I have been looking into buying a home.
It is normal to get a mortgage that takes 30 years to pay off. The cheapest appartments i have seen are 85.000 euro and stripped bare, so you will have quite extensive construction costs. 120.000 euro is usually called a very cheap house.
I checked on a bankwebsite how much mortgage I could get and by lying about my studentloan i could get 90.000 euro. Lying about my studentloan in reality would be impossible. Fun sidenote: When i started studying I was promised that my student loan wouldn't influence my chances for a mortgage.
Missing too many payments not only means the bank takes back the house but leaves you with massive debt on top of that.
You could declare yourself bankrupt but around here that doesn't mean you lose your creditrating in exchange for getting rid of your debt like it does in sane countries.
No, it means the debts keep existing but you just won't be expected to pay them off (for a while) and a government curator takes control of your life: Your mail is redirected to this curator, all your income goes into his care, he sells all your valuables, and you get a minimal allowance from him.
Interesting sidenote: The Judge usually doesn't allow a Bankruptcy to occur if you have no assets and limited income, in that case you can just resign to having your creditors taking a big chunk out of your paycheck.
So I think i won't be buying even though it is by far more affordable than renting.
Speaking of renting...
You can get on a 7 year waiting list for subsidized living where refusing 3 offered houses means you go back to the bottom of the list. As you can imagine this doesn't give you a lot of choice about where you live.
Or you can get a 'free sector' house.The prices for these start at 700 euro a month. This is what i am doing now. Of course they are very difficult when two men want to rent a house together (I couldn't afford one on my own so i pooled my resources with a friend) so we had to get a registered partnership, this is legally equal to marriage. To get a house I can still barely afford.
My father is the second man in a municipal political party and he told me about one of their plans to build many tiny affordable houses. I hope this happens soon because i can´t stand wasting 40% of my income on 4 walls and a roof much longer. I know that will still mean I have to get one of those evil dutch mortgages but if the payments are affordable enough I don't expect to run into any trouble even if i lose my job.
There is not enough mirth here to call it horrormirth from my perspective but i imagine others can laugh about this. :horrormirth:
The more horror, the more mirth.
Go buy a house in Norway.
For what it's worth, it's largely the same all over as I understand.
I resigned myself to private renting a long time ago due to the nature of my work and frequent moves.
There are other options I could suggest but they would be very dependent on cash and the kind of environment you're willing to live in.
Also, paying 40% for 4 walls may hurt, but I promise you it's a better situation than having no walls and 100%. I've got no idea what your eviction laws are like but if you don't have an address here it's a nightmare trying to do anything. Which leads to our wonderful homeless problem that isn't worth discussing.
For the record, home ownership ain't all that great either.
Yeah, for one thing you get asshole neighbors like me renting next to you.
That sound almost exactly like a mortgage in the US. I love the idea of paying it off someday but ha, ha. Only 25 years to go!
What's a fucking bummer is that if I'd kept my first house it'd be paid off next year. Stupid remarriage.
Alla youse are depressing me even more. :argh!:
Quote from: Junkenstein on May 22, 2014, 09:14:38 PM
Yeah, for one thing you get asshole neighbors like me renting next to you.
Seriously. There I am, thinking all I have to deal with are asshole Bostonians, and then a wormhole appears and suddenly I'm living next to UKIP.
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on May 22, 2014, 08:55:01 PM
The more horror, the more mirth.
Go buy a house in Norway.
Yeah. No. Not gonna get a house in Norway (unless you want to be north of the polar circle among the reindeer) below €200,000. Sky high interest, and you need 15% of the amount up front.
Quote from: Allfader Waffles on May 23, 2014, 02:34:34 PM
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on May 22, 2014, 08:55:01 PM
The more horror, the more mirth.
Go buy a house in Norway.
Yeah. No. Not gonna get a house in Norway (unless you want to be north of the polar circle among the reindeer) below €200,000. Sky high interest, and you need 15% of the amount up front.
