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Baronjutter posted:How is this even financially possible? Doesn't he need to prove certain level of income to get a mortgage? Downpayment? I know people make fun of the US saying any old hobo off the street can be given a mortgage on a McMansion but I thought that poo poo went away after "The Crash". No loving clue. My hope is that they can't get a mortgage and this all goes away. But for all I know they're going to get bogged down in some kind of scammy rent-to-own situation. What's amusing to me is that since I'm a lawyer my brother always comes to me with questions when he needs legal/financial advice. But I had to hear about the home purchase on Facebook. I suspect that he knows this is an awful idea but doesn't want me or anyone else poking holes in his fantasy.
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Jul 5, 2013 20:33
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Can someone tell me of what pros/cons to look for in a cape colonial built in the mid 40's(1945)? The price is right and I am worried about things like knob/tube wiring and horsehair plaster, but then some internet docs say that neither of those was being used in the 40s anymore. Is that true? What else should I look out for?
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Jul 6, 2013 14:50
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While I'm waiting for a response from the seller of the house I'm trying to buy, I figured I'd write a little info post about something that caught me by surprise. North Carolina has a completely different take on buyer contingencies in purchase offers and Due Diligence as of 2011, and it changes the process quite a bit from what I was expecting. My realtor said as far as she knows there isn't anything quite like it anywhere else in the country and it seems to throw everyone she works with for a loop. So here is how buying a house works in NC: NC has done away with both inspection contingencies and financial contingencies for the buyer. You can't set a limit to the amount of problems turned up by the home inspector and you can't get your earnest money back if you fail to get your financing right before closing. You can ask the seller to make repairs, or extend the closing date to accommodate your finances, but the seller has no obligation to comply (unless they really want to sell their house to you). In place of these contingencies is a new system they are calling Due Diligence. In the purchase offer, you negotiate a Due Diligence Period and a Due Diligence Fee. During the DD period, the buyer is expected to have all of the inspections, appraisal, financing and anything else that matters to them taken care of. During this period the buyer can walk away from the deal for any or no reason at all and still get back any earnest money they paid. The DD fee is a check written directly from the buyer to the seller, and the seller can cash it on the day an offer is accepted: it is theirs to keep no matter what happens at this point. It is basically money the buyer pays to have the seller pull their house off the market while they evaluate it. If the buyer ends up buying the house, the DD fee is credited back to them at closing. In my case, I made an offer on a house with a $200k listing price. My realtor told me customarily the DD fee + earnest deposit totals 1% of sale price and that if I wanted 3 weeks of DD period to evaluate, she thought $350-$400 would be a good DD fee to offer. I know that 1 of the next 3 weeks I am working a ton and won't be able to be there for any inspections, but I wanted to get the house off the market before the July 4th holiday weekend, so I offered $500 DD fee for a 4 week DD period (to make sure there was time to be able to address any repairs and walk through with an inspector again if that's something I wanted to do). My realtor also suggested I make no earnest deposit until later in the month, since really it doesn't mean anything until the DD period is over, so my $1500 earnest deposit wouldn't be due until 7/25 if this offer is accepted. The seller and I have been countering each other on price, but my realtor seems to have steered me straight since all the above hasn't been changed in the counter-offers. I'm curious if those of you who work in real estate have any thoughts either way on this system. As a buyer, I'm not sure I like it compared to what I was expecting, but it looks like it will make it possible for me to not be rushed for inspections, which is important for me since I'm currently a long ways from where I am buying. It also means I didn't have to case the neighborhood before making an offer, I feel good enough about the house that I'm OK casing the neighborhood when I come back for the inspections because I can still walk away without major losses at that point ($800 for DD fee + inspection is nothing to scoff at, but it's a lot better than losing a 1% earnest deposit). It definitely seems to be a plus for sellers, which I'm sure they appreciate since this area seems to be one of the few buyer's markets right now. For instance, another house on my short list had an accepted offer about a month ago. The buyer apparently found rotted floor joists in their inspection and walked away from the deal. The seller took the house off the market, paid $10k to mate some floor joists and put in a new subfloor and put it back on the market a little cheaper. Obviously the seller would have preferred to sell the house, but as it was they probably got a $400-$500 check to put towards those repairs in the form of the DD fee the buyer paid, whereas anywhere else they would have had to return all earnest money. It seems like sellers could game the system a little this way if they suspected they needed repairs they "didn't know about," but I guess if you are serious about selling your house, doing stuff like that isn't going to help you in the long run.
