Saving for a House

Richmond has become a big part of my life over these past few years. The first time I had to go to Richmond was for orientation for the Health Practitioners' Monitoring Program. I had no interest in going to Richmond for orientation; but did so back in August or September of 2012. The next time I went was in March 2013, for training with NAMI Virginia, and that is when my regular trips to Richmond started. I became very involved in various aspects of NAMI and trained in different programs. I began to make friends and started enjoying my time in Richmond. It got to a point where when it was time to go back home, I did not want to leave. I also noticed there were job opportunities in Richmond and decided to off set my travel expenses by getting a job in Richmond. As I have posted previously I love my job....I love my job so much, I am switching to full time at my job in Richmond.

I cannot bear to part with my house in the New River Valley. I love my house so much. It is my first and it cute and perfect for me. There are so many improvements I want to make to it, including putting a new roof on it, but I love it. I cannot pick my house up and move it to Richmond, so the other solution is to find a second house in Richmond.

I found a couple of houses near Lakeside/in the Ginter Park neighborhood I really like. They are small, but perfect size for me--I like cute and cozy. Both of them cost around $91,500 to $95,000. I was doing some number crunching the other day to get an idea of how much two mortgages would be. My mom informed me that one of them would be considered rental property per law in Virginia, which means the taxes would be different and I would need to budget for that.

My first house I bought for $155,000--my mortgage payment costs me a little less than $900/month. I have a private well, which means I do not have a water bill. Appalachian Power is the power company in the New River Valley and my electric bill with them has cost me on average $200/month. I do not have cable or internet. I do tend to spend a lot of money on food and gasoline, between the two, it is probably around $500/month. I am trying to not eat out as much but it is easier said than done. I usually spend around $153/month in urine drug screens for HPMP; lately it has been more due to my creatinine concentration being abnormal causing me to have observed screens. I also have cats. Their expenses run about $25/month between food and litter.  After adding a little more to account for increased cost of urine drug screens, my expenses run about $1,820/month. Occasionally, I will have an expense I did not expect, especially with my car, and expenses will be greater.

The houses I am looking are around $63,000-$64,000 less than what I paid for my house. My realtor for my first house told me the general rule of thumb when calculating mortgage and figuring out how much house a person can afford is for every $1,000 increase in price of house, add $5/month to the mortgage payment. Applying that rule, multiplying 5 (additional cost per month) x 63 (difference in price between house and perspective house) is 315. The prospective house mortgage would be approximately $315 less than my house, which works out to about $579.00/month. That sounds about right. Between the two, my mortgage expenses would be around $1,472/month. Most people in Richmond and the surrounding area have Dominion Power. I have heard that it can be pretty expensive. The houses I like are older houses and older house electric bills can run higher. I am thinking the electric bill would cost me around $400/month. Adding $979/month to my existing $1,820 would be $2,799. It would be pretty tight but I think I might be able to afford it. I have to save for the down payment now.