Easy Come, Easy Go

[ladysprite]

No house for me, apparently. Woe.

It seems I heinously overestimated what we could afford to buy. While we do have enough saved up for a sizeable down payment, our monthly allowance for a mortgage is not quite up to a large, friendly house in the suburbs of Medford. It's more along the lines of 'large friendly house in the suburbs of Ohio or New Jersey,' or 'small ramshackle fixer-upper in the suburbs of Dorchester' level.

I find it patently ridiculous that two adults, working full-time at decent-paying jobs, with no children, can't afford a house in this neighborhood, but such is life. On the other hand, we're also two well-paid adults with monthly student loan payments that total more than most people's rent in this corner of the country.

Darn it, if only I had skipped out on education in favor of becoming a hairdresser at 18, I'd.... well, I'd be making a lot less money. I'm damned, either way.

I know this doesn't mean no-house-forever, but right now it feels like that. I don't want to rent forever, but I don't want to give up the neighborhood here that I love. I've spent the last day or so pouting, doomsaying, and kicking my bed, and I've finally moved on to the point where I'm willing to do something about the situation.

Of course, now I just need to figure out what that is. Short of a magic hand coming down from Heaven to wipe out our student loans, our financial situation isn't going to change anytime soon. And if the hand of heaven isn't going to fix our debt load, it's not likely to whisk up a house in Medford that we can afford with our current funds, either. I could drop all my hobbies and work six days a week for the next couple of years, but.... a house isn't that much of a priority to me right now, that I'd be willing to drive myself that hard for it. And I don't trust the stock market enough to invest our current savings in anything that has a chance of significant payback on that time scale.

I want things the easy way, it seems. And that's just not likely. I need to beat my head against the situation until another answer becomes visible....

Comments

[meranthi.livejournal.com]

Condo doesn't necessarily mean apartment building or no yard. We have a townhouse. 2 floors, plus finished basement, and it has a yard (of sorts). However, we can't really do anything with it, which doesn't work for the vegetable garden.

That said, the housing market up north is *why* we live in Dorchester. It's not that I wanted to, but the prices were MUCH better, and still doable from a commute standpoint.

[goldsquare.livejournal.com]

meranthi is giving good advice. There are plenty of Arlington 2-family units that have gone condo. But with shared back yard, gardening space, and so forth.

Also - look at some of the money market mutual funds from places like Fidelity (http://www.fidelity.com). They may not make you rich. but you want to have your savings earn above inflation rates, or it shrinks as it sits there.

[sonata960.livejournal.com]

I agree with this - we live in a 3 family, with a nice back yard that none of the units care to tend, so this year we planted a whole bunch of bulbs, and I'm thinking of maybe ripping some stuff out and putting in hydrangeas. It's a nice compromise, as we can't afford a house, but didn't want to keep renting.

Good luck!