What's your monthly rent, and can you get your payments that low? It's pretty simple. Talk to the bank and tell them you're interested. Prove to them that you've been a good paying lessee, and see if they can work with you to get the mortgage payment you need. You'd have to figure in mortgage, taxes, pmi, etc. If you can't afford it, then let them buy you out of the lease, and use that money towards something else.
It's a buyers market right now, and banks don't like to sit on forclosed properties. They might cut you a sweet deal just to wash their hands of it. When you go to negotiate, tell them the place needs a lot of repairs that you're willing to take care of. Make them think it's a shithole.
Thanks, and this makes sense.
Monthly rent is $2250.
Mortgage would be $1600, plus about $400 property tax, $100 insurance, and $200 HOA (grrr).
It's a safe purchase, because rents on similar properties are $2500-2700. Even with the housing crash, there's never been any depression in rental costs here in NorCal. So, even if something happened to me and I couldn't make the payments anymore, it would be pretty easy to rent it out.
Forget your anger, sit down, use your business sense, and figure out if this house and owning it, along with the taxes, insurance, upkeep is worth it for you. There are advantages of owning a house over renting, but only to some. Can you afford it? Will it be around the same as your rent (with all the other costs). How much can you deduct at the end of the year from your tax returns.
Can you use a portion of the home for your home business of photography, place of office, etc (only 15% max of expenses)? Most people buying a house don't figure out if it is really worth it, and they want to stay in one place for a long time.
You're right. Anger is a really bad reason to make major decisions like this. Ideally, an investment group would buy it, keep my rent the same, and lease it back to me for as long as I want to stay. It's a well-built property and I've taken good care of it.
I need to figure out all the tax implications. It's where I work (where I live is down the hill), so while the interest would be deductible, that amount would decrease over time. Ugh, just one more reason why the personal income tax is bullshit!
Is this a house or office?
It's a single family home, but I've got it set up as my office and studio. Even though it's not zoned for commercial use, because there's no significant vendor/customer traffic, I don't have any issues with the HOA and the city doesn't care as long as I pay for my biz license annually.