Hey fellas, Need to vent about some stuff non motorcycle related & have nobody to do it to.....so I'll do it through my keyboard.

Don't continue on unless your ready to hear some prety hard whining.

WHY IS IT SO DAMN HARD FOR REGULAR EVERYDAY PEOPLE TO BUY A FRIGGIN HOUSE!!!!

We have bee renting for going on 7 years now & desperately want to own our own house. We have good landlords but enough's enough, time to do something. We both have excellant credit, no extra bills or payments (save a 100 bucks a month for my 2012 KLR650), have stellar referances & have no problems getting pre approved & I've been at my job for over 6 years now.

Since we are not loaded, people like us have to do a Rural Development loan OR an FHA loan, both of which require no or little down. Who the hell can afford to put down 20% on a house? I know,I know. You have to save it up. Heard it a thousand times. Poor people have poor ways & it just keeps gettin poorer.

Looked at a perfect little 4 acre place today & they want 95000 for it. We thought this was the one. Contacted our mortgage lender to run some numbers. Had her tell us what the monthly payment would be for 85000 & she tells us just under $700 a month! We can't swing that, we're lookng at around 400-550 a month MAX. Seems it would require the FHA loan since it has a detached 30x50 "shop" & that hikes the payment.

A co workier just bought a house for 100,000 a his payments are less than $400 a month! The only difference is he had the 20% down (helps when your family has your back, doesn't it?) & had just sold a house. Seems like everybody has Mommy & Daddy get money from, except us.

AND I'M NOT LOOKING FOR A HANDOUT EITHER. It's just that it would be nice if there was a little help, or a small offer to help. Hell...I wouldn't even accept it, I'd just be nice to know it's there. But I think when my son gets ready to start a life somewhere & buy a house I'd like to offer help or money or whatever(if I could) to him with no strings attached. If nothing else I would be able to say that "Mom & I never had anybody try & help us along & we don't want you to have to go through that like we did." Maybe he would do the same with his kids in the future.

I know what you're going to say....You gotta just keep saving. Well I don't want to save for 30 friggin years so I can finally buy a house when I'm 68! I also realize since the housing market took a sh!t that the lenders are less free with their money. But really....just how many people can slap down 20% on a house loan. 20% of $85000 is &16000 dollars. It would take forever & a day for people like us to try & save that up & even if we could i don't think I would want to part with it all that bad...even to buy a house.

Yes, we're poor white trash. But it seems like the only thing we can afford is the $30,000 sh!tholes that require a complete gutting before they can even be lived in. AND NO I'M NOT BEING PICKY EITHER. There just comes a point when you gotta draw the line somewhere isn't there? I mean if it would be easier to bulldoze a place than fix it, why buy it & work on it forever? Give me a break.

yeah, yeah, yeah. "You just gotta save it up & do what you can. Just keep pushing forward & don't give up." Bullsh!it. My wife's so dissapointed & pissed & tired of these let downs (this is just on of many letdowns) that she's ready to say f*ck it & I'm sick of trying to push forward against a brick wall that will never move that we might as well rent forever. I give up.

End of rant.

Is there a small town near you? Sometimes homes are cheaper there, and loans are easier at the local bank.
Sorry you're having so much trouble

I'm glad I was able to buy mine when I did. I bought it 13 years ago right after I retired for $81K, since then I've refinanced 3 times to get the lower interest rates and take some equity out of the house to only do upgrades to the house. Last time I refinanced was for $143K..... Yep, the house is worth more now than when I bought it 13 years ago...

Location has a lot to play in it. I recommend zillow.com to search for a house. You can pretty much look in a location and see what the average house is selling for in that area, or you can look at houses for sale too. Another thing you could look at is the home insurance. In order for my wife and I to buy our house we had to get our home owners insurance below a certain number. We did the FHA route and had to throw down our entire savings account which came out to about $5K. We bought our house for $64,900 and our payment is $561 a month. I know it gets really frustrating, but just keep your head up and when the right house comes along you'll know. Trust me I looked for almost a year before finally finding our house. Good luck and I hope everything works out for you.

A FHA loan is the way to go you get in at 3.5% down and right now the markets at 3.5% interest and it can't change

you missed the memo, you were supposed to buy a crapload of houses during the bubble

I did

Move here the illegals are buying houses around me right and left so they must be giving them away. I am a minority on my street now.

Realtor.com is what I'm using with great results.
I need to fix my income (crappy) before I buy but I'm close to buying right now.
I've squirreled about $15k away for a down. Not huge, but better than nothing.
I sold a ton of stuff to get that money & I suggest the same for anyone.
We love out toys, but a home is far harder to replace than toys are.
I also busted my ass for 2 years to eliminate all my credit card debts by working 2 jobs.
I paid minimum on all but the highest interest rate one which I paid everything I made at the second job, then the next highest card, etc...
It's surprising how fast you can wipe out your credit load by doing this.

Keep looking, you never know when something will drop in your lap if you're ready to pull the trigger.

Good luck, JJ

Ask your banker about repo homes in your area. Usually they are more than willing to let them go for little or no profit and carry the mortage too.

you said it...its all about the down payment. I had no problem buying a house that I never expected to own. I bought 2 years ago when almost nobody was getting loans, but I had 15k cash down payment. I had only been at my job for 6 months, before that I was unemployed for almost a year.

Also remember when talking monthly payments with folks that it can vary greatly depending on what you have escrowed in. My payment is just under 1k a month, but I have my taxses and ins added in, that adds about 200/month on mine. 30 year fixed at 4.25%.