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Good point on local laws. As the treasurer on my board it is eye opening. People love to kick the can down the road, love to spend all the money, love to not build reserves, and love to not realize that all 10 buildings were built at the same time (hint a lot of stuff breaks/needs maintenance at the same time). The work does kind of suck but I kind of knew I would be getting into it if I bought a place with an HOA.
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Jan 4, 2023 01:54
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spwrozek posted:Good point on local laws. Can you roughly estimate ballpark # of hours "work" for a given month or year in your case? Also how healthy are your reserves? 
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Jan 4, 2023 01:57
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We have a 1-1.5 hour meeting a month. Then I probably deal with 10 emails a month. Plus the budget setup and annual meeting prep. So I would call it 3 hours per month. Reserves are currently not great. We had an assessment this year, probably will skip a year, and ideally do another one next year. I would have just pushed for a large assessment but I was outvoted. It was ~$1400 for a one bed and ~$2600 for a three bed. The biggest issue with raising dues and assessments is these places were built as second homes but based on the location and age they are the most affordable housing for locals. So you have people who have owned them for 40 years and complain about assessments, people who can barely afford it as is (obviously feel for these people but stuff has to get fixed/maintained), and some people in the middle. I try to be cognizant that most people do not carry emergency funds as I am extremely the opposite. We did give 6 months to pay this one and are willing to do 6 month payment plans as well.
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Jan 4, 2023 02:10
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6 months is pretty short, I would think? Is that normal there Every assessment I've seen either you had the option to lump sum it, or they split it over 12 months and just tacked it on top of your monthly HOA dues I probably read fifty different sets of condo HOA docs never saw a special assessment that needed to be paid in 6 months. Is your reserve dangerously low or something
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Jan 4, 2023 11:13
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Hadlock posted:6 months is pretty short, I would think? Is that normal there We used it for specific ongoing roofing projects. We gave an early pay discount as well. I have never been involved in an assessment previously but I guess they have always done 6 months in the past. We will probably setup a 12 month payment plan for anyone who wants it as well. In my opinion we have about 20% the reserves we should have. the split over 12 months idea is a good one. in the future maybe we do it like that.
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Jan 4, 2023 18:49
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Dik Hz posted:The housing market isn’t a market in the sense that houses are fungible. It’s all hyper local. So broad tends may mean jack poo poo for your personal location and situation. So right away I call bullshit on trying to take actionable advice from broad national trends. I'm suddenly considering buying (our woodsy house turned out to be way too much outdoor maintenance for us to handle), so I've been looking at pricing, and the Case-Schiller Index is currently about 20% above the trendline from 2012-2019. My interpretation is that the pandemic pricing shock is still very much baked in to prices, which matches my spot-checking of local houses in Zillow zestimates. So I'm obviously looking to buy something closer in price to the 2019 value than the 2022 listing. Whether that's possible, we'll see. With the looming recession and rising rates, it seems to me that prices are likely to continue to rapidly fall. But, maybe mean reversion will take another 20 years or never, who knows? At least, I'm hoping not to pay $500k for a $400k house.
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Jan 5, 2023 17:42
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PerniciousKnid posted:I'm suddenly considering buying (our woodsy house turned out to be way too much outdoor maintenance for us to handle), so I've been looking at pricing, and the Case-Schiller Index is currently about 20% above the trendline from 2012-2019. My interpretation is that the pandemic pricing shock is still very much baked in to prices, which matches my spot-checking of local houses in Zillow zestimates. So I'm obviously looking to buy something closer in price to the 2019 value than the 2022 listing. Whether that's possible, we'll see. Did you purchase this woods house? It’s on-topic so I’d like to hear what the challenges have been in your maintenance if you’re up for the story time. Sounds dramatic!
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Jan 5, 2023 17:58
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Existing home sales have fallen off a cliff. Sellers are able to hold out for the price they want longer than most (it's a big transaction), but this spring I expect there is going to be real capitulation.
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Jan 5, 2023 18:01
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Inner Light posted:Did you purchase this woods house? It’s on-topic so I’d like to hear what the challenges have been in your maintenance if you’re up for the story time. Sounds dramatic! It's nothing dramatic, we bought a house with like a hundred trees on two sides like ten years ago and it looks like poo poo because we don't maintain it well, plus there's a creek nearby that washes out normal landscaping. So we're too busy to do it and can't find anyone to do it, and we're throwing in the towel. There's a bunch of other stuff we don't love anymore too but that's the biggest part, we have a big yard we don't even use, it's all stress and no reward. Edit: what I meant to say is it's a park-like refuge with a unique water feature. PerniciousKnid fucked around with this message at 19:16 on Jan 5, 2023 |
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Jan 5, 2023 19:13
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PerniciousKnid posted:House-buying thread - what I meant to say is it's a park-like refuge with a unique water feature.
