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I live in a coastal city in San Diego county. I am 5 miles from the beach. San Diego has the highest prices in California.

An average home is about $600,000 and I have seen one bedroom crap houses with no yards for over $400,000.

I live in a 3 bedroom, 2.5 bath condo. It is pretty much a regular house (2 car garage, yard, two story, no other units attached, etc.) only my home has a condo ownership, so its less money than a house.

My mother keeps talking about how one day my husband and I will want to move out of our home, but how will that be possible when a home here will make us house poor?

We could rent out our condo, but we would still need a huge loan. Or we could sell our home and put the money towards a new house but then we would still have a loan that is hundreds of thousands of dollars.

How is this possible? How do people afford to buy a home?

I can only see us buying a house out of state since California will bleed us dry!

Any advice?
My condo will be paid off next year. It would sell for over $400,000

I would suggest two options, either sell your home and use most of your proceeds as down money to help lower the mortgage payments or refinance and take cash out to use as down money and rent out your condo. Keep in mind the interest you pay can be written off on your taxes, make sure your consult your CPA. There is no easy way about getting a bigger home but from the sounds of it you and your husband have been good with your Finances and I’m sure could make it work if it is truly something that you wanted to do. I hope this helps you but if you need help or have any questions please email me tadgeman@yahoo.com.

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My family’s home was destroyed by a tornado last week. It was a family Home frome previous generations – paid for. Neither my husband nor I have ever bought a home before. We both rented before living in the now gone home. It’s in the country. We have the deed to the land the old home was on. What are the steps we need to go through to get a home? We will need a deep well, septic tank, bank loan, everything. Where do we go to know what to do first – bank first or call the well-driller and septic tank person? We really don’t know which way to get started.
We are hoping to be able to get a double wide mobile home to put on this land. The land is only one acre.
Unfortunately we have no insurance. The home we were in was an older model and couldn’t be insured. (Yeah, we got the luck!) So everything we do is going to have to be financed by the bank. We are literally starting from scratch. Savings has around a thousand in it.

The first thing to do is decide if you are going to buy an existing home or have one built on the land you own. If you are buying an existing home you will need to obtain financing through a bank or mortgage company. Get pre-approved before looking for the home.Find a REALTOR that you are comfortable working with. Be sure to have the purchase of the home contingent on it passing an inspection.
If you will be building a home on the land you will still need to obtain the financing to construct the house. Before getting the loan you will need to find a REALTOR who works with new construction and have them help you find the builder for you. I could go much further but this will set you on the right path.

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I want to remodel the outside of my home with custom stone and different paint colors or cedar/wood looking siding. Need to see how different looks would affect the house using a picture of our house. Any ideas/websites would be appreciated lots.

Check out HGTV.com they even have a calculator to keep your project on budget! Best of luck with your project!

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I work for a small business. I do all of my work (except client site visits) from my home office. However, since I also use my home office for personal use during non-working hours, I assume I cannot take the home office deduction (correct)?

Here is my question regarding mileage – I’m testing this using both TaxCut and TurboTax. In both cases, when I enter my mileage, it does not seem to reduce my tax owed. When I tell the program I want to use the home office deduction, then my mileage makes a difference. If I tell it not to do the home office deduction, then my entering mileage makes no difference. So, can I only deduct my mileage if I take the home office deduction? I haven’t read anything to indicate this, but the actions of the tax software programs leads me to believe that this is the case.

I don’t know if this matters, but I itemize my deductions (mostly due to mortgage interest & real estate taxes paid). I do not take the standard deduction.
Edit – I am a W2 employee. This is less than 2% of our joint AGI, so I guess that’s why it isn’t letting me take it. Thanks for the replies!

For the home office deduction, if you use a portion of your Home just for business, you may deduct your home expenses up to the percentage of square feet you use for business when compared to the total square feet of your home (If you use 100 sq. ft for business and the total home is 1000 sq ft, it is 10%).

You do not have to take home office deductions to be able to take mileage on your vehicle. I am not familiar with Tax Cut or Turbo Tax, but there is probably a spot that you can put the vehicle as an asset (listed property) of the business and then put the total miles driven in 2005 and total business miles driven in 2005 (pre-September 1 is 0.405 per mile and post-August 31 is 0.485 per mile).

