chat, feelings, and random discussion thread

[Kovenant84]

Ok, so I've never owned, only rented in the city, so I can't really give too much info on the pricings. However, come about May-ish, and I should know the pricings just outside Boston, so maybe I could give some insight there.

And yeah, that's not a 'live-in-and-still-work-from' house. It's more like a second home, or vacation home, or whatever you'd like to call it.

~kov.

EDIT: Oh, and apparently my parents think I'm depressed and withdrawn now. Perhaps I am. Who knows.

 

[plintus]

BTW, what kills you - is not the mortgage (which spans for 30 years now at 6-something &#37, but taxes and condo fees in the city. As far as I found out - owning a condo (akin apartment, but zoned differently, not aware of why) you pay yearly taxes + insurance AND monthly condo fee, which could be equal to a month rental payment for a decent place and be even higher than that!

In a long run: you get one place, you get another as an investment property, that cuts your taxes from something like 40-50% to 15% (assuming you can afford 2 homes, and thus you make a lot of money), many people are crazy about it, and it sounds cool enough to me =)

 

[Kovenant84]

So you're basically talking about flipping now? Given that you work in the field, I'd say go for it if you think the idea is good. I'd have no idea how to pull something like that off, though.

Yeah, I'm gonna have to look into condos myself. Someone had recommended it to me when I was planning on heading up to Boston, but again, I don't know too much on the subject.

~kov.

 

[plintus]

Nah, to flip something you actually need to be no real estate wiz (enough to know someone), but in construction mainly; even no intending flipping the place, you can always get a shabby house in a good neighbourhood for less and improve it (boy, an extra bathroom would make all the difference! Think of extra 100k to th eplace's price, if you are lucky), but that's too much work and bother, and... whoever has time for that - ain't me.

I know some actual flippers, but they been doing roofing and siding for YEARS, and by last rumors one of them was trying to flip a 100k house in Denver. Well, good luck to them.

 

[hyena]

Erm.. what? You paid around 900k dollars, which would be around 680k euros for a normal flat? All the flats for sale Ive seen so far cost from a fifth to a tenth of that. Either you misread the thousand dollar point, or your flat is very big, very luxurious and right in the center of Rome.. or you paid too much

actually slightly more than 700k euros. the flat is kind of big, 125 square meters inside + 130 square meters of private terrace + outdoor cellar + private covered parking. however, it's not in the center of rome; it's in a residential neighborhood about 15 minutes from the center, if you drive something with two wheels (if you do take the slow-moving buses, it can easily take 40 to 60 minutes). in the center hot spots, something like this would go for around 2mil euros: outside space is very valuable in a warm and sunny city, as you can imagine. i don't think i paid too much, since the original request was of 850k and i had to fight pretty hard to get it down to the final price; most flats that size and, especially, with that big a terrace in the area had similar or slightly higher prices. the flat i lived in before went for 240k, but it was way smaller - same-sized terrace, but half the interior space, no parking, no cellar, and most importantly on the ground floor, which is something that really drives prices down. now i'm on the second floor.

 

[plintus]

Wow, sounds like a good investment

Place on Manhattan would be something like that by price, but forget those amenities.

 

[Kovenant84]

Yeah, no terrace, garage or cellar in NYC. And I've always lived in ground-floor apartments. I guess I had little to nothing to fear, given the area.

~kov.

 

[hyena]

In a long run: you get one place, you get another as an investment property, that cuts your taxes from something like 40-50% to 15% (assuming you can afford 2 homes, and thus you make a lot of money), many people are crazy about it, and it sounds cool enough to me =)

And here's the point of why the US is more developed than Europe. Here you pay minimal taxes on your first house, and huge taxes on your second one. I had to get two for other reasons, but the rent I have to charge in the smaller flat to actually earn a bit despite the moralizing "eat the rich" tax system is so high that I actually feel guilty toward my tenants. Everyone else is doing the same thing, of course, and prices won't ever go down until this IDIOTIC law is fixed.

 

[hyena]

Yeah, no terrace, garage or cellar in NYC. And I've always lived in ground-floor apartments. I guess I had little to nothing to fear, given the area.

~kov.

Anti-ground floor bias here is not so much for security reasons - in my case, only Spiderman could have intruded, considering the layout of the flat - but for noise and pollution reasons. Ground level is just pretty annoying, although I reckon it is possible to cope.

And I wouldn't live in a house without a terrace, although maybe in cold weather it's just not that interesting.

 

[Kovenant84]

Well, I was always on the ground floor in the rear of the building, so noise usually wasn't an issue. And pollution is pretty uniform in NYC

And I did actually have a terrace-type-thingie in my first apartment, but it was more of just a shared patio in the back with the building across from us. But yeah, not so interesting in the cold.

~kov.

 

[plintus]

And here's the point of why the US is more developed than Europe. Here you pay minimal taxes on your first house, and huge taxes on your second one. I had to get two for other reasons, but the rent I have to charge in the smaller flat to actually earn a bit despite the moralizing "eat the rich" tax system is so high that I actually feel guilty toward my tenants. Everyone else is doing the same thing, of course, and prices won't ever go down until this IDIOTIC law is fixed.

Wow, that's a surprise.

Don't let me misguide you, but from random conversations I've learned that here you pay the same % of taxes on any of your properties, but it cuts down your income tax.

BTW, at shore properties only 1/3 of a pricetag could be the actual price of the structure, 2/3 (and could be more!) = price of the land.

 

[hyena]

Wow, that's a surprise.