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Jan 5, 2023 19:21
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Inside of me is two wolves and I wanted to ask you all which one is less stupid. My wife and I have put in offers on two different condos. Option A is a probate sale in old, but good shape with a good school district. Option B is a former rental in a slightly better location with slightly better schools, but will require some work and a few grand to paint and fix what the tenants did, plus will require more ongoing maintenance. In both cases we offered asking and for 2% towards the closing costs. In this case that's like $700k-ish ask and $15k for closing. Option A just told us to pound sand. The reason we got was one of the beneficiaries lives out of state but believes that it's southern California real estate so they shouldn't have to negotiate. Option B countered with 0.7% ($5k) towards closing and showed us comps that significantly nicer than what they have and sold during the days of 2% rates. One wolf says we're being super reasonable and we shouldn't budge. The other is saying that we should just capitulate to get on the property ladder since we're gonna stick around for a decade or so.
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Jan 5, 2023 23:30
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Buying a house I think people sometimes fall into a trap of squabbling over relatively small differences so they can feel like they are getting a good deal. Ultimately if option B is a place you want to live long term, how much does that $10k mean to you? If you turn down the counter offer and it extends your home search and you're (for example) paying rent for another 6 months are you really saving money?
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Jan 5, 2023 23:36
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chupacabron posted:Inside of me is two wolves and I wanted to ask you all which one is less stupid.
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Jan 5, 2023 23:43
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wait, putting offers on two places at once?
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Jan 5, 2023 23:50
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Popete posted:Buying a house I think people sometimes fall into a trap of squabbling over relatively small differences so they can feel like they are getting a good deal. The 10k would be really helpful but isn't totally necessary. I'd be using it to buy down our rate so any little bit helps longer term. Surprisingly paying rent will keep us ahead--we only spend about 19% of our monthly take-home on rent (after retirement/HSA). Buying would kick that up to about 35% and currently I'm socking away the difference. Taking it slow would just mean more dry powder for anything else that comes along Dik Hz posted:Are you OK with overpaying for Condo B? If so go for it. If not, don’t. No need to overthink this one. Or to panic buy because you’re emotionally invested. I think this is the crux of the matter. Personally I want to at least feel like a deal was made rather than just dumping cash. My wife is much more gung-ho about buying something and getting it over with Nybble posted:wait, putting offers on two places at once? No, not at once, we only put in the second after the first expired
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Jan 6, 2023 00:01
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Popete posted:Buying a house I think people sometimes fall into a trap of squabbling over relatively small differences so they can feel like they are getting a good deal. I see myself in this post.
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Jan 6, 2023 00:10
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Residency Evil posted:I see myself in this post. I think it's a totally normal reaction. I remember buying my place I was worried over negotiating a few grand difference, looking back it would have been silly to lose out over such a small amount but in the moment you want to feel like you're not just rolling over. Buying a home is not like buying an appliance from a box store where you can just go next door and get the same thing for $50 cheaper. If the difference between you and the seller is ~$10k on a purchase north of $700k that you'll likely be paying off for the next few decades and you will be living there long term you just gotta decide if you're fine possibly losing out on the home.
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Jan 6, 2023 00:18
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$10k here, $10k there, eventually you're talking about real money!
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Jan 6, 2023 00:51
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I will always wonder what life would be like if I hadn't over negotiated the first one we tried to buy. It was the one I liked better, versus we ended up getting the one my wife liked better. Well, you know what they say, happy wife happy life, so probably good I screwed myself on that one.
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Jan 6, 2023 01:23
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I would absolutely pay $10K to make the "finding a house" problem go away, especially if I liked the joint, which it sounds like you do. edit: like i am a filthy renter who looks for houses in vague unapplied fits and starts, and if you told me that poof, my wife and I find a place that we like and can afford and all we have to do is pay $10K right now on the nail sign me the gently caress up dude
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Jan 6, 2023 01:27
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KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:I would absolutely pay $10K to make the "finding a house" problem go away, especially if I liked the joint, which it sounds like you do. In effect we already do because typically the price a seller will accept already has a built in margin for the obnoxious cartel fee.