Ironically, I would suspect property investment in Norway to be a relatively safe bet. The country is affluent and there's no immediate sign of everything turning to shit. No idea on their capital gains laws but unless they're totally brutal it's probably a decent place to make cash out of.
Quote from: Junkenstein on May 23, 2014, 02:47:25 PM
Quote from: Allfader Waffles on May 23, 2014, 02:34:34 PM
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on May 22, 2014, 08:55:01 PM
The more horror, the more mirth.
Go buy a house in Norway.
Yeah. No. Not gonna get a house in Norway (unless you want to be north of the polar circle among the reindeer) below €200,000. Sky high interest, and you need 15% of the amount up front.
Ironically, I would suspect property investment in Norway to be a relatively safe bet. The country is affluent and there's no immediate sign of everything turning to shit. No idea on their capital gains laws but unless they're totally brutal it's probably a decent place to make cash out of.
Buying apartments to rent out is the safest investment you can make in Norway. The trick is to get the money for the first apartment. After that it pays itself.
Behold my total and utter lack of surprise.
Oh you 1st worlders, i pay 45% of my check to rent a crappy apartment in the shady side of the city. :lulz:
Athough i will say that i dont work full time and its more for curricular/experience purposes, so yeah, it probably is worse situation for you guys, im not sure.
Well I'm throwing out about 30% on a half decent place in a meh area. The mortgage on the same place would be about 20-25% as I understand it. Would I like that 5-10%? Sure. Do I want to commit to living here for XX years and owing the bank XXXXXXX, which if I fail to pay consistently for XX years, regardless of circumstance, I lose everything I've put in so far? Fuck no. Not for 10%.
Quote from: Junkenstein on May 23, 2014, 07:43:00 PM
Well I'm throwing out about 30% on a half decent place in a meh area. The mortgage on the same place would be about 20-25% as I understand it. Would I like that 5-10%? Sure. Do I want to commit to living here for XX years and owing the bank XXXXXXX, which if I fail to pay consistently for XX years, regardless of circumstance, I lose everything I've put in so far? Fuck no. Not for 10%.
That's the worst that can happen to you???!!
I WOULD LOSE MY AGENCY.
I would effectively be treated like a child for years without any of the benefits of being a child (like not being in massive debt).
Well, no. That's just the first step in the chain of losing all your shit and becoming homeless. You are effectively treated as if you'd be doing the world a favor by dying. Preferably elsewhere and not too messy. I can't stress how utterly fucked you are without an address in the UK and once you're on that heading everyone has incentives to fuck you so you'd better have a damn good support network. Part of the good old "Kick em while their down" mentality we have over here.
Where would you end up living in the face of massive financial fuckup? I'm asking as it seems an almost assured way to end up dealing with the black market and cash under your laws. Any kind of other monitoring involved?
Quote from: The Johnny on May 23, 2014, 07:35:10 PM
Oh you 1st worlders, i pay 45% of my check to rent a crappy apartment in the shady side of the city. :lulz:
Athough i will say that i dont work full time and its more for curricular/experience purposes, so yeah, it probably is worse situation for you guys, im not sure.
It is not at all unusual in the US for housing to be 2/3 or even more of the total household income. The standard of living is probably better (I don't know what housing code is like in Mexico City but from what little I know, I'm guessing it's not as rigourous there) but for most of the working poor in the US, homelessness is a paycheck away. And because of those housing codes, other than the mostly-illegal tent cities and shantytowns, there is very little available housing in between "full amenities" and "dying under a bridge".
It's sure as hell not the worst place to live, it's pretty fantastic if you're one of the people who can keep above water. But holy shit, we are not kind to the poor and an awful lot of us walk the fine line.
Quote from: Junkenstein on May 24, 2014, 12:34:54 AM
Well, no. That's just the first step in the chain of losing all your shit and becoming homeless. You are effectively treated as if you'd be doing the world a favor by dying. Preferably elsewhere and not too messy. I can't stress how utterly fucked you are without an address in the UK and once you're on that heading everyone has incentives to fuck you so you'd better have a damn good support network. Part of the good old "Kick em while their down" mentality we have over here.
