Posted on 11/29/2006 11:52:14 AM PST by RockinRight
Low crime, reasonable commute, and good schools—who says you can't find a nice house in a suburb without paying a fortune? Buying your first house? Fleeing the city for a life within your means? Here's a novel idea: Move to a suburb where you won't break the bank or get your car broken into. A community with reasonable home prices and decent schools. A suburb close to your city job, with a lively downtown of its own. For hedge-fund managers, plastic surgeons, corporate lawyers, and other people who earn millions a year, choosing a suburb is not about affordability but convenience and, frankly, prestige. These folks don't balk at high prices or look for fixer-uppers. They can pay for prime real estate on the most exclusive streets in the fanciest towns with the best schools. If they want to live in Greenwich or Brookline or Lake Forest or Malibu, they can. Unfortunately, most people aren't so lucky. Most people have to balance their real estate aspirations with reality—compromising on acreage or culture in exchange for better schools or lower property taxes.
(Excerpt) Read more at businessweek.com ...
Maybe it is "walking distance", but with no sidewalks, or means of getting there by other than the toll road, one had to:
a. take personal vehicle paying tolls, and parking once you got there (assuming you could find any), or sending car back with someone else, all in very slow-moving traffic patterns;
b. take taxi from Herndon to Dulles, paying exorbitant fare and still subject to sluggish movement while trying to get to the ticketing or claims areas;
c. go to National (Reagan) airport from Herndon, and take the airport shuttle to Dulles. Surprisingly, because this mode had access to express lanes almost all the way, it was very nearly a quick as personal vehicle or taxi. And it did not cost all that much more.
Whatever happened to not spending more than 2 and a half times your annual salary on a house.
I'm at about 2 and a quarter.
Dammit, my city is on that list. We don't want publicity.
I use that rule.
My point was that if I lived in some of these areas, 2.5 times my income wouldn't even buy a starter home, and that's on an above-average income!
We're at about 2.5x our income and it's tight and it's far out (45 minute commute from Sterling to Rosslyn, VA).
But as one person mentioned in another post, it's not just the cost of housing, it's the generally higher cost of living all around in the DC area that sucks it out of us.
I cannot wait to be out of here.
"The property tax rate is just 7%. "
A couple of the worst 4 letter words in the English language, IMO:
JUST
ONLY...
I would like to hope that a decimal point was missed in that statement, but it probably was not.
Not only are the prices something out of Dynasty, but the taxes are something out of the Communist nations.
I'm talking 2500 people.
This isn't our first house, however.
We've strongly considered bailing out, maybe to the Boise area or south of Denver somewhere, and I almost bought a business in Kennesaw, GA last fall. I was forwarded information on a new 300sq. ft. house in Kentucky, about 30mi out of Lexington; out in the country, 1/4mi from the nearest road, on 39 acres of rich farmland -- $350K. I almost dropped everything and snatched that up.
So, we've definitely had the exploration committee hard at work, but my career is in a really good groove -- I've got autonomy, flexibility, and control the likes of which I'm not at all sure I could ever find in a single package again. Who else do you know working in Silicon Valley -- not in the executive ranks, mind you, and not a "consultant" -- who can come in at any time between 6:00 and 9:30? That kind of flexibility is rare, in my experience; it works VERY well with my busy and unpredictable family -- I'm extremely loath to give it up until/unless I find an equal or better gig.
Yeah, making a move always involves a calculated risk, but I'm sure not going to skimp on the calculating.
Smart way to go.
I may relocate soon myself, and have to take in a lot of considerations. Not the least of which is the fact that in my line of work you have a "ramp-up" period to start making decent money again.
I know who: Uncle Sam. THAT'S who.
Hello, after school programs?
Hello, "universal preschool"?
Elevated taxation raises the cost of everything, on one side, while simultaneously reducing descretionary income on the other. This puts the family smack in the middle, trying to create and maintain some comfortable standard of living with a constantly shrinking pool of incoming capital. At some point, you're right: you pass a threshold where you either relocate to a lower-cost area(if possible), or Mom gets forced into employee status.
I'm not big on conspiracy theories, but connect these dots:
The SAME people most culpable for elevated taxation
are the SAME people most gung-ho for public education
are the SAME people most reliant on the votes of the underinformed to retain thair power
are the SAME people promoting cradle-to-grave government involvement in our lives
are the SAME people constantly banging the drum of socialized medicine
...
