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newts posted:Got a house-hunting dilemma! It's certainly not ideal but I bought my house from the sellers agent, I did all the research and comps myself and had my aunt who is a big wig at a title company look over the paperwork, everything went smoothly but I did have to sign paperwork acknowledging that I may be doing something stupid and the agent works for the seller not me blah, blah. You also may want to bring the matter up with your agent because my understanding is that it is an ethics issue if you have had a relationship with an agent and then use another agent to buy the house without formally terminating your relationship with the previous agent and of course disclose this to your new agent. Not so much an ethical issue for you but I believe it can be a professional ethics problem.
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Aug 12, 2013 21:16
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Exactly. When the listing agent would chat with my buyer's agent, they would selectively disclose things to each other if they thought it would help us come to a deal. E.g. "the other realtor said that they can't go any lower than list price, or else it would trigger a short sale situation" (and that actually turned out to be true) or "the buyers are willing to move up the close date if you can guarantee that the tenants will be out and turn in their keys for 3-4 days beforehand" They did a whole lot of back and forth on contingencies and during the inspection/counteroffer process. A good agent and negotiator keeps some information in their pocket to keep an 'edge'. If this is a buyer's dream house on the street they grew up on and you know their financing would support an offer of $10k above asking, you shouldn't share that with the selling agent (probably shouldn't share it with the buyer's agent either for that matter) With an agent representing both parties, the agent has to be super extra careful in their disclosures and conversation between parties. But many agents are willing to take on the grief of dual agency because it will literally double their commission. Can't say I blame them.
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Aug 12, 2013 22:08
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I don't want to screw him over because he's been good to us. So I think I'll give him a call tonight and just lay out the situation for him.
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Aug 12, 2013 22:54
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canyoneer posted:With an agent representing both parties, the agent has to be super extra careful in their disclosures and conversation between parties. But many agents are willing to take on the grief of dual agency because it will literally double their commission. Can't say I blame them. I'm not going to say what I did wasn't dumb but I was incredibly familiar with the neighborhood and comps, had my aunt and my Dad's attorney/best friend review all the documents and since I didn't have an agent at the time I figured the sellers agent being able to pocket the entire commission would give me more leverage. Plus it was my dream house and frankly I would have paid ask if it came down to it which it didn't. Everything went super smoothly, negotiations were straightforward and I think we all came out of the deal happy. I probably could have gotten a little more from the seller but like I said, this was my dream house and if it came down to it I would have paid ask so in the end I don't regret it. That said they make you sign that paperwork because if you don't know what you are doing it is super easy to gently caress yourself so be super careful.
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Aug 13, 2013 00:30
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newts posted:Got a house-hunting dilemma! I don't know where you live, so it's worth adding that in some buyer/realtor situations, there is potential legal risk in changing representation. In Ontario, buyers have been successfully sued by realtors wanting their commission after the buyer purchased through another agent instead. Obviously this only applies if you've signed a representation agreement.
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Aug 13, 2013 05:23
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What are some good things to look for when examining a house? I'm mostly trying to think of the little things that you might otherwise overlook. Stuff like outlets and light switches, are they in good places or are they gonna make you crazy. Also does anyone know of a good resource for understanding the construction of the homes? I'm looking mostly at Philadelphia row homes that were built in the 1920s or so with varying levels of updates through the years. EDIT: Is there any reason to use the MLS site the agent is sending me listings on instead of Zillow? The trendmls interface is pretty terrible. Thom Yorke raps fucked around with this message at 16:10 on Aug 13, 2013 |
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Aug 13, 2013 16:06
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Ranma posted:Stuff like outlets and light switches, are they in good places or are they gonna make you crazy. It's actually pretty easy to move outlets around, at least on the same wall (if you have drywall). You can do it yourself and it's roughly a 4 out of 10 job for difficulty and hassle where 1 is replacing a face plate and 10 is wiring a house to code. Note that doing it yourself will probably violate code somehow.
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Aug 13, 2013 16:23
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Ranma posted:What are some good things to look for when examining a house? I'm mostly trying to think of the little things that you might otherwise overlook. Stuff like outlets and light switches, are they in good places or are they gonna make you crazy. Often the MLS sites realtors use will have more information / consistently parsable information. Our local MLS system I can dig through a listing really, really quickly to get the information. And you generally (or your agent in this case) have much more filtering power. You can get the same information elsewhere, but I can sure as poo poo find homes between 300-500k with an active listing that arent condos or coops and have been on the market for 14 days or less WAY faster in our MLS system. As long as you get your agent the MLS number it doesnt really matter where you prefer to find listings.
