How old were you when you purchased your first home?

[ChrisnSteph]

We were both 24 when we bought our first home in Moreno Valley, CA. We paid $115,000 for a 4 bedroom home. We fixed it up and sold it almost 4 years later for $175,000, and bought our second home near Temecula for $254,000. Two years later, we sold that for $435,000 and bought our third home in the same area for $464,000. We're 30 years old now, and this is where we plan on staying until the kids are grown, then we want to cash out and move out of California.

 

[Nancy]

26, we bought a double (duplex but up and down instead of side by side) for under $40,000. Stayed there just under 2 years, I hated being a landlord! Bought the house we are currently in for under 70,000 18 years ago last week. It is now worth over three times as much. One thing about the Buffalo area, we still have fairly decent home prices.

BTW our house is close to 2000 sq.feet, 3 bedrooms, 1 1/2 baths, kitchen, dining room, family room and living room plus full basement and attic.

 

[AZKathy]

I was 25, DH was 27. It was 21 years ago and it cost 77,000. Four bedroom home here in Arizona; big difference than the apartments we were living in before we got married.

 

[Aimeedyan]

I am 27, we closed on our first house 1.5 months ago in DFW, $150k new construction 2800 sq ft on large lot. Cost of living is wonderful here!

 

[LvsTnk]

23yo, 1985, 70,000, 3bed. ranch

 

[icebrat001]

To the OP: Come to Iowa We have plenty of affordable homes. I am so glad that I am here. Most of our friends own their homes. House payments are cheaper than rent.

We bought our first home at 23. It was a 2 bdrm ranch fixer-upper, ~700 sq ft, for $90,000 (in a highly desirable area near university campus, made good $ on this one).

We bought our second home at 25. It is a 3 bdrm ranch, ~1000 sq ft, for $100,000, but in a non-university town.

Doesn't in snow in Iowa? I would probably go broke using the heat Usually, it's in the 40's and 50's which is cold to me, SO and I keep the heater at 80 and even then the other day I was still cold and bumped the heater up to 84, I had 2 turtle necks on and sweatpants and a blanket wrapped around me.

I think the snow is beautiful, great for skiing and taking pictures, but I don't know if I'd adjust to the cold weather, but for those prices, I need to do some serious thinking.

 

[staci]

Doesn't in snow in Iowa? I would probably go broke using the heat Usually, it's in the 40's and 50's which is cold to me, SO and I keep the heater at 80 and even then the other day I was still cold and bumped the heater up to 84, I had 2 turtle necks on and sweatpants and a blanket wrapped around me.

I think the snow is beautiful, great for skiing and taking pictures, but I don't know if I'd adjust to the cold weather, but for those prices, I need to do some serious thinking.

Yeah, you wouldnt last an hour!! Funny thing, dh came home today all ticked off cuz he had to follow a bunch of slow cars home in the snow - they were going 25 on the interstate - anyway, he gets up to the slow car in front FINALLY and is all ready to cuss them out, until he sees the cali plates and he figured they were probably already thinking they were in H E double hockey sticks. He said they were totally white knuckling the steering wheel

Today we had about 10 inches of snow, and it is COLD, about 15. I have our heat set at 65 and I FREEZE, but the heating bills are suppose to be so bad this winter, and our furnace is pretty inefficient, so we deal with it. Actually right now it is set at 60, as we are in bed with a BUNCH of blankets.

I really dont handle the snow well, I prefer to stay inside and look at it. It was beautiful today, we had 5 deer in our backyard (in the middle of the city) just roaming around in the snow. It was very christmasy.

 

[tiggersmom2]

I was 24 yrs. old. My house was below 200,000 and we financed it for 15 years. In 10 years it will be paid off and is valued at over 100,000 more than what we paid!

 

[ilovepcot]

19! My 1st DH and I decided to move out of an apartment when our daughter was born and rent a much larger house. My grandfather was a very close friend of the landlord and when he heard how much we were being charged in rent, he phoned his friend and *told him* to sale us the house saying the rent was just too high for a young couple. Grandfather took care of all the paperwork and dropped by the house one evening and told us where to sign the papers. We didn't even realize we'd just bought a house!!!! Oh yeah, it was most definitely under $25,000 and was brick construction with 1800 square feet!

 

[Tigger113]

I was 21 and my DH was 23. We lived in Southern Michigan at the time (1986). It was a 100+ yr old home with 4 bedrooms and 2 full baths for only $28,000 BUT interest rates back then were about 14%!!

icebrat001, we lived over in Tracy for a SHORT while (less than 6 months!). Walnut Creek is beautiful, I wanted to live there but we couldn't afford it! Although the house we bought in Tracy we paid $469,000 and less than 6 months later sold it for $589,000............not too bad of a profit!

We now live in North Georgia and the homes are definately a lot cheaper here! We don't get snow here, the average winter temps are 40 degrees, not too bad. Summers are HOT though!!

 

[Mickey76]

I'm 29 and my fiancee is 25 and we just had the closing on our house a couple of weeks ago. We paid $400,000. That was our big Christmas gift to each other....that we'll paying for for the rest of our lives.

 

[tiggersmom2]

We now live in North Georgia and the homes are definately a lot cheaper here! We don't get snow here, the average winter temps are 40 degrees, not too bad. Summers are HOT though!!

Hey!!! I have a cabin in Blue Ridge Georgia! Nice to see a neighbor!

 

[momofmikey]

I was 24, my DH 26. We bought a 4 BR cape cod house for $160K. Sadly, we could turn around and sell it for $450K now .

 

[Chris2597]

Dh and I were married 6 months when we bought our first home. I was 19 and he was almost 22 when we bought our first little 3bd, 1.5 bath, 1 car garage house for the whopping price of 19,200 in 1977. We sold it 5 years later and doubled our money....

 

[soccerchick]

I was 23 and DH was 25. It was a 3bedroom, single car garage, single family and we paid $170,000 in 1993. The same house is going for the upper 300k's to low 400k now.

 

[Melrosgirl]

20 years old. 3 bedroom new house in Las Vegas. ($100,000 roughly back in 1993). House today is worth $275,000. Unfortunately I sold it in a many years ago for only $115,000.

 

[Galahad]

At 25 - 25 years ago in Fort Wayne, IN for $33,000.

 

[ely3857]

Me & DF bought a 2 bed wreck in Oct '04 when we were 29 & 26 for £31.5k

After doing it up we revalued in Oct '05 for £70k



Jodie

 

[drakethib]

I was 26 or 27 I think.


It was a little house that I think we paid 40K for and fixed it up.

We have sinced moved up to much bigger and "nicer" home, our first home will always be special to us.

 

[Marseeya]

We're in our 30s and still haven't bought our first home. We rent a house from the best landlord in the world (lets us have pets and gives us almost total autonomy).

Confession: Our credit is pretty bad from a job loss and marital separation a few years back. We probably won't buy until 2007 when I finish grad school and start my career and we're dual income. We probably could get a home loan, but we really don't want to go through the high risk lenders.