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cstine posted:Yeah, demoing an old building and building something new would be more than $150-200k. I don't doubt it. Still ain't for us.
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Dec 7, 2011 22:48
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BoA just last night requested a copy of my preapproval with the purchase price on it. My mortgage broker originally supplied me with one without a number on it. We sent them the mortgage commitment letter instead, just so they know we're ready to go. Always go for a short sale, it's super fun.
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Dec 7, 2011 23:01
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Ozmiander posted:BoA just last night requested a copy of my preapproval with the purchase price on it. My mortgage broker originally supplied me with one without a number on it. We sent them the mortgage commitment letter instead, just so they know we're ready to go. I'm on day 5 of waiting for BoA to sign a single piece of paper so our escrow can fund. It's currently costing me $70/day renting back our old house while we wait on them. The last 2 weeks have cost use nearly $1k because of their incompetence. This is a regular sale as well. I really, really hate BoA.
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Dec 7, 2011 23:13
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FCKGW posted:I'm on day 5 of waiting for BoA to sign a single piece of paper so our escrow can fund. It's currently costing me $70/day renting back our old house while we wait on them. The last 2 weeks have cost use nearly $1k because of their incompetence. I'm on month four of waiting for short sale approval. I think the lesson is to run away the moment you see BoA on any paperwork.
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Dec 7, 2011 23:16
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Generally, the advice is not to plan your moving day till the house is actually yours, e.g., you've closed. (Having to float a last rent payment in the same month as your first mortgage payment is another cost of housebuying often not accounted-for by buyers, but it's a wise cost to budget for.) I have been told from multiple sources to expect short sales to take months, regardless of the bank. I've heard of short sales taking more than a year.
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Dec 7, 2011 23:21
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Leperflesh posted:Generally, the advice is not to plan your moving day till the house is actually yours, e.g., you've closed. (Having to float a last rent payment in the same month as your first mortgage payment is another cost of housebuying often not accounted-for by buyers, but it's a wise cost to budget for.) True. I was paying $760/month to rent this place, and am now paying $910/month until ii either move into the house, or get told to shove off and find a new apartment. Pining for my potential $496/month mortgage payment...
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Dec 7, 2011 23:24
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Is it better to get a 15 year mortgage, or a 30 year mortgage that you pay off in ~ 15 years? I've been reading these sites, and the idea of the latter seems sound. Any problems with this? http://www.getrichslowly.org/blog/2009/09/30/pros-and-cons-30-year-mortgage-vs-15-year-mortgage/ http://www.nodebtplan.net/2008/12/18/why-30-year-fixed-mortgage-is-better-than-15-year-fixed-mortgage/
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Dec 8, 2011 01:21
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Ingraman posted:Is it better to get a 15 year mortgage, or a 30 year mortgage that you pay off in ~ 15 years? I've been reading these sites, and the idea of the latter seems sound. Any problems with this? The only downside is that you'll usually have a slightly higher interest rate with the 30 year mortgage. The upside is that if you ever have to for some reason, you can make the smaller 30-year amortizing payment. So, no problems, just a pretty cheap way to give yourself some flexibility.
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Dec 8, 2011 01:37
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Leperflesh posted:Generally, the advice is not to plan your moving day till the house is actually yours, e.g., you've closed. (Having to float a last rent payment in the same month as your first mortgage payment is another cost of housebuying often not accounted-for by buyers, but it's a wise cost to budget for.) If your financial situation is such that you can't float a rent payment at the same time as a mortgage payment for one month, you shouldn't be buying a house.
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Dec 8, 2011 01:43
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Konstantin posted:In that case, paying more than appraised value may make sense, especially if the home has a combination of attributes that are very valuable to you and difficult to find. ArterialToo posted:In situations such as those aren't you mostly paying for the land itself, which in some cases would actually be worth more if the "plywood shack" was leveled?
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Dec 8, 2011 02:12
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Ingraman posted:Is it better to get a 15 year mortgage, or a 30 year mortgage that you pay off in ~ 15 years? I've been reading these sites, and the idea of the latter seems sound. Any problems with this? A fifteen year mortgage never takes longer than fifteen years to pay off!