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Jul 6, 2013 17:16
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Holy poo poo, that sounds terrible. Inspection contingencies are so important, and having to forfeit money if there's a major problem sounds downright criminal. I'm moving to NC in 2 months and was thinking of buying; I'm definitely renting now.
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Jul 7, 2013 00:45
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Yeah, it seems to me the seller already has an unreal amount of protection. I have to place on offer with limited personal inspection. I have to pay for an inspection to see if there are problems. I have to pay for an appraisal which I hope like hell meets my offer and is accurate. I have to place down earnest money based on my offer. If the inspection comes back dirty and I back out, the buyer has an unofficial 'right' to see the report. After seeing said report they have no obligation to address the issues or present the paperwork to the next hopeful buyer. This whole process is already so pro-seller it makes me sick. In a just world the seller would pay 2-3k for multiple inspections and appraisals and that poo poo should be public. There are awful houses sold by awful sellers who will do nothing but accept offers they know will fall through in the hopes of the one in a million sap saying 'okay'. Why the buyer knowingly shoulders the future burden of inspection and appraisal before an offer is placed is beyond me. Especially since the buyer CANNOT order an inspection or appraisal before offering blindly... it's just so loving stupid. I should start a website in which jaded buyers can post paid-for inspection reports on properties. It would be revolutionary. root of all eval fucked around with this message at 01:23 on Jul 7, 2013 |
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Jul 7, 2013 01:18
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I read a little about this and it sounds like you CAN make an offer without due diligence money as part of the offer. I'd be interested to know from NC realtors how common this is and how often offers without due diligence get accepted.
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Jul 7, 2013 01:24
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TheLizard posted:I read a little about this and it sounds like you CAN make an offer without due diligence money as part of the offer. I'd be interested to know from NC realtors how common this is and how often offers without due diligence get accepted. If you go without the DD period entirely, you'd have to write your own inspection contingencies from scratch and have the seller agree to them. e: Most of the advice I read for buyers basically said make sure you use the entire DD period, even if you decide you don't want the house. Basically, the protection against sellers abusing it is that buyers can keep their houses off the market for a while. I guess if you assume everyone is trying to buy/sell with a deadline it seems more fair, but I don't know how great of an assumption that is. e2: In other news, the guy I'm trying to buy a house from hasn't responded to my counter-offer in almost 36 hours. He was asking $200k, I offered 196k with 4k toward closing (based on comps mostly), he countered with 198k/4k, I countered with 197k/4k. I figured when we got too low he would start shaving back off the seller contribution, but I guess maybe I pushed him too hard. My guess is he had some people walkthrough over the holiday and is hoping for another offer (or maybe got one). I should withdraw that offer tomorrow, right? (I was thinking at noon, give him the morning to answer). If I really want the house, I guess I can start over with a new offer? I wasn't expecting him to go silent once he responded the first time since there was plenty of room to play with both numbers... ChristsDickWorship fucked around with this message at 02:05 on Jul 7, 2013 |
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Jul 7, 2013 01:39
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wixard posted:I'm shopping in the Triangle and my realtor didn't seem to think it was an option to make an offer without the fee. Well blah. Renting it is then. That was always plan A at least until I figure out the area, but now I'm questioning buying at all. What's to stop someone from listing their house again and again, knowing that something is wrong with it, to keep the due diligence money?
