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I Might Be Adam posted:So we found a house that we're in a love/hate relationship with. It's really charming, has had a lot of killer upgrades and renovations done but we're in a lock with the things that make it not work for us like not having a laundry room to have a full size washer and drier. Basically, there is space for a stackable. The house is lower in price than we were initially looking so dumb ideas are forming. How incredibly stupid would it be to buy a house and then plan on making an addition to the house like a laundry room? I understand that you can get a home improvement loan with your initial house loan. What would something like that even cost, ballpark? Like an 8x8 addition, 10K, 20K? We're seeing it again today to hopefully find more stuff we hate about it so we can dismiss it totally. It is possible to get a home-improvement fixer-upper type loan. However. Adding a room to the house is almost certainly going to require planning approval. You do not want to put your entire plan into the hands of your local planning council. These loans are great for replacing flooring, upgrading a kitchen, or finishing a garage, but if you want to build an extension onto the house, then just buy the house, move in, etc. and start the planning process with an architect and the local ordinances etc. and be ready to modify or abandon your plans based on cost and hassle. Or just save yourselves a lot of grief and keep looking. There are plenty of houses and what's the rush? My wife and I took 9 months before we found what we wanted, and it always amazes me when I read about people who go out one weekend, see maybe seven houses, and make an offer on one of them and buy it.
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Apr 24, 2012 22:02
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Given the 9 month period between starting to seriously look and buying, what's the best way to go about applying for a loan? All the sites say to immediately get pre-approved, which requires a credit check. It seems like that would ding your credit 9 months later when you actually get a loan.
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Apr 24, 2012 22:11
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Find a broker and talk to them. Someone in this thread might have recommended this organization, we just finished a refi with one and the guy has been amazing. http://www.upfrontmortgagebrokers.org/ None in Alaska though 
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Apr 24, 2012 22:22
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Leperflesh posted:It is possible to get a home-improvement fixer-upper type loan. Thanks, just trying to get an idea. We've technically been looking for about 2 months and I think our worst fear is waiting too long and missing out on the interest rates or losing a potential house that we really like. This is the first one that we've really taken a liking to but we're really trying to give ourselves every opportunity to judge this house with our minds and not with our hearts.
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Apr 24, 2012 22:22
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Advent Horizon posted:Given the 9 month period between starting to seriously look and buying, what's the best way to go about applying for a loan? I wouldn't be too concerned about a ding on the credit for pre-approval. Nobody is going to look at your credit history and not give you a loan because you got pre approved in the past. I would imagine you'd want to do Pre-Approval ASAP so that you know how much the bank will loan you so you know what range of homes you can look at. And if you know the zip codes you are looking at they can even estimate your taxes as well so you get a great idea of what your monthly payment would be for a house that is X amount.
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Apr 24, 2012 22:33
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With the amount of money, work, and inconvenience associated with putting an addition on a home, I would strongly suggest not doing one for the sake of a bigger laundry room.
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Apr 24, 2012 22:51
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Astro7x posted:I wouldn't be too concerned about a ding on the credit for pre-approval. Nobody is going to look at your credit history and not give you a loan because you got pre approved in the past. I would imagine you'd want to do Pre-Approval ASAP so that you know how much the bank will loan you so you know what range of homes you can look at. And if you know the zip codes you are looking at they can even estimate your taxes as well so you get a great idea of what your monthly payment would be for a house that is X amount. Isn't it better to base your price range on how much you can actually afford, rather than basing it on the amount you're pre-approved for? I can understand getting pre-approval to make sure the number you can afford is less than the amount of pre-approval, but knowing "how much the bank will loan you so you know what range of homes you can look at" seems awfully close to the mentality that led to a housing bubble.
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Apr 24, 2012 23:51
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Astro7x posted:I wouldn't be too concerned about a ding on the credit for pre-approval. Nobody is going to look at your credit history and not give you a loan because you got pre approved in the past. I would imagine you'd want to do Pre-Approval ASAP so that you know how much the bank will loan you so you know what range of homes you can look at. And if you know the zip codes you are looking at they can even estimate your taxes as well so you get a great idea of what your monthly payment would be for a house that is X amount. I can't physically drive to another town so the taxes are going to be the same no matter what. We're not actually looking yet and have given ourselves a hard and fast date of October before we even start officially looking. All the calculators we're run show us qualifying for way more than we'd be comfortable spending, so that's not too big a concern. We also both are in line to get decent pay raises in the next few months so that will help even more. We'll still talk to a bank first, of course. The market here is SLOW, that's why I was wondering about the timeframes. Currently less than 150 properties of all kinds on the MLS.
