Tag Archives: house

Upgrading to a McMansion!

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Upgrading to a McMansion!

McMansion

McMansion

Well, my friend that won a house has upgraded from their free townhouse to a McMansion!  Actually the house is even on the large side for a McMansion since it’s over 4,000 square feet!

Now both my friend and her husband can’t really afford such a house if it were just their salaries that they had to rely on (I believe it was listed around $350,000 after coming down from the $400,000s) .

So how do they afford it?

They are renting out their townhouse (that they won) for about $1,000 a month!  All of this money goes towards the mortgage payment of the new house!  From my calculations, they should be able to afford the house with that extra $1,000 going towards their mortgage.

But even better, they only had to take out a $280,000 mortgage since they had enough saved up for a $70,000 dollar down-payment!   They had this much because they were able to save their money for the past 5 or so years that they lived in the townhouse!

Not that they need it, but with record low mortgage rates, if they make the normal payment and don’t pay anything extra, they should be able to have the same fun lifestyle that they had before the upgrade!  Remember, both of them are in their mid-20s still!

Now for a Few of the McMansion Highlights!

The house has a huge home theater in the basement!  The previous owners bought some type of projection unit mounted on the ceiling and it projects to the entire screen wall!  The picture is huge, and its high definition!  It was quite literally the largest viewing experience I’ve ever seen outside of a movie theater!

home theater

a similar home theater layout

The 3 car garage had a heater and the floor was covered with some special rubberized surface!  The office in the house was larger than my master bedroom.  Wood trim was everywhere, it was a huge house!

I was amazed, do you know anyone who owns a McMansion?

-MR

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Is It Time To Buy A New House?

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Housing was hit fairly hard!  with home prices down more that half in some locations (for example, Nevada)…

My friend with that won the $200,000 dollar  house and things is  moving.  To help provide the best environment (including school system) for her future children, she (they) decided to upgrade to a more expensive, and much bigger house.

We estimate that she’s going to triple her current living space with the move.  And since she lived in a townhouse before, her lot size has increased by an even larger amount.

I also mentioned the “Joneses” of our neighborhood has already moved to a bigger and better place.  While they aren’t moving for the reasons as my friend is moving, they too are taking advantage of the reduces home prices (and at the time, the home buyers incentives) that are around.  In their particular scenario, they are increasing the living space by 1,000 to 1,500 square feet.

If my wife and kids weren’t so happy with the house we live in, I too, would have jumped on the “buy a larger house while they are cheap” bandwagon.  Of course, I’d upgrade our square footage by a much smaller amount.  I estimate that I would only increase the amount by a range of 400 to 600 square feet.  The important thing to realize is that this environment might be a once in the lifetime opportunity to buy a house at a reduced costs.

After all, if the house prices don’t start increasing, we have much more serious problems.  Perhaps the logic is if we go are going down in flames, why not go down in flames with a bit of style?

Readers, what do you think?  Is the housing market so depressed that now it a great time to buy?  You have heard the stories of three people that are moving or would like to move (yeah that’s me).

-MR