(no subject)

[sanpaku_backup]

Just got word that yet another set of our friends, the-folks-who-moved-away-to-Albany, are pregnant. Yikes. It's breaking out all over.

Speaking of trends... the whole house buying thing is also in the air again. (I blame librarygrrl for spreading it, but anyway.) We capped off a nice drive in Connecticut (New England in the fall is so nice) with a trip to New London, which the Mrs. has a bee in her bonnet about.

This came up not long ago when we were playing the "where will we ever live someday" game and I pointed out that it will be pretty difficult for us to ever buy a house for more than $150K, given my salary, but you can hardly find anything cheaper than that in all of New England. The buying a house thing is also a proxy for larger issues between the two of us. For example, I hate driving/commuting and would want to live within walking distance of a synagogue. She wants a rambling Victorian thing with turrets and lots of space... equals "boonies" in New England.

So she did a web search and found that one place that seems relatively affordable, yet has a Conservative shul right smack in the middle of town, is New London. This is where we get the Long Island ferry to see her folks, and I always thought of it as a hole. But there were some intriguing listings. So we drove around and I must say it did look nice, right by the water and all, with big and relatively affordable houses. We spent some time looking inside the windows of a place that she had remembered as fairly cheap. (Turned out to be more like $189K, so so much for that idea.)

It's an interesting idea. As I said, we feel the bug. But there are the following spoilsport considerations that I felt compelled to remind her of:

• We just moved a year or so ago and I don't feel like going through the trauma or expense of moving again until someone else, ie an employer, makes us move
  
• It takes years to find people to hang out with and after any move we will be starting from scratch
  
• We like where we live now just fine and have barely gotten under the surface of what's here
  
• The freedom to move around anywhere we want is job-dependent and we don't know if I'll have this job forever
  
• If we move anywhere by choice it should probably be someplace like Pittsburgh, where houses are very cheap, or at least out of the madness of the New England housing market
  
• Right now renting is a bargain compared to buying
  
• One nice part of New London doesn't erase the larger hole-ishness of the place, not to mention that the water has a great view of what I think is a nuclear power plant

And so on. So there's no way we will move anytime soon.

But... the facts are that we have not exactly been overwhelmed by a social life, this apartment will not last us forever, and we will need to think about somewhere to go once the baby starts school and/or the shul finally collapses. Even the fact that I need to rehearse reasons against... I've been bitten by the bug too. It's just that time of life or something.

Comments

[cellio]

<subliminal>
Come to Pittsburgh. Houses are cheaper here, and there are three Conservative synagogues in Squirrel Hill. (I can walk to all of them easily.)
</subliminal>

[sanpaku.livejournal.com]

Well, no need for subtlety there. My parents are there and all that. But you know I grew up there, and for purely irrational reasons, if I moved back I couldn't hear the twang of Myron Cope's voice without feeling like a bit of a failure. Just because I grew up there, understand. It's all extremely nice on its own merits, and I think we'd have a lot of fun there.

Not sure how we would do with Sqworl Hill, either. It might be a little too urban for my wife, while Shadyside would be pricey. So there's that too. I keep having this mental image of a shady Dormont Victorian, or maybe SaSide. No, there are no shuls there (though Beth El could maybe be a long walk). But whatever. We play the "where will we live" game a lot.

[cellio]

Y'know, I don't listen to sports, so it's been years since I've heard Myron Cope's distinctive voice. Brings back memories...

Actually, there are houses in Squirrel Hill that might have enough foliage/grass/etc to satisfy your wife. I'm thinking of the houses near the parks, for example. I live in a house with a turret, woodwork, and stained glass a quarter-block from Frick Park -- so while my yard is small, the park is right there. There are a bunch of affordable-looking houses with some character that back onto Schenley Park, too.

[librarygrrl.livejournal.com]

First of all, you can afford more than you think. I can afford more than I thought and you make more than I do.

Also, I almost moved to New London right after grad school. I say almost because I was on the cusp of being offered a job at Conn College and they pulled the position and reposted it with a different description. For some reason they did not think to do this before flying me there, putting me up in a hotel for 2 nights, and buying me three days worth of meals, and a freaking cocktail "meet the candidate" reception for me. I cried in the hotel room every night.

New London gives me a pain just to think of it.

And they build nuclear submarines there too.

[sanpaku.livejournal.com]

I dunno, I just use those mortgage calculator thingees. I plugged in 5.57% as the interest rate coz that's apparently the average right now. I can't imagine, after taxes and upkeep and insurance and all that, wanting to pay more than we pay now. We're about at "just right." I know a lot of people get mortgaged up their their eyeballs, but then if anything bad happens, you're really screwed.

That's really quite a New London story. Yeah, I could imagine living there if I got some kind of academic job in the area. But since that's unlikely at present...

[librarygrrl.livejournal.com]

Well, don't forget to deduct the down payment from the calculation. Sheesh, how cheap is your rent? Cause ours is pretty damn cheap. Like 300 under market cheap.

[sanpaku.livejournal.com]

Ours is 1400 buckskis. Pretty good for around here. (Also it's 3BR with about 1500 square feet, fireplace, deck, etc.) Anyway, assuming $10K for a down payment, that works out to something like $1050 a month, and then there are taxes and upkeep and insurance and all that.

About 175K purchase price would be about even-steven, I think. At least that's what I figured the last time I looked into all this, when I was looking at the East Side of Providence, which is a better place to live. But good luck finding anything for under $250K there.

[cellio]

It's a little more complicated, though. Remember that you can deduct mortgage interest and real-estate taxes from your federal income taxes, so you can end up with a higher mortgage payment but the saem amount of cash in the end.

You might want to get a copy of Turbo Tax and play through some scenarios, if you aren't up for doing all the calculations by hand.

[sanpaku.livejournal.com]

Right. I'm assuming that the taxes will be something of a wash in the end, maybe a little worse for me or a little better. Or maybe better. Still, I think it's not unreasonable to expect to put in, on average, a couple of hundred bucks' worth in upkeep, repair, and insurance a month. So I would expect the total ownership costs to be more or less the same as rent, maybe more, maybe less, but not by a huge amount.

So maybe I could go up to $200K if I had to, but I don't want to get into all this until I really feel in the mood to move.