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Aug 13, 2013 16:29
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Ranma posted:What are some good things to look for when examining a house? I'm mostly trying to think of the little things that you might otherwise overlook. Stuff like outlets and light switches, are they in good places or are they gonna make you crazy. If I were you I'd pay a lot more attention to the things you can't change about a house. Location. There's a good reason it's the three most important things in real estate. Next up is stuff like the lot, especially regarding drainage and usability. Then on to foundation, basement, plumbing/electrical and major systems. Floor plan etc is next. Outlets are one of the last things to worry about (fixable by you or someone else), probably only surpassed by paint/wallpaper and decor.
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Aug 13, 2013 16:31
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My parents are separating and they've decided instead of selling the house, they would file for re-financing and give my Dad his share. Dad is retired, and Mom is 2 years away from retirement so the plan is to transfer the title and re-finance the house under my name and my brother's. We both have stable good paying jobs and no outstanding loans. The amount we're planning on re-financing would be around $160K; house is worth $300K if compared to similar houses on the market in the same area. I'm trying to do some research online and learn as much as I can, but I want to ask here if anyone has been through it before. Any advice would help. What should I expect? Taxes? Fees? Bumps along the way?
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Aug 13, 2013 17:20
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That's a terrible idea. Joint ownership of property with anyone other than a spouse is just asking for trouble. Do you live in the house? Is the house currently paid off? I'm assuming your mom is giving your dad 150K so she can keep the house?
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Aug 13, 2013 17:43
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I will be moving in to the house with my Mom still living there. Although I will be making the monthly payments, I would have no sole claim to the house. I really have no problem with this as we will still treat the house as if it's my Mom's - because it is. I know there would be family squabbles, but I'm confident that we will continue to be the type who would not put money over anything. I think the only other problem I foresee is if I get married in the future, but I'm assuming a pre-nup would take care of that. My brother is married. They don't plan to have any kids and just want to work and travel and go on cruises (they go around 5 times a year). Sorry, should've been more clearer. There's still around $60K balance. Dad will get $70K, other $30K will be used for home improvements.
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Aug 13, 2013 18:20
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Ranma posted:EDIT: Is there any reason to use the MLS site the agent is sending me listings on instead of Zillow? The trendmls interface is pretty terrible. MLS is far more up to date than Zillow. You will see properties on Zillow that sold weeks ago still showing as for sale, you will have properties for sale in MLS that never show up on Zillow, and you will see properties in Zillow that were never for sale or sold to the public. It's a useful site for getting an idea of what properties in your area have been going for in recent months, but it's not even close to a substitute for MLS. Ranma posted:What are some good things to look for when examining a house? Location. Quality of the school district. Quality of the neighborhood. Proximity to transportation and services. Size of the lot. Usability of the lot - are there parts of it which are weirdly shaped or steeply sloped or otherwise not space you can really use? Type of construction, original quality of construction. Condition of the foundation. Look for sloping floors, doorways out of square, doors that jam open or closed. Condition of the exterior. Sagging areas of the roof, water stains on the siding or edges of the roof, warped wood, cracks in the paint suggesting water damage below. Separation of the chimney from the structure, leaning support beams, cracks above or below windows. Cracks in the driveway, neglected landscaping, landscaping that has obviously been slapped together for the sale. Do irrigation systems turn on, do they leak? Trees planted directly on top of the sewer line. Trees too close to the foundation. Trees lifting driveway or walkway or the public sidewalk. Condition of the interior. Fresh paint is very common; look for clues to what's under it. If there's carpeting, look under a corner to see the condition of the floor. Check closet floors to see what the floor was originally. Look for kitchens and bathrooms with several layers of flooring; maybe the original linoleum or tile is still under there, cracked or whatever, it's common to just slap some more on top. Are ceilings true? Is there built-in ceiling lighting, or switches that control a socket? Where is that socket, will it be good to have the room's only lighting coming from a floor lamp near it? Check windows. Any signs of leaking, gaps between the glass and the frame, are they modern double-glazed or ancient single glazed or something in between? Do they open upwards or sideways or out, do they open at all or are they painted shut? Heating and cooling. Turn on the heat, turn on the A/C, feel for temps at ducts. If it's a radiator system, turn it on and listen for horrible noises, etc. Check the condition of boilers, furnaces, A/C compressors. Is it ancient? Likely to need to be replaced soon? Usable interior