New Hampshire house

[Tybee]

IL, I remember you mentioning a friend who was looking to buy a house in NH for 350k and wondered if that was the person awaiting the snow and how it is going for her, if that is the same person?

I drove through NH in October and went through some beautiful towns with beautiful houses, and that seems to be a price point where you can get a wonderful farmhouse.

It's about 200k more than what we are looking at, but I wondered if this was the person who was emptying her 401k, although I may have that wrong.

Would you guys empty a 401k or IRA for a house? I would not, but I wonder how much folks would let themselves take out to pay cash for a house.

[iris lilies]

I have two friends, both single, who moved from St. Louis to Carroll Co. NH recently. They live within 10 minutes of each other. I kid my female friend that it is very hard for me to deny among our neighbors left here in St. Louis that there isnt something going on between them, haha.

Anyway, she bought a $350,000 house with a reverse mortgage and put down around $150,000. I dont remember if she actually removed money from her 401k to buy this house although that was an option at one time. She sold her house in St. Louis and got money from that.

The other friend has two mortgages he is payong on. NH property aint cheap. Both are nearing 70 years old.

i wouldnt have stayed married to either one of them since our views of money do not coincide. When DH and I get through swapping out all of our real estate we will end up with a house in Herman that we have $280,000 in (it will not be worth that much) but that will be a small % of our assets.

Our friends are house poor. I dont like being house poor.

[Tybee]

I have two friends, both single, who moved from St. Louis to Carroll Co. NH recently. They live within 10 minutes of each other. I kid my female friend that it is very hard for me to deny among our neighbors left here in St. Louis that there isnt something going on between them, haha.

Anyway, she bought a $350,000 house with a reverse mortgage and put down around $150,000. I dont remember if she actually removed money from her 401k to buy this house although that was an option at one time. She sold her house in St. Louis and got money from that.

The other friend has two mortgages he is payong on. NH property aint cheap. Both are nearing 70 years old.

i wouldnt have stayed married to either one of them since our views of money do not coincide. When DH and I get through swapping out all of our real estate we will end up with a house in Herman that we have $280,000 in (it will not be worth that much) but that will be a small % of our assets.

Our friends are house poor. I dont like being house poor.

I like your way of doing it a lot better--we did house poor one time and lost money and said never again.
We're trying to figure out whether to go back to having a mortgage.
I just would not empty a 401k at this late stage in life to buy a house, even a paid for house, but that's because I don't have one large enough to do that.

The house in NH sounds really tempting, though.. .

[iris lilies]

I look at real estate is NH and I love it! The past week I have been perusing real estate in Portsmouth. It is pricey and beautiful. I love the aesthetic in New England they are very respectful of their old houses and so many of the new houses are built very nicely to mimic old houses. And then it isn’t hard to get a house from the 1700s.

[Tybee]

I know--it's astonishing to just drive through these towns--so beautiful, living history.

[rosarugosa]

I'm sure there is affordable real estate in NH, but it isn't going to be in Portsmouth. There is affordable real estate in Maine, but it isn't in Portland, and there is affordable real estate in MA, but it isn't in or near Boston.

[Teacher Terry]

Upstate New York is beautiful and the small towns are affordable.

[sweetana3]

Upstate NY also has some of the most depressed and depressing small towns I have ever seen. Taxes and restrictions are sky high. Mom paid more on her 40,000 house than we ever did on our 300,000. 8 feet of snow and rules about clearing all drives and sidewalks were stressful for the poor elderly. Finally got her out of there after 80 years. They were 45 minutes north of Albany. (I did sort of like Saratoga Springs but housing was out of sight.)

Best businesses in town were the unemployment office and the Social Security office. An ordinary Walmart was the height of shopping. Spent 40 years driving back and forth and visiting all kinds of spots in that area of the NE. Only spot I really liked as a place to live was Burlington, VT. ps: I need a city of a certain large size to be happy.

[Gardnr]

Would you guys empty a 401k or IRA for a house? I would not, but I wonder how much folks would let themselves take out to pay cash for a house.

Oh hell NO!

[catherine]

Only spot I really liked as a place to live was Burlington, VT. ps: I need a city of a certain large size to be happy.

I'm with you on both counts. I like being near a large town/small city and Burlington is awesome. Unfortunately, it's not cheap either. My daughter just bought a house just across the Winooski River from Burlington. It was $250k but it has a rental unit upstairs with an established tenant, so they'll be offsetting their mortgage by $800. that same house in Burlington would have probably been 50k more.

[pinkytoe]

I would not use 401K money. Trying to figure out now how to purchase another domicile while still in this one as contingent sales aren't going over well in the areas we are considering. Too many cash buyers. Thinking about just buying a condo/townhouse there with large cash down and small mortgage but don't like the thought of keeping up with two houses if this one doesn't sell quickly.

[Teacher Terry]

Small town rural living is not for me now but lived there when young and no rules to clear the snow, etc. Just mentioned it for people intent on cheap East coast living.

[Tybee]

I would not use 401K money. Trying to figure out now how to purchase another domicile while still in this one as contingent sales aren't going over well in the areas we are considering. Too many cash buyers. Thinking about just buying a condo/townhouse there with large cash down and small mortgage but don't like the thought of keeping up with two houses if this one doesn't sell quickly.

Yeah, that's kind of where we are, Pinkytoe. I guess if we could not sell this current house, then we would have to sell the new one. So we would lose money, but still not have emptied out 401k's/IRA's.

I would never empty one out, anyway, but I have thought about taking a portion. But there's not really enough time to grow it back, at our age.

[Tybee]

We actually lived in upstate ny and our experience was like Sweetana described, and the housing stock was exquisite, and we owned 75 acres of land, which was a kick.

I don't know if I could go back, although it would be easier this time, now that the kids are launched.

But you would need a good investment portfolio and no need to work. And the taxes were awful.

But the housing--it is gorgeous.

[NewGig]

NH real estate has one huge gotcha. Land taxes are locally based. In our school district at one point per $1000 of evaluation you could pay 2x as much land tax in one town within 10miles of another.

At one point DH and I were seriously considering filing bankruptcy if the school/land taxes were raised, again. We paid all of one of his take home pay (2weeks worth) except $200 in mortgage and land/school tax at the time. He was working full time, in Boston, in the tech sector, not for minimum wage.

The cheaper towns have in the past had higher taxes. Research the Claremont decision and look at the tax rate before you buy!

[Tybee]

That's great advice, NewGig. Yeah, I know about the taxes, as we are mostly looking in Maine, and Vermont and NH are definitely plan C's as they are farther from my family. NY state was horrible, too, which kept the prices low, so if you look housing in VT/NY border, you can see this price disparity. Of course NH has no sales tax and no income tax, so maybe it would balance out.

When we lived in NY 10 years ago, we bought our house for 80,000 and our taxes were 3700 a year.

I was curious about how IL's friend's 401k decision worked out, which is why I mentioned NH. I am not personally drawn to the state the way many are--I prefer VT and Maine, as I am not a fan of mountain driving. I know it's dumb to like VT under those circumstances, but I went to college right by VT and to grad school in VT, so it has really nice associations.