It’s time for the Saturday real estate game!

It’s time for the real estate game, where I describe a New York apartment and you guess how much it costs. It’s based on the NYT real estate section. I’ll put the answers in the comment section below.
1. Upper east side studio on 73rd St. No views, not much light. Fireplace, prewar doorman building. Recently [...]

How much do you know about real estate prices in NYC?

On weekends, I like to play a game with Jon involving the New York Times real estate section. The game could be called, “Why on earth would anyone ever buy NYC real estate?” I describe an apartment or house, and he guesses how much it costs. Here is an excerpt from today’s game — I’ll [...]

Real estate as a hedge against a market collapse

Saving to Invest included me in this week’s Carnival of Personal Finance, and I noticed another great post, “What if saving was stupid?” It makes a powerful argument for investing in real estate instead of keeping money in the stock market or in a savings account. The author’s in-laws, who lived in the Soviet Union, saved [...]

How much should you spend on your first home?

In today’s New York Times, Ron Lieber argues that it’s time for first-time home buyers to start shopping for real estate. But his column perpetuates two flawed ideas that fueled the subprime crisis.

First-time home buyers don’t think of their purchase “purely or even primarily in economic terms.”

This particularly applies, he says, if they “are now grown up enough [...]

In praise of renting

Jon and I have reached that age: a lot of our friends are talking about buying property. And we seem to be the only ones arguing that it’s not such a good idea. Here’s why we think renting’s a better deal:
In New York, renting is cheaper. There are a variety of calculators around the web [...]