The starter homes are still out of reach...

[innominate]

A physician I work with with is renting a house for him and his family. He is ~ a year out of his specialty fellowship. He says he can't afford to buy a house here.

 

[candcallen]

I got lucky. Bought my house under market and have close to Hundred thousand dollars in equity. I need updating with carpet paint flooring but even if I sold it and banked that cash I would need every penny dumped into a new house to lower the price. Nor could I rent a 2 bedroom apt for what I pay for my payment.

 

[Texas42]

I thought healthcare bills do not effect your credit and you could not be forced to pay. They can't garnish your wages etc. You end up in ICU for a few weeks they can't come and empty your bank accounts. Upfront costs are a different topic. I do think health insurance is something you should have.

Can Medical Bills Hurt Your Credit Report? - Experian

Your medical history is not part of a credit report, but past-due medical debts can affect your credit reports if a medical bill is left unpaid. Learn more.

www.experian.com

The quick google search i did suggests that it doesn’t effect your score if it ultimately gets paid. Being late isn’t penalized to the same degree. I don’t deal with billing, most docs don’t. I don’t claim to be an expert in this area. I think that medical billing is basically a giant cluster that seems to screw people.

A physician I work with with is renting a house for him and his family. He is ~ a year out of his specialty fellowship. He says he can't afford to buy a house here.

Doctors right out of fellowship can be in really different places, financially. I rented for Couple years because I thought i would move pretty quick. I also had very paid off my student loans while in residency, which was ”only“ about a hundred thousand. Most doctors will have much more debt, and the pay is effected by where they work. You want to work in Austin, you will get paid less than if you work in Odessa or Killeen. Many non-surgical specialties don’t actually pay more than general medicine.

Most docs, should be making at least a couple hundred year when they get going. There may be other things going on, but they should be able to afford a starter home in pretty much any market in Texas.

 

[toddnjoyce]

A physician I work with with is renting a house for him and his family. He is ~ a year out of his specialty fellowship. He says he can't afford to buy a house here.

Not surprising. I’ll bet he’s got a boatload of debt and Austin housing prices are ridiculous now.

My parents bought the house I grew up in new in 1973 for $27K, if I recall. Mom sold it in 2010 for $165K and it needed a new roof. I just checked and the same younger couple still owns it. The median asking price in that neighborhood is now $485K and all of then were built in the early 70s as tract houses. That couple has super-sized equity, whether they’ve paid it off or not.

When a place becomes a ‘destination’ city and tons of ‘free’ money becomes available this is what happens. We got to take advantage of similar conditions when we sold our 3 yr old home in Colorado after I retired from the Air Force and the great CA exodus was just starting. Seriously, we built the house in the summer of 2013 as a ‘forever’ home and life happened. Sold it in the summer of 2016 for more than enough to have a down payment on our current house because that’s how much and how fast the market changed.

 

[pronstar]

I can’t imagine a doc not being able to afford a starter home.

Our friends, wife is a doc and dad stays at home with their 2 kids, aren’t rich, but they have a very nice home in Midlothian and aren’t hurting for money.

The wife has been out of med school for about three years and she works for a doctors group.


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[innominate]

I can’t imagine a doc not being able to afford a starter home.

Our friends, wife is a doc and dad stays at home with their 2 kids, aren’t rich, but they have a very nice home in Midlothian and aren’t hurting for money.

The wife has been out of med school for about three years and she works for a doctors group.


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He just finished an advanced fellowship last year. Wife and 3 kids so he's probably not looking for a "starter" home. His partners live in a rich neighborhood with big homes. Not sure if that is his goal or not.

 

[SQLGeek]

I can’t imagine a doc not being able to afford a starter home.

I know you know this but...

Afford is a pretty interesting term and is interpreted differently.

There are things that friends of mine that I know make less than us say they can afford that I don't think we can.

In general, Americans seem to have a pretty poor grasp over what they can really afford. Debt levels seem to bear that out.

 

[Axxe55]

Here's also something to consider. Over the past couple of years, many of us have seen housing prices go way up. Building costs to build a new house have also risen quite a lot over the past few years as well.

I have to suspect, at some point in the future, the bottom is going to drop out on the housing market. Nothing keeps climbing upwards forever. The housing market has dropped out many times in many decades in the past. Or it's also possible it may hit a peak point and stabilize for some years until other factors come into play.

 

[ZX9RCAM]

So, it's either going to drop, or it won't.....

 

[SQLGeek]

So, it's either going to drop, or it won't.....

Could stay the same, lower in price or maybe even rise!

 

[msharley]

Way prices are headed?

 

[Shady]

Here's also something to consider. Over the past couple of years, many of us have seen housing prices go way up. Building costs to build a new house have also risen quite a lot over the past few years as well.

I have to suspect, at some point in the future, the bottom is going to drop out on the housing market. Nothing keeps climbing upwards forever. The housing market has dropped out many times in many decades in the past. Or it's also possible it may hit a peak point and stabilize for some years until other factors come into play.

tell that to my parents who paid 9,000 for 1/8th acre with a 3 bed 1 bath home and added a master to it 30 years latter so its 4/2 now. My mom passed in Dec and my sister bought out the other 4 kids. Total selling price was 530K.

So ya prices on land goes up and down over the short term. Long term prices of land is always up.

 

[ZX9RCAM]

Millionaire dog (yes, dog!) selling Miami villa

 

[Shady]

Read my post a little closer. First of all, I didn't say anything about land purchases. Second, these are merely my suspicions, therefor simply an opinion.

I am not sure how you would purchase a home with no land under it.

err well I guess a mobile home or a RV.

 

[Tex929rr]

This was in the San Antonio Express-News today.

 

[toddnjoyce]

This was in the San Antonio Express-News today.
View attachment 289126

I believe it. Our neighbor has the same floor plan, but different elevation and a slightly larger corner lot. They bought that house as second owners of a three year old home for 7% more than the original selling price. They just sold it on the first day to the first showing for more than 20% higher than what they paid for it.

Story across the whole neighborhood. Unfortunately I’ll be paying for their luck in higher taxes.

 

[plinkr]

I am not sure how you would purchase a home with no land under it.

err well I guess a mobile home or a RV.

A high rise apartment is... a box in the sky.

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[pronstar]

I am not sure how you would purchase a home with no land under it.

err well I guess a mobile home or a RV.

Those tiny houses that seem popular in th shows as well.

The unintended consequence, of course, is where to put it. Lots of folks found out the hard way that you can’t just park those things anywhere…


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[Fishkiller]

Well I have seen these cycles over the last 40 years. Dallas area prices drop 10% in 1986, Prices drop in Commifornia in 1992, 2001, 2008. In between each time prices rose anywhere from 15% to 100%. Bottom line is home prices go up and come down. The only time I lost money on a house was from 2004 to 2016. I bought near the peak and sold after it bottomed out. As others have said real estate increases in value over time, just ride out the cycles. I don't look at current values and am thankful my taxes were frozen last year when I turned 65

 

[innominate]

I believe it. Our neighbor has the same floor plan, but different elevation and a slightly larger corner lot. They bought that house as second owners of a three year old home for 7% more than the original selling price. They just sold it on the first day to the first showing for more than 20% higher than what they paid for it.

Story across the whole neighborhood. Unfortunately I’ll be paying for their luck in higher taxes.

Yeah. My property taxes went up the max every year I owned my house in wilco.