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Jan 6, 2023 01:32
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KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:I would absolutely pay $10K to make the "finding a house" problem go away, especially if I liked the joint, which it sounds like you do.
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Jan 6, 2023 01:45
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Hoping i got the right thread. I'm applying for a mortgage and the other 2 credit bureaus went through fine but equifax is telling the lender there isn't enough matching info to run the report. I've verified everything on both ends down to the letter and still no answers. Equifax doesn't know why, lender doesn't know why and I don't either. I can't run my own report and give it to the lender either so I'm stuck depending on equifax to do that but they won't. There are no fraud alerts, no credit freezes, nothing at all special about my account. Has anyone run into anything similar? It's really screwing everything up and pissing me off having some poo poo company I never gave my info to(who leaked my information once already) and that I have no affiliation with hold my loan hostage.
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Jan 6, 2023 02:09
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Do you have any indication which information isn’t matching up?
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Jan 6, 2023 02:17
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Popete posted:Buying a house I think people sometimes fall into a trap of squabbling over relatively small differences so they can feel like they are getting a good deal. It's bike-shedding. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_triviality PerniciousKnid posted:$10k here, $10k there, eventually you're talking about real money! $10k or even $20k is pretty much nothing when you're discussing purchasing a 3/4 million dollar home. If you blow up a deal over that you probably had other reasons you wanted to blow it up. Like the place was overpriced by WAY more than that. Or you're petrified of buying a house or getting it wrong. All valid emotions - it's a big deal to most people. But understand why you feel like you want to quibble over the $600 water heater that the inspector said is 20 years old and on its last legs as part of your six or seven figure purchase. Because it's not about the water heater. So maybe you should figure out what it IS about and if it's just "I need to get one over so I can say I got a DEAL!" maybe just get over it. Same thing if you're selling. Someone give you a fair but under you asking offer but they're no bullshit, well qualified or cash and just wants to get the deal done? Get it over with. Don't wait for the rear end in a top hat who's gonna offer asking but drag the deal out for 90 days and then blow it up over a fake finance contingency failure because it turns out they realized they were gonna be so loving house poor if the went through with it. Motronic fucked around with this message at 02:49 on Jan 6, 2023 |
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Jan 6, 2023 02:45
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Motronic posted:Because it's not about the water heater. It’s because my dad never hugged me growing up. 
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Jan 6, 2023 02:49
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On the other hand, I'm still upset that I got bled more than I should have on this house. Should have got up and walked away on close, i'm 90% sure they would have capitulated the next day. Probably that night.
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Jan 6, 2023 03:11
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Baddog posted:On the other hand, I'm still upset that I got bled more than I should have on this house. Should have got up and walked away on close, i'm 90% sure they would have capitulated the next day. Probably that night. I'm convinced that house buying was designed by God to make everyone miserable
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Jan 6, 2023 03:13
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KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:I'm convinced that house buying was designed by God to make everyone miserable All life is suffering. Suffering is caused by desire. The only way to end suffering is to discard your attachment to your desires. And pay a 6% commission.
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Jan 6, 2023 03:15
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But at the end of the day when you get to deliver your report, look the lender in the eye and say "it's worth the pending sale price", it's all worth it
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Jan 6, 2023 03:15
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KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:I would absolutely pay $10K to make the "finding a house" problem go away, especially if I liked the joint, which it sounds like you do. this is exactly what we ended up doing. seller waffled on our offer because he wanted $10k more so we upped the offer $10k and he immediately accepted. so dumb. you're already making a poo poo load of money off the house your dad left you, why the need to hold out for $10k more? we just want a house to live in
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Jan 6, 2023 04:37
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therobit posted:Do you have any indication which information isn’t matching up? That's the problem, neither equifax nor the lender can tell what it means/is referring to when the message comes back. I do know all the information on the lenders side is the exact same as equifax's because I painstakingly went through everything several times with both sides to make sure.