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Dec 8, 2011 02:30
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Shipon posted:If your financial situation is such that you can't float a rent payment at the same time as a mortgage payment for one month, you shouldn't be buying a house. I agree, but this is more about "planned for" than "could afford". When building a budget, home shoppers who don't remember to include expenses like these can get caught out. Probably (hopefully) not in a situation where they literally run out of money, but rather, eat into money that they hadn't budgeted. Or the furniture budget, or renovations budget, or whatever. The other side of it is giving notice; by assuming in advance that you'll be overlapping your last month in your rented place with your first month in your new house, you are not having to give notice to your landlord before you've closed... which means you won't face a situation where you have to move out but your house closing has been delayed, or worse, canceled because you, your bank, or the seller backed out of the deal. Which can happen. It also means you might feel more willing to back out of a deal that has gone sour, knowing that you haven't given notice yet and can therefore stay in your current place indefinitely.
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Dec 8, 2011 22:56
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We found a nice, well maintained house built in 1910. Asking price was 160, we offered 125 and they accepted. Had our inspections done and because of the presence of knob and tube wiring, State Farm won't insure the house. We're looking at insuring it through the current insurer of the house but we're worried they may have been grandfathered in (owned by the same family since the 1950s). we already asked the sellers to replace the KnT in the basement and attic, but replacing all of it might be a stretch, since the lathe/plaster would probably need repairs/replacement as well.
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Dec 9, 2011 13:58
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Molybdenum posted:We found a nice, well maintained house built in 1910. Asking price was 160, we offered 125 and they accepted. Had our inspections done and because of the presence of knob and tube wiring, State Farm won't insure the house. We're looking at insuring it through the current insurer of the house but we're worried they may have been grandfathered in (owned by the same family since the 1950s). we already asked the sellers to replace the KnT in the basement and attic, but replacing all of it might be a stretch, since the lathe/plaster would probably need repairs/replacement as well. My house had knob and tube when I bought it. The seller refused to upgrade it, but I have a friend who's an electrician and he was willing to help me. Because of this, I explained to my prospective insurance company and they offered to insure it for 60 days for a premium until me and my friend could yank out all the wiring and replace the old crap with at least a breaker panel. That was the first thing done on the house, and as soon as the main line from the street to the house was installed, I told the insurance company and they gave me full insurance at regular prices. Try negotiating with your State Farm agent. Granted, you're right and that the plaster over lathe will likely be repaired/replaced to get at all the wiring, but from what I saw when I eventually gutted my house, you will need to replace everything. Trust me - you do not want to gently caress with old wiring. They can and will catch on fire, and it's not an "if", it's a "when". This is why insurance companies won't cover houses with K&T. It really is that dangerous.
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Dec 9, 2011 17:31
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jerkstore77 posted:How's this for a state of the market. The sellers of the house we put an offer on received 6 offers, of which they sent a counter offer to 4, including us. Let the bidding war begin. I'd be curious to know what kind of counter they made. If they didn't drop the price much, they might already have an offer that is close to what they want, or they might just be getting greedy since they had so many offers. Either way though, I'd probably walk from a 4 way bidding war. Also, that 17 day contingency thing is nuts.
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Dec 9, 2011 21:20
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Molybdenum posted:We found a nice, well maintained house built in 1910. Asking price was 160, we offered 125 and they accepted. Had our inspections done and because of the presence of knob and tube wiring, State Farm won't insure the house. We're looking at insuring it through the current insurer of the house but we're worried they may have been grandfathered in (owned by the same family since the 1950s). we already asked the sellers to replace the KnT in the basement and attic, but replacing all of it might be a stretch, since the lathe/plaster would probably need repairs/replacement as well. Move on, seriously. Once you open the walls, and get a permit to do ANYTHING electrical, you must do the. whole. loving. thing. Seriously, once you start replacing you're going to end up having to replace EVERYTHING to bring it to code. Rip out all the walls that have or MAY have wiring, new wiring, new panel, etc. For joys, you may even end up needing asbestos abatement in that old plaster! ABORT ABORT ABORT. (Sorry if you already own the house.) Edit: the wife also mentioned that a house that old may even have lead water supply pipes, or structural problems, or asbestos insulation, or.... and once you open the walls, it's all your problem! cstine fucked around with this message at 21:36 on Dec 9, 2011 |
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Dec 9, 2011 21:33
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Why would you assume a house that has stood since 1910 is just bound to catch on fire from it's knob and tube? Lots of people have no issues insuring it, just shop around and you'll be fine. Start w/ the company that is currently insuring the house.