space. Does the layout of the home make sense? Are there dead spots, corners of hallways or entryways or gaps between rooms that are not suitable for actual living space? What are the dimensions of each room. For bedrooms, can you place a bed, a dresser, a desk, around the windows in a way that makes sense and doesn't block foot traffic? Does every bedroom have its own closet? What is the flow of foot traffic like between bedrooms and shared living spaces? Can you maneuver large furniture into bedrooms, past corners/up stairs/through hallways? Measure the width of doorways, look for extra-narrow ones. How about the shared living spaces. Do you have a distinct living room, dining room, family room, den? Can you arrange them for your home entertainment system, or for the dining room table, hutch, pantry, shelves? Do you need lots of linear walls for bookshelves, do you prefer a more open plan so you can chat with guests in the living room while you cook in the kitchen? Is there easy access to a bathroom from the guest areas? Is there a straight view from the front door directly into the master bedroom? Where are windows located... north-facing, south-facing, east or west? Skylights? How will the space be lit at various times of the day? Electrical. Check for grounded sockets in every room. Are all the bedrooms on the same 15-amp ungrounded circuit? Bathrooms and kitchen and garage should have GFCI. Kitchen should have separate circuits for various appliances. Some require 20-amp circuits. Can you find the fuse box/breaker box? Is it protected from weather? How old is the wiring, and has it been repaired or spliced or otherwise hosed with incompetently? Kitchen. You spend a lot of time here probably. Is it old, but well-laid out and solid? Recently updated, but cheaply? Huge, but not organized in a way that makes sense? Imagine preparing thanksgiving dinner. Can you set out dishes that need to set out, move from the fridge to the counter to the stove, open the dishwasher while working at the sink? Where are nonperishables stored, is there a pantry that is located well, do you go to Costco and buy in bulk and if so where do you store that stuff? Garage nearby? Garage. Is it really of a size to store the number of cars listed? Will you use it for car parking only, or as a workshop, or mostly to store stuff? All three? Does it have an exit/entrance to the yard, front or back, or just the house? Is it fully detatched, and if so, is there covered access or must you go out in the snow to get to the garage? Where are your laundry facilities, if they're in the garage can you reasonably do laundry while your car(s) are in there? Is there a place to store soap, fold towels? Where does the dryer vent to, is the steam going to ruin something? Is it gas or electric or both? Do you have a 220 outlet for an electric dryer? Where is the home's hot water heater, is it big enough, is it ancient or modern, has it been properly supported and strapped? Any signs of water stains or leaking? Basement. Is there one? Is it usable space? Is it finished or unfinished? Does it have a floor drain? Sump pump, sewer access, etc.? Can you access the basement from outside the house? Does the geometry of stairs and doors allow you to maneuver large things in, or is it going to be too cramped to carry stuff in and out? Is it cold during the summer, good for storing wine, too damp, too dry? Look for mold, dry rot, wet rot, accumulation of dust and filth. Look for outlets, can you plug in lighting, a vacuum cleaner, is there a sink, hot/cold water, gas hookup, could you set up a den or a man cave or a kid's room? Check the house for security system, alarm system, smoke alarms, etc. If there's an emergency, where are the exits? Can someone escape from upstairs bedrooms if a fire starts in the kitchen or garage? How will the house handle the winter? Will you have to shovel a huge walk, is the roof sloped well for snow or ice, are there low spots on the property where water will accumulate? Is there a "mud room" for taking off muddy or wet clothes without tracking stuff into the house? Any signs of how well insulated the place is? Is it heated with heating fuel oil, and if so, where is the storage, how is it filled, what's it cost in this area to get oil delivered? Will they plow your street and if so must you move your car(s) off the curb and if so where can you park them? How is the street parking? Is there plenty of room? Lots of red zones around people's driveways? Will you be parking under a tree (drops leaves/sap), telephone pole, someplace covered in bird crap? Where is the street lighting, if any? Is it flooding in your bedroom window at night, or do you have a dark and scary street at night? Overall look-and-feel. Think about pride of ownership. Did the previous tenants care about their home and take pride in keeping it looking great inside and out? Or did they fix things shoddily, DIYers who shouldn't be DIYing? Is it behind on maintenance but really sold old-school construction, or were the original builders cutting corners? Was this a cookie-cutter house in a big development, or a one-off by a craftsman, or is it the last remnant of an old development where most houses have been torn down and replaced since then? How well does the house fit with the neighborhood, does it stick out like a sore thumb? Is it the biggest house on the block, the smallest, or in the middle? How does this house compare to the others you've looked at so far. Have a list of the things that you think are most important to you and check down that list for every house. Add things as you look at more homes and realize that there are things you'd not considered, but which will matter to you. In my experience you really start to get a feel for things once you've seen 10+ homes inside and out. When we were home shopping we found a lot of things we'd never even