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Jul 7, 2013 02:43
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From what I can tell, the assumption is that the listing agent's integrity and the buyers' ability to keep the house off the market would discourage sellers from doing that. I'm not saying I agree at all, but I'm a first-time homebuyer and I'm curious what professionals think. A listing agent who doesn't think you're trying to sell probably isn't going to want to spend 6 months representing you while you collect fees from prospective buyers who go on to buy someone else's listing, and in that time you could only do it to 5-6 people with the 3-4 week Due Diligence Periods that are common (if the buyers choose to wait until the last day to exercise their right to walk away for no reason). That logic sort of makes sense to me, but I agree it seems like it could benefit a lot of sellers to "miss" a $500-$1000 repair in their inspections at least once.
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Jul 7, 2013 04:56
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I think you should be able to see on the MLS if the house has previously been on and off the market recently. At least, I've seen MLS records where you can see a house was on the market for $X, then off for two months, and now back on for $Y.
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Jul 7, 2013 20:25
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Leperflesh posted:I think you should be able to see on the MLS if the house has previously been on and off the market recently. At least, I've seen MLS records where you can see a house was on the market for $X, then off for two months, and now back on for $Y. If you are buying and checking regularly for houses you will notice a trend of this happening. About 2 weeks ago a couple of houses in the area we were interested in went off the market a couple of days after entering then were put back on for $20k-30k more.
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Jul 7, 2013 21:05
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BossRighteous posted:I should start a website in which jaded buyers can post paid-for inspection reports on properties. It would be revolutionary. Do any inspection companies force clients to agree not to distribute/share/sell the inspection results beyond those involved in the transaction? This is an interesting idea.
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Jul 7, 2013 22:10
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Jealous Cow posted:Do any inspection companies force clients to agree not to distribute/share/sell the inspection results beyond those involved in the transaction? This is an interesting idea. Meh, read the fine print and the report is not to be shared with 3rd parties and is for the express benefit of the purchaser and cannot be conveyed or shared without permission of the inspector. We tried  Edit: You could still create an inspection company that creates said database itself. root of all eval fucked around with this message at 22:39 on Jul 7, 2013 |
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Jul 7, 2013 22:36
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Remember to post in here when you sell your house and see how pro-buyer you are.
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Jul 7, 2013 22:53
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jabro posted:If you are buying and checking regularly for houses you will notice a trend of this happening. About 2 weeks ago a couple of houses in the area we were interested in went off the market a couple of days after entering then were put back on for $20k-30k more. I didn't know about the Due Diligence thing at the time, but I definitely would have been aware of that trend if it was happening on houses I liked. \/\/ - It's not that kind of market right now but if someplace in NC was that hot, I don't see why you wouldn't have buyers filling out $0 fees and 0 day periods for it and doing the same thing to make their offers more attractive. ChristsDickWorship fucked around with this message at 23:31 on Jul 7, 2013 |
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Jul 7, 2013 23:15
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Due diligence is better than nothing. In some hot markets, inspection contingencies have gone the way of the dodo. What this means in practice is that you bring an inspector to the showing and do a little pre-inspection.
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Jul 7, 2013 23:26
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TheLizard posted:What's to stop someone from listing their house again and again, knowing that something is wrong with it, to keep the due diligence money? Real estate disclosure laws. They vary by state about the specific requirements, but generally require sellers to disclose to buyers any known material defects in a property. So if buyer 1's inspection reveals a problem that torpedoes the deal, the seller must disclose that defect to all subsequent buyers.
