Advice on Housing in Maryland

brandotheninjamaster

As you gathered from the title, I live in Maryland. I rent a 2 bedroom town home (shoe box), its not very big, but its in a decent neighborhood. I pay about $1000 in rent every month. That high rent cost is my reason for making this thread. I make about $36,000 a year (which translates to about $1700 a month), I also have a wife, son and 1 on the way. So the walls on my town home are rapidly shrinking. I am wondering; given the money that I already float for rent every month. Would I be able to buy a decent house in a decent neighborhood? I have no experience in home buying what so ever. I have no idea what the average mortgage payment is, how bad taxes are gonna get me, etc. So any advice would be appreciated.

EggyToast

If you want to have a monthly payment less than $1000, you'd need to buy a house that costs under $150k. There aren't a lot of those; even the ones out in rural areas are a little spendy, and then you're in the middle of nowhere.

Where in Maryland? You know it's the 3 part state, and that has a lot of impact on housing costs. I've got a friend in Baltimore City who rents a 2 story rowhouse for $1k a month, another that rents a smaller rowhouse for $800, and one that rents a teeny apartment for $700. The thing is, none of them have kids. I don't know if schools are an issue yet, but a lot of people complain about b-city schools. And you can usually get cheaper rent outside the city anyway, if you're not looking in Columbia.

Scrublet

Tagging along with this thread, I am moving into Baltimore in early May for my first postgrad job making about $61k. I've worked in the city for two months before, and am somewhat familiar with a few of the neighborhoods. Anyone know anything about where single 22 year old guys would want to live here? I've been hearing Federal Hill tossed around a bunch, as well as Canton Square.

EggyToast

Depends on your lifestyle. Canton is annoying if you don't like clubs/bars, federal hill is a bitch to park. Both are expensive but there's a lot going on.

They're both "it" spots, but Mount Vernon is also very nice w/ better access to transportation. further north is charles village and hampden which are more quiet. since you worked here you know it's not very hard to scoot around the city as most of its tied to 83.

If you're a single dude you might get priced out of anything that's not tiny in canton & federal hill, unless you like spending all your money on rent.

brandotheninjamaster

Well right now I live in Perry Hall. I can attest for the B-more city schools. They are horrible to say the least. Right now my best bet seems to look into foreclosed housing. My main wants are a good neighborhood and good schools. So far it seems that trying to find both of those without my wallet being raped in the money hold is impossible.

Since I work in Cockeysville, moving across the state line to PA could be an option. But according to people who live there you have to pay a lot extra in taxes.

brandotheninjamaster

Scrublet wrote: »

Tagging along with this thread, I am moving into Baltimore in early May for my first postgrad job making about $61k. I've worked in the city for two months before, and am somewhat familiar with a few of the neighborhoods. Anyone know anything about where single 22 year old guys would want to live here? I've been hearing Federal Hill tossed around a bunch, as well as Canton Square.

Rent in the city is horrendous right now, and the traffic will be and always will be a nightmare. On the upside, you would never be short of many things to do. Just be wary of the neighborhoods that you travel to. I try and stay out of the city as much as possible, but I have seen some scary places...

EggyToast

If you work in Cockeysville I would suggest looking around Hunt Valley and even further north. I wouldn't cross into PA if you plan to keep working in MD, simply to avoid the headache come tax time. I also wouldn't be surprised if there's some cheap stuff in Timonium/Lutherville that wouldn't be too bad. But yeah, if you're looking for the $1k marker, your house limit is going to be around $150k, if you account for taxes and the like (which you will want to). Looking into foreclosures can work, but you usually end up with a cheap house that requires a lot of work (it's amazing what people will do to a house they're forced out of, so you usually spend the first few weeks simply cleaning the place. And then replacing everything they broke/took with them).

Perry hall is an odd mix of people, but it is towards the higher end due to people moving in. I'd suggest checking out a site like ChampionRealty to see if there's anything in an area you could move to. And check the newspapers/craigslist for rentals. It's going to be hard to get mortgages if you're only earning 36k a year and your wife doesn't work, thanks to the subprime stuff making banks more skeptical.