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Dec 9, 2011 23:24
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n8r posted:Why would you assume a house that has stood since 1910 is just bound to catch on fire from it's knob and tube? Lots of people have no issues insuring it, just shop around and you'll be fine. Start w/ the company that is currently insuring the house. Because knob and tube in and of itself is not the dangerous part - it's the wiring. The wiring is old, degrades over time, and is expensive to replace. Moreover, people do unlicensed work. Case in point: my house had frayed, exposed wiring inside the walls, and the previous owner decided to do haphazard blow-in insulation. I took the plaster and lathe off to find one disconnected wire that sparked every time you turned the switch-that-goes-"nowhere" on (thank god it was above the poorly-packed insulation) and in another wall there was a flimsy metal box for what I think was supposed to be a wall sconce with naked wires shoved into it (with no ground, of course) packed tight with loose bits of insulation. The older the house, the more I bet you someone cut corners somewhere, somehow, and if it's something like the electrical, it's not gonna be up to code from today, yesterday, or probably not even 20 years ago. There are 4 things you do not gently caress with in an old house: the structural integrity, removing dangerous material (asbestos/lead paint), the plumbing, and the electrical. Everything else is (probably) not going to kill you.
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Dec 9, 2011 23:34
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Molybdenum posted:We found a nice, well maintained house built in 1910. Asking price was 160, we offered 125 and they accepted. Had our inspections done and because of the presence of knob and tube wiring, State Farm won't insure the house. We're looking at insuring it through the current insurer of the house but we're worried they may have been grandfathered in (owned by the same family since the 1950s). we already asked the sellers to replace the KnT in the basement and attic, but replacing all of it might be a stretch, since the lathe/plaster would probably need repairs/replacement as well. If it still has knob and tube, then by definition it's not well maintained. You are looking at a money pit.
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Dec 10, 2011 00:20
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daslog posted:If it still has knob and tube, then by definition it's not well maintained. You are looking at a money pit. BS. If the wiring hasn't deteriorated and the PO doesn't use many electronics or lots of power in general, it would be perfectly reasonable for him not to shell out a few grand to have it replaced.
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Dec 10, 2011 00:25
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Inept posted:I'd be curious to know what kind of counter they made. If they didn't drop the price much, they might already have an offer that is close to what they want, or they might just be getting greedy since they had so many offers. I believe jerkstore's offer was at list price, so I'd assume there was no place to drop down too. Was the counter something like "offer more?" I think they are being greedy and trying to incite a bidding war (responding to four offers when they already have one at list price), but you can't blame them for that. It's also possible the home was priced below market value as well.
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Dec 10, 2011 01:01
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daggerdragon posted:The older the house, the more I bet you someone cut corners somewhere, somehow, You're basically saying, never buy an old house, and that's a bit hyperbolic. In practice, many old houses were extremely well-made; others weren't. Some have been repeatedly renovated over the years (sometimes well, sometimes poorly), others are still in original condition. Some new houses are shoddy piles of crap too, though. Buyer Beware applies across the board. With an old house, care should be taken with inspections, and warning signs heeded. Compared to a well-made new house, an old house will tend to have higher maintenance costs. Those are all generalizations of course, so they all take a back seat to the specifics. Knob and tube wiring is inherently less safe than modern wiring practices. Modern wiring practices replaced knob and tube specifically to improve safety! Additionally, ancient wiring (of any kind) is less safe, because insulative materials decay, metals corrode, and components with moving or mechanical parts (switches, plugs) wear out. That said, "less safe" is not the same thing as "unsafe". It's possible to have a 90-year-old knob and tube wiring that is still in good working order and not "definitely going to burn down your house." But the key thing here is that insurance companies regard it as an unacceptably high risk. Few will insure a house with knob and tube. And once you start tearing into that stuff, you may find that your building codes require you do do additional work. Personally if I didn't have quite a lot of money set aside for renovations (say, minimum $25k) I would not bid on a house more than 60 or 70 years old unless it was clear that significant work had been done throughout to upgrade wiring, plumbing, heating (and A/C if applicable), appliances, and possibly sewer too. But that's because I'm not willing to tear my whole house apart and spend twenty grand on fixing things just to bring the house up to modern standards. For some folks, the charm and (possibly) craftsmanship of an old house are worth the risk of high costs, and I can't say they're stupid for wanting that.