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Jul 8, 2013 16:27
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SlapActionJackson posted:Real estate disclosure laws. They vary by state about the specific requirements, but generally require sellers to disclose to buyers any known material defects in a property. So if buyer 1's inspection reveals a problem that torpedoes the deal, the seller must disclose that defect to all subsequent buyers. I actually talked to a realtor in NC and they said that NC is really weak here. I think they can disclose or basically say "no representation". http://www.ncrec.state.nc.us/forms/rec422.pdf
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Jul 9, 2013 13:02
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Well, my counter-offer was accepted yesterday so I'm one step,closer to being a homeowner! But yes, in the seller's disclosure for this house in NC, both the roof and the questions about oil and gas rights have been answered with "no representation." edit: On the other hand, 9/10 houses I looked at had the seller offering to pay for a home warranty, FWIW (the one that didn't was an as-is estate sale). Maybe that's common everywhere I don't know, but I imagined it was a concession the serious sellers in this market make. The one I'm under contract on now also comes with a "first-time homeowner's starter kit" with a new lawnmower, ladder, hoses, etc. After a walkthrough at another house, the listing agent reinforced the areas the seller knew were weak compared to comps and offered to specifically address them in closing costs if I made an offer. The process seems heavily seller-favored, but it is a buyer's market and I feel like I had a pretty good idea of who was trying to sell their house and who was only sort of trying. Also, as a note to those of you who might be attempting to get financing while self-employed: Get letters from your regular clients certifying your income. My file was sitting in front of an underwriter for 4 days without moving when I suggested I could get letters from my clients stating that my relocation wouldn't change their decisions to subcontract my services. 6 hours after delivering a couple of letters like that, I was pre-approved and my lender has been my best friend ever since. ChristsDickWorship fucked around with this message at 17:37 on Jul 9, 2013 |
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Jul 9, 2013 14:16
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Yeah buddy! Got our keys yesterday and jumped right in to the joys of home ownership.   Changing deadbolts was much harder than the 2 minute youtube video made it look. You know exactly what is supposed to happen you just can't line anything up in real life application. After 25 minutes I finally figured out I had to switch it to 'lock' in order to screw in the switch plate.
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Jul 9, 2013 17:16
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Tell your neighbor to get his tree limb off your fence!
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Jul 9, 2013 17:20
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three posted:Tell your neighbor to get his tree limb off your fence! I lucked in to him pulling into his drive way right as we came back with yard supplies. I got to chit-chat and have the 'tree talk' with him the first day  Seems like a very cool dude, nice to know neighbor 1:3 isn't a total rear end.
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Jul 9, 2013 17:25
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I close on my house tomorrow. Final walkthrough today revealed recent water seepage in the basement. We knew about that problem going into it, pretty sure we'll be able to fix it with proper landscaping and yard drainage. I'm so tired of packing and shuffling boxes around. I'm lucky that the person buying from us was interested in renting to us for a week to make this so much easier. I found that state farm (possibly others) gives you 30 days of grace period between homeowners policies to cover a moving period. No need for renters insurance (as cheap as it is, it's still a nice gesture).
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Jul 10, 2013 04:11
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We paid for movers and of all the house-related purchases in the process, it's the one I feel best about. We boxed everything up casually over 2-3 days and they just took it out and over in less than 2 hours this morning. Brilliant in 110 degree weather. Only like $300 total, so our Uhaul rental/gas/etc would have come close to that anyway.
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Jul 10, 2013 16:39
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We are making an offer on a house that sits on a private (not city or county owned) street. There's no HOA and there are only 4 houses on the street. Does anyone have any experience with private streets like this? It seems to be in good shape now but it is up to the homeowners, apparently, to maintain the street. My guess is that since there's nobody collecting any dues or anything, that this street will basically never see any maintenance.
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Jul 10, 2013 17:14
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BossRighteous posted:We paid for movers and of all the house-related purchases in the process, it's the one I feel best about. My day rental of a 19' Uhaul was $200. I should have known to hire movers instead, especially when I blew out my knee hauling a mattress from a 3rd floor apartment in the early hours of the move. A $100 premium to not have to lift a box and just stand at the door and point would have been absolutely worth it. Now paying for the premium "guys come in and pack up all your stuff" treatment is a different story. Part of the compensation for the contractors who do that for military moves is being paid by the pound. This means they pack everything. I know plenty of people who have unpacked boxes in their new overseas home to discover that a kitchen bag of garbage and a 5 lb bag of (now rotten) potatoes have made a 3 week trip across the ocean on a cargo ship 
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Jul 10, 2013 17:35
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Economic Sinkhole posted:We are making an offer on a house that sits on a private (not city or county owned) street. There's no HOA and there are only 4 houses on the street. Does anyone have any experience with private streets like this? It seems to be in good shape now but it is up to the homeowners, apparently, to maintain the street. My guess is that since there's nobody collecting any dues or anything, that this street will basically never see any maintenance. I don't have firsthand experience on that, but I have some second hand experience with other shared utility stuff... You're probably going to have to work together with your neighbors to get any maintenance done on the road. How hard this is will depend on the personalities of your neighbors, how long (and thus how expensive) the road is, and how much of it is shared by all four homes (agreeing on a way to pay for it that's not just evenly splitting the cost four ways can be nearly impossible, which may itself be hard to agree to if one home needs much more road than the other three).
