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baquerd posted:All the investment buyers are really annoying. I would pay such good money for a guarantee of what the market is going to be like this time next year. We are about to put our house up in the market and am hoping for a investment buyer to come in and buy over asking. The only problem is then we have to fight those same guys for our next house.
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May 24, 2013 22:33
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jabro posted:We are about to put our house up in the market and am hoping for a investment buyer to come in and buy over asking. The only problem is then we have to fight those same guys for our next house. Get more for your current house, pay more for your next house.  
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May 24, 2013 22:36
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BossRighteous posted:We just got under contract on a home for 163k. The inventories were flying so fast we just put in a 161 offer on the first one that felt right, they countered to 163 and we bit. Where in the PHX area did you buy? I couldn't find anything in Chandler this year at $160k that wasn't either under 1300 sq ft, built in 1970, or both. When I was looking last summer, there were tons of great options in that price range  . Everything went up 15%, I swear.
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May 24, 2013 22:37
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Chandler actually  If you happened to catch my meltdown a couple pages back I was in the same boat. Everything I thought I could get for ~140 ended up being about 170. I had basically given up on getting anything that didn't feel like Grandma's winter retreat. Then we found this guy: http://phoenixarizonarealestateblog.com/idx/mls-4939175-801_e_tulsa_street_chandler_az_85225 No HOA, no Pool, no Lawn  We thought we wanted an open layout, but this one just felt right. First one we both agreed we could see wanting to live in for more than 5-6 years. I'm also super paranoid and am excited to build my upstairs panic room / bedroom fortress. Now that we have it secured we have a little room to breathe and make sure nothing better crops ups in the next 9 days. I honestly think we'll end up getting it though. What the gently caress is with Phoenix and these goofy half-assed room additions. Half the houses we looked at had these pitiful sq ft inflating rooms with no air conditioning and crap build quality. It's like paying more for an unusable money liability. When we upped the range from 160 to 170 we got a slightly better crop. Hang in there! Seems they are getting listed as fast as they are getting sold!
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May 24, 2013 22:55
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Have you seen the show Property Wars, speaking of investors in Phoenix?
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May 24, 2013 22:56
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Sure haven't. Is it worth a watch? Should I wait until I am safe and sane in my new home before watching...
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May 24, 2013 23:10
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BossRighteous posted:Sure haven't. Is it worth a watch? It's actually fairly entertaining. Watching people bid on houses that they have zero idea on the inside and watching them walk into what looks like bomb wreckage is pretty hilarious. Every now and then they hit gold though. I'm sure a lot of it like all reality TV is really doctored up, but the concept is interesting.
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May 24, 2013 23:52
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Your house is pretty and I am happy for you. I probably also would have submitted an offer on that house.  I ended up buying in Gilbert, and had to compromise on an HOA. It's a cheap one though, not like these ridiculous $80+/mo places around here. I refuse to believe that any HOA is worth $100+/mo unless they are giving daily foot rubs or something
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May 25, 2013 00:11
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canyoneer posted:Your house is pretty and I am happy for you. I probably also would have submitted an offer on that house. $100/mo is about the cheapest HOA you'll find in Orlando, it's what our HOA at the house we're building is. Most of that is to cover pool(s), parks, tennis and basketball courts and trash removal. In some condos in downtown cities they're over $500/mo.
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May 25, 2013 00:15
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Our no HOA, no pool request in Chandler got us a list of about 8 houses. We eventually dropped those reqs but I super glad we ended up finding one anyway. --- Did anyone else make spreadsheets of property comparisons? We assigned scores some 1-10, some 1-5, some 1-2 to to following criteria quote:price, 1300sq ft, 3 bed, 2 bath, 3blocks or less to freeway, walking distance to park, big/numerous windows, open layout, mostly tile/wood, big backyard, back covered patio, no pool, newer appliances, curb appeal, nice bathroom, desert landscaping, High/sturdy fence, 2 car garage And looked at our highest scoring houses. It definitely helped us cut through some of the bullshit and look objectively. We didn't get the highest scoring house, but we found a high-enough one with good visual appeal in good condition. 65% objectivity 35% gut-feeling in the end. Some really good looking houses got lousy scores and some high-scoring houses were pitiful in person. Probably wasn't super helpful but I imagine someone else did this kind of thing.
