I need your advice guys and gals!!

[RattyDog]

Hello everyone!

So...I'll cut to the chase here. We have been moving closer and closer to buying our own home over the past couple of years..and well, with the market doing what it's doing and home prices SO low...everyone we know and love and trust have urged us to take advantage of the market and buy a bit sooner than we planned to.

Here's my problem...everyone I know and love and trust, who are urging and urging....ALSO believe that this recession is just a blip, that things will turn around, etc...and if you rely soley on mainstream media for your news, it would make a bit of sense to beleive that.

We, however, scoff at mainstream news...because, well, it's so scoffable! We do NOT believe that things are going to be "fixed", we believe that things are going to get much worse...we believe that this crisis is very much orchestrated and it's purpose is to bring us to a new level of government control, etc...so...we're actively looking for a home now, on land...tucked away. We KNOW we need to get out of Manchester...we just don't know whether buying a house right now is a good thing, or a bad thing. Its hdto make a major decision like that, with litte to no REAL information about what's going on and what is going to be going on in the future.

We don't really know what's going to happen, we just have a vague sense that it's not going to be good. SO....if things are going to get worse here...is it better they get worse and we own our home...or not?

Just asking some folks who I know have a more realistic sense of what is going on right now. I would appreciate any and all advice you have for me!!

Oh...and just so everyone knows...one of the reasons I ask, is because we are expecting our second (and final) baby in November!! So...I feel a bit less sure of my ability to go out and make money for us should we find ourselves in some kind of trouble...with two babies (well, Avery will be one in a couple of weeks, but still my baby!) instead of just one baby, I feel like we are a bit more....I don't know. It just feels a bit more precarious and we want to make sure we don't get ourselves into a bad situation with two small babies. I don't even know what I mean by that...again, just a general sense of unrest, when thinking about our future (the collective "our").

So again, I appreciate any thoughts! Thanks!

[Pat McCotter]

Sorry I can't help with advice on house buying but...


Congrats on the new rugrat, RattyDog!

[RattyDog]

Thanks! Sometimes I think I must be crazy to have two under two....but we've so thoroughly enjoyed Avery...she's just AWESOME, that I know it'll be okay.

Colin's really rooting for a boy this time...I'm thinking it's a girl, to be honest, but either way...we're really looking forward to meeting our new human!

[Friday]

RattyDog, I know exactly how you feel (well, except for the being pregnant part  ), and have been asking myself many of the same questions.  My personal decision has been to try to buy a house away from an urban area, with privacy and its own sources of drinking water and heat. I'm still very much tied in to the global mercantilistic Evil Empire, so am not looking to buy way out in the boonies, but still commutable to urban areas and airports. I'm using this opportunity to sock away as much money as I can while the gettings good, in preparation for....what?  Like you, I'm not quite sure.  But it's going to be different, that's for sure.

Good luck!

[Lloyd Danforth]

The recession is probably not a blip.  I would resist having babies and mortgages for a few years.

[littlehawk]

Taking out a loan now would be a poor choice IMO. Its time to downscale things, get rid of the useless materials and possessions and set up for a survial mode. Adapt to a very small living quarters and preferrably build it yourself. IMO, time is of thr essence and by this fall/winter, things will start to go belly-up. Watch the gas prices soar and when it hits 5 bucks a gallon, things will start to spiral downwards quickly. 

Remember, without natural gas, gasoline or propane what will be valuable to survive?

food, water, heat and shelter.

Littlehawk

[Russell Kanning]

if you can afford the house ... buy it

[FreelanceFreedomFighter]

Rattydog, Congrats on the new addition! I'm one of the "older fahts", but I happen to have a very young child as well... I completely agree with Russell Kanning on this. If you can afford to buy a place, do it. To expound a little on that thought: If this is a blip (more on that in a sec), then buying now is the time. If this isn't a blip and things go down hill, then you're better off in a place away from the larger urban areas where there is certain to be more upheaval on a quicker timescale. In addition, if things really do go from bad to worse to a full-blown collapse, then there is the possibility that you could go and earn, in little time, some highly inflated FRNs (which would basically be useless paper, but which your note would be written and payable in) and essentially pay-off your new home. The only "trick" in that case would be to make certain you do that before some evil government entity decides to automagically rewrite everyone's mortgages in "ameros" or whatever new fiat currency they decide.

(back to the "blip") While I believe that this is the beginning of the rest of the downward spiral and things are not going to get better in the long term, looking from a realistic perspective and from the viewpoint of the behind-the-scenes-ruling-elite, I think there is a very strong probability that we will see a "recovery" within a few years (4-6 yrs on the outside). Why? Because the "powers-that-be" need to keep the sheep complacent enough to continue going along with the further erosion of freedoms and maintain the path towards total slavery. There are still too many people who are "awake" to simply mandate the final jump. They're getting close, but not quite there yet. Those who are "on the fence" (perhaps listening to us, but don't want to believe us) need to be pushed off towards serfdom. They will proclaim, "See! The Government fixed the crisis and things are just fine! You were all just paranoid!" There will comparisons to any group that has ever predicted the end of the world was imminent and comparisons to the Y2K hysteria, etc. I believe that it will be after that manufactured "recovery" that things will truly be pushed to the ultimate desired conclusion of the globalists. Soooo... At that point, you could be in a nice "hidey-hole", away from the impending urban implosion (which will quickly spread), and have secured yourself and your loved ones. It also gives folks time to make good contacts with other like-minded, freedom-loving, people... such as here. (And I sincerely hope it doesn't ever come to the point of having to protect and defend ourselves from either a completely out-of-control rioting mob or rogue government, but INMSHO that isn't something to rule out...)

