Buying a house with job uncertainty, better to pay cash?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If I were buying a house and I was not confident in my employment, I would keep my money out of the house.

Exactly. Having access to cay if things go south is what you want. Very worst case you walk away from the house.

Don't they have access to the amount you owe if you "walk away from the house"? Can't they sue you?

They foreclose. They get the house.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you're in the market for a house and have the cash available to pay it completely off and not have a mortgage, would you? We have almost enough outside of retirement funds to buy the house we want in cash (if we liquidated brokerage and after paying capital gains taxes) but would be pretty wiped out besides our 401k and IRAs. We have high income but work in tech with constant layoffs. We are both mid 30s.

Wasting money on interest and amoritization is so painful. Cash out.

Some will say, and rightly so, you could make more holding onto money if you got a good interest rate or investment return and low mortgage rates, but that requires more constant work and risk.

[Anonymous]

Rent out your basement.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If your job is not secure, why would you buy a new house now?

Well… our jobs have never been secure. Does this mean we should never buy a house?

My thinking is without a mortgage we can greatly reduce the fear that comes with a potential job loss. If we mortgage ourselves with only 20% down our total expenses are more than 10k a month. Without a mortgage we could get this down to 3-4k a month if we really had to cut back. It’s way easier to find ways to earn 3-4k than 10-15k if something happens to our jobs.

New poster. If you're unsure, maybe put 50% down, or more, so you have a small enough mortgage you feel more comfortable, but still have cash to get through 12 months without a job. Then reevaluate in a year or whenever you feel things are more stable.