This Doesn’t Help
The house I intend bidding on in less than two weeks is going to cost me plenty, especially since I’ll “have to” renovate the kitchen and bathroom (it’s all in working order, just in need of a substantial upgrade), so reading about someone else’s trepidations, even, or especially, from the perspective of what it means as an investment, only heightens my nervousness over the financial predicament I’ll be in for the next fifteen to twenty years. (I’d go the full thirty of the mortgage, but I do hope to retire before I’m eighty. Even seventy.) At least I can borrow against the projected cost of minimal renovations and still afford the repayments, barring coming out of the three-year fixed rate period only to find whopping great interest rates. At the pace taken by the Reserve Bank, even the five quarter-percent increases (as they’ve been applying pretty much every month) that I’ve budgeted for will be quickly eaten up, leaving me with having to contemplate new sources of income or substantial cuts along the way in various lifestyle areas. Like lunch. Savings could be a problem, too, which would infringe on my ability to travel for leisure. But I want this settled, and I don’t believe renting is viable, given that rents are going up nearly as fast as interest rates and in substantially greater dollar amounts per annum and a notable dearth of alternative accommodations. The reno should also provide, at resale, for a bit of a profit, even if I only stay in the joint for ten years.