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Apr 25, 2012 00:09
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ObsidianBeast posted:Isn't it better to base your price range on how much you can actually afford, rather than basing it on the amount you're pre-approved for? I can understand getting pre-approval to make sure the number you can afford is less than the amount of pre-approval, but knowing "how much the bank will loan you so you know what range of homes you can look at" seems awfully close to the mentality that led to a housing bubble. Of course, that's kind of obvious... all I'm saying is that it will put you in a better place of knowing if the bank will lend you the amount that you need and getting an idea of what your monthly payment will be for that price range. Everyone's personal situation is different... you might have too much existing debt, bad credit, or non stable employment history which would make your pre-approval much lower than you think it could be.
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Apr 25, 2012 00:27
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I am working on dividing my fathers land into two pieces, we will be building a new house for my family on the new plat. I have the survey done for one acre and I need to get a land deed for the new section. Do I need to hire an attorney for this? I tried legal zoom and it didn't seem to be going in the right direction. I've also been told I need to buy the land from my dad for $1 for some reason? Any guidance would be appreciated.
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Apr 25, 2012 02:22
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We saw the house again tonight and for me, it looks better than the first time. Turns out the laundry closet is large enough to stack a full size front-loading washer and drier, closets are bigger than we thought, yada yada yada. We're now just stuck on the fact that the neighborhood isn't the best and is in transition but I guess thats what you're dealing with when trying to live near the city. Blah, time to sleep on it and give it some serious thought. The same kind of house in a nicer neighborhood 10 miles away would be like 400k while this one us under 200k. This whole house hunting thing really sucks.
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Apr 25, 2012 03:12
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I Might Be Adam posted:and is in transition Just sayin'
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Apr 25, 2012 04:35
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Finally starting my cheapest house project yet, a mere $6,500 patio. Yay housing.
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Apr 25, 2012 15:42
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Kalli posted:Finally starting my cheapest house project yet, a mere $6,500 patio.
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Apr 25, 2012 16:16
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Sure, will definitely post some pictures. Though the process won't be terribly exciting, I ended up hiring a contractor. The house was previously owned by an elderly couple that pretty much had the yard go to hell over the last decade, and every time I look at it I pretty much just stare for awhile, then decide to do something else. The house is a slab foundation, with a step drop to the yard, though the grade of the land is a total mess right now and the two trees we've removed so far have left us a present of a thoroughly congested root system where the patio's going. They're bringing in a bobcat and going to dig down 2 feet, re-grade the land, lay a gravel bed, then place pavers. Originally we were looking at stamped concrete, but by the 4th contractor we had quote us a price, realized there wasn't any point.
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Apr 25, 2012 16:49
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I Might Be Adam posted:This whole house hunting thing really sucks.
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Apr 25, 2012 18:22
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Don't worry, it's worse once you buy one 
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Apr 25, 2012 18:44
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I read up and used internet estimates to make a rough guess of what it would cost to gut my kitchen, moving the boiler and washing machine(!) out of it into the garage and a closet respectively when I was buying my house. I underestimated by only about $10,000. At least the inspection was top rate and everything else has been golden.
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Apr 25, 2012 19:03
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I just bought an apartment in Oslo, Norway. Prices here are pretty loving crazy but I got away comparativly reasonably I think. Still in a state of shock as this will be my (and my wives) first own home. Contracts tomorrow, handover on the 15th May, debt for the rest of my life. Really looking forward to the new place though, more central, 2 balconies and an extra room over what we are renting now. The downside is that it mostly hasn't been redecorated since the early 70s and while everything works and is livable the kitchen is pretty nasty and the floors are linoleum over hardwood. Anybody ever reconditioned a hard wood floor? The building is from 1939 and I know some of the neighboring houses have done it but most people seem to just lay parquet. I'm not anti parquet but hardwood does look better and I'm not afraid of hard work either.