The way you’re describing this makes it sound like it is unreimbursed expenses for a job you receive a W-2 from, and these deductions would be filed on a Form 2106 for Schedule A, which is subject to a 2% floor, meaning if your AGI is 100,000, you have to have 2,000 in deductions before you get one dollar deducted. You will also have to be able to itemize on Sch. A before your tax would change.

If this is your business and you’re self-employed, there should be no limitation on the mileage, unless you accidentally have it set to where you take actual expenses (fuel, oil, repairs, depreciation, etc.). You have to take one or the other, and once you decide which one to take on that vehicle, you cannot change in the future.

I’m probably not much help, but hope this does help you out some. Good Luck.

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My mom has passed and left me her Home, only problem is she had a reverse mortgage on the home. My fiancee and I live in the home and would like to stay in the home. How do I keep the home?
Thank you for your answers, but isn’t their some kind of creative financing i can find?

Was the home paid off prior to the reverse mortgage? Do you have a decent amount in savings? If so you may be able to just pay back the reverse mortgae, if nto you’ll have to refi for whatever is left on the loan. Check out loanhomeonline.com/findamortgage. I dont have the best credit so had to shop around but taht site helped me find my b of a loan.

I am looking into starting my own home building business but am trying to work with some numbers, specifically the average profit that self employed home builders can expect to make.

For example, if you sell a home for £200,000 how much was spent on the actual construction of the home and thus how much profit does the builder accrue?

Also how muhc would you have to spend for the basic electric, plumbing gas ect.

Profit can be great, could be anywhere between 10k to 100k or more.. No straight forward answer, depends on the size of the Home, the area, the detail of the home, etc… But this market is real tough for home builders, many sell at cost just to get rid of the debt. And many have a lot of construction sites on hold, they just can’t sell the homes they already built so other projects are sitting around unfinished.
Also you need to consider making a name for yourself, sad fact is not many people are willing to hire a no-namer compay to build their home. And you don’t likely have a name in the business, if you did you’d know how estimates and profit works in the construction world.. No disrespect, just trying to help out.. good luck

Can you keep the home buyer tax credit after selling your home and moving to a new home before the 3rd year?
Meaning: buying your first home this year and qualifying for the tax credit. Then, 1 or 2 years later, sell the home, and move to another Home. Or are you stuck in the same home for 3 years to avoid repaying the credit?

No. You must use the home as your primary residence for the full 3 years or else pay back the tax credit.

Basically I am planning to buy a home theater system with a DVD player but want to know if i can use that even without the DVD player. If i am just watching TV, is my home theater system is used or sitting idle?

Depends on your Home theater systems and if it allows additional hook -ups to it. If it does then there should be no problem hooking up your TV for surround sound.
But remember it will not sound as good as your DVDs because DVDs are digital or 5.1, normal TV signals are analog or 2.0 .
If your home theater had Dolby Pro Logic ll, it will convert the 2.0 signal to 5.1.

I’ll be looking to buy a house in the near future and I have heard some horror stories about people hiring a home inspector to inspect the house they are wanting to buy, then come to find out that the home wasn’t properly inspected. When an inspector is looking over the house, are you allowed to walk around with them? Is there any way of finding out about certificates or anything positive about the home inspector, without having to ask them directly? I know there’s a lot of con artists out there in the open and even the cautious person can get burned in the long run. I just don’t want to buy a Home after it’s been "supposdly" inspected, then have everything go wrong afterwards and cost me a fortune. Any help would be appreciated!

Good question, it is hard to know who you can rely on. I might suggest that you go to the link provided and see if the professional association can give you some hints and advice on what to do and or look for in an inspector
Home Inspectors Associations for all states: http://www.homeinspections-usa.com/home_inspector_orgs.php
Best of luck to you

Additional Details
Forgot to give you this one
What a home inspection looks at (voice tour)

http://www.ashi.org/customers/vhi_tour.asp

I would like to find a legit work from home opportunity. I’ve done yahoo searches but I just can’t seem to find anything that seems legit. I have 3 yrs of telemarketing experience and at least 1 yr of secretarial experience. It would be nice if I could find like an inbound telemarketing position from home or a data entry position from home. Does anyone know of any legit work from home opportunities? Are there any websites that list work from home opportunities?

i found this about work from Home

http://rds.yahoo.com/_ylt=A0oGkwYJUtBLFn8A0gNXNyoA;_ylu=X3oDMTByZWgwN285BHNlYwNzcgRwb3MDMQRjb2xvA3NrMQR2dGlkAw–/SIG=11tg3mkrk/EXP=1272030089/**http%3a//how-to-make-real-money-online.net/

hope this help

Like if you run a business as one person. You already have all the things you need right at home to get your business started like office space and equipment. Compared to running a Business outside your home. Are home businesses and businesses outside the home equally as hard to run?

