homes vs renting ?

WBahn

Joined Mar 31, 2012
33,116
Just do a Google search for real estate contracts for your state.

Like many things, the concept of who "owns" the airspace above a plot of land can be a legally thorny issue. For the most part, however, it is generally accepted that countries own the airspace above their borders but only up to altitudes at which terrestial aircraft operate and that they do NOT own or control altitudes at which spacecraft, such as LEO satellites, operate. But that doesn't mean that you can park anything you want to in the skies above another nation.

The main point, however, is that the individual land owners (nor a city, county, or state) do not have ownership over the air.

In general (in the U.S.), you are buying the surface rights, which typically extend down to about 200ft below the ground. You do not own the mineral (i.e., subsurface) rights and seldom do you own the water rights. In most cases, mineral rights are superior to surface rights, which means that if the owner of the mineral rights wants to sink a mine shaft or oil well or build a road to access their claim and it requires demolishing your house that there is nothing you can do about it and they don't owe you any compensation. In fact, in theory they could sue you for any additional cost they have to incur in order to tear your house down. Now, stuff like that almost never happens (think of the P.R. disaster it would be for any company that did that) and most states have put in legal codes to provide some degree of protection for the surface rights owner. However, these protections are mostly in the form of requiring the mineral rights holder to demonstrate that there aren't other options available to them that are equally viable.
 

Thread Starter

Mathematics!

Joined Jul 21, 2008
1,036
http://www.amortgage.com/xSites/Mor...ontent/UploadedFiles/contract to purchase.pdf

So would the above be the only papers you would have to sign other then home insurance papers what about the land papers...

I am unsure what it all looks like is there some place I can view the whole process of how it goes without having to buy a house. Maybe a youtube video.
And a scanned pdf of all the paper work involved...

I am assuming it is a lot more complicated then signing a lease / renting but from the pdf link above it looks much less then my leases
 

WBahn

Joined Mar 31, 2012
33,116
Oh, there are lots of documents you are going to be signing. You are going to have your offer document, the sales contract, the mortgage loan application, your inspection objections and resolution, tons of disclosures about this and that, title documents, title insurance, the Good Faith Estimate, the HUD-1, settlement costs, homeowner insurance, lender's documents, the deed documents, the promissory note. All told, you will probably walk away from closing having signed your name about two dozen times and with a stack of papers that is upwards of half and inch thick.

Arguably the most important of these -- the one that it is critical that you understand fully -- is the promissory note. This is the one that sets out the exact terms of the loan repayment. Read it carefully and fully. If you go to sell your house in two years and discover that you have a huge prepayment penalty, you will have only yourself to blame.
 

dthx

Joined May 2, 2013
195
Go to Glouster, Ma. and buy a boat to live on...or get a travel trailer like Jester suggests...keep your options open....by your Questions, you don't seem to be ready to get into a long term mortgage....
Read what Mr. Bahn says very carefully....you cant just walk away from the financial obligation of home ownership...the bank can sue you for the diff....
If you want to find the break even point re the investment side...you have to consider how much your home will appreciate vs how much money you have put into it vs how much cheaper you could live somewhere else and save the difference....
Find a Finance professor and talk to him...he will have an HP12C calculator that will do what you ask....or a real good real estate attorney.....they do this kind of stuff all the time.
You would prob. dig the math involved....
Just my 2 cents....
 

WBahn

Joined Mar 31, 2012
33,116
Running the numbers to find the expected economic break even point is actually pretty straight forward, although even many "financial" folks don't take some important things into account to do it properly. But what virtually none of them even attempt to take into account, because it is very difficult to put a number on, is the notion of 'risk'. For someone doing lots of transactions as a business, you can come up with a pretty good estimate of the investment risk, but that is a very different thing that the risk for a specific person and a specific transaction. How much is it worth to be debt free, including your home, knowing that if you lose your job that you can maintain your lifestyle indefinitely at a minimum wage job or take in two or three boarders and not have to work at all. For some people that would have tremendous value and for others it wouldn't mean much at all. So how can you put a number to it? Buying a house that is as big as you can possibly make the payments on generally has the potential for the greatest return in the long run, but what cost should be assigned to the fact that you are now locked into needed to make at least as much as you presently do in order to keep from losing it all?
 
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