do you buy or not?

[LaFoto]

We've been house owners for the past 17 years now, and this is the second house we own, sold the first when we moved and bought this one. Sold the first with a huge win on the money we had paid for it 8 years before, that was a lucky move! We'll be done paying back the morgage next year.

That said, I know many a family who rent and don't plan on doing anything else BUT rent for all their lives (or can't get the necessary loans for purchasing their own property/have a house of their own built). Not so much here in the country, though. Most people I know HERE own their houses and land. But it seems like here in Germany you just cannot own as much land around it is you can/do in the States, but it often is more than goes with a house in England.

 

[skieur]

Now see this answer. He asked "what would you pay for say, an average 3 bedroom".

Now, how was skieur specifically answering? What would you pay? Or just a general answer of what someone would pay for an average house.

If you want to look at the average price for homes already built that are for sale, they are first, moderately sized and not overly gigantic McMansions, and they range around $80-150,000.

$80,000 was the price for a semi-detached house (2 houses joined together) 25 years ago. I sold it for $198,000 in 5 years. Two years ago a falling down shack with a questionable water supply and limited electricity was selling for $100,000 on property that probably was not as wide as my house and was used to store garbage by some neighbours.
So you would not find a serious semi-detached or detached house (and my that I mean not a dump in an unpleasant area requiring $50,000 or so in repairs and rennovations) for under $300,000. My daughter paid that for an already built semi-detached house, and my sister was lucky to pay that for an already built very small detached home in a more out-of-the-way location.

Maybe we should all move to where you live mrodgers, if houses are so cheap.

skieur

 

[mrodgers]

Maybe we should all move to where you live mrodgers, if houses are so cheap.

skieur

Sure, you all can come on down. I'm sure you'll be pleasantly surprised when you find out that you're going to have to do it on a $12 an hour job too.

I hope my post didn't look like a stab at you. It looked like you were defending your post from my post. I was just using yours as an example. You simply can not compare housing costs unless you know what the job market is like. My little ole $80k house would probably go for $1 million in some areas in California. Adam Corrola (sp?) did a TV show where he remodeled his father's home to sell it for $1 million. It certainly didn't look much larger than my house.

My quoting your post was just used as an example of how you can not just ask about the "average" house or the "average" price. Like I stated in my post, we have new construction of what some folks call average ranging in the $300-500k price range and they are probably 3500-4000 sq. feet. But, if you look at the 30 year old houses that are around me, they average 1000-1500 sq. feet and range in the $80-150k. Which one do you take as the average? I ignore the rich and the McMansions which are horribly invading my beautiful country setting and look at the housing that is already established, typically 1000-1500 sq. feet as I said, and land usually at 2-20 acres for each.

 

[skieur]

Not at all. You are right that cost of living is more complex than just the cost of housing and that any estimate is a generalization that cannot be applied universally.

Nevertheless, some young people aren't capable of getting an M.B.A. and getting a job at a good salary is the equivalent of wining the lottery which is not likely to happen. They are therefore stuck in the $10 to $15 per hour retail, part time or service industry type positions that don't really go anywhere. Unlike your area they need a lot more than $80K to $150K for a house. Rather they need double that at the high end for even a semi.

I am fortunate not to be in that situation but my 24 year old son is disabled and will probably not be able to handle any job, so he may be living with us for quite a while.

skieur

 

[Trenton Romulox]

Here in Maine, USA, it really depends. Around here, in the middle of the state (heavily wooded, like most of Maine), people usually own their own property, and there only really apartments in downtown of the local city. But when you get down in Southern Maine, where there are more cities, you run into a lot of apartment, condos, stuff like that. But on the coast, the property is expensive, VERY expensive. A few weeks ago I saw an acre of land, just an acre, of just land, for over $2 million. My dad bought our acres for under $5000 a while back, now land on our street is around $250,000-$500,000. So, yeah, most of Maine people own their own property, if they can afford it these days.