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Jan 6, 2023 05:22
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Virginia Slams posted:That's the problem, neither equifax nor the lender can tell what it means/is referring to when the message comes back. I do know all the information on the lenders side is the exact same as equifax's because I painstakingly went through everything several times with both sides to make sure. I feel like there is something missing here in how they are explaining the problem to you. Probably your loan officer is not explaining what the issue is correctly. I would keep asking to speak with the next level of manager at the bank until they get a TPRM specialist or other vendor manager to figure this poo poo out for you. You are going to have to be a tremendous pain in the rear end but Equifax does not give a poo poo about you as a customer. They do, however, care about they guy at the bank whose job it is to sign the new contract for services for the next year. therobit fucked around with this message at 05:51 on Jan 6, 2023 |
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Jan 6, 2023 05:49
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Poopelyse posted:this is exactly what we ended up doing. seller waffled on our offer because he wanted $10k more so we upped the offer $10k and he immediately accepted. so dumb. you're already making a poo poo load of money off the house your dad left you, why the need to hold out for $10k more? we just want a house to live in He got paid an extra $10k for pretending like your offer wasn't good enough, seems pretty good
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Jan 6, 2023 06:22
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Motronic posted:Or you're petrified of buying a house or getting it wrong. This is exactly how to describe a good friend of mine. He has been "looking" for several years now, and I'm pretty sure his wife would just have already bought. But it used to be pre-2020 that he saw home prices going up constantly, since 2010-2012, and would tell us that it's a housing bubble and he's waiting for the market to "cool". Then, as prices went exponential in our area in 2019/2020, then it became about how now they couldn't afford it, even though he and his wife combined make about $250K, and they were looking at homes in the $600K range, have no debt besides a car payment, but try to put like 40%/month toward retirement. Now it's the interest rates, etc., that make it a no-go. I honestly think he's just afraid of feeling "settled down" somewhere and unable to just up and leave to another state/city/whatever if he felt like they needed to. He's been here for 20 years though, lol
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Jan 7, 2023 03:49
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Some people don't have the desire or temperament to own a house and that's just fine. We There's so much pressure to buy a home, whether it's social pressure from older generations who think it's Just What You Do or financial pressure from scumbag landlords and few if any renters' protections, that a lot of people go along with it even if they're not really into it. Home ownership really is a lifestyle.
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Jan 7, 2023 07:11
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Motronic posted:It's bike-shedding. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_triviality You just know that water heater will choose the absolute worst possible time to die and it will suck MAJOR rear end when it does. But I agree. We just put in an offer on a house and while we asked for an inspection I put a massive cost to repair exclusion on it. I mostly just want to know what's up so I can prioritize future projects, and have someone crawl around to make sure the house isn't 90% termites with the sewer draining into protected newt habitat or something. To just whine a bit: This is an earlier offer than we wanted to make. drat inconsiderate sellers deciding to list a house that included everything we wanted including a few "there's no way we'll find that" wishes two months before we wanted. It is just plain rude. And on what planet is a 2" diameter trunk considered a "mature" fruit tree?
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Jan 7, 2023 16:23
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Shifty Pony posted:I mostly just want to know what's up so I can prioritize future projects, and have someone crawl around to make sure the house isn't 90% termites with the sewer draining into protected newt habitat or something. This is what inspections should be for. Damages or defects that cost 5 figures like roofs and foundations, house full or knob and tube with rodent damage, bad septic, bad well, etc. I almost get why people want to be particular about the small stuff because yeah, it's hard to get parts and its hard to hire competent help. Also understand that the average home seller either never did any maintenance of any kind and only proactively responded to things that broke or at least has been checked out on any sort of maintenance for several years since they started planning on selling the place.
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Jan 7, 2023 16:28
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BonerGhost posted:Some people don't have the desire or temperament to own a house That's me. Seems hard to avoid though, if you can afford it. That dude's managed for 20 years, but strangers on the internet are judging him for it
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Jan 7, 2023 21:44
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Motronic posted:This is what inspections should be for. Damages or defects that cost 5 figures like roofs and foundations, house full or knob and tube with rodent damage, bad septic, bad well, etc. Really the main thing I'm concerned about on this property is the sewer line. There are enough other projects of sufficient scope which have recently been done to it (where good tradespeople had left their stickers on the installed equipment) to tell me that the gas, hvac, and electrical are at least somewhat modern. There's no way the installations could have passed inspection if they weren't. The house was originally platted for septic so they switched over at some point, but if they did it shortly after initial construction there's possibly orangeburg pipe under there  But who knows, I'm trying to prep myself for getting a "sorry, they took another offer" email tomorrow. I'm hoping the un-updated 1960s spearmint green bathrooms and the kitchen cabinets being a bit scuffed scares off high bidders looking for something more modern/flipped.
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Jan 8, 2023 04:08
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