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Apr 25, 2012 19:20
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Laser Cow posted:Anybody ever reconditioned a hard wood floor? The building is from 1939 and I know some of the neighboring houses have done it but most people seem to just lay parquet. I'm not anti parquet but hardwood does look better and I'm not afraid of hard work either. Post in DIY when you're getting ready to do it too, as this comes up occasionally. If I can find the last thread on it, I'll edit this post with a link. Bottom line is that it isn't that hard with the right tools, but it will create a massive mess. With any luck, you can do it prior to move in. You need to rent a drum sander to do the bulk of the floor. Practice in an inconspicuous area (like under furniture or a rug or something) til you get the hang of how to do it smoothly. Then go back with a handheld belt . mouse sander for areas the drum can't reach. This will generate a ton of dust, hence the recommendation to no be there. If you are there, do a room at a time with plastic sheeting covering the doors to protect your stuff, wife, pets, whatever. After that (including dust cleanup), it is time to stain/poly. Again, test in an inconspicuous area and sand out after it dries. You can test on a piece of scrap wood the same as your hardwood, but just know that it won't look exactly the same since your hardwood will be aged differently than your scrap. That's why you test on the wood. There are a few techniques for bulk sanding / polyurethane applying (brush, sponge, etc), but the most critical parts here are even smooth coats for the stain and preventing air bubbles with the poly. Like anything, more lighter coats will be much better than fewer thicker coats. Again on the "do it before you move in" theme, the offgassing can be an issue. Keep your windows open and solid airflow throughout the place. I know that sounds like a pain in the rear end, and it is, but it will look great when you're done and you'll be a ton happier with real hardwood instead of parquet, laminate, or linoleum.
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Apr 25, 2012 20:20
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Thanks for that, since we are renting from family I'm pretty sure we are fine until the autumn regarding moving. We were originally planning on doing the main bedroom, moving in and then going room to room but we'll see how that work goes first I think. I kind of assumed it would be a pain in the rear end but I've come to the conclusion that most things worth doing well turn out to be like that.
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Apr 25, 2012 20:32
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Laser Cow posted:Anybody ever reconditioned a hard wood floor? The building is from 1939 and I know some of the neighboring houses have done it but most people seem to just lay parquet. I'm not anti parquet but hardwood does look better and I'm not afraid of hard work either. I closed last month and the second thing I did was my main floor (oak in the dining room, living room and atrium) myself. It took me about 4 days to sand it down and patch the cracks/holes (I only worked in daylight hours to try not to disturb the neighbours too much, probably from ~11:00-17:00). I had removed the baseboards and door trim earlier to paint. I rented floor sanders from Home Depot (a square buffer and an edger). There will be a lot of dust, despite the built-in vacuums and collection bags. I had a garbage bag and a bit full of sawdust by the end of it. I didn't move yet, so that was a good thing. Looking back, I wish I had the guts to try using the drum sander. Once the floor was clean, I put on 5 coats of water based finish over 3 days. I was afraid I'd botch the staining, otherwise I would have gone with a dark stain. I could have worked faster but I figured taking my time was better since I didn't have to move in at any specific time. So a little over a weeks worth of work. Now the floor looks great and I'm really happy with it. It's a lot of tiring work, lots of crawling around - I ate and slept pretty good during that time. There's lots of google hits for refinishing your floors. Make sure to get earplugs, a good dust mask, knee-pads, and gloves. Close all the doors and put up tarps so dust doesn't get in all the other rooms. rt_hat fucked around with this message at 20:39 on Apr 25, 2012 |
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Apr 25, 2012 20:35
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My wife and I resurfaced our hardwood floors before we moved in. It was a lot of work - more than I was expecting - but the results are pretty decent and all told, rented equipment, bought tools, consumables, stain, and varethane for ~900 square feet of flooring cost us around $650. Compared to a minimum of $2k for a professional job, it was well worth doing. We painted the interior first. Figured we didn't want sawdust on the walls before we were about to paint them, and also, any drips that got on the floor we'd be able to sand off during flooring. I started by renting one of those big square orbital sanders from home depot. I needed to take an old finish off and sand down through a (very bad) stain job to the virgin wood, and this thing was utterly unequal to the task. I lost a day of time and two day's labor to wasting my time with it. After that fiasco I switched to a full-blown drum sander which was much, much better (faster) to work with. The key thing with the drum sander though is that you cannot allow it to spin in place on the floor. It will carve a divot into the floor in about a quarter second. You lift up the drum (it pivots) and only touch down as you move. You move slowly but evenly and pretty soon you get the hang of it. I spent about three days to do the rest of the flooring with the drum, while my wife started working the corners, edges, closets, and baseboarding with a belt sander and a little orbital hand-sander "mouse" thing. Once I was done with the drum, I switched to the belt sander and the two of us finished up edging. The edging was far more labor than the main work with the drum. We were on our hands and knees, there's very little built-in lighting in the house so we had to cart around portable lights and extension cords, and the baseboard work in particular was absolute hell on my wife's wrists. We then spent half a day putting down stain. We went with a light natural walnut color that looks really great with pretty much any kind of furniture, and really highlights the natural grain