thought of that wound up mattering to us, and a couple things we thought were really important that we realized after a while just didn't matter that much. We started to develop an eye for subtle problems and got to a point where we could sometimes reject a house after ten minutes of looking around. For example, we saw a lot of houses with foundation blocks tilting or sinking, sloped floors along one edge or corner, and we'd know immediately that this house had foundation problems and we'd walk away immediately. We realized A/C was an absolute requirement in the area we were looking and rejected houses without it. We decided we wanted at least 1.5 bathrooms, even though we'd always been fine with 1. We wanted a fireplace. We thought we were fine with 2 bedrooms, but as soon as we started seeing 3-bedrooms in our price range we thought of all the stuff we'd use a third room for and decided that was the way to go. We realized that the color of the paint didn't matter at all, since we'd probably be re-painting before we moved in anyway. We preferred a well laid-out kitchen to a recently-updated one that wasn't well laid out. You can make a list of all this stuff but I think the most important thing is to just treat each visit to a house like you're some kind of CSI forensic investigator. Don't fall in love because it's beautiful: assume there are terrible secrets everywhere and winnow them out. Talk out loud to your partner about what you see that's wrong, point out the flaws, don't be concerned about whether the showing agent/owner/other visitors are offended. Talk down the house, don't talk it up. Tomorrow you can go back through what you saw and if you find a house you still want despite all the flaws you found, then you're in a good place to make an offer with clear eyes instead of rose-tinted glasses. There is no such thing as a perfect house, so if you think "this house is perfect" it means you probably missed something. Be picky. This is possibly the largest purchase of your lifetime. It's far better to go another few weeks or even months, dealing with whatever hassles that entails, than lock yourself into a house you will be disappointed with for a decade or more. hypersober posted:I will be moving in to the house with my Mom still living there. Although I will be making the monthly payments, I would have no sole claim to the house. I really have no problem with this as we will still treat the house as if it's my Mom's - because it is. I know there would be family squabbles, but I'm confident that we will continue to be the type who would not put money over anything. I think the only other problem I foresee is if I get married in the future, but I'm assuming a pre-nup would take care of that. My brother is married. They don't plan to have any kids and just want to work and travel and go on cruises (they go around 5 times a year). This sounds like an amazing disaster waiting to happen. If you do decide to go into an arrangement like this, for god's sake put together a very clear and detailed agreement with a lawyer. The best way to make sure your family doesn't tear itself apart over something like this, is to ensure everyone has exactly the same understanding of the arrangement and make sure there will be no unforseen legal difficulties. But really don't do this! Someone needs to own the house and that should be who is paying for the house. You're talking about creating a situation where nobody has the freedom to make an important life decision (like moving to another city, freeing up their equity in the house in order to use their money on something else, get married and start a family and have a home to put that family in that belongs to the family, deal with a death in the family, inheritance, or who gets the insurance payout if the place burns to the ground). You should not assume a pre-nup will "take care of" who actually has exactly how much monetary interest in the house. What if it goes way up in value, who gets the profit? What if someone wants to take out a home equity loan, who is on the hook if they default? What if the house goes way down in value, who has to keep paying, who negotiates for a short sale, whose life savings gets wiped out in a bankruptcy court? Even if you're sure your family could deal with any of these situations, the lack of a formal legal agreement will add an enormous burden of stress and bad feelings. Avoid that by making a much more straightforward arrangement and enshrining it in an ironclad contract. If it's really your mom's house, she should retain ownership. You can pay her rent and she can apply that to the mortgage. If it's really your house, you should make that clear by transferring ownership and being perfectly clear to your mom that the house is now yours. You can pay her out the equity that ought to be hers, or you can borrow the money from her and make payments to her for her part of the equity, whatever. But there should be very clearly one owner who has the title and the mortgage, and that's the person who is legally on the hook for the loan and legally owns any profits from a future sale. Or yeah that \/\/\/ do a trust. Leperflesh fucked around with this message at 18:44 on Aug 13, 2013 |
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Aug 13, 2013 18:33
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hypersober posted:Although I will be making the monthly payments, I would have no sole claim to the house. I really have no problem with this as we will still treat the house as if it's my Mom's - because it is. I know there would be family squabbles, but I'm confident that we will continue to be the type who would not put money over anything. I think the only other problem I foresee is if I get married in the future, but I'm assuming a pre-nup would take care of that. IANAL, but I think you want to look into putting it into a trust.
