Archive for the ‘Buying Real Estate’ Category
To Rent or Buy? The Financial Issues
By James E. McWhinney – Investopedia.com
When making the decision either to rent or buy a place to live, there are two broad categories of factors that must be considered. The first and most obvious category represents the financial aspects of your decision. The second category is a set of personal and emotional factors, which are more intangible but play an important role in the decision to rent or buy. Here, we look at the financial factors, including the initial and ongoing costs as well as the long-term pros and cons of owning your home.
Examining Your Finances
The first step in the decision-making process is to determine whether or not you can afford to purchase a home. Issues to consider include your ability to make a down payment (generally between 5% and 20% of the home’s purchase price) and pay closing costs (which may be an additional 5%). These costs are likely to exceed substantially the initial payment and security deposit that would be required if you were renting instead of buying. Of course, having enough money to cover the initial purchase of a new home is only half of the battle.
Before moving into your new home, you’ll need to put some thought into how much it’s going to cost you to stay there after you take up residence. Many financial experts suggest that your monthly mortgage payment not exceed 28% of your gross monthly income and that your total monthly debt payments not exceed 36% of your gross monthly income. If you go beyond these limits, you may run into trouble because, in addition to paying the mortgage each month, you have to factor in home maintenance. From carpet to window coverings, new appliances to a new roof, everything costs money and nothing lasts forever.
Renting may be a little easier on the pocketbook because it provides a fixed-dollar cost for monthly expenditures, which are paid simply with the rent. Besides perhaps increasing from year to year, the rent remains steady. And, if maintenance issues arise, the landlord pays for the repairs. Instead of spending your money on a new roof, you can invest it or spend it as you like.
If you’ve done the math and can afford to make the initial purchase and service the ongoing debt, the next factor you have to decide is whether this purchase benefits you financially. A rent-controlled apartment in New York City, or a place in a suburban location outside of a major city, quite possibly charges a month’s rent that is significantly less than a monthly mortgage payment for properties within the city. Of course, even if the monthly cost of renting is less than the cost of buying, there are long-term financial considerations that must be taken into account.
Long-Term Cost/Benefit Analysis
Proponents of buying often cite the ability to build equity, the tax breaks and the investment value of a home as solid reasons to buy instead of rent. While these arguments have merit, there are downsides to all of them. This chart outlines the positive and negative long-term realities of the equity, tax breaks and investment value associated with buying a home.
Equity
Some of the money that you give to pay a mortgage goes directly toward building equity in your home. You will never again see any of the rent money that you pay. Home equity can serve as collateral for a loan, enabling you to convert the equity into cash.
Equity takes time to build, and payments made during the first few years of a mortgage go primarily toward interest on the loan. Should you move after living in a home for only a few years, you may have little or no equity in the property. And after the costs of selling the home, you could end up losing money.
Investment
Real estate in the form of your primary residence is likely the single largest asset in your portfolio. Over the long term, price appreciation can be significant. Many homeowners downsize their primary residence when they retire; they sell at profit, purchase a less expensive home and use the profits to supplement their income.
While history shows it is likely that your home will appreciate over time, there are no guarantees. There are always areas of the country where homes have lost value, and owners are unable to sell them at a price equal to or greater than the purchase price.
Do the Calculations
A variety of online calculators are available to help you evaluate the financial aspects of the rent versus buy decision, but keep in mind that you need to estimate a range of variables that includes the number of years you will stay in the home.
And to estimate the investment profit the home will provide for you, you must assume the yearly rate of appreciation on the home’s value. The results provided by a calculator and the investment evaluations you make are only as good as the assumptions used to calculate them, and don’t forget to consider the cost of ongoing maintenance. After you have carefully considered the financial issues, it’s time to explore the non-financial issues.
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Contact the Jeffrey Team for more information - 416-388-1960
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To Rent or Buy? There’s More To It Than Money
By James E. McWhinney – Investopedia.com
After you have thoroughly researched the financial issues of the rent-versus-buy decision, let’s look at the issue from a different perspective, one involving emotional factors and personal preferences that collectively determine the impact of your decision on your quality of life. These “non-financial” issues are based on your personality, abilities and values. They require careful consideration, beginning with this question: what attributes about the place you live in are most important to you?
Environment: City versus Suburbs
The environment you choose to reside in plays a major role in your quality of life. Consider your personality. Do you like the character of the city, with its nightlife, quaint cafés and diverse cultures, or do you prefer the safety, conformity, green space and free parking in suburbia? Do you prefer to walk to work, take the subway or ride the train? How important is privacy, and how far do you like to live from your neighbors? If you can afford only those properties in environments that do not fit your preferences, you need to think about whether you are willing to forgo these preferences for the sake of owning a place.
Amenities versus Customization
Dollar for dollar, renting generally offers a substantially greater number and variety of amenities than buying. Consider, for example, the number of homes that come with an Olympic-sized swimming pool, clubhouse, tennis courts, basketball court and on-site gym. If you’re looking to have these amenities in your private residence, get ready to spend a lot of money. Upscale apartment buildings, found in nearly every city, offer such options at a comparatively lower monthly rent than a mortgage for a property with the same attributes. On the other side of coin, there are affordable homes with private outdoor spaces that you can customize to your liking. There aren’t many apartment buildings that come with acres of property in the country that will let you do your own landscaping, keep horses or grow a garden.
Flexibility versus Stability
Renting a place to live gives you significantly more freedom to get up and go at a moment’s notice. The financial consequences of breaking a lease are minimal and can be addressed by simply writing a check. Homeowners wanting to leave their current residence face the much more complicated process of selling their property. The mortgage still needs to be paid and the grass still needs to get cut while you are waiting to find a buyer. Unless money is no object, the transition to a new place of residence is likely to take months, not days. On the other hand, with the flexibility of renting comes also some instability. The landlord can always raise the rent or ask you to move before you are ready to do so. If you own a house and make the payments, you can stay as long as you desire.