of the wood. Staining was pretty easy. We tested three different colors on a little area inside a closet first, but it turned out the walnut that was our first choice was the right one. After staining we took one day to do the varethane. It was pouring down rain out but our deadline for moving in was approaching so we just couldn't wait. The particular stuff we used called for one coat, let that dry to a tacky consistency, and then do a second (mandatory) coat. Unfortunately I think the first coat was not quite as tacky as it should have been, or possibly it was slightly too tacky, or possibly it was all the moisture. But the end result was that the surface of the varethane is a bit rough. It worked, it's sealed, it looks great, but if you run your hand over it it's a bit sandpapery, not the perfect smoothness that we really wanted. Probably if we rented a buffer or polisher or something we could buff it into shape but we just didn't have time (we still had to paint the place!) All in all it looks great, we could have saved $50 or so by starting with the drum sander and not bothering with the worthless square orbital (and burning through like eight sheets of sandpaper with it). We saved a huge amount of money and probably a bit of time as well by doing it ourselves. My wife was too nervous to use the drum sander but if she'd been willing, we could have switched off with the baseboard sanding and maybe saved her wrists some grief. Possibly it might also have made sense to pull out the baseboarding instead (it's just nailed in) and done it all outside on some sawhorses but I dunno really. Sanding made a colossal mess. It took most of a day with a shop vac, wet cloths, dusters, etc. to get the fine coat of sawdust off of every single surface in the house (including the ceiling). We used proper filtered masks for the varethane step and I highly recommend them over huffing fumes. Even with every window and door open, fumes were still pretty powerful, and if you don't have screens on a given door/window you can't afford to leave it open, because a random twig or leaf or bit of plant fluff or butterfly crap or something is going to fall in and permanently embed itself in the wet varethane. So we used a few screened windows, wore our masks, and it was fine. Also plan to throw away everything you are wearing (especially your shoes) after doing this job and then painting. You will get a drip of something horrible on your shoes at some point, and your clothing is going to take a lot of abuse too. Leperflesh fucked around with this message at 01:45 on Apr 26, 2012 |
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Apr 26, 2012 01:40
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Cool, this is something I can totally handle. I was planning on taking off all the baseboard before sanding, as well as demolishing the badly built wall length closet. However the first floor related task is to remove linoleum and glue from the floors, did either of you need to do that first?
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Apr 26, 2012 07:36
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I did not. Hopefully it's just tacked or nailed down, and not actually glued or something. If you have to remove glue, then I have no idea what the right process would be.
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Apr 26, 2012 17:28
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Wallow in self pity for a while because it's a terrible process using angry chemicals. That's for a concrete floor though, wood you actually want to save is probably harder.
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Apr 26, 2012 17:58
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Laser Cow posted:Cool, this is something I can totally handle. I was planning on taking off all the baseboard before sanding, as well as demolishing the badly built wall length closet. I've removed linoleum directly from wood subflooring, and it was glued on and stapled underneath the quarterround. Sanding and TSP is likely going to do the job, you just need to make sure to not saturate the wood too heavily and be prepared for a lot of tedious work. I'm not sure how much different it can be on hardwoods but sanding may do a lot of the work for you.
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Apr 26, 2012 20:40
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So are all condo purchases later regretted or are there some happy buyers? I've been house/condo shopping for the last few months and unfortunately the only things that come up in searching that look appealing have been condos. Probably more to due with the fact that I'm trying to keep it under $100k(found some nice short-sales in the 60k range near work). Don't care about having a yard, prefer not to worry about outdoor maintenance. Not looking to rent it out down the road, staying put as much as possible. Not looking to make a fortune on resale down the road either. Yet friends and family continuously beat me over the head that buying a condo is the worse thing I could do. Starting to think I should just continue renting until I find the ideal house.
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Apr 30, 2012 13:50
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Bored Grunt posted:Starting to think I should just continue renting until I find the ideal house. Why exactly do you want to buy?
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Apr 30, 2012 13:54
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Chin Strap posted:Why exactly do you want to buy? I'm just looking for something clean that won't immediately require a lot of money put into it. Can get a really nice condo in the 60-100k range or a "decent looking" house in the same range. Right now I can comfortably put down $20k, but I think to find a house I'd truly be happy with I'd have to go into the 100-130k range min, which would require another year or two of saving. Or risk being lynched by family and friends and buy a condo I'd probably be content with.
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Apr 30, 2012 15:05
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Depends on where you are in life. If you're in you are in your early/mid 20's or so, I would say it's a very bad idea to buy a condo, or any real estate right now. Without knowing your circumstances, if you are in your early/mid 20's you're probably not married/have a partner, and don't have kids. A condo seems like a good idea now, but things change quickly, especially with new relationships, and life changing as we get older.
