When I bought my house, i was thinking about that mantra. Location is the most important aspect of a house. And growing up where i did, I was anti that (mostly).

It took until I bought my house and lived in it till I realized that location is the key to my happiness about my home. I don’t need much, just a place to stay where I can chill between my dealings with people.

Now, it takes 35-45 minutes to get to & from work.

• I’m going to put a map of how my house is setup in relation to Big Town, Work Town, Downtown Area, & My House.
  • The dots, lines represent actual distances only. This is certainly not a “to-scale” drawing.

• My house
  • .
  • • .
  • Work Town
    • .
    • .
    • .
      • .
      • .
        • ……….Downtown Area
        • .
          • .Big Town

 

Just 3 years ago, the traffic was say 25 minutes 2 work and 30 minutes home. Not much better, but i think that 50% has been added since a year or so ago.

When I was in house buying mode, I took all blinders off, looked at the good and bad of each property. I was quick and did not care about too many aesthetics really. Just bones of the homes and their location. And mostly price-point in comparison to the estimated cost of renovation. For this house:

• 82k versus 10-15k in renovations/repairs, value should even out to the comps in the area to 100 to 110k along with comparable appreciation.
• Estimate of rent per month, as i plan to rent it to a family upon time of completion of renovations: 800-1200/mo.
  • With my mortgage payment at ~650/mo. If I can rent at 1k and owe 650, that is profit or maintenance funds of 350/mo ($81.40/wk $4,230/yr).
    • OR using a property manager, as I expect I will move out of state for work and make the setup of personally doing it difficult. I believe the charge is around 30% of rent per month.. that’s 300 bucks a month.
      • I could only save $50 bucks a month for maintenance.
    • This is a near stress-free approach and will pay off handsomely in about 10 years when I decide to payoff the mortgage in full. That would send an additional 400/mo in cashflow, not to mention all the appreciation in rent over the years, i’d be profiting over 50 within a year or so.
• I imagine at some point in the next ten years, this city will finally grow and have some business around to boost the value of my area. Yet, that is unknown, because my area loves to stay small as possible, even though they are growing like mad.
• It was like the 3rd house I looked at, out of 7 and it was the ugliest house of them all, inside and out. But I knew I could have it up to par within a year.

I’d like to start this paragraph with my own quote above, “But I knew I could have it up to par within a year.”.

That line is prophesy that never came true. I was overly positive without the security required as a foundation for the investment. I was laid-off from work and had much trouble in getting the second job. I won’t say that year was all bad, thanks to support from my parents, I pulled thru without losing my house or truck. And I managed to finish my Associate’s degree. But the experience was embarrassing, stressing, miserable, and financially devastating to my savings goals.

BACK ON TRACK

My desire now, is to move to the area (see “map”) that is Downtown.Where all the bars are, not that I really drink much, and the location where I enjoy riding my bike, relaxing, and reading in the sunshine. The area where all the cool stuff happens.

• Traffic to work allows the time to be around 20 minutes and coming home would be about 20-25 minutes.
• If I wanted to go downtown, well-i’d already be there.
• If I wanted to go to Big Town, then that’s ten minutes away
• If I wanted to go to my parents or a friend’s house, that’s near My House now. And anytime except from 6:30am to 9:00am & 4:00pm to 6:30pm, the trip is a 40 minute ride.

For after work, I’d love my routine to get into the likes of such:

• Leave work 4:00, go to WholeFoods for a huge salad off the buffet.
• go to gym a couple miles away. Do some quick heavy routines, add an hour of stretching/yoga, half hour in the sauna, & shower. That’s till around 8-9 o’clock.
• go to a coffee shop or like, use the laptop for “this blog”, gaming, coding education, or whatever I’m into at the time.
• go to park for my martial arts training.
• go home

Currently, If I were to do that, I still have a 35 minute drive home at midnight. When, if I wanted to have some beer, I now have to wait-out the alcohol.

If I lived downtown, well that’s a 5 minute bike ride.

…If only I wasn’t saddled with laziness. I haven’t been on an exercising regiment in nearly a year, nor the martial arts, nor the yoga. I need to get back into it, I know it keeps me well-rounded, sane, and actionable. And all that extra driving as now, just helps me feel helpless to my bad rut, sitting here in a location that is a half hour from where I want to live.