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Aug 13, 2013 18:41
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Leperflesh posted:Or yeah that \/\/\/ do a trust. Zhentar posted:IANAL, but I think you want to look into putting it into a trust. Thanks to you both! We will definitely look into this. We haven't really talked to anyone yet, but we want to move forward because my Dad's moving to the Philippines in November.
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Aug 13, 2013 19:23
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Thanks for all this. Unfortunately no partner so I'm looking at the places alone, but I have family friends who own a lot of property that they rent out, so I'll ask them to come with me for a second look if I find anything I really like.
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Aug 13, 2013 19:57
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Leperflesh posted:MLS is far more up to date than Zillow. You will see properties on Zillow that sold weeks ago still showing as for sale, you will have properties for sale in MLS that never show up on Zillow, and you will see properties in Zillow that were never for sale or sold to the public.
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Aug 13, 2013 20:15
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gvibes posted:Redfin is a replacement for your realtor's MLS site though, if it's supported in your area. Seconded, it is far more up to date than Zillow.
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Aug 13, 2013 21:16
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I really hope that Redfin starts to get more traction. It's amazing to me that the real estate industry has resisted technological progress for so long, often outright blackballing anyone trying to shake up the incredibly corrupt status quo. The amount of money that traditional real estate agents suck out of a transaction is just absurd, especially in a high-priced area. But there's so much resistance to any sort of change (for fear of losing those sweet, sweet commissions no doubt) in that industry it's staggering. It seems like Redfin is starting to pick up a little bit of steam, at least in Seattle. They're still a minority of listings, but now every time I look there are several Redfin direct listed properties, whereas just a year ago they were an exceptional rarity. I don't have any personal experience, but it seems like buying a house using Redfin for both the buyer/seller agents would save an ungodly amount of money and headache. Guinness fucked around with this message at 21:29 on Aug 13, 2013 |
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Aug 13, 2013 21:26
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Redfin chat: We bought our current house about 4 years ago via redfin and are about to close on our new house at the end of the month, also through them. However, we did list our current house with a realtor.
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Aug 13, 2013 21:42
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Since you have experience with them, Sleepstupid, what made you choose to list your house with a traditional realtor? Especially when you (presumably) had good experience using them as a buyer's agent twice? Genuinely curious. My cynical side thinks it might be because traditional realtors will steer clients away from Redfin-listed houses (from some stories I've read).
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Aug 13, 2013 21:50
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Guinness posted:Genuinely curious. My cynical side thinks it might be because traditional realtors will steer clients away from Redfin-listed houses (from some stories I've read). What stories? Can you link, or summarize them?
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Aug 13, 2013 22:19
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No real reason other than it seems like a good idea to have help when you're trying to sell something vs. via the MLS data, being able to see everything an agent can see as far as looking for places to buy.
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Aug 13, 2013 22:22
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bartkusa posted:What stories? Can you link, or summarize them? Here's a fairly recent article about the difficulties Redfin, Trulia, and Zillow have faced trying to bring some cost-cutting technology into the industry. http://www.businessweek.com/printer/articles/101142-why-redfin-zillow-and-trulia-havent-killed-off-real-estate-brokers And then some more hearsay accounts of blackballing by real estate agents: http://agbeat.com/housing-news/redfin-condodomain-allegedly-blackballed-by-traditional-broker-in-boston/ http://forums.redfin.com/t5/Bay-Area/blackballing/td-p/138676 Edit: I'm not an expert at any of this by any means. Just as someone who has been researching the real estate world as a future buyer, the state and structure of the real estate industry sickens me. I'm rooting for companies like Redfin just to shake things up in a badly needed way. Guinness fucked around with this message at 22:37 on Aug 13, 2013 |
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Aug 13, 2013 22:30
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Guinness posted:And then some more hearsay accounts of blackballing by real estate agents: (I am a Redfin's much more cooperative with other agents these days; they have agents take you on tour now, instead of asking listing agents to pick up the slack. Selling a home with Redfin is actually pretty badass. You get an experienced agent, free professional photos, and a bunch of nerds back at the HQ crunching market data and making the whole hivemind smarter.
