Renting vs Buying in WA State

Buying versus Renting 

There are many advantages to buying a home versus renting one. View these advantages in the Buy vs. Rent Comparison Chart below, or view a financial comparison of buying versus renting in the Buy vs. Rent Calculator. 

Your income, savings, and monthly expenses play an important role in determining how large a mortgage you can afford.        

Savings: Buying 

In many cases, the amount of money a renter spends on rent can be about the same as or less than the amount a homeowner spends on a mortgage. With the tax benefit for homeowners, the savings can be significant.

 

Buy vs. Rent Comparison

The chart below shows a cost comparison for a renter and a homeowner over a seven year period.

The renter starts out paying $800 per month with annual increases of 5%

The homeowner purchases a home for $110,000 and pays a monthly mortgage of $1,000

After 6 years, the homeowner's payment is lower than the renter's monthly payment

With the tax savings of homeownership, the homeowner's payment is less than the rental payment after 3 years

Years

Rent Payment

Mortgage Payment

Monthly Difference

After Tax Savings

Yearly Difference

After Tax Savings

1          800      1000    -200     -50       -2400   -600

2          840      1000    -160     -10       -1920   -120

3          882      1000    -118     +32      -1416   +384

4          926      1000    -74       +76      -888     +912

5          972      1000    -28       +122    -336     +1464

6          1021    1000    +21      +171    +252    +2052

7          1072    1000    +72      +222    +864    +2664

8-30                            Savings increase every year

                       

                       

Monthly Expenses: Buying

Your rental company takes part of your rent payment to cover certain housing expenses. When you decide to purchase a home, you accept responsibility for paying for these expenses (listed below). They are additional costs to your monthly mortgage payment and should be included in your budget estimates:

Property Taxes and Special Assessments

Home/Hazard Insurance

Utilities

Maintenance

The easiest way for you to find out how much home you can afford is to call me at

 (425) 773-3100 or simply fill out a 3 minute "quick app" online at : http://www.mortgagesnw.com/form3.html

Cheers!

Rich

Mortgage Help for First Time Homebuyers

If you live in Washington State and are considering buying your first home, you could not be in a better time or place.

Besides the fact that the "numbers" may be right, I cannot emphasize the "pride of ownership" and sheer joy that comes with owning your very own home!

Right now, throughout the entire State of Washington, home prices are way affordable, add to this the (up to)  $8,000 (holy cow) first time home buyer tax credit and record low interest rates, and you hit the lotto.

It's not uncommon to have anxiety when one is about to make their probably largest investment of a lifetime, but don't let that stop you.

The first thing you will want to do is just get the facts. You do not need to make a decision until you see ow much down payment you will need, which can be zero in some cases. 

You will also want to see how much monthly payment you can afford. With this information, you can go to a real estate salesperson and see just what kind of "diggs", you can get.

So please, just get pre-qualified first and the rest is easy!