OT Society... was Banned from the Garden!--very long

I guess it just goes to show that you cannot compare nation to nation, any
more than you can compare state/province to state/province. The world is a
big place, and generalisation is very inaccurate.

Good luck to you, but remember my earlier post. Things CAN change with time,
for the better hopefully, or for the worse.!! 24 years old, almost 25, I had
just come to the USA on a year's contract to run a lab in a Mass hospital,
and teach in their Med Tech school. Big adventure, and I was glad I was free
to do it; especially being a shy person. Met DH#1 while I was in Mass; we
married, I did the Navy life bit for twenty years, and it was a wonderful
adventure!!! However, when he died after twenty years of marriage, we had
both changed. Still friends, but not the "soulmates" we thought we were.
Time had passed, and interests change. This is all part of growing and
developing, and one always hope you both still on the same track.

A thoughtful introspect

Gillian


"sunflower" wrote in message
...
That sucks We lucked out on our place because we bought it for what
the
previous owners owed on it - if we were to sell right now we could get app
$10 000 more than what we paid for it.

Around here - depending on the condition of the home and it's location -
the
value can either stay the same, go up, or drop.

Sarah
"Gillian Murray" wrote in message
...
That is quite interesting to read you are building equity in your home.
Down
here in Florida, manufactured housing depreciates with time; I know when
it
comes time to sell and move on to the Old Folk's Home, we will NEVER get
back what we paid for the home. In fact, you can't get a Home Equity
loan
on
a manufactured home. I checked into that a couple of years ago, thinking
it
may be cheaper to do that, since we own the house entirely ( we paid
cash),
and use that money to pay off the Bounder loan, which has higher
interest
rates as an RV.

We can always hope that Walmart will offer us an arm and a leg for the
land
the house sits on!!

Gillian

"sunflower" wrote in message
...
There's a HUGE difference thanks. I am building equity in my home.
Renting
does nothing.

Sarah
"Stitch Lady" wrote in message
...
"Caryn" wrote in message
...
But, like I said, when you are paying a mortgage, whether your
house
was
built
or arrived on wheels, the bank owns it! bg

And when you pay rent, the landlord owns it.

And if you live at home, your parents own it.... or the bank.

VBG


Stitch Lady


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"Alison" wrote in message
...
I find this statement (that renting will increase home equity - isn't
that what the 0 equity to 100% equity means?) very confusing. Here in
the US the usual renting situation gives you NO ownership of the
property. And you can't deduct the mortgage interest from your income
taxes. You just keep handing the landlord/owner money and getting
nothing for it (but rent increases.) There are "rent-to-own" or
"lease with option to buy" situations but they are not the usual
thing. Also with rentals you have the problem of qualifying for them
(my friends with 2 dogs and 2 cats had a terrible time finding a
place.) If you're not bound to a community etc. then renting is
probably better. Otherwise, if you can afford it, and can get a
reasonable mortgage payment, I'd ocnsider owning.

Hi Alison,

Sorry to confuse you.

I rent a property. At the same time I save up a lump of cash each week in
the bank. That lump of cash in turn earns me a lump of interest. I do this
until that lump of cash (and interest) equals the cost of a house costing
about 100K or so. I then go buy a house. In the meantime I have spent less
than 15K on rent in a 10 year period saving up. So home ownership costs me
15K for rent, 100K in savings, and not a cent on interest charged on
mortgages and any associated costs, etc. I have no ownership of said rented
property BUT I have got 100% ownership of said 100K house much quicker than
I would with a mortgage. And before (as said before) I hit the big
FOUR-ZERO.

The cost to me over 15 years would 115K in how I am gaining ownership. Oh
and the bank contributed as well in the equation. At last calculation about
5K or so. LOL

The cost to me over 15 years WITH a mortgage for the same 100K house is 175K
or more. And the bank would own the house for the next 15 years. The
interest of a mortgage on a 100K house is about 75K or more.

In my situation I would own 100% equity in that 100K property overnight. I
would have no rent, no mortgage, no debts, no chance of losing the house
because of job loss, nothing, nada, naught.

In the traditional mortgage situation, there is a chance that I get in a
situation of negative equity (which for those who don't know means that the
house is worth less than your mortgage). If I cannot pay because job loss I
could be evicted and loose all money that was paid to date and be left with
only my shirt on my back. And then all you can do is move into rented
property.

