I never vent, so why not. Maybe you all have some ideas, thoughts, insights I'm not thinking of.
Every time I find a house I am interested in, I find out it's either drastically overpriced, an already contracted short sale, or a total dump. Do these people seriously think it's still 2006? I've seen the same houses decrease in price by $100k or better in the past year! No, your house isn't worth $600k! NO, IT'S NOT WORTH $500k EITHER!!! It's not my fault or my problem that you bought it at a horribly inflated price and you now can't pay it because your tax abatement ran out and your APR skyrocketed!
Unfortunately, I work in Middle-of-F$%&-Nowhere NJ and the woman works in NYC. The only, ONLY, YES ONLY, location that works for both of us is Newark NJ right in the Ironbound section. It puts me within proximity to Rt 280 to go to my job, and it puts her at Penn Station to jump on the Path train into NYC. Moving ANY closer to my job makes her 45 minute commute become 1.5 to 2 hours, and moving closer to NYC makes my 45-60 minute commute horribly worse at 1.5-2 hours. Since we both already work at least 9 hours a day, I damn sure don't want to make either of our commutes any worse.
Right now, if I don't hit bad traffic, I get home in an hour. Sometimes it takes me up to 2 hours. If the NYC trains are running well, she gets there and home in 45 mins. Moving to other locations just doesn't seem possible. The only other useful location, Harrison NJ, has no homes available. I refuse to pay ridiculous association fees for condos and townhouses. I found a great condo for a great price, until I found out that AFTER I pay off the mortgage, the association and parking fees would cost me $650 a month! That doesn't even account for the taxes!!! ARGH!!!
Yeah, this search sucks. I'm especially irked because I found the PERFECT house for us, and the price was right. I contacted my agent, and he found out the contract was signed on it the week before I found it. That was a real mule kick in the nuts. *sigh*
I don't think with our incomes we should be paying a rent. We can easily afford a home at a good price, we have a good 20% down payment, we both have perfect credit histories and scores, and we're both pretty stable in our industries. We're also shooting for houses where the mortgage works out to 1/4 of our monthly NET salary, so it's not like we're looking to live check to check just to own a house. But it's very frustrating when home prices and taxes in our area are so insane.
ARGH!!!!!!!!!!!
