka "West Collingswood".
08108 - Primarily Collingswood, but includes the Westmont section of Haddon Township.
Hi all again, thanks for your thoughts and sorry for the delay. I understand the hesitation regarding buying without knowing whether we'll stay in the area. I guess I'm just not as concerned? We know the costs involved in buying a house. We've been through the process before and were savvy enough to get the 8K first-time home-buyer's credit (which certainly helped with the tax payment that year!).
I actually think we are much better off than most young 30 somethings. We will profit from selling our house. We bought it for 150K and all the comps in the neighborhood are 200+. I'm not counting my chickens before they hatch. Just being realistic. We stand to make a 50K+ profit. So I think given that, and the fact that if you rent (let's argue that $1,500 a month, at the end of the year that's 18,000 a year--just in rent--after two years that's 36K and then when you leave a rental, you don't have any equity). At least with a house you can re-sell. True, property taxes aren't low...that's definitely something to think about.
Anyway, I really don't want to get into the financials/ defend my position here since the financials are our business. I'm just more concerned about realistically what we can get. I agree that it seems that most of the homes are pre-war (I actually like that and don't need the square footage)...
We've been working with a realtor and I've been in touch with mortgage brokers. We can get a good interest rate. Doesn't make sense to rent when we can have a short-term mortgage and pay close to 1,200 a month in our mortgage and then pre-pay the loan down with the proceeds from the sale of the house...
How is re-sale value by the way in the area, btw? There seems to be a good amount of inventory...are people still moving to southern NJ?
Timneh, thanks for the links, I will check them out.
We will be going to see our realtor in the next several weekends so I will update if anyone is interested.
Thanks again, everyone has been really helpful--and I do appreciate the concern! I just don't feel as urgent about paying down student debt...maybe I should...but the low interest rate is keeping me from becoming too alarmed...
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