And I am saying this because I have a number of friend to whom this happened
so I do know how painful losing your home can be because I had to console
one of those friends while helping her and her family move out. And they
were only 23K away from 100% home ownership but recession (the 1990s one)
meant they both lost good jobs and were unable to get a new job anywhere.
And so they lost their house.

Anyway, I have looked at all the costs involved and renting for a while for
the convenience of it being cheap, saving up like hell and earning interest
rather then paying interest to the bank, and then having the capability of
outright home ownership without a worry on the horizon, is my choice of home
ownership.

And then when you are in that 100K house without debts, a mortgage and
relatively very little cost of living there, you can just start all over
again with saving up and then move up to the 200K house in half the time it
took get in the 100K house. :-))

Oh and the rent increases are minimal in the grander scheme of things.

And my friend.Yes, the one who lost her job. She was able to buy back her
old house late last year without a mortgage or a worry on the horizon. The
can now afford to live on hubby's part time job rather then both of them
having to work full time. Maybe that shows how much cheap this way of
getting home ownership is really. Ten years of both working and then one or
both being able to go part time. Now if you are a designer and doing a full
time job, this message must give you food for thought if you are struggling
between a full time job and running a needlework business. ;-)

And I am gladly taking my friend's example and doing EXACTLY what she is
doing.


Stitch Lady


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"Gillian Murray" wrote in message
...
both changed. Still friends, but not the "soulmates" we thought we were.
Time had passed, and interests change. This is all part of growing and
developing, and one always hope you both still on the same track.

Then my husband and I must be doing really well then. We are still soul
mates after 12 years but we discovered very early on in the marriage that
giving each other breathing space and by listening, we are keeping in love.
Oh we have had our down times in the marriage, but that was always followed
soon with sincere apologies.

Shania Twain's You're Still The One is our song.

We did (and are still) beating the odds with family, friends, life. Our
family said from day one "it will never last".

We both grow and develop and we are under no illusion that marriages can
end. Both our parents are divorced. But maybe that knowledge makes us more
determined to keep going forward together. There are things one cannot know
and understand unless one has been a teen and have seen a marriage break-up
between the parents (whether amicable or not).

If you have kids, they probably agree to a degree with me.

My parents divorced when I was a teen. I vowed back then that I would get in
a similar situation. But as said, I am not blind to life and if one day it
has to end it will end.

But one thing I am happy about and that is that I did not marry someone
abusive.

Oh and he will swoop me of my feet and passionately kiss me in public.
:-)))))


Stitch Lady


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The other advantage of a house with property is THE LAND. Even if a fire
were to go through our area (not so much "if" as "when"), we would still own
the land. If we had to, we could put a RV or tent on the property while we
built another house. If an apartment complex burns down, the residents are
homeless. I realize that some people don't want all the "stuff" that goes
with owning a home. There are definite advantages to being able to "call
the Super" when something goes wrong. :-))) If I didn't have such a
mechanically inclined DH, an apartment or Mobile/Manufactured home would be
much more tempting. :-))
Liz from Humbug

Therefore, it looks very like we will be paying less on the
1,900 foot square house than we are paying for the 900 square foot apartment.
The price of the house, by the way, also includes 1/2 acres of wooded land.

Remember, the owner of the apartment has a mortgage -- and is very unlikely to
take less in rent than his mortgage costs him/her, unless there are very
strict
government rent controls that hold rental prices down or the rental unit is
part of public housing. Yes, a home owner could lose all their equity, but a
renter could go through any savings pretty darn fast, too, all things being
equal.

Katrina L.

--

I wish that was always true. My last apartment required leases in terms
of one year. Every time you renewed, you had to do it in one year
increments. If you moved out early, you had to continue paying the rent
AND the utilities for the remainder of the lease unless someone else
moved in. I got socked for three months when I moved to marry DH and I
was livid since they wouldn't let me try to work anything else out or
sublet.

