Buying a house and the games industry.

Quote from (HP)

Invest in what, stocks? Shit is like gambling.

That reminds me I need to set up my 401k. Fuck getting old sucks... I'm about to turn 29 in a couple months, sigh.

Lol @ kids complaining that there still in their twenties. Come talk to me when you hit 30. Now that's some depressive shit right there.

I started saving at the age of 21! #RichPensioner

I bought a house at 21.

Quote from Buddy

I bought a house at 21.

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Quote from (HP)

Invest in what, stocks? Shit is like gambling.

That reminds me I need to set up my 401k. Fuck getting old sucks... I'm about to turn 29 in a couple months, sigh.

Stocks is like 1 of thousands of things you can invest in. If you have money in the bank you might as well at least consider a blue chip or mutual fund where there's next to no chance you'll make any significant gains but it will be better than keeping it in the bank accruing interest and in some cases it's even more secure than a bank (see private banks failing and customers not able to get all their funds out).

The few people I know who have mutual funds all ended up positive even over the crisis in 2009. It also doesn't require a significant investment like a house, has no upkeep cost and doesn't require you to spend hours of your life dealing with homeowners issues. In countries like Canada the government allots 5000$ a year in money you can invest and no pay tax on profit you earn. People tend to use that money for these types of investments because if they do very well (which happens) they don't get jacked up to another income tax bracket because of their gains.

edit: it's worth at least consulting the financial planner at your bank to see what your options are

editedit : full disclousure, I've held about even on stocks and almost every year I've made money on a mutual fund (save the housing crisis years).

Quote from dux

Bleh I dunno what to do. The house I looked at is completely redone to a huge standard, everything is brand new and spotless. In a decent spot in town, just on the outskirts but not far from anything, all walking distance and doesn't need anything doing to it apart from some additional internet sockets installed. I could see myself there easily enough. But like Thrik said, just imagine you won't have a job in 2 years and work around that... which is not a great thought. The flat I'm in now is one of the best you can get here, but there's a huge building site next to me making a shit tone of noise, which will eventually house a load of homeless apparently. So that'll be fun. Plus my landlord has put the whole building my flat is in up for sale because of it so dunno what'll happen with a new owner. The other flats I looked at in town are nothing compared to this, absolute piss holes in comparison.

I guess I'll just stay here and try not to get stabbed.

Err the stabbing issue might make the notion of moving a bit more important o_0

Well i never made the calcul before, but if you rent your property for 500€ monthly and say you bought the house 200000. With taxes, it takes ~ 40 years to have a new house. You will be 70

Although : If you are courageous and have a mason uncle or something who knows the in and out of making a house, you can buy a shithole, work on it yourself for cheap and then sell it afterwards with a benefice. I know a lot of (older)guys who know stuff in construction do this kind of things.

Yeah, I'm actually in the process of buying something a bit like Koko described. Most of my family have a history of building their own houses so I know if something big comes up I can count on them for major renovations. The rest I can do myself, and if I gotta do a few fuckups along the way, no big deal.

My uncle has been very successful at doing that over the years. Creating value like that is a lot of work but can really pay off. His best investment was to buy an old farm which comprised of 3 buildings: a house which was good enough to live in, and two derelict stone barns. He turned the barns into two houses while he lived in the house, then rented that house to tourists while he and his family lived in the refreshed barns and finished those off. Then after a few years he sold the whole thing for many times the price he bought it and moved on to invest in a campsite and another house.

In my case though I've got a big thing going for me, which is that I've asked my dad for an advance on my inheritance, so I don't have to make a loan to the bank to buy a cheap-ass house (60000 euros) which is a bit old but has great potential after you break a wall or two and redo the floorings.

My wife and I like Germany, and we think it's a great place to raise our kids. It used to scare the shit out of me to buy a house, especially in a country where I barely understand the language and you can count game companies on the fingers of one hand, but now I see it more as a sort of safety net rather than an anchor, as we know even if I lose my job out of nowhere we have a place to stay, enough savings to last a few months, and we can always go back to my parents while we sell this house as a last resort. I find that having a family means I want to have such safeties, rather then feeling like I can take off on a month's notice. I'm also seriously considering giving the indie developer route a go at some point so not having to pay the rent is always a plus for that situation.

You can get a house for 60000 euros in germany? Is it livable or meant to be fixed up?

