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Housing Crash Continues
It's Still A Terrible Time To Buy
Why?
By Patrick Killelea, last updated Sun Apr 4, 2010
1. Because house prices will keep falling in most places. Prices are still dangerously high compared to incomes and rents. Banks say a safe mortgage is a maximum of 3 times the buyer's annual income with 20% downpayment. Landlords say a safe price is a maximum of 15 times the house's annual rent. Yet on the coasts, both those safety rules are still being violated. Buyers are still borrowing 6 times their income and putting only 3% down, and sellers are still asking 30 times annual rent, even after recent price declines. Renting is a cash business that proves what people can really pay based on their salary, not how much they can borrow. Salaries and rents prove that prices will keep falling for a long time. Anyone who bought a "bargain" this time last year is already sitting on a very painful loss.
2. Because it's still much cheaper to rent than to own the same size and quality house, in the same school district. On the coasts, annual rents are 3% of purchase price while mortgage rates are 6%, so it costs twice as much to borrow the money than it does to borrow the house. Renters win and owners lose! Worse, total owner costs including taxes, maintenance, and insurance come to about 9% of purchase price, which is three times the cost of renting and wipes out any income tax benefit. Buying a house is still a very bad deal in the richer neighborhoods, but it does make sense to buy in some relatively poor neighborhoods where prices have already fallen into line with salaries and rents. Check whether you should rent or buy in your own area with this NY Times calculator.
The only true sign of a bottom is a price low enough so that you could rent out the house and make a profit. Then you'll know it's safe to buy for yourself because then rent could cover the mortgage and all expenses if necessary, eliminating most of your risk. The basic buying safety rule is to divide annual rent by the purchase price for the house:
annual rent / purchase price = 3% means do not buy
annual rent / purchase price = 6% means borderline
annual rent / purchase price = 9% means ok to buy
So for example, it's borderline to pay $200,000 for a house that would cost you $1,000 per month to rent. That's $12,000 per year in rent. If you buy it with a 6% mortgage, that's $12,000 per year in interest instead, so it works out about the same. Owners can pay interest with pre-tax money, but that benefit gets wiped out by the eternal debts of repairs and property tax, equalizing things. It is foolish to pay $400,000 for that same house, because renting it would cost only half as much per year, and renters are completely safe from falling house prices.
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