Positive Comments about real estate?

Congratulations and best of luck. You can settle in, personalize and enjoy.
The tax benefits amount to a housing subsidy. The equity is yours, not a landlord's.
No, I'm not a broker, but I do own a few properties and I do collect some rents.

We bought, many of our friends bought and those really trying to buy are not the ones posting here. THere is a big difference between active househunting and browsing. The press stories use nationwide stats. and how relevant are they to NYC-not so sure.

My wife and I bought a 1,900 s.f. 2 bed 2-1/2 bath w/ a 1,550 s.f. wrap terrace in a new build (located in the Village) last July, and we're about sixty days from taking possession. In order to purchase this we sold our 2 bed 2 bath loft in May of 06 (FSBO) and have been living in a rental during the interim. We were aware that we sold very well, and also were aware that the housing market would certainly drop, but it didn't really bother us. We were looking for a very special place that we would live in for the next fifteen years minimum (quite possibly longer), and a unit of this type in this location with all the specific attributes we desired (the big wrap terrace, a wood burning fireplace, winged bedrooms, top floor penthouse, condominium, great light and views, in a landmarked historical district where no one can build anything taller in the near vicinity, no lot line issues, etc.) is a true rarity, even in NYC. We felt very strongly when we saw this unit that this was our dream. So although values might go down in the near term for three or five or seven years, it doesn't really matter to us because we're locked in at a very low fixed mortgage rate, the total payments (mortgage plus maintenance) are comfortably within what we can afford, we're not unduly financially leveraged in order to own this property, we're going to be there a very long time, and we're quite sanguine about the fact that after this middling (or long - whatever) 'correction,' when the market pendulum swings around again, a unit with all our specific attributes in our location will hold up quite well and be a very desirable property.

Honestly - good you're happy - that is the only good thing really about buying real estate in this market

happiness will be gone when you try to sell it in 5-10 years and see all the $$ you lost.

I bought. I feel good about it. Time will tell.

banker~ when and what did you buy?

I bought, i am very happy~no more checks to the LL and building equity,

trust me you will never see 100k studios or whatever in manhattan

quite frankly didn't experience huge price drops for the properties i was looking at, so couldn't be bothered to wait it out. good properties are still being sold and aren't around long enough for to incur a huge price drop. so bought instead. no regrets and very happy.

p.s what's FSBO?

For Sale By Owner

We just bought! Waited,looked around and found a 1,800 square foot loft. The price was right, the seller paid transfer taxes and the place is sweet! A month later there is one unitl left and the seller isnt offering anything and the price went up. Who knows what that means but for us its a place to live. If the value falls at least its real propery vs. owning tech stocks - been there done that.

anonymous poster #6 who wrote "...happiness will be gone when you try to sell it in 5-10 years and see all the $$ you lost..."

Poor, poor bitter renter living in your crapshack. I bet when the market was on fire in the recent past you were yelling "The market is in its ascendency! Don't buy at the top!" And now you're wailing "The market is dropping! Nobody wants to catch a falling knife!" If and when the market takes a tumble, you'll be crying "Real estate is a terrible investment now! Wait for an upswing!" All the while, you're STILL living in your bitter renter crapshack, while we're happy homeowners, building equity, getting nice taxbreaks on the mortgage interest (and whatever may be additionally deductibile on the maintenance), not worrying about rising rents because we've got low fixed rate mortgages which seem smaller and smaller every year as the cost of living continues to gradually rise. In addition to all that, NOBODY has a crystal ball. In 5-10 years, adjusted for inflation, real estate may actually go up - you have no more an informed opinion than anybody else. So just keep renting your crapshack - all I can say is that I hope you're as happy as us owners are.

From anonymous poster #4 above, an owner in the Village.

ditto - from the new flatiron loft owner above! Everyone seems to forget that we are talking about our homes - the places we go to each night after a long day at the office. Its a shame that everything is treated like an investment. I guess I better sell my car since its not going to appreciate... same with my audio equipment and everything else....This board seems to filled with jealous individuals who think that blogging will crash the market so they can get in. Best of luck.

