It seems that you are very familiar with the surroundings.

With a friend, I once visited a Italian resturant in the downtown Monrovia area. The waitress was very agressive and pushy. That really made me very uncomfortable.

You are absolutely right for saving 50% of the salary each month. Pretty soon, you can buy any decent house with ALL CASH.

I bought a tiny house with all cash a few years ago in SGV. The unique benifit:sleeping soundly every night.

Keep up good blogging. Thanks.

I frequent the Monrovia restaurants from time to time with my coworkers. Cafe Opera, Kiku sushi, the Monrovian and Chang Thai Bistro is pretty good. If you want Chinese food though, I suggest you head over to Arcadia.

Thanks for starting this blog for Acadia.

Currently working in Monrovia, I love to visit your website.

All of the best

Conservative-Ultra

$3539 Mortgage Payment @6.5%
$145.81 Homeowners Insurance @0.25%
$145.81 Private Mortgage Ins @0.25%
$0 HOAs and fees (assume none)
$583.25 Property Taxes @1%
$583.25 Maintenance @1%
$306.21 Lost Income from Downpayment @3.5%
—————————————
$5303.33 Ownership Cash Cost (monthly)

——————————————————–
$906.70 Monthly Tax Savings 25% (interest paid + prop tax)

—————————————
Total Cost of Ownership = $5303.33 – $906.70 = $4396.63

There is some amount of equity gained with each month’s mortgage payment over the course of the loan, but I don’t know a good way to calculate that. I would assume about $400/month give or take. So the true cost of ownership is around $4000/month for this property.

Arcadia is not special and the general rule-of-thumb in rent vs. buy is the same for every market. It’s time to buy when the true cost of homeownership is less than or equal to rental cost of comparable homes in the area. In addition, it’s generally recommended that buyers spend no more than 30-35% of their income on housing (rent or buy). The purchased price of the house should be no more than 4X annual gross income.

A quick look on Craigslist gives me rental rates of $2500-$2800/month for similar properties (3bed/2ba, SFR) in zipcodes 91006/91007. From the above calculations, it does not make sense to buy at this asking price.

I was wondering how much the *total* monthly payment is, when one includes property taxes, maintenance, HOA, etc.?

Is there a rough rule-of-thumb for Arcadia’s housing market? That would be useful to know, when deciding between rent vs. buy.

Thanks!