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Dec 10, 2011 01:04
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Realjones posted:I believe jerkstore's offer was at list price, so I'd assume there was no place to drop down too. Was the counter something like "offer more?" Yeah my initial offer was at list price and we assume the 4 other offers were as well. They countered with a higher price which we actually exceeded a bit seeing how many other bidders were involved and how much we love the house. We are still waiting to hear back. They know they have a house that is desirable and are taking their sweet time, not really taking our expiration dates seriously yet. I also suspect they either knew beforehand that the price they initally set the house at was low to start a bidding war, or suddenly realized it after getting bids in.
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Dec 10, 2011 02:29
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Any condo buyers that don't regret their purchase?
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Dec 10, 2011 03:56
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Ingraman posted:Any condo buyers that don't regret their purchase? I keep hearing about some people saying condos are great for the right kind of buyer, but every time I do the math the only people that could benefit from buying one or two condos would rent it out the majority of the time (and deduct the HOA dues while also getting depreciation deductions) or have so much money and go on vacation (or are retired with plenty of disposable yet fixed income) so much they'd get more value out of owning a vacation condo or bungalow than just getting a hotel every time. Almost nobody looking in this thread is in that demographic.
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Dec 10, 2011 04:09
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The only math that I've seen in favor of rent assumes you take the money you save and throw it into a mutual fund/stock market (savings/CD rates are essentially 0-1% at this point). But you never know when the market will take a 30% dive. Real estate prices are probably at 2005 levels, but the stock market is too. Sure, you might not gain any money by holding on to a condo for 10 years, but thinking of it purely as a need instead of an investment (since you have to live somewhere), you might lose less money than renting in the long term. A mortgage is only for a fixed period while rent is forever.
Ingraman fucked around with this message at 05:53 on Dec 10, 2011 |
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Dec 10, 2011 05:47
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jerkstore77 posted:Yeah my initial offer was at list price and we assume the 4 other offers were as well. They countered with a higher price which we actually exceeded a bit seeing how many other bidders were involved and how much we love the house. I can't possibly imagine offering full list, getting told "no, I want more now", and then offering more than what they asked for the second time. Even if the price was still good, I think I'd be too pissed off at their tactics/wonder what else they were going to pull to bother. The market I live in is not heated at all though, and I realize that things might be different. One of the few good things about living in flyover country I suppose. Inept fucked around with this message at 08:34 on Dec 10, 2011 |
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Dec 10, 2011 08:29
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Inept posted:I can't possibly imagine offering full list, getting told "no, I want more now", and then offering more than what they asked for the second time. Even if the price was still good, I think I'd be too pissed off at their tactics/wonder what else they were going to pull to bother. There's plenty of times where houses are listed at or below market value to drum up showings and get a quick sale. When we sold our house we listed at 299 got 4 offers at asking and ended up settling around 308. Market value of the house was around 310 but we got an offer on day one and were in escrow by the end of the week.
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Dec 10, 2011 08:51
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Inept posted:I can't possibly imagine offering full list, getting told "no, I want more now", and then offering more than what they asked for the second time. Even if the price was still good, I think I'd be too pissed off at their tactics/wonder what else they were going to pull to bother. gently caress life. Were just told they went with another offer. The loving place ended up going for 35k over listing.
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Dec 10, 2011 19:59
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jerkstore77 posted:gently caress life. Were just told they went with another offer. The loving place ended up going for 35k over listing. Look at it this way: $35,000 would buy an enormous amount of renovations to make a less awesome place into anything you wanted it to be. (Unless that place had gold crappers or something, why the hell would someone pay that much over asking?)
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Dec 10, 2011 22:58
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Ozmiander posted:BS. If the wiring hasn't deteriorated and the PO doesn't use many electronics or lots of power in general, it would be perfectly reasonable for him not to shell out a few grand to have it replaced. Here's the problem though: the power usage of your 60" TV and Xbox and surround sound system with the window AC and a vacuum cleaner while your clothes are being washed and dried and the diswasher is running and your media server is... Old wiring like that wasn't even REMOTELY designed for modern life, and once your're pulling twice the amps that it was designed for poo poo like arcing across the rotten and missing paper insulation happens, and it's time to buy yet another new house, because yours just burned the gently caress down. This is why it's hard to get insurance for this, and also why anywhere with any building code will pretty much require you replace it if you ever go into the walls for any reason. Edit: nevermind if someone's done something dumb like filling the wall in with insulation, or old newspapers, or whatever the gently caress someone might have done in the last 100 years. cstine fucked around with this message at 23:10 on Dec 10, 2011 |
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Dec 10, 2011 23:01
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cstine posted:Edit: nevermind if someone's done something dumb like filling the wall in with insulation, or old newspapers, or whatever the gently caress someone might have done in the last 100 years. When I replaced my old in-wall A/C the interior of the wall was filled with newspapers from 1962 
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Dec 10, 2011 23:28
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FCKGW posted:When I replaced my old in-wall A/C the interior of the wall was filled with newspapers from 1962 When I pulled up the carpet, between the pad and some old vinyl tiles were newspapers from 1982 lining the floor. Why the hell? Who knows!
