One of my buddies bought a house in fountain sq with a 2k/month mortgage payment. He's a single guy making like 45k. It's not even nice, and the payments eat up his finances. This seems to be the rule, not the exception around here lately.
By the way, I would be really leery of paying a premium to live in Fountain Square. 2 Chicks and a Hammer have driven prices way up in that area, despite many really poorly maintained and destitute homes. If the property market craters, an area like that could swing really fast.
If you want to preserve value, I would look north of 54th street, west of Keystone, east of Spring MIll.
That's probably where we'll end up. I only threw out fountain square because I like being close-ish to bars and restaurants. Really though anything close to the Monon is nice as my wife and I enjoy riding our bikes to places.
The houses in fountain square seem to be in two camps: crappy houses with a face lift for 300k (insanely over priced), or super nice designer homes which I don't want and could never afford. These 2 bed 1 baths selling for 350k-400k are bananas.
I lived just off 54th a half dozen blocks from College. I used the Monon daily. When I moved there not much was going on. Yats opened up shortly thereafter. There's a lot of great stuff in that area now, tons of restaurants, it's really gotten a lot better. I liked living down there but I felt like I "aged out" of the area a bit -- seemed like a younger person's neighborhood. I'm further north now, but still within a stone's throw of the trail. I can't see living away from this central corridor if I stay in Indianapolis.
Buying a house isn't any different than buying a can of soda from a vending machine. You look at the price and decide whether it's worth it to you to sacrifice X hard-earned money for Y product.
The problem is that people think of a house price as sort of imaginary because they think the only cost you pay is 10% upfront as sort of admission fee into the club of people who no longer have costs associated with housing.
You're worried about spending 400-500k on a home? I need to move to a lower cost of living area. That is literally an empty lot or tear down in my area. All homes in the 500-800k price range go way above asking price. I really don't see an end in site as there's many high paying jobs and no supply or land to build.
Buying a house isn't any different than buying a can of soda from a vending machine. You look at the price and decide whether it's worth it to you to sacrifice X hard-earned money for Y product.
The problem is that people think of a house price as sort of imaginary because they think the only cost you pay is 10% upfront as sort of admission fee into the club of people who no longer have costs associated with housing.
Poor analogy. The cost benefit concept may be similar but a daily purchase (coke, maybe even a multiple daily purchase) and a life changing event purchase (home) are not comparable.
A better one could have been a car or a house. Both may be once every 5-7 year purchase. Both fill a need and will continue to fill the need for years.
OP, pay 15-20% down payment and buy enough house but keep house payment to 25% max of takehome household pay. Don't get extended and stay in house for at least 5 years.