In a way I'm laughing at that apartment complex now. They raised
prices, fees, and fines to hideous levels while I lived there. Since I
moved away the university has torn out old apartments, built some lovely
new apartments, built a couple of new dorms, and renovated a not-so-old
dorm. The city also dropped that particular apartment complex from the
bus route and there are no sidewalks in that part of town so walking to
the nearest stop is difficult. The owner (some out-of-town
conglomerate) let the building go to rot. I noticed (from their
website) that they've had to decrease rents by about $70/month since I
left and they appear desperate for tenants. I expect prices will
continue to plummet and they won't be able to be selective about
lessees. The only good thing about the building was my apartment was
large (about 1400 sq. ft.--larger than my current house) and had a
walk-in closet which was at least as large as the kitchen.

emerald wrote:
As a renter I can hand back the keys and walk away with 30 days notice.

--
Brenda Lewis
WIP: J. Himsworth "I Shall Not Want" xs
J & P Coats "Dancing Snoopy" latchhook

Hi Stitch Lady,
I was wondering where you are? My husband I are thinking of moving,
and it sounds like you live in a reasonable area. 5 years ago it cost
more to rent here than buy. Our mortgage was 1000 and the rent was 1200. Now
that we are in a recession that has changed. The rent would be 900
today, which still is very little savings over the mortgage. Your
method of saving sounds great, except everything is so expensive here
it wouldn't work, so we'd like to move where it would.
-Margaret


Stitch Lady ) wrote:
: "Alison" wrote in message
: ...
: I find this statement (that renting will increase home equity - isn't
: that what the 0 equity to 100% equity means?) very confusing. Here in
: the US the usual renting situation gives you NO ownership of the
: property. And you can't deduct the mortgage interest from your income
: taxes. You just keep handing the landlord/owner money and getting
: nothing for it (but rent increases.) There are "rent-to-own" or
: "lease with option to buy" situations but they are not the usual
: thing. Also with rentals you have the problem of qualifying for them
: (my friends with 2 dogs and 2 cats had a terrible time finding a
: place.) If you're not bound to a community etc. then renting is
: probably better. Otherwise, if you can afford it, and can get a
: reasonable mortgage payment, I'd ocnsider owning.

: Hi Alison,

: Sorry to confuse you.

: I rent a property. At the same time I save up a lump of cash each week in
: the bank. That lump of cash in turn earns me a lump of interest. I do this
: until that lump of cash (and interest) equals the cost of a house costing
: about 100K or so. I then go buy a house. In the meantime I have spent less
: than 15K on rent in a 10 year period saving up. So home ownership costs me
: 15K for rent, 100K in savings, and not a cent on interest charged on
: mortgages and any associated costs, etc. I have no ownership of said rented
: property BUT I have got 100% ownership of said 100K house much quicker than
: I would with a mortgage. And before (as said before) I hit the big
: FOUR-ZERO.

: The cost to me over 15 years would 115K in how I am gaining ownership. Oh
: and the bank contributed as well in the equation. At last calculation about
: 5K or so. LOL

: The cost to me over 15 years WITH a mortgage for the same 100K house is 175K
: or more. And the bank would own the house for the next 15 years. The
: interest of a mortgage on a 100K house is about 75K or more.

: In my situation I would own 100% equity in that 100K property overnight. I
: would have no rent, no mortgage, no debts, no chance of losing the house
: because of job loss, nothing, nada, naught.

: In the traditional mortgage situation, there is a chance that I get in a
: situation of negative equity (which for those who don't know means that the
: house is worth less than your mortgage). If I cannot pay because job loss I
: could be evicted and loose all money that was paid to date and be left with
: only my shirt on my back. And then all you can do is move into rented
: property.

: And I am saying this because I have a number of friend to whom this happened
: so I do know how painful losing your home can be because I had to console
: one of those friends while helping her and her family move out. And they
: were only 23K away from 100% home ownership but recession (the 1990s one)
: meant they both lost good jobs and were unable to get a new job anywhere.
: And so they lost their house.

: Anyway, I have looked at all the costs involved and renting for a while for
: the convenience of it being cheap, saving up like hell and earning interest
: rather then paying interest to the bank, and then having the capability of
: outright home ownership without a worry on the horizon, is my choice of home
: ownership.

: And then when you are in that 100K house without debts, a mortgage and
: relatively very little cost of living there, you can just start all over
: again with saving up and then move up to the 200K house in half the time it
: took get in the 100K house. :-))

: Oh and the rent increases are minimal in the grander scheme of things.