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Jul 10, 2013 17:57
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You can also get an idea by looking at the road. Is is cracked asphalt with weeds growing up through it or does it look like a road in Beverly Hills? I don't personally live on one but there many in my area and they range greatly. I've seen cracked concrete ones but I've also seen private dirt roads that have been smoother than newly paved asphalt. Also, look at how your neighbors take care of their house/yard. The better that is the better chance they are willing to maintain the road. You could also knock on a door and ask someone living there.
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Jul 10, 2013 18:09
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I'm surprised people don't hire movers more often, as UHAUL rental prices are pretty comparable to just having movers do it for you.
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Jul 10, 2013 18:10
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ETB posted:I'm surprised people don't hire movers more often, as UHAUL rental prices are pretty comparable to just having movers do it for you. Last time I moved, we bought a dozen big plastic tubs and filled the SUV with them and moved all the little stuff ourselves. Then I hired 2 Felons and a Truck off Craigslist for 200 bucks and they moved all the big stuff for me. Granted I had a week of overlap with my apartment and my new house so we had plenty of time. I also paid 125 bucks to two ladies who did the final clean on my apartment move out. Worth every penny and got my full deposit back.
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Jul 10, 2013 18:26
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U-Haul Sucks. There are so many other companies who will rent you better-condition trucks for the same or less, and not abuse you with horrible customer service, charge you extra for blankets or a hand truck or whatever, and (especially) that thing where they tell you you can drop the truck off outside but then it gets a ticket and you get hit with the ticket plus a huge fee four months later out of the blue. I've used Penske, Ryder and Budget. Enterprise is another option, and you should always check your local area for independent businesses (for local moves) because they'll usually have a better deal and also be friendlier. Just google for "moving truck rental" and your area. The last time I used U-Haul was something like 15 years ago, and after standing in line for half an hour to pick up my truck, being accosted by homeless people out front who wanted me to pay them to help load my stuff, dealing with a super-rude and apathetic counter person, getting a lovely truck covered in dents, being outright lied to about the price beforehand, and also lied to about how and where and when I could drop the truck off legally, and then overcharged, and they attempted to charge me for one of the numerous pre-existing dents despite my labeling every one of them on their dumb dent-chart paper, and getting charged like $30 plus like $50 in fees for a parking ticket, I swore never to do business with those assholes again. e. oh yeah, I forgot: also I had reserved a 16' but they didn't have one in that size when I arrived, and would not let me take a larger truck for the same price.
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Jul 10, 2013 18:44
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Economic Sinkhole posted:We are making an offer on a house that sits on a private (not city or county owned) street. There's no HOA and there are only 4 houses on the street. Does anyone have any experience with private streets like this? It seems to be in good shape now but it is up to the homeowners, apparently, to maintain the street. My guess is that since there's nobody collecting any dues or anything, that this street will basically never see any maintenance. This has a good chance of screwing your financing up. Get a copy of a recent signed shared maintenance agreement or your loan probably won't close. This is lender dependent and your mileage may vary. I would also want a survey done and have the seller provide copies of the recorded easements before you make an offer.
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Jul 10, 2013 19:36
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In town moves always make sense to get movers, as would cross country. There is an intermediate distance (like, 3-5 hours) where you would be paying the mover's drat hourly rate just to drive, or higher big freight line rates, where having movers load and unload a truck at either end that you rent and drive makes the most financial sense. Also I've used Penske twice and the service and trucks have been about a billion times better than the uhaul experiences of my youth.
