I lived in the Boulder/Longmont area in the early 80's for three years and always knew I'd return to Colorado one day!
In 1995 . . . we split Michigan and headed west!
Sold our house on the lake . . . sold my boat and just about everything else that we didn't think we would need (should have sold my darkroom stuff as I still have it all, but have never set it back up since we turned out the safelights back in Michigan).
I live in the northern Denver suburbs, and several of the houses on my street have gone up for forclosure in the last year.
Three of them the same model house as ours, which has brought the value of our house down, yet it is still higher than it was when we bought it in 1997 (our house was 10 years old when we bought it)!
Matter of fact . . . just two doors down, another the same model house as ours, was deserted by the owners about three weeks ago . . . today I saw a forclosure sticker in the front window!
New cars every year . . . expensive toys . . . HDTV's . . . DSLR's every six months (had to throw that one in there LOL).
I think that it was 'creative financing' that got most of these people in trouble, plus, their urge to have all kinds of new stuff that they really couldn't afford.
These home developers are coming up with all kinds of ways to make people think they can afford bigger houses that what they really can afford, and get people into these houses before they realize that five years down the line, their payments skyrocket!
As an example, they guy that used to own the house across the street lost his house to forclosure last summer (same model as our house) . . . he was into all kinds of toys . . .
Motorcycles, ATV's . . . was always buying new ones.
I bought my truck . . . a few weeks later he had to buy a new truck . . . bigger and badder than mine!
We bought our 24ft. travel trailer used . . . paid cash for it . . . costs us less than $80 per year for plates and insurance on it!
A month after we got ours . . . he showed up with a brand new travel trailer . . . same size as ours, at only $474 per month for 10 years!
Sure, it was a lot nicer and newer than ours, but for something you are going to use maybe three or four times a year . . . we just didn't want monthly payments on that!
They had a kid . . . then he had to have a boat . . . put a hitch on the back of his camper so he could pull both at the same time!
Now, he needed an even bigger brand new truck (Ford Expedition) to pull his camper and boat combo!
Anyway . . . he had three mortgages on his house to pay for all of this stuff . . . and he just couldn't afford it!
But the banks figured out ways to approve him for all of this . . .
Not only did he loose just about all of his material things . . . his wife left him as well!
This is the kind of stuff that has gotten a lot of people here in Colorado in trouble . . . living outside of their finantial means.
Now, we refinaced our house during our second year here and stuck with it . . . and at least we have some equity in it!
Our interest rate is pretty low, and our payments are still much lower than just about all of our neighbors, who keep refinancing every time the prime drops!
Matter of fact . . . our payments are under $1000 per month (including home owners insurance and property tax payments) . . . his house payment alone (for the very same house) was close to $2500 per month, and didn't include the insurance and taxes!
--
J. D.
Colorful Colorado
Remember . . . always keep your receipt, the box, and everything that came in it!
. Still, housing prices are out of reach for most Floridians (even the ones who bought their houses anyway and have gigantic mortgage payments every month).