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Lately, I try to encourage people to buy-mortgage rates are ridiculously low and in most cases, you’ll pay less by buying (assuming you have a down payment saved up) than you will to rent.

For example-1118 Tenison Memorial in Hollywood Heights-it’s for lease for $2000/mo and for sale for $239,000. A $215,100 mortgage (that’s $239,000 minus a 10% down payment) will cost you $1403/mo for principal and interest. Of course, you have to also pay taxes and insurance of approx. $550/mo, which would bring your total monthly housing payment to $1953. However, that’s before being able to write off a portion of your mortgage interest. Clearly, you come out ahead and along the way, you’d be building equity, assuming the market appreciates at all over the next several years.

In all, there are 54 houses for lease in the East Dallas zip codes of 75206, 75214 and 75223 between $895 and $5,000 per month. 19 are $2,000 per month or less, 18 are between $2,000 and $3,000 and 17 are between $3,000 and $5,000. All in all, not that many homes for lease that are appealing to most people looking in the East Dallas areas of Lakewood and M Streets. There are 704 properties in the same zip codes for sale between $175,000 and $6,995,000.

On the flip side, because there is a lot of inventory, it’s not a bad idea for a seller who is thinking of selling to actually lease out their property if they’re looking at not being able to sell for what they bought the home for. This is due to so few homes in the White Rock Lake area to lease. A few months ago, I represented a client whose home I had just sold-they wanted to lease until the right home came along. The day a rental they were interested in came on the market, we drove over to view it-there was another party there while we were looking. I had to run outside, call the leasing agent (who had an application in that morning already), scratch out the address on an application of another property we had considered and race over to the leasing office to deliver the app and the application checks. When told that there had been another good candidate already processed, I told the leasing agent that we’d pay over the asking leasing price. We got the rental but only because we had to think on our feet and pay over asking.

The above scenario is real and is another reason why it’s better to buy than lease. Plus, who wants to flush money down the toilet? You get ZERO at the end of your lease-no equity, nothing back from the landlord should you make the property more attractive by planting flowers, etc.

Interested in buying or selling in Lakewood, Hollywood, M Streets, Lakewood Hills, Wilshire Heights, Cochran Heights, Vickery Place, Munger Place, Junius Heights, Mockingbird Hill or the surrounding little pockets of greatness? Call or email me!