: And my friend.Yes, the one who lost her job. She was able to buy back her
: old house late last year without a mortgage or a worry on the horizon. The
: can now afford to live on hubby's part time job rather then both of them
: having to work full time. Maybe that shows how much cheap this way of
: getting home ownership is really. Ten years of both working and then one or
: both being able to go part time. Now if you are a designer and doing a full
: time job, this message must give you food for thought if you are struggling
: between a full time job and running a needlework business. ;-)

: And I am gladly taking my friend's example and doing EXACTLY what she is
: doing.


: Stitch Lady


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: Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com).
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--
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
\\ o o
|\/ o\ o
o Margaret St. John
|/\ / Let it snow!! http://www.oswego.edu/~es_ind04
/// "There is such a thing as a stupid question.
Its the one that is never asked." - MMS
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Stitch Lady wrote:

I rent a property. At the same time I save up a lump of cash each week in
the bank. That lump of cash in turn earns me a lump of interest. I do this
until that lump of cash (and interest) equals the cost of a house costing
about 100K or so. I then go buy a house. In the meantime I have spent less
than 15K on rent in a 10 year period saving up. So home ownership costs me
15K for rent, 100K in savings, and not a cent on interest charged on
mortgages and any associated costs, etc. I have no ownership of said rented
property BUT I have got 100% ownership of said 100K house much quicker than
I would with a mortgage. And before (as said before) I hit the big
FOUR-ZERO.

I'm not disagreeing with your choice, but I'd like to point out that
you've left something out of your calculation. You pay rent, which
makes you nothing, even though you don't pay interest. You have
savings, which make you interest, but not a lot in this market. But
what about the opportunity cost of your savings?

We pay a mortgage on which we paid (until recently) 7.9% interest. We
got a tax break on that interest, so the real cost was less. And we
have some savings, on which we make 2% interest. So the cost of my
morgage interest was somewhere around 9% (what I was paying plus what I
lost). BUT, I invested $17,000 in this house as a down payment and over
4 years the house has increased in value by $110,000, which is a
significant return on my investment, and far more than that money would
make me in the bank. And even if you want to argue that it is
unrealized because I haven't sold, I can tell you that I've done it
before. I invested $7000 in a house in Indiana which I sold for $20,000
more than the purchase price (doubling my money in 7 years) and $9,000
on a house in Ohio which I sold for $11,000 more than the purchase
price. Ok, not as good, but I took $20,000 from the sale because I got
back the principal that I had paid into it.

More importantly, around here, rent costs just as much as a mortgage.
So I can pay $1200 in rent and have little left over to save, or I can
pay $1200 in mortgage and have equity in my house to go with the little
I have left over to save. A lot depends on the market in which one
lives. If you can rent for a lot less than a mortgage, your plan makes
sense. Where I live, it wouldn't work.

Many people like owning their house outright and that is good for them.
My father always told me that in a good market, a mortgage is cheap
money: it's available at low interest and you get a tax break on it
(plus without our mortgage, we wouldn't bother to itemize, but I had
$16,000 in deductions last year). If you know what you are doing, you
can almost always make more on the stock market than you pay in interest
on your mortgage and it makes sense to have the cash available to
invest. In the current situtation, that's not necessarily so, but it's
something to think about.

Elizabeth
--
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~living well is the best revenge~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
The most important thing one woman can do for another is to illuminate
and expand her sense of actual possibilities. --Adrienne Rich
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*barnacle-encrusted bitch~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Dr. Brat wrote:
We pay a mortgage on which we paid (until recently) 7.9% interest. We
got a tax break on that interest, so the real cost was less. And we
have some savings, on which we make 2% interest. So the cost of my
morgage interest was somewhere around 9% (what I was paying plus what I
lost). BUT, I invested $17,000 in this house as a down payment and over
4 years the house has increased in value by $110,000, which is a
significant return on my investment, and far more than that money would
make me in the bank. And even if you want to argue that it is
unrealized because I haven't sold, I can tell you that I've done it
before. I invested $7000 in a house in Indiana which I sold for $20,000
more than the purchase price (doubling my money in 7 years) and $9,000
on a house in Ohio which I sold for $11,000 more than the purchase
price. Ok, not as good, but I took $20,000 from the sale because I got
back the principal that I had paid into it.

