Apr
12
Perfect time to buy a house in Michigan…or so they say
Posted by admin at 21:18 | Filed In Everyday Life, Shopping Deals | 2 Comments
Before I get to the actual house buying story, here’s some personal data about myself:
- I’m 24 years old
- I live at home with my (single) mom and my younger sister
- I’m currently employed full time and earn a decent amount of money
- I don’t have much debt. I’m leasing a car and have about $300 on one of my credit cards
- I have “Excellent” credit (as of last week).
When I got my first real job as a web designer in the Detroit area, I was just barely 21 years old. I fought to get that job and thanks to a few good people who believed in me, I got it. After about a year, I got laid-off as did some of my co-workers. Soon after, I started contracting at another company where I’m now a full-fledged employee for almost 2 years. Although my mom’s house (which is not in such a good area of metro Detroit) has plenty of room for the three of us, I always wanted to be on my own. I wanted to start my own life, in my own place, for better or for worse. I wanted to make that goal by the time I turned 25.
I will be 25 years old next month.
It was a mere coincidence that I started to look for my new place, but that’s when I also realized how bad the housing market is in Michigan. It definitely is going my favor, but many are suffering because of it. In the past three months, I’ve been looking intensively (online) for apartment-to-condo conversions in the Metro Detroit area because they just seem so cheap. I was also looking for other types of condos and even looked at a few houses. Now, why buy a condo and not a house?
Like most people, I know that buying a house is a better decision as far resale value, the freedom, the privacy, and many other things go. However, the reason I am not looking for a house is because by buying a condominium, not only is it cheaper, but it’s maintenance free. Well, for the most part. However, that is not my main reason. The real reason is because I could pay it off relatively quickly and give it to my mom. Hopefully, 10 years from now things will be better and we’ll be able to sell her house - whether we earn something on it or not. That way I have her taken care of. She never wanted to live in a house anyway so apartment/condo living would be perfect for her.
So, today I went and looked at my first two choices. They’re both townhouses in the Sterling Heights area; they’re under $50,000 and have two bedrooms and 1.5 bathrooms. Where else could you get something like that for under $50K? I don’t know, but if you do, please do let me know 
My realtor (who seems really cool and straight-forward) wasn’t very well organized today so I ended up getting inside of either of these places (they gave him the wrong combinations for the lock boxes). The only thing I managed to do is take a few pictures of the exterior and peek through the windows. One of the reasons these two townhouses are this cheap is partially because they’re bank re-pos.
All in all, my first day of “looking” didn’t go the way I wanted it to, but I’m very, very excited, especially now that I saw these two. The red, brick townhouse is the one I liked better and I hope that once I’m able to get it, that I like it. Here are some photos of the “red” house. I won’t be posting photos of the other one this time.
The front of the “red” townhouse
The back of the “red” townhouse. It has a small yard area that’s open to the common lawn. Not bad, I really don’t need more than that. Just enough to fit my BBQ grill
Another shot of the frontal exterior of the house. The living space is about 1100 square feet. It has two bedrooms, 1 and 1/2 bathrooms and my truck still looks bigger than it. Check out the nasty sky… Of all the beautiful sunny days we had over the past week or so, I got to take pictures on this dark, gloomy day…pffff!
Apr
9
How much do you spend on alcohol?
Posted by admin at 15:27 | Filed In Saving your money | 9 Comments
Let’s face it - most of drink. Some drink more than the other. I personally drink a couple of times a week (on average). Almost every week there is a happy hour scheduled for right after work. This usually falls on Tuesday or Wednesday at a local dive bar that has relatively cheap beer and smells of smoke badly. The good thing is the beer is not outrageously expensive but the bad thing is that we don’t leave the bar at 7pm (when the happy hour expires). Sometimes we stay past midnight. That’s 7-8 hours of drinking and guess what? The bill ads up!
How bad is alcohol for your health is something I can cover in a separate article because I know a little bit about that too, but for now, let’s concentrate on how much money we waste on it.
When I go out with friends on Friday or Saturday night I also manage to spend about $100 on average and I’m not really sure how. This doesn’t happen all the time and the happy hours aren’t always 7 hours long, but I’d say that in a given month, I easily spend around $400 on alcohol!
What about you - how much do you spend on alcohol every week / month?
Apr
6
50,000 Foreclosures in Michigan
Posted by admin at 23:15 | Filed In Michigan, The US | 10 Comments
I hate to be a downer and repeating myself, but I stumbled across another one of those “Foreclosure Websites” with the local listings. They have a US map displayed and naturally I clicked on Michigan. Instead of my explaining what happened next, see for yourselves by clicking on the image below: 
On the other hand, if you’re interested in buying some of these foreclosed homes, check out my previous post about buying a house by a bus in Detroit.
keep looking »