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May 25, 2013 00:33
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So, the inspection went well. Only turned up a few minor issues, like a missing screen and a loose toilet flange. Now for the appraisal, which is the one part that makes me nervous because we came in 25K above asking. I think the place might be worth even more given how the area is exploding, but if it comes in super low we'll have to negotiate with the buyers. There's some skin in the game for them of course, and if we split the diffeence they'd still walk away with money above their asking price, but I'd like to avoid much of that.
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May 25, 2013 00:41
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So many Phoenix based goons in here. I close on my N Phoenix house on the 3rd. Congrats on your finds
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May 25, 2013 01:34
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Some of the information in the main post is incorrect... I am a loan officer with Wells Fargo Home Mortgage in California. PM me if you want to talk mortgage. (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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May 25, 2013 01:35
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Turok posted:Some of the information in the main post is incorrect... Were you planning on saying what was incorrect, or do we have to guess?
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May 25, 2013 01:39
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ObsidianBeast posted:Were you planning on saying what was incorrect, or do we have to guess? Regarding opening new accounts for one. You have to be specific when you use the term "accounts" For example, some financial institutions check your credit when you open a traditional "Demand deposit account" (I.E. Checking/Savings) while others do not. This is a question to ask your bank officer when opening a checking account. Wells Fargo checks your credit when opening a business checking account, for personal accounts, we only compare your information to chexsystems to make sure you haven't burned any other banks... There are to many generic statements made in this thread (with respect to finance in particular) that could adversely effect someones financing experience to point them out. I started a Mortgage, Loans and Credit thread that focuses more on the financing side of the home purchase process. http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3551194 Turok fucked around with this message at 02:10 on May 25, 2013 |
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May 25, 2013 02:05
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I'm trying to figure out if anything needs to be done to my kitchen. I'm looking to sell next year and the kitchen is the most dated part of our starter home. I'm worried about the kitchen dampening the wow factor from the rest of our house. It's pretty clear from the comps in the neighborhood that we shouldn't do a $10k kitchen remodel because we won't get our money back. I had a realtor out a month ago who confirmed that. But I'm trying to figure out if a ~$1000 kitchen remodel that included painting the dated oak cabinets, replacing the original laminate with a diy concrete countertop, a new sink and faucet and a new backsplash would be worth it (the layout is good and the previous owners bought stainless appliances). The realtor wasn't much help there. She said she could sell it as is, or we could paint the cabinets if we wanted to. That doesn't really help me much. Am I asking too much to expect a realtor to help me figure this out? Do I need to find a realtor who is more experienced in house flipping or something? Is there a different type of professional I should look for? Should I just post pictures itt?
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May 29, 2013 15:35
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Well post pictures first obviously.
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May 29, 2013 15:38
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Insane Totoro posted:Well post pictures first obviously. I'll try to clean up a bit and post pics tonight.
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May 29, 2013 16:01
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Trying to figure out if I should even try to sell my home or not. Zillow/Trulia estimate my house to be between 120,000(T) and 134,000(Z) and the last time I checked on my mortgage I owe $134,000. There are also much better cheaper/foreclosed homes in my area. I suppose talking to a realtor is completely free until they sell the home and get their commission right? Any advice would be appreciated but it always seems like walking away is the best option. edit: Hmm things look better in the neighborhood since I last checked. There's a home with 500 less square feet than my house "pending" for 130k which is 11k over the Zestimate. Sephiroth_IRA fucked around with this message at 17:05 on May 29, 2013 |
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May 29, 2013 17:03
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Didn't you just buy the house?