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Jul 10, 2013 19:37
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Man, last time I moved we hired a well-rated local company and two strong dudes with a trailer showed up, loaded all our poo poo up, drove to the new place, and carried everything up to the third floor in 2 hours door-to-door for $300. After that I'm never moving myself again. Every time they carried in something heavy I was like "Would I pay $300 to not have to carry that down 2 flights of stairs and up 6 more?" and the answer was always "Oh hell yes."
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Jul 10, 2013 19:39
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Dr. Kyle Farnsworth posted:Man, last time I moved we hired a well-rated local company and two strong dudes with a trailer showed up, loaded all our poo poo up, drove to the new place, and carried everything up to the third floor in 2 hours door-to-door for $300. After that I'm never moving myself again. Every time they carried in something heavy I was like "Would I pay $300 to not have to carry that down 2 flights of stairs and up 6 more?" and the answer was always "Oh hell yes." You may have just sold me on using movers in-town. I'm moving about 6 miles from a 1 bedroom apartment to a modest house, and was just looking at Ryder / Penske and planning to to it myself.
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Jul 10, 2013 19:51
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Weinertron posted:You may have just sold me on using movers in-town. I'm moving about 6 miles from a 1 bedroom apartment to a modest house, and was just looking at Ryder / Penske and planning to to it myself. I mean I guess labor costs could vary from place to place but honestly for a move like that hiring movers is pretty dang cheap. Just make sure you do a lot of research to find a solid company, because if they are lovely they can break things and hide that they did or deny responsibility, or generally not give a poo poo about your possessions.
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Jul 10, 2013 20:03
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I've done the "hire people to load/unload a rented truck" thing a few times. It is the best way by far. Most recently I moved ~1400 sqft worth of furniture from NYC down to the DC area for a total cost of around $900. Rented the 28' truck from Penske (gently caress U-Haul) for about $200 total. Picked up on a Monday morning, dudes came and emptied out my 4th floor apartment while I sat in the truck as it was parked illegally, they took about 3 hours at $80 an hour. Left around noon and got to my new place at about 7PM. The next morning some guys came and unloaded it for $500. I love how much cheaper manual labor is in NYC compared to just about anywhere else. Also it was a lot of fun driving a truck that I think bordered on needing a CDL.
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Jul 10, 2013 20:15
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We just did it ourselves (or at least did it to move into storage) and we only spent about $100 on a days rental of a 20' truck from Budget and fuel. It sucks, but I'm not sure I'd have paid another $200 to have it done for me. The crappier part was packing the storage unit as things got a bit tight at the end. My house is finally really starting to take shape. In the last few weeks the roof has been put up and shingled, the framing is all done, windows are in, electrical has been run, same with the duct work for the HVAC system. The wood was all getting a termite treatment when I showed up today for the pre-drywall meeting as well. Stucco should be going up tomorrow and the electrical inspection is Monday with drywall starting probably mid next week. Still looking at a September move in at the moment.
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Jul 10, 2013 21:14
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3 movers, 2 hours, all my furniture and boxed stuff from 6th-floor apartment to 16th-floor condo: $360. Would buy again. You can get it done even cheaper if you use hyperlocal companies. (I couldn't because my complex has insurance requirements that the hyperlocals weren't in compliance with.) I used a friend and a car to move the flat-panel TV. You get charged a buttload extra for them to properly package a TV (and unless you have the original box, good luck properly packaging it for truck moving yourself). Robo-Pope fucked around with this message at 23:33 on Jul 10, 2013 |
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Jul 10, 2013 23:31
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drat, I should have priced movers. We rented a UHaul (only real in town option) and paid a friend $50 to help, would have gladly paid an extra $150 not to have been involved in moving that poo poo. Of course if it is like every other contracting experience I have had, I would have priced it and found that it was 3x higher here than the highest price anyone else reported for some reason (I live in Ohio, but this has been my experience. I think I am cursed)
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Jul 11, 2013 00:17
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