Do you start to see a pattern indicating an insatiable desire for micromanagerial control of every aspect of your life and mine? And how better to achieve that control than to push policies that impact families in ways that drive them toward more reliance on the "services" of government?
If we drive prices up to where there are enough two-income families, then housing prices will rise to meet the bar of those dual-incomes, forcing MORE families into dual-income status, with a decent house as the carrot at the end of the stick. And, who DOESN'T want a decent house; especially the woman of the house? Most men could live just fine in a thatch-roofed lean-to with dirt floors; most women, by contrast, want a nice place that is clean, quiet, and comfortable; a place that feels SECURE. Talk about "temptation"; that's a HUGE draw.
Having thus beguiled Mom into getting out the front door to go to work, there's no budget-minded recourse for the kids but to tromp down the street to the local public school for a dose of Uncle Sam's finest curricular offerings where, 13 years later, little Johnny emerges from High School and his supreme goals in life are to get a set of 22" spinners for his "ghetto sled", a cell phone with blue tooth, an iPod, and the newest CD from Snoop Dogg. He can hardly read; can't write worth a tinker's dam; spells strictly phonetically, when he feels like making the effort, which is rarely; has had four jobs in the last 18 months and been fired from all of them over issues of self-discipline and personal responsibility. He's got no plans, no prospects, and has no problem with that.
BUT, back at the house, there are two people who have a BIG problem with that; two overworked, overtaxed, and completely bewildered parents, shaking their heads about it all, looking at each other and mutually wondering, "What the Hell did we do wrong? How has it come to THIS?" and feeling, correctly, that they have somehow been suckered.
Game over. Uncle Sam wins.
And to think: it all gets rolling downhill with tax increases. Sorta brings the culpable party into sharp focus, doesn't it??
Oh, but ain't that America
For you and me, Baby
Ain't that America
We're somethin' ta see, baby
Ain't that America
Home of the free
Little pink houses for you and me
Well, uh, sort of.
Three years ago I bought a used '97 Aerostar with 60K miles on it so my wife would have a daily driver that all of the kids and their stuff could fit into. At that point, I sold my fun little '92 Saturn SL sedan to some friends for $1500, and took over daily use of our larger '97 Lumina LS. Commuting over 100 miles a day, I like the added protection that extra space and greater mass provide. We'd bought that in a lease fleet turn-over in October of 1997 for $14,250 with just 25K miles on it, and it's been a decent car. The odomoter has recently topped 190K on the Lumina and the Aerostar is just over 160K. I've put $3000 into each of the two transmissions in the last 12 months, so both vehicles should be good for another 150K-200K miles.
I haven't bought a NEW car -- EVER -- and likely won't unless Congress makes auto loan interest tax-deductible, which they will do in the first Congressional session after Hell freezes over.
Hope you are getting full satisfaction out of your Highlander. Just be sure you keep it long enough, and drive it far enough, that your savings on overall fuel expenses more than offset the added expense of the hybrid setup, otherwise it's no more than an unprofitable exercise in environmental altruism. I want you to feel good about your car for more "green" reasons than just frogs and birds and trees. Make sure the purchase puts some "green" back in your pocket over the course of its lifetime.
D'oh!!
That "300sq. ft." house in Kentucky is, in reality, "3000sq. ft."
Simply amazing, how in the world can people afford a mortgage on houses that cost in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. Blows my mind.
[Waving from Santa Clara]
How's the weather in the city, today?
I might have gone the condo route, but it doesn't work out so well with four kids. So, I'm building equity locally, instead. I actually can't complain much about my situation, because I bought back when things were still reasonable. If I had to buy my own house in today's market, I couldn't pull it off without the equity I have now. The mortgage would be around $3700 a month, plus about $600 a month for property taxes, would leave me with about $900 for everything else.
No dice.
Nice and clear, but too cold for me - less than 55 degrees is practically Arctic for us!
The mortgage payment on my (admittedly very nice) condo would be around $6,500 a month. I'm renting it for a little over a third of that. I can afford to buy here, but nothing about the numbers makes sense at this time...so I prefer not to.
Ack! ACK!!!
Bad areas.
Tancredo and "Miami is a Third World City Alert.
Code Red Flashing!
:~)
Amen to that!
LOL...
$900 for everything else would be tough even for me with no kids.
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