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May 29, 2013 17:10
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Orange_Lazarus posted:Trying to figure out if I should even try to sell my home or not. Zillow/Trulia estimate my house to be between 120,000(T) and 134,000(Z) and the last time I checked on my mortgage I owe $134,000. There are also much better cheaper/foreclosed homes in my area. On a side note: offer just accepted on my wife and my second starter home after a relocation. :-)
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May 29, 2013 17:26
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Yeah, I thought as much, I guess I need to start looking for someone to do an appraisal. Thanks.
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May 29, 2013 17:33
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Dead Pressed posted:Dude. Those estimates are lucky if they are within ten percent. I wouldn't gauge the purchase or sale of a home tied to their evaluation for squat. Get an actual realtor to run numbers. Any automated appraisal is going to be off.... and a real appraisal could be in your favor.
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May 29, 2013 17:42
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Zillow and Trulia are full of poo poo when it comes to their estimates. I know this is the internet age and we all depend on the internet to do almost everything, but there are still somethings best left to the professionals. If you want to get a good estimate on what your house is worth get an appraisal from a reputable company or contact a realtor that is very familiar with your area for a ballpark. A house can sell in my neighborhood for 170, and Zillow will say the exact same house 2 streets over is worth 125K as their ZESSTIMATE.
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May 29, 2013 17:46
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Dead Pressed posted:On a side note: offer just accepted on my wife and my second starter home after a relocation. :-) How much did you sell your wife for?
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May 29, 2013 18:09
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I think I probably doubled the value of my house by getting the carpet replaced. Horrible carpet  Much nicer looking carpet 
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May 29, 2013 18:37
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The first thing we did was rip up the carpet in our home, we were ripping up carpet the day we got the keys.   This was immediately after ripping up the carpet, we didn't even do any work to them yet! It looks like they had never been refinished before, like carpet was immediately put on top of it. I really should get some after photos, because the floors look so nice compared to what they were with the crappy carpet.
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May 29, 2013 20:01
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Kinda OT, but when re-doing floors or painting, which one should you do first? Seems like opinions are split, but is there a general consensus?
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May 29, 2013 20:11
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We are trying to decide whether it's best to move or refinance. Our immediate neighborhood is quite nice, with a very even mix of retired old people, and young families with kids. Very few rentals, no apartments, etc. However, you go several blocks East, West, or South and it changes. Lots of rentals, apartments, crime picks up, etc. It's not 'bad' but it's not very good, either. We mostly get along with our neighbors with only minor issues that themselves are not strong enough reasons to move. The public schools that our kids would be bussed to are ranked quite low according to greatschools.org. There are other schools in our district that are markedly better, but it would require us to drive them to/from said schools. The reason to stay: we can refinance at a lower rate, have a much lower monthly payment versus if we move into a bigger, more expensive house. We'll either have our house paid off sooner or simply have more money to spend/save/invest each month, either way - it basically comes down to being cheaper. The reason to move: we'd get about the same rate on a new purchase, which is still better than our current rate (5%). We'd be in a nicer neighborhood and we'd look for a house that buses to a better school than currently. The house we are in now, we strongly suspect that it's pretty close to max value right now, whereas houses we would consider purchasing could still be on the rise. We are torn. I kind of want to stay and get this house paid off asap. My wife favors moving because bigger/better/nicer/etc. Anyone in this position? What made you decide one way or the other? johnny sack fucked around with this message at 20:17 on May 29, 2013 |
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May 29, 2013 20:14
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There are many factors. - How long do you plan to live in this house? Until it's too small (family, etc)? - How long do you plan to live in your next house? Is it your "until you're too old to wipe your own rear end" home? - Do you even plan on living in the same area for many years to come? - Do you see your current area getting worse over time? Or will the bad areas slowly be turned around? I probably more align with your ideas, I'd save / invest / pay off your current house early, and if you want to move in a few years you'll have the liquidity to soften the blow of higher interest rates (if we can assume they're going to go back up) if you're borrowing again for a bigger home. That also kinda assumes your area doesn't turn into the ghetto and your house value halves in 10 years.