Where would you end up living in the face of massive financial fuckup? I'm asking as it seems an almost assured way to end up dealing with the black market and cash under your laws. Any kind of other monitoring involved?
I would probably end up with family or friends, preferably with friends. Without that social support network I think I would end up a squatter in a tent or something. Come to think of it I know a group of local mirgatory squatters constantly getting kicked off every piece of land they park. I could probably go live with them.I think I would do horrible in the black market, I would be only good at guerilla farming and working in a drug lab. The second option is not very attractive to me because of the kind of people I would have to deal with.From my experiences with the unemployment office the monitoring would be mandatory weekly meetings, pointless trainingsessions, and no say in what kind of job I get. This on top of the loss of control over my mail, income, and ofcourse the loss of all my property.
Quote from: All-Father Nigel on May 24, 2014, 01:09:36 AM
Quote from: The Johnny on May 23, 2014, 07:35:10 PM
Oh you 1st worlders, i pay 45% of my check to rent a crappy apartment in the shady side of the city. :lulz:
Athough i will say that i dont work full time and its more for curricular/experience purposes, so yeah, it probably is worse situation for you guys, im not sure.
It is not at all unusual in the US for housing to be 2/3 or even more of the total household income. The standard of living is probably better (I don't know what housing code is like in Mexico City but from what little I know, I'm guessing it's not as rigourous there) but for most of the working poor in the US, homelessness is a paycheck away. And because of those housing codes, other than the mostly-illegal tent cities and shantytowns, there is very little available housing in between "full amenities" and "dying under a bridge".
It's sure as hell not the worst place to live, it's pretty fantastic if you're one of the people who can keep above water. But holy shit, we are not kind to the poor and an awful lot of us walk the fine line.
For about $120 i get 2 rooms which are about 5x5 (meters) each and a bathroom... great! right?...
Well, there is no cistern (water reserve deposit) so i use 2 water tanks... one for reserves and one for direct supply, one is on the roof, other is at ground level (electrical pump used to bring to the roof)... theres no incoming water because theres a huge debt to the company, so with a water hose i fill the ground level one (from a neighbour)... and the water is brown, but thats ok, because its dirt (so ive been told and so i pray, im 90% sure, because research)... the bathrooms walls dont have tile (but the floor does).
The internet i steal from a neighbour 3 houses away with a very much special antenna that i place on my roof, because the telephone monopoly's syndicate refuses to install any more ports (something about people not paying :lulz:)
We had free electricity with a diablito, but the electrical commission shut down the party for the entire sector (cut all them good cables, we kinda sad).
Everything is brick and mortar with no insulation, but thats standard practice nationwide... for some reason the walls have 6 differnt colors in patches (very bizarre) in forest green, puke green, goldfish orange, grey, white and algae green, and some retarded phrases written with permanent black marker (and everything is chipping off)... the ground is solid concrete.
Conclusion: in a nice zone which is by my work, a single room in a house would run me about 1.5x more... if i wanted something the same size as here in nice zone, it woudl run me about 3x more... so, yay (?) for crappy affordable housing! (?)
At least it sounds nicer than dying under the bridge, or having to pay 70% of income for a single room!
Quote from: The Johnny on May 24, 2014, 09:42:22 AM
Quote from: All-Father Nigel on May 24, 2014, 01:09:36 AM
Quote from: The Johnny on May 23, 2014, 07:35:10 PM
Oh you 1st worlders, i pay 45% of my check to rent a crappy apartment in the shady side of the city. :lulz:
Athough i will say that i dont work full time and its more for curricular/experience purposes, so yeah, it probably is worse situation for you guys, im not sure.
It is not at all unusual in the US for housing to be 2/3 or even more of the total household income. The standard of living is probably better (I don't know what housing code is like in Mexico City but from what little I know, I'm guessing it's not as rigourous there) but for most of the working poor in the US, homelessness is a paycheck away. And because of those housing codes, other than the mostly-illegal tent cities and shantytowns, there is very little available housing in between "full amenities" and "dying under a bridge".