LOL, great job to all of you for being reasonable and objective. Cheers! Seriously, this is one of the first times I have seen buyers with common sense about what Real Estate is.... the stock market crash after 9/11 turned real estate into a safe bet, with the lowered rates, and the excess cash prices went crazy. People rode the wave adn portfolio managers got involved with real estate - they always were, but now with zeal. Pretty soon people were looking at homes with stock broker eyes, watching the market - as if one day to the next it could drop. The problem they all did not realize is that homes are not liquid. So they can't just get out of the market. So once the stock market started picking up, they all tried to dump their real estate - (they are a bunch of lemmings aren't they) - inventory sky-rocketed, builders got in too late with their condos, the interest rate "burped" and the buyers who never took advantage while the market was flying started wringing their hands waiting for a crash...LMAO - where do you think you live Detroit? dummies. THIS IS NEW YORK CITY - space and homes are a premium, if you can get your hand son ANYTHING at ANYTIME you should do it. It is logical, and purely beneficial to YOU. Real estate is LONG TERM, and in the long run - Real Estate has NEVER gone down. As mentioned above through inflation alone you keep making money, count the tax benefits, equity, etc adn not buying - when you could have - is that much more painful. So plese keep waiting for the market to crash, we love it. Because now only th eserious buyers are coming out, the crappy new agents are leaving the business - thank god and all that's going to be left are serious buyers and skilled professionals. The market is always good - for someone. Is it you?

I am happy that I bought when nobody was willing to buy-in Sep '06 (new cons)-got a decent break plus we had the entire building to choose from. In the last week of the year my agent told me they sold 30 units (bonus effect, more to come when foreign banks declare the numbers) and his claim is verified from streeteasy/Prudential website. Plus my friends who were waiting for the crash are having trouble finding bargains and will have to stay put in their rental crapholes with a 10%pa increase in rents.

It took 5 whole responses to get a psuedo-insult to my post - the angry people are getting lazy.

Angry people have given up-I guess media has also run out of ideas on real estate bubble stories. Angry people were reading stats from AZ and trying to forecast Manhattan.

To those of you who are afraid to own property and think that the slower housing market is the worst thigs ever I have a question. You rent right? Are you aware that the monthly mortgage and maintinence fees that owners pay are usually not that much more out of pocket than renting? Are you also aware of the tax breaks owners can get from the taxes they pay and from mortgage interest (if the property is a condo)? If not you should probably do some research into how buying, even in a slow market, is financially a much better decision than renting if you have the means.

poster above - coop owners receive the same tax benefits. The property taxes paid by the building are passed through to the shareholder's mgt fees, along with the tax deduction.

I can understand your statement that "media" have "run out of ideas on real estate bubble stories." See, it's clear that you don't watch CNBC or read the Wall Street Journal or the FT, like successful people who cashed out and are watching the ride down from atop a pile of cash.

Oh, wow. Agents are telling recent buyers that sales are going great. In other news, fox to guard henhouse.

it IS true that the real estate market is really f@#$%
but for the most part lets look at the reasons why and also see why NYC is somewhat insulated.

1. manhattan is a fucking island people, no where to go except UP!, unlike Phoenix, unlike Reno, unlike Florida!
2. rampant mortgage fraud by inflating home values and getting cash back deals have not occurred here
3. people in NYC mostly were not speculators or quick flippers getting caught with multiple ARMs and not being able to dump their property.
4. there is a glut of new developments all over town, but unlike Reno, etc. they CAN be rented out,
5. People in NYC tend to either have jobs or not need them at all

....add to this that about 70% of buildings in Mahattan are coops, most of which have stricter financing standards than banks, so the over-leveraged folks with marginal credit who took adv of low rates to drive the bubble in the rest of the country haven't made it here.

Oh, wow. Agents are telling recent buyers that sales are going great. In other news, fox to guard henhouse

Mr Brain Damaged-most sales are reflected on this website!!!! And some of us live in Manhattan, buy in Manhattan and have friends who are looking to buy and friends who have given up because the market in Manhattan is not in line with what media is reporting nationwide. Recent buyer in a new dev is taking a gamble so has interest in watching how the construction is progressing, how the sales are progressing and what is the financial health of the sponsor(s).