Don't let me misguide you, but from random conversations I've learned that here you pay the same % of taxes on any of your properties, but it cuts down your income tax.

Not so much of a surprise in a country where taxation is basically punitive.
When you buy your first house, you pay 4% of the total price in taxes, and then every year you pay property tax for 0,49% of the official value of the property, which may differ from the actual price paid and is calculated on the basis of the imputed monthly rent (which is on public record and a normally faulty estimate of how much you could earn from that property should you rent it). When you buy your second house and the subsequent ones, the transaction tax clocks in at 10%, and the property tax at 0,7%.
If you rent your second house for the whole year, the property tax goes back to 0,49%, but then again the progressivity of income tax is such that more often than not you end up giving the State somewhere between 35 and 40 per cent of what your tenants give you. There recently was a proposal to slash the tax rate on rents to 20% for everyone, but it was just too smart to pass, so it didn't.

 

[solefald]

back from a 3 day trip to heidelberg with my papertech class, visiting lots of paper and package industry and drinking lost of nice drinks
and I just decided not to wait for april.

 

[marduk1507]

actually slightly more than 700k euros. the flat is kind of big, 125 square meters inside + 130 square meters of private terrace + outdoor cellar + private covered parking. however, it's not in the center of rome; it's in a residential neighborhood about 15 minutes from the center, if you drive something with two wheels (if you do take the slow-moving buses, it can easily take 40 to 60 minutes). in the center hot spots, something like this would go for around 2mil euros: outside space is very valuable in a warm and sunny city, as you can imagine. i don't think i paid too much, since the original request was of 850k and i had to fight pretty hard to get it down to the final price; most flats that size and, especially, with that big a terrace in the area had similar or slightly higher prices. the flat i lived in before went for 240k, but it was way smaller - same-sized terrace, but half the interior space, no parking, no cellar, and most importantly on the ground floor, which is something that really drives prices down. now i'm on the second floor.

Jeezus, the same flat would cost around 285k EUR here. Im starting to get really worried about our adopting the EUR currency in 2009.

 

[GONE Ridin' Hood]

Hyeba: So you payed 700K Euros for yer flat? Wow Hyena ist rich .

That's like...shit...hmmm.... 420 million colones!

You can buy around 12 CRn standard-size houses (like mine) with that money. Or you could buy a really nice one .

But I mean 700K E? You could buy such a big house with that in Europe... *keeps on day-dreaming about the many houses and land that he wants to own*

 

[plintus]

Not so much of a surprise in a country where taxation is basically punitive.
When you buy your first house, you pay 4% of the total price in taxes, and then every year you pay property tax for 0,49% of the official value of the property, which may differ from the actual price paid and is calculated on the basis of the imputed monthly rent (which is on public record and a normally faulty estimate of how much you could earn from that property should you rent it). When you buy your second house and the subsequent ones, the transaction tax clocks in at 10%, and the property tax at 0,7%.
If you rent your second house for the whole year, the property tax goes back to 0,49%, but then again the progressivity of income tax is such that more often than not you end up giving the State somewhere between 35 and 40 per cent of what your tenants give you. There recently was a proposal to slash the tax rate on rents to 20% for everyone, but it was just too smart to pass, so it didn't.

Here you pay taxes at pretty much the same rate (30-40%) on income from leasing, but here's the thing about resort homes: you are able to make about 100k (and, if they get lucky and/or know me , more!) gross in a season (end of May - beginning of September) on weekly rentals, reaching $6000 a week, and people pay that. Well, buying $1+ mil home doesn't start making you money right away, but in a long run (and it is an investment property already, which cuts down your income taxes in more than half) - it's a smart decision many people make these days.

 

[plintus]

*keeps on day-dreaming about the many houses and land that he wants to own*

Stop wasting your "muni" on stupid lame shit and get a fucking job, lazy ass.

 

[hyena]

Hyeba: So you payed 700K Euros for yer flat? Wow Hyena ist rich .

Well, actually not. I'm just overwhelmed by an enormous amount of debt.

@plintus: yes, weekly leases are the way to go here as well, because of course rome is a tourist spot and there are a lot of americans and arabs who have plenty to spend on mad rents (i did a bit of short-term experiments with the small flat and managed to churn out an average of 150 euros per day). however, there is a lot of red tape, and either you rent houses full-time or it becomes inconvenient; for example, every time you find a foreign tenant - which is the rule for tourist loans, obviously, and locals are not going to give you that much money - you have to spend about 3 hours at the police station filling out forms and waiting for cops to stamp them. in my case, this is just unfeasible, since i have a 9am to 7pm day job and sometimes i also work weekends, not to mention that i have periods of intense business traveling and nobody i want to entrust with signature powers over my flat (could of course hire a real estate guy, but then i would say goodbye to a sizable chunk of the money, which makes it more convenient to find someone for a regular 4-year contract).

 

[plintus]

(could of course hire a real estate guy, but then i would say goodbye to a sizable chunk of the money, which makes it more convenient to find someone for a regular 4-year contract).

Thus the question: how much is commission for their services in Rome? Here it's 10%.

 

[hyena]

Thus the question: how much is commission for their services in Rome? Here it's 10%.

long-term (1yr and up): one month's rent from the landlord and one from the tenant. in my case, i pay half cos i know the guy, but if i hadn't given him a ludicrous amount of money on other transactions i would not even get this small discount.

short-term: 10% for monthly and between 15 and 20% for biweekly-weekly. the point is that it's always taken from both landlord and tenant so the real estate guy gets a lot for doing relatively little.

on sales, it's anywhere between 2% and 4% for each side.