housing makt still in the pits

[randallscott35]

Houses are a depreciating asset. Always have been. They are a place to live, not an investment.

[gales0678]

Originally Posted by randallscott35

Houses are a depreciating asset. Always have been. They are a place to live, not an investment.

appeantly the last 2 presidents before Obama both hailed record home ownership in the country , the problem , is there were too many people in too many houses that they couldn't afford to live in over the life of the mortgage

[dalakhani]

Originally Posted by randallscott35

Houses are a depreciating asset. Always have been. They are a place to live, not an investment.

This isnt true over the long haul. Over the course of time, real estate is at very least an excellent hedge against inflation.

A piece of real estate bought in New York City 10,20, 0r 30 years ago is worth more today than it was then regardless of the fact that we are in a mini depression.

Real estate is local. Real estate is local. real estate is local.

[randallscott35]

Originally Posted by dalakhani

This isnt true over the long haul. Over the course of time, real estate is at very least an excellent hedge against inflation.

A piece of real estate bought in New York City 10,20, 0r 30 years ago is worth more today than it was then regardless of the fact that we are in a mini depression.

Real estate is local. Real estate is local. real estate is local.

Bzzz. You aren't considering all the money you put into a house over the long term. Of course nominally it might go up. Which means nothing unless the buying power of the nominal increase is above the nominal increase of all other things needed to live.

[SniperSB23]

Originally Posted by randallscott35

Bzzz. You aren't considering all the money you put into a house over the long term. Of course nominally it might go up. Which means nothing unless the buying power of the nominal increase is above the nominal increase of all other things needed to live.

And you aren't considering all the money you can write off in taxes and interest paid on your mortgage. You can't write off any rent money.

[randallscott35]

Originally Posted by SniperSB23

And you aren't considering all the money you can write off in taxes and interest paid on your taxes. You can't write off any rent money.

Wrong, even considering mortgage deductions it doesn't change the principal. And yes you can use your rent amount if the % is a certain amount.

[SuffolkGirl]

Originally Posted by SOREHOOF

The more houses that are unoccupied and not paying taxes, the more the taxes will rise to make up for it, especially school taxes. I am afraid that if this energy bill goes through it will be a double whammy. Schools use electricity too. School taxes jumped big time where I live due to oil costs and will probably skyrocket with another increase in energy costs. That coupled with a decreased tax base could be murder for me. Sucks when you're careful to buy within your limits and still have enough $ left to enjoy life then oil prices, gas prices, and taxes threaten to take it all away. I believe home assessments were inflated so localities could get more in property taxes while everything was going great guns. That may keep them inflated for a while.

If there is a mortgage on the property and the loan was set up with escrow impounds, the mortgage holder is paying the taxes and adding it to the borrower's escrow account as an escrow advancement. If/when the property is foreclosed upon, that figure is added in to the principle due. If there are no mortgage impounds on the property the city/municipality can file a tax lien. The city/municipality will eventually get their money, but the forclosure mess does put a cog in the stream of payments they receive.

Real estate taxes are stacked in favor of the city. If the assessed value goes down, then the mil rate (the figure they use to calculate the real estate taxes due) goes up so that they "meet their goal". If the assessed value goes up, the city can crow about dropping the mil rate, while of course, still raking in the same amount of cash and spending it foolishly.

The cost of education is another thing entirely. If you really break down the school budget there is a nauseating amount paid for administration (just like in health care). While increasing energy costs do affect the overall cost, it is mainly the upwardly spiraling cost of special education that is bulging the education budget. As an example of the administrative B.S. that my taxes pay for, children will now get a report on their B.M.I. (body mass index) on their report cards - WTF? My taxes are paying to pinch fat kids' arms and then tell their fat parents that their kids are fat?!!! Turns out, cutting physical education and sitting in front of the TV with XBox 360 don't burn many calories. Grrrrr.

Back to work to pay for the nanny state.....

Originally Posted by SuffolkGirl

The cost of education is another thing entirely. If you really break down the school budget there is a nauseating amount paid for administration (just like in health care). While increasing energy costs do affect the overall cost, it is mainly the

upwardly spiraling cost of special education that is bulging the education budget.

As an example of the administrative B.S. that my taxes pay for, children will now get a report on their B.M.I. (body mass index) on their report cards - WTF?

My taxes are paying to pinch fat kids' arms and then tell their fat parents that their kids are fat?!!! Turns out, cutting physical education and sitting in front of the TV with XBox 360 don't burn many calories. Grrrrr.

Back to work to pay for the nanny state.....

OH MY GOD!

Somebody understands...

