Orchard Hills Homes

[Ready2Downsize]

The post was in response to someone who thought no one really knows how much profit they have their house. I in fact do.......... keep records of all improvements and I know what I spend on recurring costs. My house payments were (until we paid it off) exactly the same amount the entire time we have owned the home. Refinanced it when rates dropped but kept the payments the same with the extra going to pay down the loan.

2006 to now my house has "only appreciated" about $200K. (after going down between 2006 to 2012 or so and then back up above 2006), so for those particular 9 years, my house has appreciated less than 2% per year.

Do I think houses will appreciate much from today's prices? I think housing appreciation is location dependent, with some areas outperforming or underperforming others. For Irvine.... I doubt it........ said it many times. In fact I think larger sized homes are actually selling for less now than they did a couple years ago (which I took into account in my calculations) and it could trickle down, but you just never know........ all about timing. My mom's house is worth 28 times what she paid for it, but again she saw it drop 30% twice  during that time. Her house along with her pension and social security would be enough to pay for a nursing home for two people for quite a few years.

 

[lnc]

Found these old pic of OH before it all begins. In the first pic, the NW high school was only partially build out.  The pic must be taken before 1999.

Here's initial planning map base on the image above.

 

[dethman]

Found these old pic of OH before it all begins. In the first pic, the NW high school was only partially build out.  The pic must be taken before 1999.

Here's initial planning map base on the image above.

interesting views.  too bad the first one isn't from the same perspective.

 

[collected]

I wouldn't call homes an investment.  I would call them a necessity.  If someone doesn't own a home then they're likely going to be renting.  Now the question is whether it's better to buy or rent a home.  It all depends on lots of factors such as how long they'll be staying at the home.  What is important is that someone who's renting puts extra money in an investment such as bonds or stocks so that they can keep up or even be ahead of the home buyer.  Every calculator out there shows the renter losing against the home buyer if they don't invest the downpayment and additional money that would've been used to pay the mortgage.