When line breeding . . . - Page 2

Good grief, Reliya! What state do you live in? (You can pm if you don't want to post it for all the world to see.) A house like that would cost at least $500k in my area of Minnesota, probably more like $600-700k.

https://www.realtor.ca/Residential/Single-Family/17970068/3035-E-45TH-AVENUE-Vancouver-British-Columbia-V5R3C6

Typical 50+ year old Vancouver bungalow in a so-so neighbourhood.    This is not even close to what you would pay for same house in a better area.

 

Below is an older house in a good area of Vancouver with more prestige.:

https://www.realtor.ca/Residential/Single-Family/18006899/4627-W-15TH-AVENUE-Vancouver-British-Columbia-V6R3B5

 

 

 

I'm in Mississippi. That house was built in 2004. It's actual retail value is $210k, but I'm guessing it has some issues because it's being sold as is.

 

https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/4563-Golden-West-Cv-Southaven-MS-38671/89259070_zpid/

This is probably why everybody moves south, huh.

Whoa, Koots! That's a lot of money for a house!

Thanks, Reliya. Lower housing costs most likely plays a major role in people moving south. That, and they are sick of shoveling snow! A few years ago a retired couple from Arizona moved into my neighborhood, the other neighbors all thought they were crazy. You move to Arizona when you retire, not Minnesota! Needless to say, they moved again after a few years.

When it snows here, everybody loses their minds. I remember being at school once all of five minutes because it began snowing at 8:30am, and the school decided to close. Snow didn't even stick.

Yeah, between the property values & the minimal amount of cold weather, the Southern states do attract a lot of folks.

Property values in NE Michigan are about where they are in Reliya's area--I've got a 31 acre farm up there, 25 of the acreage tillable. Four bedroom, three full baths & finished basement house built around 1990, attached two car garage added 2005; new roof (old shingles removed) 2012, new hot water heater 2011, new 98% high efficiency forced air central heating & air conditioning system 2010, vinyl sided with 50 x 60 fenced back yard. 40 x 60 concrete-floored pole barn (can house two semi trucks) , 40 × 20 concrete-floored pole barn with automatic heated waterer for livestock. 60 x 100 area fenced with 10' high woven wire for forage storage, 10 acres fenced with 4' high woven wire plus hot wire used as pasture with a 30 x 10 run-in shelter. 8 x 10 chicken barn with electric & timer lighting. New 165' well 2016.

I'll be lucky if I get 190K for it. OTOH, for me to get something similar to replace it in Central/Eastern Pennsylvania, I'll need to spend at least 2.5 times that amount.

As far as financing, there's several options. Usually lenders want to see 20% minimum down, though there is a government-operated program for veterans and others for civilians that will allow no or very low down payment for those who qualify.

There's 10, 15 and 30 year fixed rate mortgages, balloon mortgages where you get a low interest rate mortgage for a specified number of years and then either the balance is then due, or a large lump sum has to be paid & the loan becomes a traditional mortgage but at a much higher interest rate.

If you don't make your payments & you have one of the government-insured loans, you'll get numerous chances to catch up, lots of arrangements and payment plans and even recasting of the loan before they'll foreclose on you. A conventional loan, however, doesn't have that government backing, so depending on the lender, the economy and local real estate conditions, you could be foreclosed on & evicted if you miss just one payment, or you might go several years making little to no payments before the foreclosure & eviction.

Oops, DP. 

As far as how the lenders determine if you qualify, in theory they look at your income & expenses and calculate how much you can reliably afford to pay. In reality,  when you look at the mess that imploded  several years ago, your guess is as good as mine as to the criterion geing used to make the loans. It stopped for a while after the Dodd-Frank Act went into effect, but now Trumplethinskin intends to roll the provisions back, so we'll probably see it like that again.

If you walk away from the mortgage in US for whatever reason how do you owe.

I think our rules are different.

 

Also we pay a few thousand in tax to gov called "stamp duty", nobody knows what stamp duty actually is as far as I can tell, we just pay it whenever a house is  purchased. 

 

To stimulate the market after the GFC, the gov waived stamp duty for first home buyers.

Do you guys have negative gearing on investment homes ie ones you buy just to sell?

 

I ask all this cos the US is advertising homes for foreigners to buy, seems very easy and very cheap to get into a house in the US.

There was rampant speculation in the market before the crash, so when it came there were a lot of properties that had been purchased with the idea of investment in mind, so a lot of folks overpaid and are now "underwater" or "upside down" with their places--they owe more than the place is worth because they counted on the value to increase rapidly.

In certain areas of the country, there's a huge inventory of homes whose owners walked away from them after the bubble burst. The banks foreclosed, and the properties were sold at Sheriff's sale auctions, but most of them were simply repurchased by the banks so they could try to recapture their investments when things (hopefully) improved. That's why so many lenders didn't foreclose right away-- they felt it was better to leave the owner in residence and at least paying the utilities and keeping the properties in living condition, than have it sit vacant and vulnerable to thieves and vandals for years until the market recovered.

The area surrounding Las Vegas is full of properties that were built "on spec" when everyone was riding high and buying places to "flip" a year or two later--if you live in it for a year before you resell it, you don't get taxed on any profit you make as long as you reinvest it into another personal residence.

If you walk away from the place you are still responsible for the amount you borrowed--you signed a binding contract. The amount still owed, less what the bank is able to get for the property at the Sheriff's sale but plus attorney fees, taxes, court and late fees and penalties, is still the borrower's responsibility unless the debt is discharged via the borrower filing for bankruptcy. If you don't go bankrupt, a lien is placed on the borrower and wages can be garnished to recapture the money.