Sticker Shock in Northern Virginia!
Today I took clients around to look at rental properties and boy were they hit with Sticker Shock in Northern Virginia.
They were from the Virginia Beach area where a nice rental home near their job is between $800 to $900 a month.
Their job location was changing to the Northern Virginia area and now they were looking for a new residence.
Being reasonable, they thought using a 50% increase in housing costs should be good. Figuring $1200 to $1400 we set out. All we found in the $1200-$1400 price range were small, old, poorly presented homes. All but one was a townhome. Some of the townhomes were only two levels. On top of that, the area where we found these homes represented an hour commute to work in the morning and an hour commute back from work in the evening.
I shared with them the city-data web site to find out about the neighborhoods and areas. I also disclosed the Megan's Law sex offender website for Virginia so they could better educate themselves, Always make sure you do your own homework.
In Northern Virginia we have seen the local rent prices increasing rapidly. It is often cheaper to buy than rent in Northern Virginia. If you have decent credit, good income and almost as much to put down as first month's rent and security deposit you could be paying less in mortgage payments than in rent - at least here in Northern Virginia.
For example a $1300 rent payment for a small townhouse in my client's example could be a mortgage payment of $898.09 + $400 for taxes and insurance for a home selling near $200,000. ($200,000 mortgage with a 3.5% interest rate for 30 years). Type in your own numbers in the mortgage calculators at bankrate.com to find out what you can afford.
If you would like to pay your own mortgage instead of paying your landlord's mortgage plus some, contact me and let me see what we can find for you.
If you are suffering from sticker shock I've got the cure.
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