The minimum commute from any NYC suburb is 60 minutes. If you can get a 60-minute commute door to door, that would be fantastic – but the most expensive homes are within the 60-minute-commute belt.
I leave my house 10 minutes before my train. My train ride is 34 minutes. Then arrive in Penn Station, disembark, get upstairs, walk to subway. That’s another 10 minutes. Wait for subway, travel four stops, get upstairs, walk one block to office = 15 minutes. Total door to door = 1 hour 15 min. And I live in a very close-in, inner-ring, expensive suburb that I couldn’t afford to live in if I were buying today. Can’t get much closer than I am. The only way to shorten the commute is to get a job that doesn’t require a subway ride after arriving in Penn or Grand Central. And even that would be just a hair under an hour door to door.
My SIL’s commute is shorter than yours. 5 minutes to train station (8min walk or 2min by car),30 min train ride to Penn and 10 min walk to office. Total 45 min door to door. As I said, there are affordable homes in the area but depends how affordable (luxurious)you want it to be.
My son also bought a house in same town, 8 min walk to train station. His house is being renovated before he can move in and his office is a 10 min walk from Grand Central. Until then he is enjoying his shorter commute from the Village.
Including the 20 minute subway ride to Morningside Height, at least 1.5 hours - obviously less if job happens to be in walking distance from Penn. My daughter knocked out a paper or two on her laptop, took care of emails that had piled up during the day, etc.
Not my cup of tea, but for some it’s heaven when compared to being stuck in a car on the 405 in LA for the same amount of time.
Anyway, yes, these are the pros and cons to weigh when considering a job in Manhattan.
Agreed. An 8000 sq foot lot is a decent size lot in my part of Colorado where we have small home lots but lots of public open space. We do have city sewer and water. This is our home (about 2400 sq ft) on a 7700 sq foot lot. Our house is set a little closer to the sidewalk than some, but that gives us a bigger backyard.
Coming from upstate NY, the Colorado housing developments looked very squished at first… but we got used to it. (Funny story - a friend also transferred here, living in a smaller house/lot joked, ‘I got up one morning to smell the coffee, and it wasn’t mine’.). Perhaps in time I’ll also get used the new higher density concepts that are also coming in our area. I suspect my kids might warm to the idea more easily than me.
I should add that in NY we had an in-town, older home on a 5000 square foot corner lot. So for us, it was a big step up!
Lots in Honolulu can vary greatly. Ours is “big” at 7000 square feet. My parents’ is enormous at 15,000. My brother’s is smaller at 5000 or so. Another sister has a decent sized-lot but much of it sloped and unusable.
Since we are back to house design…
Just after our discussion of “Ballard boxes,” the cartoonist from our local paper drew this - he must have read our “Ballard box” discussion !
When my husband lived on 93rd and West End IN NYC, it often took him at least 45 minutes sometimes longer to get to his work…which was also in Manhattan. When we were looking to buy a house, he said any commute about an hour…or so was fine with him. So I actually chose where we live (12 minutes from where I worked).
We have Manhattan friends who also live in NJ. They found the prices more favorable. And some younger folks we know live out on Long Island in condo/townhouses because that is what they could afford.
Our yard is 21,000 sq ft, exactly half an acre. Land is half our property value. House is just under 2300 sq ft – four level split, so it doesn’t take up much space.
H’s commute is 1:15 door-to-door, driving to Metro, taking the train, and 15 minute walk to the office.
S1’s house is on a zero lot in San Jose. Square footage on the house is the same as ours.
The increase in fees is, among other things, targeting the “sweet spot” of borrowers. Credit score ~740 with a down payment of 15-20%. Fees were .250% now they will be 1%. Refinancing is also more expensive.
I read about it today. Very upsetting. My DS is shopping for a house. I hope it will get challenged in court. It’s targeting middle class families as always
Not false information. Good credit scores will be paying a higher rate while those with low credit scores will be getting a break. So those of us with good credit scores will be subsidizing the others. This is very similar to how the housing crisis of 2008 played out. Ridiculous!!!
I just told my mother that I will pay market rate for her house when she decides to sell. I made her an offer and told her don’t call a realtor, please. She looked shocked when I told her the offer. I don’t think she’s going to sell anytime soon, so renting it is, but that’s the only chance we have to buy a home we can afford in our market, and these sort of targeted policy changes are a big part of that. I see which way the political winds are blowing and it’s against people like us. So, the only help she’ll be giving me is the exclusive chance to make an offer before it goes on the MLS, and I really appreciate that kind of help.
My parents are gonna give me the downpayment for a house which is greatly appreciated. I’d have no way of buying a house at 23 otherwise - it feels like a win in a rigged system to me.
I’m looking at houses between $500k to $750k.
We have 5 properties that we rent out so I hope that I’ll end up with more than 1 property eventually lol. But that’s going to take time and I’d rather that not happen any time soon.
OP here. Thought I’d post about a show I binged on Netflix called How to Get Rich, though the name doesn’t reflect the content, IMO. It’s really a nice series about helping people work through their financial issues, and what the guy means by “rich” is living a rich life.
Anyway, this guy tells people that buying a house isn’t always the best move. This post was started, in part, because of ds2, who is dying to be a homeowner. He is the one who got me watching this show, and I’m thrilled he saw it because he sees that homeownership isn’t in the cards for him right now and that it’s not always preferable.
I was thinking the same thing…I don’t know anyone, at least these days, who has bought a house at 23. I think for my grandparents it was 24 but then again, my grandfather had just finished fighting in World War 2 and they got help from the military. I don’t remember exactly how old my parents were when they bought their first house, but it was pretty young. But, times were different…
!