State of the Zach / Call me Saba
So I am still a consultant, and work is still crazy! I have lots of work with a number of different clients so things are good and they are keeping me busy.
In other news I want to buy a house. The problem is that houses here are crazy expensive, the 4bedroom townhouse next door just sold for 1.4Million NIS*. Now banks in Israel want at least 30% down so that means a down payment of 420,000 NIS (about $105,000) that is a HUGE sum of money however you slice it, at least on my pay. If I were to somehow save 8881NIS/month that would take me 47 months or so to come up with. Of course this does not take into account the fact that prices are still somewhat trending up. Mind you I can't really save that much on an average month. I chose that number because it is the Average monthly sallery here in Israel.
I spoke to a number of friends who all own houses and pretty much all of them used Equity from a house outside of Israel or inherited it from a family member. Neither of these apply here. So I am left with being frustrated.
On a happy note TC and her Husband had a boy a few hours ago so I am now a grandfather!
* the shekel is at 3.96 to the dollar today, so if you just divide by 4 you will be close enough on the numbers here.
In other news I want to buy a house. The problem is that houses here are crazy expensive, the 4bedroom townhouse next door just sold for 1.4Million NIS*. Now banks in Israel want at least 30% down so that means a down payment of 420,000 NIS (about $105,000) that is a HUGE sum of money however you slice it, at least on my pay. If I were to somehow save 8881NIS/month that would take me 47 months or so to come up with. Of course this does not take into account the fact that prices are still somewhat trending up. Mind you I can't really save that much on an average month. I chose that number because it is the Average monthly sallery here in Israel.
I spoke to a number of friends who all own houses and pretty much all of them used Equity from a house outside of Israel or inherited it from a family member. Neither of these apply here. So I am left with being frustrated.
On a happy note TC and her Husband had a boy a few hours ago so I am now a grandfather!
* the shekel is at 3.96 to the dollar today, so if you just divide by 4 you will be close enough on the numbers here.