November 2008 Weddings
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Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
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AACK Property TAX
God, I am such a complainer lately, sorry!
So, I talked to some lenders yesterday. The good news is: I totally qualify for $350,000 houses...
but the bad news is pretty bad...the monthy payment is $2,600 with insurance, taxes and PMI. WTF? This is mainly due to property taxes. Property Tax in Anaheim is like $6,000. That's Cah-razy
We SO can't afford that. We pay $1600 for rent now...and that's comfy for us.
So, homeowners...do you pay your tax monthly, or annually?
I think we may need to look in Santa Ana where the property tax is 1/2 that. Still a lot of dough. And I will totally call it Sa Nta A Na.
Re: AACK Property TAX
Ditto... with our mortgage and monthly, I believe.
Wow-that seems quite high!
First off congrats on pre-qualifying for a house! WE qualified for waaaaay more then what we wanted to spend. So its good you have an idea of what your goal is for monthly payments. You can ask your mortgage person to work the numbers to figure out how much house would equal those monthly payments with all the tax and ins included. Thats what we did so we knew what amount of house $$ wise to focus on.
Its worked into our monthly mortgage payment along with our insurance. Taxes are done twice a year here, or thats how our account was set up. We just got a notice that our escrow account just paid 6 months worth of property taxes for us.
I dont think you *have* to have them taken out monthly, you can probably elect to take care of them yourself, but I just find it easier to be done for us.
Seriously our mortgages is only like $500 but after you add tax, ins and PMI we pay $815 a month!
That sounds like so much! I know ours is a lot too, but I don't know the exact number
(DH handles all the house stuff, and I lost track when they started raising everything). If it makes you feel any better...DH's family on Long Island has property taxes that now exceed $10,000 
.
Ditto Agent, ours is lumped into our monthly mortgage and is paid from escrow twice a year.
Definitely go with the monthly payment (incl. all those extras) that you and J are comfy with. GL! The home search is rewarding, but really frustrating at the same time!
YOU PAY $815 A MONTH?!?!?!?! Holy crap I wish we could find a way to get out of our house. I am pretty sure that yours is newer than ours too! And doesnt break every five minutes.
Ours is worked into our mortgage payments that we pay monthly.
Property taxes our outrageoulsy low here as are houses. Our entire mortgage payment is $685 with taxes built in. That is for a 1400 square foot home with new carpet, central air, etc. Its old as dirt (1895) but thats the norm in this neighborhood.
We calculated it and the mortgage we would pay if we moved out of the ghetto wouldn't be more than $800. Sometimes living in BFE Iowa isn't so bad.
Crazy huh! I always feel bad/guilty when I talk to people who bought their houses a couple years ago when everything was out of control.
Our house was built in 1970. So it has some issues but nothing urgent, just needs new windows and a roof badly...but its holdin gup and will have to for a while.
It was bank owned, they were asking 120...we got it down to 112, And we got a 5% intrest rate.
Had the housing market not crashed like it did, we so would still be renting. We didnt even think buying a hosue would happen for us until at least 5 years down the line. Then DH's dad sat us down and said YOU MUST BUY. We jsut had the wedding and pretty much all the money we got in gifts paid for our down payment. We are extremly lucky and acknowledge it on a daily basis.
Every time we watch house hunters or property virgins and its some place like Arizona or Iowa, J just wants to shoot himself. All-inclusive Mortgages under $1,000? In our dreams. Southern California is SO expensive. But we are stuck here. Job, Family, familiarity, etc.
I can't even get a one-bedroom condo for $100K here. Who am I kidding? I can't get a one-bedroom condo for $200K here. $350K is about the starting price for houses that you can just move in to. I might be able to find a fixer-upper for $250K, but we're talking missing drywall here.
And My doggies and babies need a yard!
We pay more on rent... In the middle of nowhere. Sigh...
Ours is built into the mortgage payment...our monthly total is about $1300 for mortgage, insurance, and tax.
The tax rate you mentioned is steep - but not too obscene from what I've sen in BFE MN. Houses here that sell for about 350K have annual taxes between $4000 and $5500 and that is for the frozen tundra (Its more if you live on lakefront property too).
I hope you can find something nice that you can afford comfortably. I am so thankful that we are in a smaller house that was cheaper b/c with me out of work now - we'd be screwed on making payments.
TTC #1 13 cycles, CP 6/09, TTC #2 1 cycle
CDing, EP'd for 13 months for #1, BFing for #2
Pregnancy Hypertension - inductions at 39w, I grow big babies: DD was 9 pounds 1 ounce 22 inches, DS was 11 pounds even 22 inches - both vaginal deliveries
Yikes Dani that suuuuuuuucks
Have you guys though about just walking away? It sucks to think about doing...Do you see yourselves staying there forever? You would have to rebuild your credit if you walked....but being that upside down really blows.
We actually are trying to figure out what to do right now. we were denied a mortgage adjustment because we do pay our mortgage, so we are thinking about not paying it and if that doeasnt work then maybe walk away. It does suck, badly, but we dont know what to do. We would love to downsize (esp considering my job situation), the only way we could do that is to walk away,, then it would take us years to be able to buy again. It is a lot to try to figure out with a baby on the way.
The majority of new mortgages will require you to escrow the property taxes in. So you will pay monthly, that portion will sit in an escrow account, and the bank will pay the taxes when they come due. Around here, we pay them semi-annually, we just paid a boatload of property taxes, because they're all due 12/20.
So sorry you're facing a rough search for affordable housing. I would look into short sales in your area, the process takes longer, but you will probably get a better house for less money.
We were paying $1300 rent in Denver and Wyoming. In Wyoming we got a lot less house for the same money. Here we pay $550 a month, and could buy the house for about $50K. Problem is, I don't want to buy this house. I'm already talking to my realtor co-worker about finding us a better place to rent!
1) You are not allowed to move to Santa Ana. Sorry.
2) Move to south county and I will babysit so J can go back to work. My babysitter just told me she is moving in less than 2 weeks . . .
Same here.
We are havign the same issues.... property taxes at the houses we have been looking at range from 3k to 6k . We plan to have them in the monthly mortgage payments.
We originally were planing on having a monthly mortgage payment of $1500, but since we started looking we decided on going into the $1800 to $2000 range. We have been pre approved for a 4.875 interst rate (thank the lord), but with all the other things lumped into mortgages we had to raise our budget.
Also, to give you an Idea of things here in Philly, we are looking at houses in the range of $225-$300k. And, let em add these houses are no gems. Usually fixer uppers and small. SUCKS.Infact, this whole house thing is very depressing.
We pay ours every month...I would HATE to have to come up with $3000 at the end of the year! It makes it soo much easier!