Monday, October 19, 2015

Could my finances handle buying an apartment? Maybe I should wait?


Well here are the figures. I live in Stocholm, Sweden. As of now buying a place is f***d up. Yesterday I went to look at a place that needed the kitchen and the bathroom redone. Redoing kitchen and bathroom is at least $10 000. The place started out at $140 000 and was sold today for $245 000. I mean to me that is just ridiculous. And that's 430 ft2.

I looked at the numbers on how much it would cost me and I'm not sure. The down payment is 15 percent. Another 15 percent is a top up loan and the remaining 70 is a mortgage loan. The top up loan has 3,5 percent in interest and the mortgage has currently 1,7 percent. For these two loans I would pay $400 in interest and another $400 in installment. The fee for the apartment is also around 300-400, adding internet, electricity, TV I'll get $100. That means the total cost of the apartment is about $1300. I make $3000 after taxes, which means that almost 45 percent of my income would go to the apartment. And if the interest goes up so would the cost. I seriously doubt the interest would fall below 1,7. I usually put $750 in savings but that would leave me very little for food, transportation and life in general. I don't know. I just feel like with these prices it's going to crash soon. I mean $250 000 for a studio apartment 20 min outside of the city center by pendulum. Maybe I should wait? What do you think?

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