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Not to sound rude, but with a nearly $600,000 house you are not going to get any sympathy from me, and others I supose. If a $600,000 house is needed to have the room to raise a family you sound like an elitest snob and now your complaining that you seem to have bitten off more than you can chew.

Seems you probably should have bought a smaller house.

Quick story. I do mortgages. A gentleman and his wife recently applied for a mortgage to purchase a home that was $220,000. The home hasnt been built yet and the developer was planning on starting construction in the next few weeks. Well, the customer was satisfied with a 30 year fixed rate of 7%, but wanted to lock it in today for 180 days so he could assure his rate at 7% when constrution was complete and he closed on the mortgage. I told him I could lock it for that long and laid out the costs of the extended lock-in that needed to be paid to get the extended lock. As I suspected he didnt like the fees. And I told him he was right to not like them and advised him against the extended lock.

His reaction... Well, if the interest rate goes above 7% by even a fraction between now and when we can do a regular loc-in the payments on the mortgage will be a burden and we wont be able to purchase the home.

My reaction... Sir, if a rise in interest rates of even 1/8th of a percent is going to pose a financial burden I strongly suggest buying a much smaller house. He wasnt happy with me, but sometimes people do need to be informed of their own stupidity.

You beat me to it.

Not to sound rude, but with a nearly $600,000 house you are not going to get any sympathy from me, and others I supose. If a $600,000 house is needed to have the room to raise a family you sound like an elitest snob and now your complaining that you seem to have bitten off more than you can chew.

Your class envy is showing. Read his post. He and his wife put off having children to afford a home and live in an area that was safe for their children. How do you know that the real estate market where he lives doesn't command such a price? Seen real estate prices in California? I have friends there who paid more than $400k for a house less than half the size of mine, and my house is only $230k.

My wife and I did the same thing the poster did, waiting to start and raise a family in a nice, relatively secure area.

Sometimes people act on principle, not on their wallets.

For someone unaccustomed to New York Real Estate prices the numbers can be a shock, but to give you some perspective, a 1 bedroom condo in the Bronx costs 220,000 and the crime rate there is nothing you would be willing to live with. The numbers seem high relative to the rest of the country, but I assure you, my home is not extraordinary.

Here is an example Home. for the area. I'm not crying poverty, I just didn;t plan on an additional 6 to 8 thousand a year in taxes.

Get over it! He and his wife BOTH worked 15 hour days for 10 years(and paid the conficatory income taxes to go with the money) to be able to afford that house. Do you automatically assume that everyone who works their ass off to get ahead is a snob? Those two basically worked two jobs each and all the government can do is try to tax them back into poverty.

Yes, I envy the people who live in $500,000 homes, but not enough to kill myself to get it. So basically, I shut my mouth and congratulate them on their success.

"Not to sound rude, but with a nearly $600,000 house you are not going to get any sympathy from me,"

That's not the smartest statement.

Depends on where you live. 600K will get you a sh*tty little 2-bedroom in an so-so neighborhood in many parts of Seattle. I imagine it’s the same in New York.

There are tens of thousands of people across the country who bought modest homes some 20 years ago, that have had their tax assessments over-value their property to the point of absurdity.

Many are forced to buy over-valued property which is being hyper-taxed just so they can be within an hours driving time of work.

Property taxes are an onerous scam in many parts of the nation.

P.S. the average $125,000 homeowner would have to pay about $4250 PER YEAR in property taxes adding $350 PER MONTH to their mortgage. I don't know about you, but that much would destroy my budget.

"Not to sound rude, but with a nearly $600,000 house you are not going to get any sympathy from me, and others I supose. If a $600,000 house is needed to have the room to raise a family you sound like an elitest snob and now your complaining that you seem to have bitten off more than you can chew. "

Spoken like a true Marxist. Jealousy through and through. Just because this person's property is worth more, he should pay more than you do? "Soak the rich, the bloody bastards!" Does this person use more in government services than you? I think Rush has it right: "Tax the poor and make them pay their fair share because most pay NOTHING!""

This person's complaint wasn't the known land rents being chrged, but the increased valuation and taxation of the property. Where I live, a simple $85,000 house with $800 in land rents in 1985 is a $350,000 property with $2,400 in land rents today. Is that a 'rich" person, Mr. SoakTheRich? Should we beat them and take their home when they fail to afford the land rents? Maybe old people who would like to retire should just suck up Medicaid and live in a retirement community at public expense? Maybe old people should do as Gov. Lamb said and just do their duty and die? Maybe old people should not be allowed to own homes because jerks like you continue to suck up public monies for crap programs and just keep kicking up the lands rents to pay for it all?

Not to sound rude, but with a nearly $600,000 house you are not going to get any sympathy from me, and others I supose. If a $600,000 house is needed to have the room to raise a family you sound like an elitest snob and now your complaining that you seem to have bitten off more than you can chew.

You'd be lucky to get a 2-bedroom flat for that price in S.F. Until you know what he has, don't be so quick to make a snap-judgement. Some places, that is a lot of house, others it is piddling.

Your insinuation that they should have budget for 30% tax increases, and therefore, have bitten off more than they can chew is elitist snobbery at best. I think Marxist class envy is more likely.

These people bought into the best neighborhood they could afford and it turned out to be a great investment. And because of it, they can either move, or have the local government confiscate their land. This could happen to anyone, and probably will if everyone else has your attitude.

Well, you SOUND Rude. Let me tell you the story of a friend of mine. His parents built a house in the DC Suburb of McLean in 1962: his father was a colonel in the Army. At the time, it was fairly luxurious, and they paid somewhere around $35K for it.

Fast-forward to 2002. . .his mother just died, and he inherited the house. . .and the tax bill, not to mention the death tax. A house now worth $650,000, because the neighborhood is now a very posh one. ( for example, Ted Kennedy is a few blocks up the street. I stay away when there are puddles, in case Ted reverts to old habits . . . (g) )

Or my own example: I bought a nice, but nowhere-close-to-luxurious townhouse outside DC (in Virginia) in 1998 for about 109K. It was just assessed at 160K. . .a nearly 50% rise in value in 4 years. If this guy is in such an area, he probably bought a nice 200K home. . . 10 years ago.

Give the author a break and a little Christian charity, willya ????

Did you read what the poster said he had to do in order to get that house? It isn't like he just had the money easily.