If you earn 4000 per month in USA, are you able to buy your own house? A house/apartment of 3 bed rooms ? How much does it cost in places like suburb of New York, Boston, Chicago ?
Yeah, as Nirakar points out, with that kind of income, IF you have the proper/correct initial capital (down payment and other essential monetary outlays), you can probably buy a house almost anywhere in the USA ..including New York City and La Jolla, CA! Baron Max
A townhouse would be most affordable. I believe that's what they call a "row house" in England. It's like several houses squeezed together sideways into one long building with separate entrances. The space is yours from the roof to the basement. You have front and back doors and windows to the outside, but you share your side walls with a neighbor on each side. You might have a garage. You will have a tiny front yard and a small back yard (400 square feet = 160 square meters). You might have a garage. A three-bedroom townhouse in the nicer suburbs, ten to fifteen miles (15-25km) from a large, prosperous American city would cost between $250,000 and $400,000. The buyer would typically make a 20% "down payment" (cash). So the mortgage would be $200,000 to $320,000. The interest rate would be approximately 5%. So for a 30-year mortgage, the monthly payment would be $1,000 to $1,600. If the family is a husband with a job, a wife who stays home (both 30 years old), and one child, monthly expenses would be approximately: Taxes 400 Food 600 Transportation 500 Insurance 200 Medical 100 Clothing 100 Utilities (Water, Electricity, Telephone, etc.) 400 Entertainment 100 Other 200 That leaves $1,400 for the mortgage payment. So the answer is yes, the family would be able to afford a house that cost $350,000, if they have saved $70,000 for the down payment. If they have less cash, they would have a problem. The interest rate would be higher, but they could probably buy a townhouse for $250,000. In some regions that would require them to live further from the city or in a less desirable neighborhood.
????? That's a pretty ignorant "blanket" statement!! There are all kinds of homes that one can buy in the US, in market ranges from the "slum ghetto" all the way up to the "multi-gazillionaire" homes. To say that it's "too costly to buy a house in the USA" is nothing short of total ignorance of the vast and varied housing market! Baron Max
I wouldn't buy anything here. That's for sure. I haven't seen a house yet that is build to last (florida). (not that I can afford it of course) (not that I am going to stay here of course)
There are many homes built in Florida that can withstand severe hurricanes, etc. Unless, of course, "build to last" means "forever" or "for eternity"??? Reinforced concrete works well for the exterior walls and roofs. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Baron Max
And build a domed home instead of a square one to withstand all those darn hurricanes and it's also highly fire-resistant. All I can say though is that there's some crazy ass price increases for homes. Ours went up $300k. Someone I know bought a home last year for 800k, and now it's worth 1.7M. Freakin insane. Unless you're rich or are somehow having a home being given down to you from your parents or something, good luck getting one here cause it's ridiculous! Oh, and if it's given down to you, keep yourself grandfathered in for Prop 13 to save a buttload on property tax. - N
$4000 a month is enough money. Just live poor for a while and save $20,000 for a down payment. Chicago is cheaper than Boston and New York. Median single family home is only $260,000 there. Good stats for all metro areas: http://money.cnn.com/pf/features/lists/nar_2q05/
??? Quality? What's not "quality" about reinforced concrete? I mean, if ye're talkin' about how it looks, you can cover it with anything that you might consider as "quality" and hide all that "un-quality". As you can tell, I don't fully understand your use of the word "quality" as a negative for concrete construction. Some of the most admired buildings/structures in the world are made of reinforced concrete (then covered with, say, marble or granite or ..solid gold sheets!). Baron Max
I am from malaysia, i just plan to work for 10 years in USA, rent house, save money, then come back to malaysia to buy properties, properties in USA are too costly.
$4,000 per month is PLENTY of income to get a nice big 3 bedroom house with some land, at least in Oregon. In New York, you're screwed, but potential income there is higher. I assume that's $4,000 after taxes?
++ to spidergoat's comment. I don't make that much, and I own a three bedroom rowhome (end unit) in the far west suburbs of Philadelphia. There are many cheaper areas in the nation, and few more expensive ones. My mortage payment is ~$900 per month, rent around here for a ONE bedroom apartment is about $950. I do have to cover taxes, home insurance, and maintinance, so my monthly outlay is roughly $1250. Keep in mind, though, that the interest is tax deductable (up to $500k in interest per year, thanks to the new US budget revision, which I'm *nowhere* near), so you get roughly 20% of those payments back the first year, ~18% back the second year, etc. Then, when you sell your house, you get all the principle back (unless something has dropped the value of the house significantly, like poor maintinance, huge upswing in crime in the area, ground water contamination). So overall, it is commonly cheaper to buy than it is to rent (since so much of the cost comes back @ sell time. However, right now, much of the US is in a bit of a housing bubble; rent and mortgage payments don't level out enough to justify the house values. Consider the house like a business; if you were to buy the place for use as a rental property, would you be able to make money? Right now, my house would break even. Closer to the city, I most certainly would not make money; and so I'm less likely to buy for myself there. The rent/mortgage ratio is a fairly useful indicator of pricing trends. Right now, it suggests that home prices will have to come down soon (or rents will have to skyrocket). I'd not recommend buying a $2 million home in Conneticut, but there are a lot of places in the US where the housing market is still fine. As long as the population in the area increases, the value of living space will go up. Edit: one other thing to note is that the US has fixed mortgages, so the loan amount doesn't go up in time with inflation, like in some other countries. If you borrow $100k, and pay $1,000 in principle the first year, you now owe $99k. While this may seem obvious, there are many nations that allow banks to increase the principle amount to match inflation (thus you aren't borrowing a number, but a value, which is an ever increasing number). In that situation, your $1,000 payment may only be a dent in a 3% inflation increase in the loan amount, which means that you are the owner of a $102k loan. The 30 year fixed rate, non-increasing loan is a huge benefit to the home buyer, and has played a pretty significant role in the US economy post-WWII. Edit II: 10 years is not a short amount of time. Depending on where you will be working, and for what company (some will pay for your housing costs), it may be better to buy - being able to sell the house an pocket whatever the outstanding principle is may greatly outvalue any savings from renting.
It's seems rather ludicrous to me that you can't even notice how flimsy american houses are on average. Even if you have never left your country or your state.
You can buy great houses around Dallas suburbs as follows $150,000 - 1877 sq.ft - 1.1 acre $152,000 - 2343 sq.ft $200,000 - 3495 sq.ft - 0.35 acre (this house could be several million in California) Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! And you can get $4000 per month easily in Dallas as a computer programmer or any degreed job.
Certainly it has been, but may be (I think is) a "house of cards" that can leave people with negative gain. - I.e. a mortgage greater than the value of house on market. This is very likely (MHO) as recent low interest rates have encouraged many to take cash out of house via re-finance and they have spent that cash, not saved it at the low interest rates available. I.e. many have very little equity in their house now or any other significant savings. If there is even a 5% downturn in the value of their house, many will be bankrupt. As jobs are lost, this is happening to some already. Summary: A re-financed (with low or zero equity), 30 year fixed rate mortgage is a two edged sword. The variable interest rate mortgage is a guillotine, soon to cut off many “no equity” necks, as interest rates must rise to get foreigners to finance the US's "twin deficits." I.e. to accept the increasing risk of US default, which is likely as “Baby Boomers” retire and begin to take money from government (Social Security) instead of being the main tax payers.
