#HousingFinimized: NYC Edition
Last week, from London to NYC, we hosted our #HousingFinimized: Buying, Saving & Selling, and we couldn’t be more excited. 2018 has been a great year!
An event on housing has been on the books for a while, as per our users’ requests. We’ve gotten questions like, what’s the best strategy to financially prepare to buy a house, should I rent or buy, or what technology can help me in this decision? The list goes on.
So, we brought together top leaders in the NYC space to have a real conversation about it all. Harley Courts, CEO & Founder of Nooklyn, Maya Prosor, VP of BizDev at Lemonade, Inc., and Brian Lee, Senior Director of Real Estate at Common joined us at General Assembly’s Flatiron District location. Kathryn Hopkins, Senior Financial Editor at WWD, moderated the chat.
Rent or buy?
Harley talked about monitoring a few key areas over time before making the jump. He personally scouted out a distressed property for two years before he bought and revamped it. Now it’s worth a lot, but it took a lot of time and research. He saw the prices around that area start to rise and that’s when he knew this was going to be a good purchase. But, according to him, he’d advise against buying a home. It’s a lot of work, and takes an ample amount of your time and money!
Resoundingly, Manhattan is unattainable in terms of affordability, but what about elsewhere in NYC? Enter: co-living.
Brian touched on the co-living trend that’s started increasing in the past few years. Why? Because millennials want to live in cities longer, but the prices are unaffordable. Not only that, income isn’t increasing as much in relation to rising property prices. So co-living places have popped up in the city, which allow professional millennials to live longer in the city, as they transition from traditional renting to buying a home.
Relax, and have fun with it.
All speakers touched on the fact that renting can be a way of life too — it all depends on what your goals are! Regardless, setting aside money is always a good idea.
What do Finimizers think?
I had the chance to speak with several of our users over the phone to get their opinion on the matter. Most advised that if you have stability in your life (i.e. not going to be moving anytime soon for a job, have a stable income and family situation), then you can think about buying a house.
A great tidbit from NYC user Kathy was to make sure that you can put aside a monthly mortgage payment for six months without any issues. Then you’d be ready to buy a house, she added.
Others have talked about the great amount of financial responsibility associated with a home, which has caused problems for them. Another user told me that he had a lot of friends with emergencies come up: health issues, getting laid off, etc, which added to monthly payments. He reckons to plan for emergencies first before jumping into buying a home.
At the end of the day, it depends! Whether it’s in your financial freedom plan to own a home or not, there is a multitude of options out there.
Have any thoughts you’d like to share? Comment below!
Special thanks to General Assembly for the space!
For the full event vibe, check out pictures here.
Want to be on our growing NYC event list? Let us know here.
~Anna, Community at Finimize