Ok. I'll let you correct me. But in my head (and I KNOW I have fuzzy
math logic), the missing equation here is:
Even though your house increased in value, so did identical houses. So
you didn't win. In fact, to upgrade (which used to be why one
bought/sold through the years), would cost you more.

You can win this game if you move to a part of the country where housing
is less cost than your current location. Or, you can lose lots if you
move where housing is much higher than your present home.

I went round and round some years ago with a guy with a PhD in finance.
Talk about having my brain fry in 10 seconds. grin But he agreed
with me. The ONLY way to win financially [home ownership] over the long
haul is to stay put and pay off the mortgage as quickly as possible.
One extra mortgage payment a year can cut as much as 7 years off the
life of a mortgage.

We're sitting in a situation (not uncommon these days) wherein we put
$45K in the house and by the time the realtors get through and the
"negotiations" get through, we'll lose about $15K. Yes, we'll have cash
in our pocket, but we'll lose. The market just hasn't kept up, and we
haven't been able to live here long enough to appreciate any inflation.

Dianne

I just got back from a year and a half of renting in Florida and for me
there is no comparison between renting and owning regardfless of cost.
Renting in Florida WAS more expensive than the mortgage on my home in Ohio
but other than that renting was very restrictive in terms of what you want
to do.
Can't plant a flower except in a pot, can't have a bird feeder, can't keep a
BBQ or a bike on your balcony, all kinds of restrictions about what you can
or cannot do inside your apt., noise level outside was horrendous (why can't
they use mowere and sweepers that make less noise?) Partiers outside every
night till 1 or 2 in the morning, 500.00 a yr extra to own a pet-even a bird
or a fish tank- I could go on and on.
Freedom - in your own home is wonderful. Paint the walls purple if you like!
"Brenda Lewis" wrote in message
...
I wish that was always true. My last apartment required leases in terms
of one year. Every time you renewed, you had to do it in one year
increments. If you moved out early, you had to continue paying the rent
AND the utilities for the remainder of the lease unless someone else
moved in. I got socked for three months when I moved to marry DH and I
was livid since they wouldn't let me try to work anything else out or
sublet.

In a way I'm laughing at that apartment complex now. They raised
prices, fees, and fines to hideous levels while I lived there. Since I
moved away the university has torn out old apartments, built some lovely
new apartments, built a couple of new dorms, and renovated a not-so-old
dorm. The city also dropped that particular apartment complex from the
bus route and there are no sidewalks in that part of town so walking to
the nearest stop is difficult. The owner (some out-of-town
conglomerate) let the building go to rot. I noticed (from their
website) that they've had to decrease rents by about $70/month since I
left and they appear desperate for tenants. I expect prices will
continue to plummet and they won't be able to be selective about
lessees. The only good thing about the building was my apartment was
large (about 1400 sq. ft.--larger than my current house) and had a
walk-in closet which was at least as large as the kitchen.

emerald wrote:
As a renter I can hand back the keys and walk away with 30 days notice.

--
Brenda Lewis
WIP: J. Himsworth "I Shall Not Want" xs
J & P Coats "Dancing Snoopy" latchhook

Brenda Lewis wrote:
I cringe whenever I hear about someone living in a trailer park. Then
again, I grew up in tornado country and they seemed to target trailers
where there is little/no protection from the storm. Midwesterners from
several states refer to trailer parks as 'tornado magnets' and the
damage is usually devastating. Since Nova Scotia isn't a hotbed for
tornadic activity, I suppose it isn't such a concern there.

Just a note here, from a "weather-interested" person (ie SkyWarn
weather spotter for the National Weather Service). Tornados don't
target trailer parks anymore than they target farms. It's just that
trailer parks are traditionally located in flat, treeless areas where
tornados have a more of a tendancy to stay on the ground. Now, the
damage caused by a tornado going through a trailer park is horrific,
mostly because most trailers are not built to withstand the wind force
(where more foundation-based homes are).

My husband and I had the misfortune to help clean up a tornado ravaged
area here in Minnesota in 1998. Our job was to clean up the field next
to the "town trailer park". When assigned, we were told we'd be
working in 3 hour shifts. I thought that was much to short a time to
do anything productive. In a sense I was right. We didn't get much
cleaned up, but our morale was definately at an all time low after 3
hours. Picking insulation out of bushes without an end in sight is
very very depressing.

---
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Stepp-Aweau / Primitive Santa - ??

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