Thank you IHB - from a newbie

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recovering_homeowner_IHB

New member
<p>Hi all,</p>

<p>I've been lurking on the IHB, and wanted to let y'all know that I appreciate the trenchant RE analysis and humorous daily entries posted by IrvineRenter.</p>

<p>Per my signon name, I am a recovering homeowner. My wife and I bought a condo in Tustin Ranch in 2005 and have just sold it recently at around the same price that I bought it. We wanted to save enough money to buy a bigger home in this area in a few years.</p>

<p>By heeding the advice and analysis on this site, I have learned to be a more financially conservative RE person. My wife and I make well over 200k/year, and all that we could "afford" in 2005 was a condo! We had recently moved to the OC, and had been renting for years, and were tired of renting. I guess there was another thread recently about the shame of renting...and how we are "throwing our money away on rent". I bought into that thinking, and took the plunge even though prices had escalated.</p>

<p>It makes me mad that the loose lending requirements had brought in loads of people who could not afford homes, who could now "afford" them with the new loan products. Nobody informed me that home ownership was a RIGHT that everyone should be able to exercise.</p>

<p>Anyways, I'm back to renting and happier for it. I don't regret my condo purchase even though I took a slight bath (made about 20k of upgrades to the condo which cannot be recovered and of course realtor and closing costs). It was our first home and we learned much about what it means to own a home and the nature of such responsibilities. In short, I am out some money but am a bit longer in the tooth for it.</p>

<p>I credit IHB for helping to confirming my resolve to "bite the bullet" now versus getting hit with a few rounds in the next few years. </p>

<p>Maybe those 900k houses will be 750k in a year?</p>

<p>Recovering_Homeowner</p>
 
R_H: I used to live in Tustin Ranch too. Nice area. I'm one of the folks on this blog waiting for Orchard Hills. I anticipate their "luxury residences starting at 1.2mil" to be going for about half that much in 2009, when I expect to buy. Good luck!
 
Kudos for making the upgrades. I don't think people are often willing to pay out for things (as opposed to experiences) they enjoy unless they will get a real item in return. Sometimes, the return is personal and that's enough.
 
<p>^ Another newbie saying hello. I've been lurking on this site almost daily since around March. I've been a housing bear since 2002 and a homeowner since 2003. I know those statements are contradictory, but the house we bought was about the smallest, cheapest, most run-down fixer-upper we could find that still met our needs. Obviously we should have bought something nicer in 2003 (and sold in '05), but hindsight has only so much value. We've always planned and saved to upgrade in a nearby zip code, so I would not mind if my home were suddenly worth less than what we paid, though I have a hard time seeing prices fall below 2003 levels. Maybe in 3-4 years and on an inflation-adjust basis? I don't plan to live in Irvine, but I do live in SoCal and a lot of the analyses, threads and posts here still apply.</p>

<p>Thank you Irvine Renter for opening up your den for those of us who were, quite frankly, tired of being alone and surrounded by perma-bulls and "geniouses" who couldn't calculate a cap rate if you defined it for them. </p>
 
I'll post as a "noob" as well. I've been in the market since March of this year and since I stumbled upon IHB, I've been a little more cautious about making my offers. I've noticed many price decreases in the neighborhoods I'm looking in. Even though I'll lose $$ each month from the lack of tax deductions that I need (reason of home ownership), I rather pay $1000 of extra tax every month while watching the homes drop by 5-10k in the same period :)
 
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