To Rent or Own
hello folks, man, it's been only less than a week in houston, and i'm already starting to get restless and bored. maybe the idea of taking off for a month before work wasn't so hot of an idea. well, ok... maybe it is nice to be able to sleep till 10:00 am every day, haha. so... geez, what the hell have i've been doing. actually, each day has been pretty full and productive. it took me only two days to unpacked all my shit and to at least temporarily organize it in nice little compartments or shoved away somewhere. originally i really thought i was going to just live out of boxes for a week because before i got to houston, i was pretty intent on moving almost immediately... but things have changed direction somewhat. also with unpacking was a quick analysis of my budget and what i might be able to do with my money. i being an anal retentive planner...love these type of exercises. at first i truly budgeted according to the idea of moving out to an apartment and lving like any other joe fresh out of grad school. however, the more i thought of it and the more i considered the idea that eventually i do want to start owning a house... the more i thought....well, why not just skip the whole renting process and start owning now?
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but there's the rub of the situation. i won't be able to own right now, mainly do to the fact that i also need to buy a car and the car payment, if i want to get it out of the way quickly might rival the rent actually. so it would be like juggling two rents which i ... could... do... if i didn't want to save a dime... but then again... i'm asian, so its in my blood to hoard money.... haha. so after some laborious calculations.... the most financially efficient scenario involves me living at home... yes...gasp... for about four to six months... and using that time to pay off my car using my entire paycheck minus general expenses.... having nothing after that, but then using money that i've saved from before (you see what saving money can do.....comes in handy no?) to downpay for a townhome (not really house actually.... unless i want a crappy one) and then since i won't have a major car payment anymore... i can just pay the mortgage...which eventually leads to ownership. i mean, houston is such a market where owning and renting cost can and do rival each other... and as long as i don't have to worry about a car payment... it makes more investment sense to put your money away in something that you can get out in the future... instead of renting which is just an expenditure. after calculating it, the worst case scenario has me squeaking by, but with some savings (again... asians consider saving a non-negotiatible item... like another payment).. and the best case involves getting a raise, maybe a roommate, and being able to flip the house economically in three to five years..... which is kind of a nice window of expectation i think.
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i mean, its all kind of crazy now thinking of this.... of how long i am staying in houston.... but you know.... even before i did all the numbers, i said i'd rent for a year to figure out a good place in houston after i got situated and all, and well.. this is pretty much the plan... except i'm living at home for a few months because i forgot that a car payment could be a lot of money. oops. lving at home won't be too bad i figured... especially since it's really only maximun six months because my own folks are moving at the beginning of next year...so i won't even have a place to stay anymore. i'll just pretend it was like that semester i took off of school. i mean, that wasn't soooo bad i remember, because most of the time you're working anyways and involved in your professional life. and also on family issues, there are a lot of things i need to work out with my folks and this may be a good opportunity to do so. and heck... life is comfortable at home... obviously i personally wouldn't have the luxury of affording a 4000 square foot texas mcmansion where i get not only a bedroom, but my own study (which by the way, looks fabulous with the addition of my professionally framed fancy schmnacy harvard diploma!) and all the other country club accoutrements i have grown accustomed too... heehee... just kidding... a little. my point is.... living is comfy, the parents pyschological drama is usually barable... and most of all... its FREE. and also its allowing me to be financially comfortable on MY OWN later on.
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i've always been a big fan of doing it myself, and in all honesty i could afford to rent a mediocre apartment and pay a car payment and make my school loan repayments and make some savings... decently fine.... but the hard cash economic potential side of me can't help but wonder why i wouldn't take the opportunity to bypass expenditures that have no return potential... take a family dole for a few months...so that i can really get off on a good foot at the begginning of next year? i mean half the time will be exactly like last year...spending the summer that is. and i had no qualms about living at home for three full months over the summer.
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i think alex needs to be a little bit more open minded and not so stubborn about maintain independence of some sort. and you know maybe this whole living at home thing is another ooportunity to try to meld as best as possible the two lives i have.... that is family life... and extra-family social life? i know i've always tried it before but because of my itenerant nature always in houston, it never made much sense to me. but now that i am deciding to stay... bringing my social life into some conversation with my family life (since i am staying at home) is crucial. once i tell myself those things and decide its true.... i usually follow through on it. no other better way to challenge your parents to accept your boyfriend (no i don't have one now... heehee) than if you have to...since you live at home. heehee... its so high school. a time of my life where one i was quite naive about these issues to begin with and two my folks weren't really around all that much.
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it always makes me laugh when you think you're going through issues that you imagine "normal" people having gone through already years before and having at least made some sort of conclusion about. anyways, i'm starting to babble.
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the point is, yeah.... i think i'm gonna be living with my folks... as cheesy as that sounds... but after a few months... hey... i will be part of that proud legion of american home owners... heehee. why not? my mother likes to speak in metaphors, partly because of the language barrier since i can't understand complicated chinese and she can't speak complicated english.... so we resort to poetic imagery. anyways, she likes to use the metaphor of a chair or a ladder in helping yourself "reach your goals". regular people, so says my mom, have to spend time and energy, sweat, blood, and tears to construct a chair or a ladder to reach those things they can't just by themselves... that takes time, which equals money, all supplied by lots of energy. now what happens if you happen to have a chair already, prefabed and ready to go? does it not take out of the eqaution all that needed time and energy and money? and better yet, it allows you to take advantage of that momentum (or in this case... height) to make even more potentially. so that's the chair of living at home for free for a while so i can really be able to make a good investment later on... delayed gratification more or less. actually... its the only financially feasible method to tell the truth... since although i might be able to pay both car and mortgage now... i'd be squeaking by on nothing...with no savings... and the mortgage would be for a house that probably wouldn't garner much resale value... so after i "own" it... i'd still really wouldn't have nothing. living at home allows me to have a viable savings in both property and cash.... basically in order to sustain the country club accoutrements i have grown accustomed to. heehee.
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so now comes the fun part.... what kind of car should i buy? hmmmmm.... something stylish obviously. :-)
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posted by faux chink @ 11:28 AM
1 Comments:
OK me again. Ooooh, that's tough. I have opted to go the "oh well, fuck it" route and have no savings and a hefty Visa bill each month! Which is definitely not ideal. But living alone, even in a cramped, no-couch apartment, at times is wonderful. So it's tough. Sounds like you have thought this out though. As long as you all don't kill each other...! You'll be OK.
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