It's sure as hell not the worst place to live, it's pretty fantastic if you're one of the people who can keep above water. But holy shit, we are not kind to the poor and an awful lot of us walk the fine line.
For about $120 i get 2 rooms which are about 5x5 (meters) each and a bathroom... great! right?...
Well, there is no cistern (water reserve deposit) so i use 2 water tanks... one for reserves and one for direct supply, one is on the roof, other is at ground level (electrical pump used to bring to the roof)... theres no incoming water because theres a huge debt to the company, so with a water hose i fill the ground level one (from a neighbour)... and the water is brown, but thats ok, because its dirt (so ive been told and so i pray, im 90% sure, because research)... the bathrooms walls dont have tile (but the floor does).
The internet i steal from a neighbour 3 houses away with a very much special antenna that i place on my roof, because the telephone monopoly's syndicate refuses to install any more ports (something about people not paying :lulz:)
We had free electricity with a diablito, but the electrical commission shut down the party for the entire sector (cut all them good cables, we kinda sad).
Everything is brick and mortar with no insulation, but thats standard practice nationwide... for some reason the walls have 6 differnt colors in patches (very bizarre) in forest green, puke green, goldfish orange, grey, white and algae green, and some retarded phrases written with permanent black marker (and everything is chipping off)... the ground is solid concrete.
Conclusion: in a nice zone which is by my work, a single room in a house would run me about 1.5x more... if i wanted something the same size as here in nice zone, it woudl run me about 3x more... so, yay (?) for crappy affordable housing! (?)
At least it sounds nicer than dying under the bridge, or having to pay 70% of income for a single room!
Yeah, it does, actually, and while I understand that the idea behind housing codes here is partly for public health reasons and partly to avoid slumlords renting substandard dwellings at inflated prices, it leaves this huge gap where if you can't afford $500/month for a room, there's nowhere for you to live except in a squat, which the police are constantly raiding and charging people with trespassing. My current housemates were living in a tiny RV and paying $400/mo to park it in someone's driveway (technically illegal, but hard to get busted unless a neighbor calls the cops) and now they're paying me $500/mo for their 10'x12' room. That's a little below the going rate. My house is pretty nice but a little dilapidated, and my mortgage is $1500/mo. If I was renting, the going rate in my neighborhood for a 5-bedroom house is $2800/mo.
With housing costs like this you would think incomes would be through the roof, but nope.
All this "protection" thru housing-codes in the USA seems to me the kind of "protection" my transit policemen have given me, which was giving me a fine for not wearing a seatbelt in a 40km/h zone... i was like "gee, i feel special for the judicial system to worry about my safety, i should feel grateful and loved" ( :roll: )
So all in all, its the same discourse of "safety/protection" but the end result is punishment.
Perhaps it would be interesting to convey to each other why housing is so expensive in their particular country or state - in my case, well, it does make a bit of sense because im living in 35km2ish capital with 20 million inhabitants, and there's a huge demand for living quarters just because population density per kilometer... but i guess we can all say that, for example, im living in the equivalent of the slums of New York, so if i went to live in the equivalent to say, Arizona (?) the prices would also be cheap, but who wants to live there?
Quote from: The Johnny on May 24, 2014, 08:19:26 PM
All this "protection" thru housing-codes in the USA seems to me the kind of "protection" my transit policemen have given me, which was giving me a fine for not wearing a seatbelt in a 40km/h zone... i was like "gee, i feel special for the judicial system to worry about my safety, i should feel grateful and loved" ( :roll: )
So all in all, its the same discourse of "safety/protection" but the end result is punishment.
Perhaps it would be interesting to convey to each other why housing is so expensive in their particular country or state - in my case, well, it does make a bit of sense because im living in 35km2ish capital with 20 million inhabitants, and there's a huge demand for living quarters just because population density per kilometer... but i guess we can all say that, for example, im living in the equivalent of the slums of New York, so if i went to live in the equivalent to say, Arizona (?) the prices would also be cheap, but who wants to live there?
You're spot on about the punishment. That's basically how we approach everything in the Western world; punish all the bad things away. And just see how well it's working for us!