[RattyDog]

Thank you for all of the advice and well wishes, friends.

We don't want a mortage in these times, believe me....however, what we don't want MORE is to find ourselves in an apartment in an urban zone in manchester if/when the SHF.

We can afford a home and some land....which would make us happy because we would like to have a goat, a proper garden and a few other things that we are prepared for, just don't have the space for. There is not as much that we can do to prepare ourselves, not knowing if we would really be able to stay put, in the event of a real upheaval in the city. We live in a lovely, lovely apartment...but it's just that. An apartment...it's just not a secure or remote location to hunker down...we can't have our garden and other means of self support, it's just not good. We've been wanting out for so long, anyway...but now feel a deeper sense of urgency, of really needing to get the hell out of dodge.

We would also like to have our water source be a drilled well, rather than municiple water supply. Our sewage, same thing. So...we feel like this is a move in the right direction...we just feel very uneasy about taking out a mortgage right now, you know?

So, we will go about our plans...I'm glad to hear that no one thinks it's a TERRIBLE idea. Lloyd....yeah, well, as far as holding off on the babies, that's water under the bridge! But we don't plan on more after this...so, there's that. Unfortunaetly, to keep our babies safe, we also will have to pick up a mortgage...ugh...but necessary.

I'm hoping and praying and wishing so hard that we will find the perfect place for us...there are a lot of pretty little homes on land that are just dirt cheap right now and man, I'd love to be living in one of them. We don't need any of the things that are in urban zones...we don't go out, I cook everything we eat, we dislike having lots of noisy neighbors, we're very private people, we don't need the hospitals...I mean shoot, we don't even use doctors for baby deliveries!! We really don't want and don't need any of the "conveniences" that come along with this urban lifestyles and we ESPECIALLY dislike living around lots of people. We like peace and green things as far as the eye can see.

So...with any luck this will come true for us shortly...I just want a safe(r) little place, to tuck my little family away. I know we can't hide forever...but if we get a couple extra years of good living out of it...well, you all know what I mean. We just want to be left alone and be able to take care of ourselves in case of real...whatever's coming.

Thank you again, I really appreciate it. 

[Russell Kanning]

cool

[Free libertarian]

 Despite Lloyd's grizzly bear appearances towards children, I know he likes cats so maybe he can warm up to children..."Uncle Lloyd" has a nice ring to it.   If you want to be tucked away and like goats, gardens and woodstoves...maybe you'd consider Grafton?

[John Edward Mercier]

The recession isn't a blip... just a rebalance of relative values due to a demographic wave. The Boomers, which make up a large percentage of the population, are moving into a lower income and consumption retirement stage. It causes some businesses to do well, while others dwindle. It also sets up for a mass migration from higher cost housing areas to lower cost.

For NH, this is sort of a double-edged sword...
NH is considered one of the better retirement areas... which supports housing prices.
But also means lower average income and expenditures creating employment pressure.

[grasshopper]

  Hey, Ratty, great to see your still cool as ever and doing great!  It is really exciting that your having an other baby, congradulations to your pregnancy and I hope things are ok with everyone on your family and sphere of influence.
  If there are no jobs, there is no money to pay your morgage, the nazi frak europeand own you house, you live in the streets.  In my stupidity, I say, wait.
  God bless you and yours
  Ed

[FreelanceFreedomFighter]

The recession isn't a blip... just a rebalance...

I agree, but as previously stated, I also believe that the "powers-that-be" (TM) can't afford to allow the downward spiral to simply continue and will "create" a "recovery" within a few years. Ultimately, the downward spiral will have to continue unabated...

IMNSHO... 

[Dave Ridley]

I could be wrong but here's why this sort of thing wouldn't interest me.

There is no home ownership in america, you rent from your local government

The likelihood is home prices *will* bottom out and shoot back up eventually... but my guess is that will happen after there is a bit of chaos in the streets and a mainstream fear that many houses will not survive intact.  I suspect THAT will be the buyer's market.

Privacy / small biz guru JJ Luna says don't buy a house till you have the money to do it without taking a loan.   

It's a static target and vulnerable to arbitrary hikes in taxes.

In Bosnia and Croatia people treated homes as investments to avoid heavy inflation.  There was always a desperate "building boom" underway in the 80s.    It made sense.  Then maybe 10 or 20 percent of the houses burned, and the investment in those cases was lost anyway.  The U.S. is similar to ex-Yugoslavia.