Won the bid on a 900k house and now I feel sick

[Anonymous]

If you do your homework, you can refinance to lower your mortgage.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^^^ However, also, you couldn't pay me to live in North Arlington. So there is that.

Why are there so many posts having non sequitur attacks on No Arlington like the thread about moving to dream home with bad schools; some mentioned an example of how people move once kids are school age from Alexandria to Arlngton (just an example) and people piles in saying private would be better than Arlington

Unclench people.

Sorry you're offended but lots of folks avoid Arlington like the plague.

Such idiotic hyperbole. You're have delusions of grandeur or something; you are an outlier and seem to believe you are the norm. Weird.

He or she isn't an outlier. The majority of people who own a home in the DC metro area do not live in Arlington.

[Anonymous]

OP That is a big mortgage for your income! And i am not as conservative as others on DCUM.

All that said please check in. There are 10 pages of replies but it looks like you posted and went away.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here's the situation- my husband and I are all cramped up in a two bedroom one bath condo in Arlington with two kids. We have been saving every dime living here. Our goal/dream has been to buy a house in north Arlington. We have been looking and looking recently. My oldest is 4 and ideally we want to be some where in the next year. Unfortunately, all of the homes in north Arlington between 8-850 are okay but some are still kind of small. My husband saw an awesome house for 900 and said I think we can do this. What?? We both do okay---220k combined! But, on paper it does appear we might be able to do this. we put in a bid and won. I do love the house. It's amazing--but now I'm totally freaking out. A mortgage of 4,100 seems huge. We have done budget after budget and it will be tight with childcare. If we back out now we loose the earnest deposit. Do real people do this and make it work? I'm so scared of making a bad financial decision.

I was you in 2011. Now, after accumulating too much credit card debt, we are probably going to put the house on the market and downsize to someplace with a lower cost of living. Being house poor is soul crushing.

Good idea. Sell high.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yeah,it might be tough sledding for a bit, but that 900000 will soon be 1.7 million. This is Arlington, and prices are never going down again. So you made a reasonable move.

How old are you? Do you really think real estate only ever appreciates?

Seriously. People have VERY short memories. Don't worry, this time it's different (say realtors and federal banks).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

I looked at a few places in Arlington before I settled on my place in DC.

I bought in 2008, and even then I couldn't understand Arlington. You're paying high prices for a house in a neighborhood that looks like the ghetto. Yes, I understand that the schools are good, but where I come from - the ghetto looks like Arlington. The fact that the gas from my car was stolen while it was parked overnight in one of the nice neighborhoods in Arlington made me see it in a worse liight.

And now normal houses in Arlington are $1M??! It's madness.

My neighborhood, Country Club Hills, looks much like the area we moved from in upper NW DC. Either you never ventured outside of Route 50 in your home search, or you don't know what the meaning of "ghetto" is. In any event, I have happily enjoyed a tripling of my home value since we purchased, our safe neighborhoods and excellent schools. The general increase in Arlington's livability over the past decade (bike ability, walkability, etc.) is just icing on the cake.

Don't you know?? North Arlington homes will be appreciating at 7-10 percent per year for life. Do the math it's totally sustainable. Your home values that are driven by 7 years of ZIRP will never drop. Buy that million dollar home before it's 10 million and out of reach for everyone, including the stretchers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^^^ However, also, you couldn't pay me to live in North Arlington. So there is that.

Why are there so many posts having non sequitur attacks on No Arlington like the thread about moving to dream home with bad schools; some mentioned an example of how people move once kids are school age from Alexandria to Arlngton (just an example) and people piles in saying private would be better than Arlington

Unclench people.

Sorry you're offended but lots of folks avoid Arlington like the plague.

Such idiotic hyperbole. You're have delusions of grandeur or something; you are an outlier and seem to believe you are the norm. Weird.

You're so bothered.

[Anonymous]

An

onymous wrote:
I'd be ill, too! We are financially conservative and live well below our means (HHI $240K +), kept our mortgage at $417K.


I suppose I'll play your game.

Are you bragging about buying a $417k house after putting down $600k as a downpayment?