The no child left behind stuff requires so many extra aides
for special ed kids. Our district has to pay for so much more staff, etc...
in order to meet the mandated needs that were unfunded. (The funds
come directly from the taxpayers in the school area in this state)

I sit in a room for one whole period (47 minutes) waiting for kids to come in
that need one on one. Sometimes no one shows up. I cannot
leave to go help somewhere else, like double team in a Physics class
for that time, where one teacher is trying to do a lab with 30 kids.
Leaving is against the unfunded mandate. Our school could potentially
lose other money if I go help. I was picked for this job because I can make
the kids understand. But I could help so many more. It is a misuse of
manpower.

And the body fat study. They frggn pulled kids out of my class to
make them walk around a track and pinch them. We have stuff to do.
I lost valuable instructional time. Those are PHYSICS minutes, do I get
my PHYSICS minutes back with those kids? And yes I could have told
you which kids are fat and which are not. But I guess the fed. government
wants exact numbers. I want my time back that I lost with those kids.

You touched a raw nerve.

[Danzig]

they had bmi checks here unless you sent in a paper refusing it-which i did. i thought it was silly.

[dalakhani]

Originally Posted by randallscott35

Wrong, even considering mortgage deductions it doesn't change the principal. And yes you can use your rent amount if the % is a certain amount.

Your rent can go up and will go up with inflation.

Your mortgage payment will stay the same for thirty years on money borrowed at 4.5%.

If a mortgage payment and rent payment were equal twenty years ago for the same property in manhattan, buying it would have been a better investment.

[dalakhani]

Originally Posted by randallscott35

Bzzz. You aren't considering all the money you put into a house over the long term. Of course nominally it might go up. Which means nothing unless the buying power of the nominal increase is above the nominal increase of all other things needed to live.

Saying that real estate is ALWAYS a depreciating asset is simply not true. It says here that you agree.

For the record, i am not the economist for the national association for realtors and I very much agree that in many cases it is much better to rent. Of course the longer one plans to live in a property, the better the idea it is to buy...especially with rates at 4.5%.

[SuffolkGirl]

Originally Posted by pgardn

OH MY GOD!

Somebody understands...

The no child left behind stuff requires so many extra aides
for special ed kids. Our district has to pay for so much more staff, etc...
in order to meet the mandated needs that were unfunded. (The funds
come directly from the taxpayers in the school area in this state)

I sit in a room for one whole period (47 minutes) waiting for kids to come in
that need one on one. Sometimes no one shows up. I cannot
leave to go help somewhere else, like double team in a Physics class
for that time, where one teacher is trying to do a lab with 30 kids.
Leaving is against the unfunded mandate. Our school could potentially
lose other money if I go help. I was picked for this job because I can make
the kids understand. But I could help so many more. It is a misuse of
manpower.

And the body fat study. They frggn pulled kids out of my class to
make them walk around a track and pinch them. We have stuff to do.
I lost valuable instructional time. Those are PHYSICS minutes, do I get
my PHYSICS minutes back with those kids? And yes I could have told
you which kids are fat and which are not. But I guess the fed. government
wants exact numbers. I want my time back that I lost with those kids.

You touched a raw nerve.

sorry about the raw nerve. it chaps my azz whenever I read about this stuff. thought about teaching, am sure i couldn't take the administrative b.s.

don't mean to hijack the thread, just got going on my most recent rant.

Originally Posted by SuffolkGirl

sorry about the raw nerve. it chaps my azz whenever I read about this stuff. thought about teaching, am sure i couldn't take the administrative b.s.

don't mean to hijack the thread, just got going on my most recent rant.

I will add this:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...l?hpid=topnews

What is not mentioned... We get kids that have disabilities so
severe that they cannot learn. They have a very small amount
of brain function. They just drool in wheelchairs. I feel sorry for
them and for their parents but they need to be in a hospital.

We dont have the proper facilities, so their parents use this to
their advantage. No hospital costs, they are in school. AT the school
I used to teach in the Science people shared a floor with the Spec.
Ed. They moved most of us out because the labs had plumbing so
they could refurbish and turn into bathrooms to wash up the kids.
The bottom floor of that school was in essence a ward for the severely disabled.
Bedpans, diapers, the works.

Then you get all these people saying look how much we pay per
kid. Its ridiculous.They dont realize the avg. kid is not getting the avg. amount.
It is wildly distributed with the most money going to the
"problem" kids. People also dont realize that the many state and fed. govs.
basically ask public schools to act as a surrogate family. It has changed
drastically in my 20+ years. If I had to start all over again, I would have
never switched from research to teaching. The only thing that continues to
save me is I teach a tough elective (Physics) in a suburban school.
I have seen what goes on with new teachers in bad urban schools.
They throw them to the wolves and they are out... most within 3 years.
Revolving door babysitting.
But the babies are basically young adults.
They do more than cry.