Personalized Aesthetics versus Less Work
Buying a house gives you the opportunity to choose a unique and distinct architectural style and to personalize it. But this freedom comes with the responsibility of keeping up with maintenance and repairs. Homeowners simply can’t avoid the need to cut the grass and fix leaky faucets. If you prefer to spend your weekends relaxing in the park instead of wandering the aisles at the local hardware store, you might want to think twice about buying a home – unless of course you can budget a substantial amount of money to hire some help.
Although renting gives you no control over exterior aesthetics, you don’t have to worry about dealing with wear and tear on your residence or problems resulting from bad construction. Renting still gives you plenty of opportunity to choose furnishings and decorate your interior environment in a manner that suits your style. And, as a renter, all you have to do when something goes wrong is notify your landlord.
Emotional Satisfaction versus Less Worry
Homeownership is often called “the American dream”. There’s just something emotionally appealing about putting down roots, getting involved in the community and having a place to call your own. Of course, homeowners also need to worry about the long-term character of the neighborhood and keep up with maintenance in order to sustain property values. If you’re simply looking for a place to rest between days at work and nights hitting the town, renting may be the perfect answer. Just keep paying the rent and let somebody else do all the worrying.
A Personal Decision
Unlike the financial aspects of homeownership, the aspects that have a bearing on your lifestyle and values cannot be calculated online with some mathematical formula. If you can make the rent payments or qualify for the mortgage, you can live anywhere that you want to live. But buying a home is a decision you should take some time to consider, determining how its location, amenities and need for repairs will affect your lifestyle and general emotional satisfaction.
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Contact the Jeffrey Team for more information - 416-388-1960
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Pre-Qualified Vs. Pre-Approved – What’s The Difference?
By Brian O’Connell – Investopedia.com
Ralph Waldo Emerson, American essayist and poet, once said that the future belongs to those who prepare for it. This is sage advice for home buyers who need to lay the necessary groundwork to buy the home of their dreams.
Without good preparation, many buyers get lulled into the mistaken notion that if a lender pre-qualifies them for a mortgage this means that they have been pre-approved for a home loan. Unfortunately, there’s a world of difference between these two terms. If you’ve ever been confused by the two, we’ll bring you up to speed on how these terms differ – and why a misunderstanding can mean disaster for borrowers.
The Skinny on Pre-Qualified
Getting pre-qualified is the initial step in the mortgage process, and it’s generally fairly simple. You supply a bank or lender with your overall financial picture, including your debt, income and assets. After evaluating this information, a lender can give you an idea of the mortgage amount for which you qualify. Pre-qualification can be done over the phone or on the internet, and there is usually no cost involved. Loan pre-qualification does not include an analysis of your credit report or an in-depth look at your ability to purchase a home.
The initial pre-qualification step allows you to discuss any goals or needs you may have regarding your mortgage with your lender. At this point, a lender can explain your various mortgage options and recommend the type that might be best suited to your situation.
Because it’s a quick procedure, and based only on the information you provide to the lender, your pre-qualified amount is not a sure thing; it’s just the amount for which you might expect to be approved. For this reason, a pre-qualified buyer doesn’t carry the same weight as a pre-approved buyer who has been more thoroughly investigated.
The Skinny on Pre-Approved
Getting pre-approved is the next step, and it tends to be much more involved. You’ll complete an official mortgage application (and usually pay an application fee), and then supply the lender with the necessary documentation to perform an extensive check on your financial background and current credit rating. (Typically at this stage, you will not have found a house yet, so any reference to “property” on the application will be left blank). From this, the lender can tell you the specific mortgage amount for which you are approved. You’ll also have a better idea of the interest rate you will be charged on the loan and, in some cases, you might be able to lock-in a specific rate. With pre-approval, you will receive a conditional commitment in writing for an exact loan amount, allowing you to look for a home at or below that price level. Obviously, this puts you at an advantage when dealing with a potential seller, as he or she will know you’re one step closer to obtaining an actual mortgage.
The other advantage of completing both of these steps – pre-qualification and pre-approval – before you start to look for a home is that you’ll know in advance how much you can afford. This way, you don’t waste time with guessing or looking at properties that are beyond your means. Getting pre-approved for a mortgage also enables you to move quickly when you find the perfect place. When you make an offer, it won’t be contingent on obtaining financing, which can save you valuable time. In a competitive market, this lets the seller know that your offer is serious – and could prevent you from losing out to another potential buyer who already has financing arranged.
Once you have found the right house for you, you’ll fill in the appropriate details and your pre-approval will become a complete application.
Getting Committed
The final step in the process is what’s called a “loan commitment”, which is only issued by a bank when it has approved you, the borrower, and the house in question. This means the home should be appraised at or above the sales price. The bank may also require more information if the appraiser brings up anything he or she feels should be investigated (i.e. structural problems, accessibility issues, outstanding liens or litigation in progress). Your income and credit profile will be checked once again to ensure nothing has changed since the initial approval.
A loan commitment letter is issued only when the bank is certain it will lend, so the commitment date on your purchase contract should be closer to closing than to the date of your offer. (The seller can ask to see that letter as soon as the date has passed, so beware of anyone who tries to put an early commitment date into your contract).
One Last Word
Be warned. Pre-approved and pre-qualified are not the same thing, so don’t assume that the bank will provide your loan until you have the former. The mistake could cost you your new home!
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Contact the Jeffrey Team for more information - 416-388-1960
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