Lol... No. Purchase price was $580. We don't like to keep liquid assets tied up in real estate so we just put down enough to keep the mortgage at the $417 level. Like I said, we are financially conservative and prefer to spend our money on other things.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, in the absolute worst case that you realize down the road you truly can't afford the house, a well-maintained house in that price range will sell very easily in North Arlington. It's not like you're buying a townhouse in Ashburn and then you can't sell it when they build a few hundred more a mile away.

That was my thought. And it will go for 1.3 million,at least, in a few months or weeks. Or days.

I agree, go for it!!! You can turn around and sell at a profit if need be.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^^^ However, also, you couldn't pay me to live in North Arlington. So there is that.

Why are there so many posts having non sequitur attacks on No Arlington like the thread about moving to dream home with bad schools; some mentioned an example of how people move once kids are school age from Alexandria to Arlngton (just an example) and people piles in saying private would be better than Arlington

Unclench people.

Sorry you're offended but lots of folks avoid Arlington like the plague.

Such idiotic hyperbole. You're have delusions of grandeur or something; you are an outlier and seem to believe you are the norm. Weird.

He or she isn't an outlier. The majority of people who own a home in the DC metro area do not live in Arlington.

LOL. Yup and they are ALL crazy Arlington haters.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP That is a big mortgage for your income! And i am not as conservative as others on DCUM.

All that said please check in. There are 10 pages of replies but it looks like you posted and went away.

+1

Sounds very tight.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP That is a big mortgage for your income! And i am not as conservative as others on DCUM.

All that said please check in. There are 10 pages of replies but it looks like you posted and went away.

+1

Sounds very tight.

I agree as well. The earnest deposit is not worth losing flexibility. If you stay in the house, you are committing to doing whatever it is you are doing for at least the next 5-10 years. If thats okay with you then fine.

I am currently going through something similar. I recently bough in MoCo. Even though we make good money, our mortgage is definitely too high, and now with two kids under 5, we have to pay 2x daycare, which is another mortgage. We do not max out anymore and finances after 2x daycare and huge mortgage are tight. If I could do it over, I would have bough half the house, or simply just rented until both kids became school aged. You definitely want to have a 6-8month oh sh*T fund (something we can't save for right now timely) and you want to have at least 1% reserve for annual expenses for a home.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP That is a big mortgage for your income! And i am not as conservative as others on DCUM.

All that said please check in. There are 10 pages of replies but it looks like you posted and went away.

+1

Sounds very tight.

I agree as well. The earnest deposit is not worth losing flexibility. If you stay in the house, you are committing to doing whatever it is you are doing for at least the next 5-10 years. If thats okay with you then fine.

I am currently going through something similar. I recently bough in MoCo. Even though we make good money, our mortgage is definitely too high, and now with two kids under 5, we have to pay 2x daycare, which is another mortgage. We do not max out anymore and finances after 2x daycare and huge mortgage are tight. If I could do it over, I would have bough half the house, or simply just rented until both kids became school aged. You definitely want to have a 6-8month oh sh*T fund (something we can't save for right now timely) and you want to have at least 1% reserve for annual expenses for a home.

If it helps, we did this 8 years ago. It sucked for a while but it was worth it. We would never have been able to afford the home we bought and while we had some idea that we would want a lot more space when the kids got older, we didnt know exactly how important it would be. My kids are 11 & 14 stretching ourselves for a bigger home in a good location was completely worth it. Now we no longer have daycare, save a really good amount and our income has grown (not signicantly, but definitely enough). If we hadn't stretched definitely would not be as happy as we are today.

[Anonymous]

Meh. I make double the OP'S income and have the same mortgage. I certainly would not carry the debt load she has and daycare. No kids? Sure. College alone, we pack away $800/mo and that MIGHT cover our 2 kids for 4 years each.

401k? We max that out at a combined 36k/yr.

I feel like making what the OP makes on up is a gift not to be squandered. What a shame.

[Anonymous]

we make 220k combined too and are looking at a max mortgage of 550k--its hard in this area. We have 3 kids, including special needs and associated expenses, but its all the other stuff too that adds up. I thought we'd have some huge relief when daycare/nanny days are over, but it just goes into college fund, summer camp, and the incredibly amount of food they eat (or waste)