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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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Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
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.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
I have house envy.
So, Phil and I are the only ones out of our group of friends in Canada that don't own a house... And I'm TOTALLY jealous of all my friends who own their own places! We love out apartment, but always meant for our time in Toronto to be temporary... We're now into our 4th year here! So... for those of you who are owners, can I ask, what percent did you put down on your place? How much of your monthly income to you spend on it? I just want to have a place that I can fix up and call home, you know?
Re: I have house envy.
Our Blog
My Planning Blog updated 8/2009
Can't answer your questions cause I have house envy as well. Living overseas and constantly moving every 2-3 years doesn't make for a good home buying environment. Still... MH and I want to buy a house at our next location but who knows where that will be, whether or not we can afford something and whether or not it's a place we want ties to (such as a house we have to have rented or even sold when we leave).
We put 25% down on our last house but only because we made a profit selling the house my DH had before. As a first time home buyer, most people put 5% down. As for percentage of income, the rule of thumb is that you should not spend more than 33.3% of what you make a month on your mortgage. You also have to factor in property tax. We live in Alberta and our property tax in almost $3000 a year.
It's expensive to have your own home but it is so much fun! Hope you guys can find something and make it your own. Oh and make sure you start another blog on home renovation if you go that route!!!
Alyson & Phil | Planning Bio | Married Bio!
Dates & Quinces Blog
I think in the US it is pretty common to put 5% (or less) down on your first home. Although that might be the norm lots of people don't think that is very financially sound, we did about that - but I also qualify for a program that doesn't require mortgage insurance, so that factored in and we rushed into things. About 1/4 of our take home (after taxes and retirement contributions) goes towards our mortgage+taxes+insurance. We are purposely conservative b/c I'm always nervous about my job (it's political) and we wanted more income to put towards expenses for children and travel, etc. Now that the housing market tanked I think we could even have done better, but I LOVE our house. So again, we rushed into things and probably would have been better off by waiting to save more down payment and buying when home prices were lower. Oh, well. We have been here >2 years and have had lots of fun and it's nice to know we are chipping away at equity.
All that said, if you think you are going to move or are just shopping because you feel like it's the next logical step then I would really think about it. We have 2 different couple friends that are from out of state and live here now. One of them bought a house about 3 years ago just because they thought it was the right thing to do and would be fun/better than apt. living. They now want to move back to FL and have had their home on the market for almost a year. I don't think they have any hope of selling it and now feel stuck. Another couple have lived here for almost 4 years and still haven't bought a house and have confided that they are sooo happy they are still able to be mobile, because although they like it here and have good jobs, they still go back and forth about making this their forever home and can't imagine what it must feel like to be stuck because of a home. For us it was different because we knew we planned to live here forever (or at least a very long time) and raise our children in this town so we don't feel back that we hurried into things.