Sunday, October 09, 2005

8406 Hartford Avenue, Silver Spring, MD 20910

Today, I went to visit a house located at 8406 Hartford Avenue in Silver Spring, MD. It is inner suburb of Washington, DC. A sort of nice middle class neighborhood. The house was originally listed at 679K. It was reduced to 649,000, and then to 629,000. The open house was happening between 1 - 5pm and when I showed up at 3pm only 5 people has signed in at the sign in sheet. Will it sell at 629K?




As I was leaving, one of the browsers walked ahead of me and jumped into their SUV. If he buys this house at 629K and keeps his SUV what would his monthly costs associated with these two material objects be?

  • $3450 ~$3700 ( 30 yr fixed) - 800 ( int. tax deduction), 300 ( property taxes), $200 ( maintenance)
  • $850 ~400 ( car payments), ~200 ( monthly gas), ~250 ( car insurance)

Ok. For those two items we are looking at 50,000 a year. D*mn.

2 comments:

  1. The weather did not stink today. It stank yesterday. The Redskins (a local religion) played an afternoon game, and there were plenty of people out on the roads.

    David, your idea of actually adding up the real costs in a budget is something most people must not do. My wife and I did this a few years ago (when house prices were only insane instead of batsh-- bonkers), and decided that renting was a better option. My guess is that a lot of people don't do these calculations, including insurance, taxes, utilities, etc., and are surprised when the results show up at the mailbox.

    Also, those price reductions are not nearly enough to draw someone like me into the housing market. It will take another 50-60% reduction before I would even look at a house like that-- and I do not think I am alone. Don't get me wrong- it's a nice neighborhood, but there is a lot of traffic nearby & creeping crime nearby, and I expect heaven if we are going to be talking $600K or more.

    This is a fascinating social phenomenon to observe, and it seems to be getting really interesting right now.

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  2. 0.14 acres? Built in 1945? $629,000? What am I missing?

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