I thought this was for positive comments.

We're buying the house in Astoria that we're currently renting and look forward to owning our own home ina great part of NYC.

I started this posting for positive comments, but it is only a matter of time before negative people start a slap fight.

People....I bought in 87 sold in 93 - lost a TON of $$. Lost my entire down payment and then some - seriously....think about this...prices are insane, they cannot hold and you will lose money if you buy now, probably a LOT of money....

Your always going to get negative post, it just the nature of the beast. There are a group of people who are sitting on the sidelines mad that your doing something that there are either too scared to or just can't. I'm in the process of buying a coop and I hear all the naysayer. When I listen closely all I hear is hate and jealousy.

wow you buyers sure do have a high opinion of yourselves!! "All I hear is hate and jealousy..." - I don't see anyone hating the buyers, maybe some are jealous, but the majority of us renters just think real estate is a bad investment right now and are trying to warn you not to buy or expressing our honest opinion about the state of the market (though it may not be what you want to hear after you've poured your life savings into a 1bedroom walk up and are going to be a slave to your job forever and realize you could rent the same apartment for half the price you're paying in mortgate payments even after deductions!)

All I hear is the crinkling of the pile of cash I'm sitting on after cashing out. What does your million dollar one-bedroom sound like? I mean, beside the weeping.

The majority of renters are not renters by choice. Many are, but most are not - take a look at the demographics of the city. This posting was initiated for people who are actually happy about buying - and beleive it or not, there are some - to comment without having to listen to the naysayers tell us that we are stupid and will be in the poor house for actually buying a place. Nobody knows the future, but too many people are happy to condemn you for what they say will happen in the future.

this thread was initiated by a real estate broker - come on folks!

Ok the folks who believe everyone else is a broker are back. Lots of us buy homes because we need a nice place to live. And many do not look at every decision in life in terms of dollars and cents.

I started the thread and I could not care less if you think I am a broker (which I am not).

"People….I bought in 87 sold in 93 – lost a TON of $$."

Perhaps you shouldn't have sold in 93.

Um, maybe I shouldn't have bought at the height of the market in 87 - history repeats itself....good luck to all you buyers - you're sure going to need it....

if you bought in 87 and sold in 93, you are obviously not an investor and if you are i suggest you stop investing

sure in retrospect you shouldn't have bought in 87 but if you hadn't sold in 93 things would have turned out fine. Now maybe circumstances forced you to sell but that won't be the case for many buyers who are looking to live in the home they buy for many years.

And of course I'll echo what others have said, who's to say what the top is or how long any downturn will be? People have been saying prices couldn't go higher how long now? While buyers have made a ton of money.

Yes, if I'd held the apartment for 15 years things would have turned out fine. Who lives someplace for 15 years? The common widsom on this site is "well, everything may be overpriced, but who cares b/c it will all work out in 5 years..." my story shows this is not necessarilyt he case - you may have to hold onto your property for 15-20 years to just break even.

Come on. 20 years to break even? If you have real data, or even any data, go ahead and provide it. A blanket statement like that doesn't help anyone, it only serves to discredit extremist views like that.

folks, the market in the late 80/early 90's was very different from what it is now, diff circumstances. unprecedented white-collar recession, int rates were higher, wall st was down, crime in the city was much higher, more homeless (remember the crack addicts? the west side wildman?).

my point is you can't compare what happened 15 years ago to now. will the market sink? who knows? 5 years ago there was a recession yet the housing market boomed so go figure...

a house is a place to live - don't look at it like buying a share of enron

87 to 93 is four years - you should have rented it out then after you moved. . . you should have avoided having to sell at a loss.