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Apr 30, 2012 16:30
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The reason I'm anti-condo is that condos provide few of the benefits of home ownership with a lot of the drawbacks. People buy houses for a lot of reasons. They want to live in a place where the landlord can't kick them out or raise the rent, they want to customize their home to fit their needs and desires, they want the pride that comes with home ownership, they want a solid financial asset. A condo doesn't provide those things to the same degree a house does. Condo associations can raise their fees and change their rules whenever they want. The modifications you can make to your condo are very limited compared to what you can do with a house. You can't look at your building, standing on your land and say "I own this" in the same way you can if you own a house. Condos are a terrible asset in most markets, and it's doubtful they will recover, while well-built housing in the right neighborhoods is already in demand again. Why would you want to own a condo rather than rent an apartment?
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Apr 30, 2012 17:10
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The 'Throwing money away on rent' Fallacy is a huge pressure from family and friends.
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Apr 30, 2012 17:15
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Buying a place that shares walls with other people is for the birds, because, while your quality of life is always affected by your neighbors, sharing walls with them is about as intrusive as you can get.
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Apr 30, 2012 17:18
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Konstantin posted:Condos are a terrible asset in most markets, and it's doubtful they will recover, while well-built housing in the right neighborhoods is already in demand again. From Case Shiller: Boston - SFHs are at 9/2002 levels, condos are at summer, 2003 levels (i.e., condos have retained value better) SF - both condos and SFHs are at fall 2000 levels And in many areas, SFHs just aren't an option. The only SFH homes within a walking distance of my office are in the 4-5M range. So then it just comes to a choice between renting an apartment and buying a condo, and buying a condo may the right call if you intend to stay there for a while. gvibes fucked around with this message at 17:26 on Apr 30, 2012 |
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Apr 30, 2012 17:21
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To be fair though areas like the SF Bay area and Boston are unique areas and not subject to the generalizations that can be made for the rest of the county.
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Apr 30, 2012 17:39
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Konstantin posted:Condos are a terrible asset in most markets, and it's doubtful they will recover, while well-built housing in the right neighborhoods is already in demand again. Why would you want to own a condo rather than rent an apartment? I'm also going to call bullshit on this as well. A condo in some suburban hell hole where it's the same cost as a single family home with the same awful commute is a bad idea. But when the refrain of the professionals in the industry is "location location location" you can be sure that condos in the right places are going to be good assets. And the reason someone would buy a condo are some of the same reasons you listed. I love where my apartment is, and in 3 years when I'll know if I'm staying or not (hell, it would be worth it now) I'd love to do some work on the place. Not big stuff, but little stuff like nicer doors, different flooring, if I wanted to get really crazy I'd do some stuff in the bathroom. But I can't do that because I rent, not own. I've had friends that owned a condo that gutted their bathroom and shuffled some stuff around to put in a laundry room. Sure there are bad HOAs, but they're not all bad, and let's remember that HOAs are made up of residents, so if you think you've got a lovely one, do something about it. The thing that pisses me off most about the endless parotting of anti-condo propoganda is that I've read stuff like this and this that encourages the exact opposite of what you're saying, and for good reason. I realize that those are macroeconomic arguments and here we're looking at microeconomics transactions, but the housing economy as a hole is made up of these transactions, so it has something to do with it. FISHMANPET fucked around with this message at 18:09 on Apr 30, 2012 |
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Apr 30, 2012 17:53
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FISHMANPET posted:let's remember that HOAs are made up of residents, so if you think you've got a lovely one, do something about it. Whoa now, I think we have rules against recommending that in a thread.
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Apr 30, 2012 17:56
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skipdogg posted:To be fair though areas like the SF Bay area and Boston are unique areas and not subject to the generalizations that can be made for the rest of the county. Of note, inventory in Chicago is ridiculously low. Like, silly. Everything priced decently is going under contract pretty quickly (at ~2001-2002 prices).
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Apr 30, 2012 18:11
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gvibes posted:Well, Case Shiller only has condo data for like five cities (Chicago condos look to be doing worse than SFHs, and I didn't check the other two - LA and NY). It's that versus vague statements like "terrible asset in most markets" or "already in demand again." I suppose there are plenty of two story condo buildings built cheaply in the 70s in some suburb next to an IHOP with a couple acres of parking surrounding that. That's got almost none of the advantages of "urban" condo ownership, and plenty of downsides, so my gut would be willing to say that those suburban condos are pretty bad (but they might not be, it really depends on the form). I live in a city, so when I think of condos, I'm thinking of units in 6-50 story buildings located close to transit and in an area much more amenable to living without a car, which is, by definition, a lifestyle hard to find when getting a SFH. So in that case, that's why people want to buy a condo. There's no reason that not wanting to be tied to your car means you can never own the place that you live in.
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Apr 30, 2012 18:21
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