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May 29, 2013 20:33
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We told our lender we were moving down shortly before our closing date. And that wasn't a problem until today when he told us that we couldn't even start applying for a loan until we had a 30day paystub in our hands from the new job. The day after we submitted our final offer contract. With a ridiculous DD and Earnest fee. gently caress. I hate lenders. Now I need to find one that doesn't sell to Fannie Mae is apparently impossible.
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May 29, 2013 20:41
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dreesemonkey posted:There are many factors. These are good points. We don't intend to have more kids, so it's just big enough. Could we stand to have a bigger house? Of course. The next house, yea we'd want it to be the retirement house. We could MAYBE find a house that would fit that criteria in our price range now. Ideally we'd be better suited to buy such a house further down the line. The house we're currently in, well I hope to hell it isn't this one. Same area, yea, at least within 10-20 miles depending on work etc. I see the current area getting better. Maybe it's hopeful thinking but there are reasons to think that. There were lots of houses that were foreclosed, bought cheap, flipped and sold to first time homeowner's who all seem to have kids. Just looking around at the houses now versus 4 years ago when we moved in, there are no houses that look worse. They all generally look better.
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May 29, 2013 20:52
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Mandals posted:Kinda OT, but when re-doing floors or painting, which one should you do first? Seems like opinions are split, but is there a general consensus? Our floor guy told us to let them do the Day 1 sanding, and then the polyurethane on Day 2. Let it dry for 24 hours, then paint. Then have them come back and do the final light sanding and final coat of poly when you are done, and then go as long as you can before sliding furniture around over it to avoid ruining the glossy final coat. We were told a week, were set to move in 5 days later and it looked fine. Reasons being that sand might get into your paint when they are sanding if it is fresh, they might bump into your walls when doing the sanding, and any paint that you get onto the floor while painting will be sanded off during the final sanding. Made sense to me.
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May 29, 2013 20:53
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drat, a LOT of phoenix goons out of the woodwork. I closed on the 17th in Gilbert, enjoying the poo poo out of the new place. The old owners already refitted the lights with CFL/LEDs which was something I was going to do anyway and didn't notice they already had so that's a bit of a nice money saver. The outside A/C unit is right on the wall where we have our living room couch and so on, and that sucker is a bit loud. I'm going to have to look into seeing if we can get a quiet fan or something installed (it might be the current fan is just old), or find some sort of sound-proofing we can put up in the 1-2 feet gap between it and the outer wall. Chandler is a weird spot, it's got a mixture of 50+ year old homes and brand new developments, seedy/poor/rundown/whatever you want to call it neighborhoods and gated McMansion neighborhoods just down the road from each other. You've got old farming lots, developments from the 50s, and the mini silicon valley boom bringing in new and rich developments all mixed together in a handful of square miles.
