Someone stole one of my license plates today and there have been numerous car break-ins where I live, so I'm considering moving. I was just curious about house prices and there are many listings under $100,000. That's incredible. When I was looking for a condo 4 years ago, it was very rare to see a house under $150,000. I can actually buy an 1800 square foot house and have the mortgage payment be less than the average price of an apartment per month. The average apartment cost here (in STL) is about $550 per month. My condo is $267 per month. I don't know why anyone would rent when it is cheaper to own (unless they have bad credit).

It's rather ironic you bring up car break-ins, someone broke into my sister's boyfriends car and that's all he can talk about is wanting to move. The bad part is when they found nothing to steal in the car they damaged the controls for the various lights and stuff. People sux

I heard crime rates are soaring in the Midwest, but dropping off in big cities on the coasts. Yeah, some jackasses just have to cause problems for everyone else... what every town needs is a Batman or two, instead we just seem to get Jokers!

ps I wouldn't necessarily mind a Poison Ivy myself

That statement varies greatly depending on location.

In my area, owning even the cheapest house would cost more than double what my rent is.

(If I wanted to own, I'd either have to double my income, or move to a different state where the housing prices are lower)

There are a number of reasons that I am renting:

1. I move around a lot, and the transaction costs on selling a home are enough to keep me from buying.

2. I don't like the prospect of having a large portion of my net worth tied up in one giant illiquid asset.

3. In order to keep a home "up to date", improvements need to be made on the home.  I'd rather live in a place that was built or renovated in this decade than one that was built in the 1970s and not updated at all.  Who knows what amenities a standard living space will have 30 years from now?  By renting, I can keep up to date with modern improvements without having to pay large sums of money to have them installed.

The statement that "it is cheaper to buy than rent" is often dependent on your down payment.  If you are able to pay a substantial amount of the price up front, then yes, it could be cheaper (on a monthly basis) to buy than to rent.  But then you would also have to consider what the money that you are using as a down payment could be doing.

267 a month for a condo?!!? that wouldnt even cover the real estate tax here.
we just refinanced our 1200' condo to a 10-year and it's gonna be nearly 2k a month (+ tax + assessment)

jodo are there any armored fortresses for sale by you? moats preferable...

CRASH: illiquid asset? ever heard of an equity loan? and
putting your 20% down avoids having to pay PMI every month

WOW.  I wish that the part of Indiana in which I live were worth the insanely higher cost.  I wish I'd seen more than a couple tiny, old, and run-down apartments for that low.

About the license plate thing, I had to go through the Missouri Department of Revenue and request a FORM 1576. I was wondering why the police officer told me not to go to the license bureau first, but to report it. I found out that stealing a license plate is considered a crime against the state, and in some places, is a felony. I thought it was just a minor deal.

Originally read the title of this thread as "I can buy a horse now". Guess that 'Vette thing didn't pan out, Jodo?

There are problems with buying corvettes that I unfortunately had to make myself aware of. It is not a very efficient purchase, for several reasons.

1. Greater chance of receiving speeding tickets.
2. Higher cost of fuel.
3. Higher cost of insurance.
4. Very susceptible to theft, especially where I live (there is not even one corvette in my condo complex, but I have seen a Nissan 350Z)
5. Susceptible to random acts of vandalism, due to jealousy. (This is true of any car considered nice. It is not uncommon for some bastard to run his keys across your car simply because he can't afford it.)
6. Higher overall cost would mean making too many sacrifices, such as not being able to buy music, movies and books with relative ease.

  I won't be buying a horse anytime soon because they STINK and they POOP.

The same thing can be said about people! AND, a horse will NEVER scratch your car out of jealousy!

$550?

Wow.

What size are you talking about of a place?  40 square meters?

A square meter is approximately 3 x 3 feet, or 9 square feet. So 40 square meters is about 360 square feet. I checked my documentation from when I purchased my condo and I can't find the official measurement, but I recall it was around 600 square feet. I would imagine that most apartments are similarly sized and the space would be reduced marginally by not including a laundry room, or by shrinking the kitchen.

  One of my friends is getting an apartment soon, with two bedrooms, for around $600 per month. That's ridiculously high, in my opinion. I think a fair rent for an apartment should be around $200 per month. Those can be found where I live. I knew a guy that lived in a $200 per month apartment. I never saw it, but he said the only problem was that sound carried easily between the walls. I hear nothing from the people on either side of me, and I occasionally hear people above me, if they have kids running around.

Depends where you live. That's cheap in my area (where a one bedroom can be as high as $1200 a month). I have a friend looking for an apartment in Manhattan. His maximum rent budget is $4000 a month.

Here in poxy ol' Ireland, buying a house in an area that you won't instantly get murdered in would cost a minimum of around the equivalent of $700,000.

I dream of houses for $100,000.

And that is why I need to leave this stenchpit.

Isn't Ireland expensive largely because it's not a stenchpit? As I understand it, it used to be, but it's now the third wealthiest country per capita in Europe, behind Luxembourg and Norway.

Conversely, houses are cheap in the American midwest because there just aren't that many people who want to live there, so people don't bid up the price of the land (also, wages are low, so it doesn't cost much to build).

Nah, Ireland is a stenchpit, plain and simple. You see, what happened is that it was a poor piece of crap stenchpit throughout the country's history. Then loads of businesses came in due to tax breaks and made a load of money. They also made rich people in Ireland way more rich, which was nice for them.

House prices and cost of living shot through the roof, not because people had loads of money to pay for these things, but because the banks started loaning people more money than they could ever afford to pay.

But Ireland wasn't designed to be a rich country. It evolved as a stenchpit and has the infrastructure, planning and all the problems of a stenchpit and none of the advantages of a country with loads of money, mainly because protection laws stopped anyone bulldozing the stenchpit areas and building it all from scratch with an actual plan this time. Dublin is a overpriced low-rise sprawl with no decent transport system.

But now, things have changed. People are saying the economy is in ruins and everything is crashing. In truth, it's not crashing - it's simply returning to some semblance of normality after the years of artificial inflation and people buying in to the idea that we're a rich country. But a lot of people are in debt up to their eyes now.

In short, yes, it's a stenchpit.

A home equity loan is a loan.  I tend to consider an asset as liquid if it can be converted to cash with very little or no penalty.  A loan is a substantial liability to have to access the equity in a home.  Thus, a house is not a very liquid asset, and I own a condo.  Owning a home/condo is primarily for those that expect to stay in one place for at least 5 years.  Otherwise, as Crash said, all those transaction fees really add up.

Why does this sound familiar? Oh wait..

Interesting... is there a lot of crime in Ireland? How does it compare to crime in England? I'd like to visit at some point, and I'm not worried, but I certainly am curious.

cheers,

-avatar!

I don't know any crime figures or comparisons so all I can offer is a perception just being here. There is crime in Ireland and it's getting more serious, but most of it is contained to small areas or drug gangs shooting each other up. There are a huge amount of scumbags in Dublin and other Irish towns but mostly these guys are content to just hang around desperately trying to look tough, which is hard in their tracksuits and leisurewear.

So there doesn't seem to be a massive amount of crime here and I usually feel pretty safe but there are areas, even fairly central areas, that as a local I would avoid when the sun goes down, just in case.

my car was stolen in STL