Liveable, if you don't mind it being a bit unusable. It's got a recent heating system, up-to-date electrical setup, and brand new bath room. The rest is a bit weirdly setup (extra building added onto a small house with not-ideal connections between the two) and there's only one toilet at the moment, and some of the floors have bent a bit with the years so two rooms need their floors redone. The staircase is a bit old-school (narrow steps) but it's a low priority. But it's got a decent garden, 2 terraces, a seperate garage, and is located in a small dead-end street 100 meters away from a kid's playground. So all in all I think it's a good deal. It's a bit remote of course, I'll have to drive to the train station, but my current transit time is almost an hour so that shouldn't be better or worse. The highway is 3 minutes away too, so I can be in Frankfurt in 30 minutes (if I wanted to deal with heavy traffic and congestions each day which I don't)

We can definitely move in as soon as I have fixed up the kitchen's floor and kitchen itself though, which is nice. Then we can approach each renovation as we see fit, nothing is ultra urgent, especially since we don't need to worry about isolating the attic or anything like that for a least a few months.

I don't think it's Germany only, I looked in France too and in some areas (like the backwards isolated region I'm from) you can get houses for those prices too. They're almost all old-people's houses though, usually a relative dies and leaves a meh house on 2 or 3 heirs, who don't want to be bothered with it and sell it cheap and quick. Obviously they're not super great, but with a little love and low expectations, it can be a sweet deal.

LMAO, in Luxembourg you can't even get a small plot for 60 000€

Yeah I dont think you can get anything for under maybe 700000 in Vancouver

Quote from Corwin

Liveable, if you don't mind it being a bit unusable. It's got a recent heating system, up-to-date electrical setup, and brand new bath room. The rest is a bit weirdly setup (extra building added onto a small house with not-ideal connections between the two) and there's only one toilet at the moment, and some of the floors have bent a bit with the years so two rooms need their floors redone. The staircase is a bit old-school (narrow steps) but it's a low priority. But it's got a decent garden, 2 terraces, a seperate garage, and is located in a small dead-end street 100 meters away from a kid's playground. So all in all I think it's a good deal. It's a bit remote of course, I'll have to drive to the train station, but my current transit time is almost an hour so that shouldn't be better or worse. The highway is 3 minutes away too, so I can be in Frankfurt in 30 minutes (if I wanted to deal with heavy traffic and congestions each day which I don't)

We can definitely move in as soon as I have fixed up the kitchen's floor and kitchen itself though, which is nice. Then we can approach each renovation as we see fit, nothing is ultra urgent, especially since we don't need to worry about isolating the attic or anything like that for a least a few months.

I don't think it's Germany only, I looked in France too and in some areas (like the backwards isolated region I'm from) you can get houses for those prices too. They're almost all old-people's houses though, usually a relative dies and leaves a meh house on 2 or 3 heirs, who don't want to be bothered with it and sell it cheap and quick. Obviously they're not super great, but with a little love and low expectations, it can be a sweet deal.

That's pretty damn good. At that price you can afford to spend quite a bit on renos. If you go through it make sure to post some before/after photos.

My guess with France is that once you get closer to the cities with work it would be significantly more expensive.

sorry to derail a minute, but we bought a house recently, and one of my four year old daughter's first questions about it was, "will there be enough plugs for mario?"

Quote from Skjalg

CUT

All true, i can speak of how tough is maintaning a house on your own because until last summer i was still staying at my parents and every year they have a full month of holiday and looking after it (cleaning, watering the garden, picking up the fruits of what my mother planted in the vegetable garden, cooking those to not making waste it, etc): it takes a fucking lot.On the flip side, depending on how the house is structured, one can think of then renting part of it ie: students, commuters etc. paying the morgage "automagically".

http://www.habiter.lu/fr/villa-vente…000-euros-73272

Buying a house is not a bad investment if you find the right one. I managed to get my house for 50% of the value, you just have to look hard enough. Owning it feels good.

Quote from RaVaGe

http://www.habiter.lu/fr/villa-vente…000-euros-73272

There's no place left to install banks in luxembourg, that's why the m² is so expensive

Quote from KoKo5oVaR

There's no place left to install banks in luxembourg, that's why the m² is so expensive

You can't even imagine how much it's inflated, in all the south of Luxembourg, you can't find a renovated house for under the million, the flats are expensive as hell too, a new flat cost around 300 000€, and you have almost nothing ahah. The north is less inflated though, but still expensive. I live in the Belgian border and it's also inflating a lot right now.

But eh, still not as worst as NYC or Paris

I would kill for the opportunity to buy the apartment that i am renting right now.