Re:The Terrifying Reality of Long-Term Unemployment
by pmorici on Monday April 15, 2013 @09:32PM
(#5555637)
Every place is different but in some places there are huge advantages to buying that most people don't probably realize.
In the state of Maryland for example It's my understanding that property taxes on the first $300k of assessed value for primary residences are adjusted based on your income[0] for households making less than $60k per year. (for reference 300k will get you a pretty nice place in a trendy part of the city) The end result is you could be living in a $300k house and pay zero or near zero property tax. So you could for example buy a place straight out of college rent out the spare rooms to pay off the mortgage at a very accelerated pace and then if you wanted to you could live in that house basically property tax free once the mortgage is paid off so long as you didn't make too much money. I'm not sure if you've looked at your living cost structure but once you knock out mortgage and property tax you have an extreme amount of flexibility in terms of how much money you need to make to live comfortably and the types of career risks you could take w/o having to worry about ending up on the street. You have to be smart about what you buy and at what price of course which is where most people fail at smart decisions when home buying but if you do it right it really can be a no brainier.
In the state of Maryland for example It's my understanding that property taxes on the first $300k of assessed value for primary residences are adjusted based on your income[0] for households making less than $60k per year. (for reference 300k will get you a pretty nice place in a trendy part of the city) The end result is you could be living in a $300k house and pay zero or near zero property tax. So you could for example buy a place straight out of college rent out the spare rooms to pay off the mortgage at a very accelerated pace and then if you wanted to you could live in that house basically property tax free once the mortgage is paid off so long as you didn't make too much money. I'm not sure if you've looked at your living cost structure but once you knock out mortgage and property tax you have an extreme amount of flexibility in terms of how much money you need to make to live comfortably and the types of career risks you could take w/o having to worry about ending up on the street. You have to be smart about what you buy and at what price of course which is where most people fail at smart decisions when home buying but if you do it right it really can be a no brainier.
[0] http://www.dat.state.md.us/sdatweb/htc.html