87 through 93 is 7 years.

i posted the wrong calculation - was really tired. actually we are both wrong as it is 6 years (depending on which part of the year). . . bottom line - he should have rented it out. .till market improved

We just bought a 2BR condo on the UWS and are very happy to be out of the renting cycle.

how much did the 2br cost?

under 1M.

love how you say the above poster should have rented - and where would he have lived??? Most people need the equity in their homes to purchase another house and how was he to know the market would recover? Many times you HAVE to sell - don't forget this when you buy - could end up being 87-93 but drawn out 30 years with this crazy runnup.

I was saying he should have rented it out. If he owned it for 6 years hopefully he had been paying some of the mortgage off so that a renter would be close to that. Then he could rent out a cheaper place.

Not everyone who rents can't afford to buy. We rent brand new 2 bed/2ba w/large terraces at $6500 month in Chelsea. When we signed our lease in August, the same type of apartment was going for more than 1.5MM which would have left us with 10K mortgage payments +300K down. Renting makes sense for us as we have a growing family... We didn't want to buy a 2 bedroom that we would outgrow and sell in 5 years because I don't believe there is much upside appreciation in that time frame to offset the lower cost of renting.
And we own two other properties so get mortgage interest deductions on those for taxes, so we didn't need that perk.
All this said, when I'm done with baby making and if I'm still in love with Manhattan, the browsing will turn to buying.

I think the key part of the post above is that they already get the mortgage deduction. We were in the same boat almost ($5500 in rent for a place that would have been $1.5M). We decided to buy a place for $1M, which costs $7000 in mortgage and maintenance. We now get to deduct the $60K in interest which saves us about $1750 a month. So at the end of the day, we pay less. This only worked because we were willing to buy a place that was not as big/nice. Everybody is different.

it's refreshing to hear someone say the honest truth about real estate in the 2bed 1MM+ range: you must be "willing to buy a place that [is] not as big/nice" for the equivalent price of renting. That has been the truth of the matter for those looking to buy in 2006, even when rents increased 25%, it still works out to be LESS than the cost of owning the equivalent.
I am not adverse to buying in the future, but when I can rent something nicer at a cheaper monthly cost it's hard to feel like I made a bad decision by choosing to rent in Manhattan.

Real estate in this city is all about compromise (unless you are crazy rich, but even then you probably don't get everything you want). Had we come to that realization 3 years ago, we would have paid $400K less for our 2BR. Can't win them all.

To poster #52, it all depends on your goals in life. You might pay more now to own a place that you could otherwise rent, but in the long run you'd be subject to rent increases (presumably higher than your maint fees) and you wouldn't be building any equity. It also depends on your tax bracket - for some of us we're getting killed, so buying a place if you have to live somewhere anyway makes sense.

I'm commenter #504, we're building equity in two other properties & already have the tax break, which, yes, when you're in the top tax bracket is nice.
As for rent increases, I absolutely agree. I hate to be at the whims of a landlord, but I always sign a two year lease. In the end the money I'm saving by renting for even 2 years is worth it as I am not sure where in Manhattan I would like to settle based on future kids & school districts in the future. Would love to own in Manhattan eventually, just not now.

I find the extremists on either side of the real estate debate to be simply uneducated. It oversimplifies everything to say "you must buy" or "you must rent" or you are an idiot. Buying OR renting in Manhattan is a huge financial decision and there are pros and cons to each.

Lets face it, too many people are expecting real estate to crash and when too many people are expecting it, then it wont. Market doesn't do what more expect it to do otherwise everybody would be rich. Real estate mutual funds and stocks are actually doing quite well. When I see everybody on this boarding throwing up their hands and saying they'll buy then I'm going to sell.

Lets face it, too many people are expecting real estate to crash and when too many people are expecting it, then it wont. Market doesn't do what more expect it to do otherwise everybody would be rich. Real estate mutual funds and stocks are actually doing quite well. When I see everybody on this boarding throwing up their hands and saying they'll buy then I'm going to sell.

I bought a $850k place recently w/10% down. After the tax break the total monthly cost is about $4200 (mortgage, maintenance, taxes w/421a). This is about $600 more than what I'd pay in rent. And it's a *way nicer place.* For me it's a quality of living question. I like living in a nice place, with nice appliances and ability to customize as I see fit.