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Dec 10, 2011 23:55
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It was fun as hell looking through the classified and seeing brand new cars for $1200 and new houses like ours for $60k
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Dec 11, 2011 00:00
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cstine posted:Here's the problem though: the power usage of your 60" TV and Xbox and surround sound system with the window AC and a vacuum cleaner while your clothes are being washed and dried and the diswasher is running and your media server is... Grandma's electrical system is in good condition and she doesn't use anything more than a half dozen light bulbs, an old 24" tv set to wheel of fortune on mute and her appliances. Would you recommend she replace the entire system for no reason?
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Dec 11, 2011 00:58
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Ozmiander posted:Grandma's electrical system is in good condition and she doesn't use anything more than a half dozen light bulbs, an old 24" tv set to wheel of fortune on mute and her appliances. Would you recommend she replace the entire system for no reason? While that's cute, I'd certainly have reservations about buying a 100 year old house that's got 100 year old wiring that's not going to be adequate for the usual load modern appliances and gadgets put on it, especially since it's an item that makes the house hard to insure, and has more than a slight potential to make the thing burn down. I don't have anything against old houses, but for the amount of money that you're going to be spending, why would you purchase a house that has a glaring obvious flaw? And worse, that's not going to be the ONLY thing that's dangerous in there: there's going to be lead paint, lead pipes, asbestos in various degrees of stability. It's more a sign that the house is not a good purchase (even though the op seems to indicate they accepted an offer way under asking -- not always a good sign) and has the potential for some very serious, very expensive problems and issues that will eventually need to be dealt with, and that the current owners certainly haven't.
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Dec 11, 2011 02:22
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Plus, you have to go in with the idea that you will be replacing the wiring sometime in the future. If nothing else, the wiring will probably be a deal breaker when you sell the house, so you'll have to replace it by then. It's better to do that sort of thing before you move in, as inconvenient as it is now, it will be even more inconvenient later to live out of a hotel room for a month or more because you might not have power during the renovations.
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Dec 11, 2011 17:18
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FCKGW posted:When I replaced my old in-wall A/C the interior of the wall was filled with newspapers from 1962 In 2006 I had a part-time job assisting a guy who was renovating a house to sell and we found a bunch of beer cans from the 70s inside the walls. As a "do-never-buy" aside that guy still has not managed to sell the house and had to sell the house he was living in and move into the renovated one, which is still on the market.
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Dec 12, 2011 02:33
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Wow, I should've checked this thread over the weekend. The house has a modern breaker box with 200amp service, so load shouldn't be an issue. The main water inlet is indeed through a lead pipe, we tested the water and there wasn't any lead leeching into it. We also called the current insurer and asked about insurance, but they aren't issuing new policies because they are being absorbed by another company. Called that company, they won't insure it. State Farm explicitly stated that they wouldn't insure it for even a short while with the expectation of repairs. I think at this point it is up to the sellers to replace it or never sell the house. Comps put it at 110, they were asking 160, which would've probably been okay in 07/08 but not now so we aren't willing to budge on the price. The house was bought by the current owners parents in '58 for 18k or something, so I'm sure it was paid off and the owners were fairly meticulous about maintanence on the house. They kept all the records and we got to peruse them during the inspection. The inspection didn't find any signs of asbestos except for a possible section of the basement that is tiled about 5'x10', installed in the 50s but the tiles are in good shape and we don't have plans to pull it up.
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Dec 12, 2011 13:45
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Thufir posted:In 2006 I had a part-time job assisting a guy who was renovating a house to sell and we found a bunch of beer cans from the 70s inside the walls. When we got our house in 2008 we knew it was a project but when we tore apart a partially remodeled kitchen we found newspapers from... like a week before we first looked at the house, stuffed into the walls behind the drywall.
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Dec 12, 2011 16:56
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