Seeing that you have all the equipment and work space at home along with your skills to market to customers, how much more do you need to put into running a business from home?

depends on what kind of business you wanna go for. if its like a trading and marketing business
you may start with US$3,000

A neighbor of mine had their home severly damaged by fire recently, and I am just wondering… in such cases, can you just take the insurance money and buy a new home? Or do you need to restore the house that was damaged? The house this person lives in is also their business, if that has any bearing on things.

I think it varies a lot depending on your policy. But with a Business, I would think they would want to see you restore what you already had.

My husband (25) and myself (27) had bought our first Home (a nice townhouse) about three years ago. The townhouses in my area are already selling for about $30,000 more than what we had bought ours for. We just found this really nice ranch home we love, right across the street from my hubby’s grandmother’s home and my hubby actually knows the man who is selling it pretty well. Anyway, we’re really interested in going ahead and purchasing this home. What are the steps to go about getting a new home. I remember how stressful it was to buy our first home – and that was half as bad, because we were just in an apartment before. So I’m really anxious and have no idea where to begin. Any advice? Thanks!
By the way, our townhouse is not yet on the market.
I’m scared of going ahead and planning on buying another home and then having my home end up not selling, etc.

It is possible to acquire a loan to buy that ranch house even though you currently own a home. You can finance it as a second or vacation home as long as you qualify for the loan. If you have equity in your home and want to use it as a down payment, then a bridge loan might be the answer. A bridge loan allows you to pull equity out of your existing house for the purposes of buying another house. Usually, the payments are escrowed so there are no out of pocket payments for 6 to 9 months. After that period the loan is due in full. What I suggest you do is sell the townhouse first before entering into a purchase contract or at least have a qualified buyer commit to buy your townhouse. I have seen this dream turn into a nightmare for so many people. They find a house they want and buy it thinking that they will sell thier present property with no problem. Months later, they can’t sell the house no matter what they do, and they are stuck making two mortgage payments that is crippling them financially. Unfortuantley its a scenario I see alot. I have one client that owns 6 properties that he can’t sell. His wife left with the kids and she filed for divorce.

Talk with a real estate professional that is familiar with the buying trends in your area. There are many real estate agents but most of them are just salemen that are looking for a commission and aren’t worried about your financial future. If the real estate agent is honest, they will tell you how long it is taking for similar properties to sell in your area. I have seen properties stay on the market for over a year but that will depend on whats going on in your neck of the woods. I know you may want to jump on the house right away but having some emotional intelligence will be important. Think about what your current bills are and ask yourself if you could afford another mortgage payment and for how long. If you can’t afford the worse case sceanrio, then you may want to make sure your townhouse sells before you get into that ranch house.

Hope this helps.

Mortgage and Finance Professional 8 years.

Looking for a magazine for mobile home owners, they have mags. for old Homes, log homes, country homes, beach homes, even apt. living.. Just want one for us mobile home owners.

The mobile home parks around here all distribute a monthly called the Newsette that is personalized for each park. It is not something you can subscribe to, so I know it isn’t what you are looking for, but I don’t think there is any such animal. The Newsette, is not very interesting and is mostly advertisements anyway.

I am looking a homes to buy, but I want an all electric home, with electric heat, air, stove, ect. Most of the homes in my area run on gas. Is it possible to convert a most gas home into a home run by electric? If it is possible, what is the process and how much do you think the cost would be?
Thanks!

It is far easier and cheaper to convert a gas home to electric, than an electric Home to gas.

Consider the major applicances you will need to switch, most which can be done without major contracting and investment:

Stove: Electric stove will cost you about $300-800 depending on the model you choose. If you do not have 230/240v power in the kitchen, it will cost you about $600 to have a liscenced contractor run this wire.

Water Heater: Cost of a new water heater will be $200-600 depending on model and capacity. Lower cost models will run on 120V, probably no need to rewire, or at most, $200 to run a 120/230v line in your garage or where the heater is.

Furnace: This is the biggie……….converting to electric from gas will probably run you $1000-2000 because of the complexity involved with where a furnace is, how much is involved.

Hope you will leave the fireplace as gas……..electric ones dont look good!