Tweet
Mid-career and planning to move across the country to a HCOL area in about 4-5 months. My job is location independent. Buying a decent-sized, nice home is around $1.3M. McMansions are well over $2M. Not many rental options, but seem to be $6K+/mo if and when available. Building a dream house would cost $1.8-2.5M (estimating). We are used to living in a much cheaper part of the country and have a paid off house, probably now worth $900K-$1M. My dream scenario would be to keep the current home as a vacation home (have long-standing roots in the area and yes, I know the rule about 1 house). If we don't use it much in the next year or 2 (which is quite possible) or decide to accelerate FIRE, will sell it and put the capital into HCOL housing.
I know it's hard to predict real estate values and prices are crazy due to demand and inflation. I would really like to build a house and seems it's probably now or never if that's going to ever happen. Option 1 would be to rent a house and then build, which I would think would take 1.5-2 years. Option 2 would be to buy a house and then build simultaneously...but I guess this could get tricky because I would have to service 2 loans at once and I'm not sure if that's even possible -- I don't know much about bridge loans but a friend mentioned them. I have read that one should live at least 5 years in a house to make it worthwhile -- is this true? The problem with Option 1 is that rentals are far and few, and not really that great and seem to be quite costly. Would appreciate any advice. Thanks.
I know it's hard to predict real estate values and prices are crazy due to demand and inflation. I would really like to build a house and seems it's probably now or never if that's going to ever happen. Option 1 would be to rent a house and then build, which I would think would take 1.5-2 years. Option 2 would be to buy a house and then build simultaneously...but I guess this could get tricky because I would have to service 2 loans at once and I'm not sure if that's even possible -- I don't know much about bridge loans but a friend mentioned them. I have read that one should live at least 5 years in a house to make it worthwhile -- is this true? The problem with Option 1 is that rentals are far and few, and not really that great and seem to be quite costly. Would appreciate any advice. Thanks.
Comment