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May 29, 2013 21:01
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My wife and I are in the process of looking into buying our first home here in upstate SC. We are currently renting at $620 a month, have been since we got married in October of 2011, and now seems to be the time for us. Her parents are offering up a total of $20K to use for a down payment and other associated costs. We got pre-approved yesterday for an FHA loan of $132,554 on a home value of $135k at an interest rate no greater than 3.875%. You would be shocked, or maybe not, at what that kind of money can get in this area. It would be more than enough for us, especially as a first home. We submitted our information with credit card debt of just over $6,000 spread across a number of cards, and two of which are within $50 of being maxed out. This is what I would like to get opinions on at this time. Since we have the money, would you guys consider paying off (but not closing) all of those accounts with part of the money we have to work with? Is there a chance doing that could hurt us instead of helping? I know this is nothing compared to what most of you are working with, but I haven't seen too many people in an area like me post here, at least not in the last few pages. We don't really live in a "poor" area or anything and it certainly isn't full of crime everywhere, it's really nice here and some of the neighborhoods are amazing even in our price range. It's, well, just how it is here. Downhome fucked around with this message at 16:34 on May 30, 2013 |
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May 30, 2013 16:23
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Downhome posted:My wife and I are in the process of looking into buying our first home here in upstate SC. We are currently renting at $620 a month, have been since we got married in October of 2011, and now seems to be the time for us. Her parents are offering up a total of $20K to use for a down payment and other associated costs. We got pre-approved yesterday for an FHA loan of $132,554 on a home value of $135k at an interest rate no greater than 3.875%. You would be shocked, or maybe not, at what that kind of money can get in this area. It would be more than enough for us, especially as a first home. Important piece of info you left out is what your income is. Is the $6000 your total debt? Car loans? Student loans? I'm thinking for most of this stuff your debt/income ratio is more important that your % of utilized credit (though that will play into your credit score which will affect what rates you qualify for). Super rough estimate but 30 year loan / taxes /escrow , etc your monthly payment would probably be in the $800-1000 range depending on your taxes and insurances. Does that sound doable? You don't give any more indications of how you do financially with regards to living paycheck to paycheck, etc.
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May 30, 2013 16:39
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To be candid, I would question if you are ready financially to buy a house. Floating 6 grand in credit card debt gives the impression of financial mismanagement.
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May 30, 2013 16:51
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Here's what I'd do. If you can afford to put $800-$1000 a month towards a mortgage, I'd try putting that money aside each month and pay off part of your credit card debt. If you can reliably pay off your credit card debt in a couple months, then you're more than set for a mortgage. This type of thinking can only help you when you actually get a mortgage. Also is there a time limit on the gift money from the parents?
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May 30, 2013 16:56
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Hold off on purchasing and save up a full 20% downpayment. Then you can avoid having to get an FHA loan and will not be paying PMI. Under the new rules, PMI is generally for the life of the loan! Having a traditional mortgage with no pmi and no extra FHA fees will save you an unbelievable amount of money.
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May 30, 2013 17:20
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dreesemonkey posted:Important piece of info you left out is what your income is. Is the $6000 your total debt? Car loans? Student loans? I'm thinking for most of this stuff your debt/income ratio is more important that your % of utilized credit (though that will play into your credit score which will affect what rates you qualify for). The $6k is our total debt, and we usually spend $350-$500 a month towards those cards. We have no car loans, student loans, nothing like that. Our gross household income is around $4,000/month. If we were to eliminate those cards it would free up those monthly credit card payments to use towards other purposes, such as the mortgage. daslog posted:To be candid, I would question if you are ready financially to buy a house. Floating 6 grand in credit card debt gives the impression of financial mismanagement. The debt mainly comes from when we first got married. My wife was from out of state and when she moved down here, in the time between first getting married and her not having a job to the time where she did start working full time we just had a number of things come up. That isn't common for me as I generally pay credit cards off entirely each month, and she usually does the same as well. It looks bad, but trust me, it is an anomaly for the both of us. Insane Totoro posted:Here's what I'd do. Our lease at our apartment is up in October. Her parents would like us to find something before then. Our rent is scheduled to be increased substantially because, as they have told us, we are quite under the market value on rent at our current price. We certainly don't want to jump into another rental situation while we have this chance. It also should be noted that regardless of what happens, the house will likely be paid for in full within 5 years, give or take and depending on how the market for real estate in NC does. It could be sooner, it could be more like 8-10. We have a lot of around 65 acres of mountain property that we are in the process of listing, and at the time that is sold we are going to pay off whatever house we get in full and then bank the rest. Downhome fucked around with this message at 17:28 on May 30, 2013 |
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May 30, 2013 17:22
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