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Aug 13, 2013 22:59
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bartkusa posted:(I am a Nice, in Seattle I assume? They seem like a cool place to work. I'm also a software engineer in Seattle, so that might also be part of why I'm rooting for Redfin to bring some technology into real estate...
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Aug 13, 2013 23:01
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Guinness posted:Nice, in Seattle I assume? They seem like a cool place to work. I work in Seattle, the HQ, but there's also an engineering office in San Francisco. And there's one dude in Texas. Works from home. He's a beast, so he gets to do that.
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Aug 13, 2013 23:07
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hypersober posted:My parents are separating and they've decided instead of selling the house, they would file for re-financing and give my Dad his share. Dad is retired, and Mom is 2 years away from retirement so the plan is to transfer the title and re-finance the house under my name and my brother's. We both have stable good paying jobs and no outstanding loans. The amount we're planning on re-financing would be around $160K; house is worth $300K if compared to similar houses on the market in the same area. FYI, if neither you nor your brother are on the loan being paid off you will have to be on title and living in the property for at least a year prior to application to be able to refinance the loan into your name(s) solely for conventional financing. If you only want to pull out 50% you can get by with just 6 months of being on title. If mom or dad go onto the new loan with you (and they were on the loan being paid off) this wouldn't apply.
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Aug 14, 2013 01:14
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hypersober posted:My parents are separating and they've decided instead of selling the house, they would file for re-financing and give my Dad his share. Dad is retired, and Mom is 2 years away from retirement so the plan is to transfer the title and re-finance the house under my name and my brother's. We both have stable good paying jobs and no outstanding loans. The amount we're planning on re-financing would be around $160K; house is worth $300K if compared to similar houses on the market in the same area. I have a somewhat similar but different situation, my father recently passed away --without a will. So my brother & I are inheriting the house. It's been neglected, and requires renovation for it to be habitable. In order to do so we will have to take it out of the estate, and put it into our names (our attorney advised us to not put money into an asset like the house that we do not own -solid advice) I will have to live there, as the mortgage insurance will stop paying principal & interest in March-- I won't be able to float the mortgage (which is pretty affordable) AND continue renting. But once again, I need to do some renovations before my brother & I move in (kitchen & bathrooms need to be gutted, and redone). It's in the Baltimore/DC Metro area, and the house is a little less than half paid off (its assessed somewhere around the 250k - 300k, about 130k is still owed on it, the monthly payment is far below market rent costs) Its a single family home, originally built in 1949, on a little over an acre 1/4. --But here is the tricky bit, my dad and the neighbors got together, and got most of the street rezoned to r15 to sell all their property to developers (concurrent, but separate transactions) my brother and I intend to do the same, but selling it to developers can take time (typically the $ amount is biased on an amount a per lot, but # of lots can't be determined until a site plan is approved by the county, might take as long as 4 years) -time that we will be responsible for the house, so we will have to live there for a period of time. We have a couple of options, as neither one of us could qualify for a large enough mortgage to buy the other out of the property. Although I could qualify on my own to refinance the remainder of the balance of the existing mortgage, it would not be fair to myself or my brother for me to take on that on my own. Therefore we could attempt to refinance the existing balance, or we could just assume the current mortgage and continue making payments. I'm not sure what to do about that. Any advice & information the goons can provide would be appreciated.
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Aug 14, 2013 15:41
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Do you really want to live there, and do you have the money and skills to make the place habitable and attractive to potential buyers? If you wanted to sell the place today, as-is, what would you get? I'd talk to a real estate agent to get that number, if it's enough to pay off the mortgage and give you and your brother a significant amount of money, I'd do that and apply that money towards a solid down payment for the house you do decide to buy. If you really want to keep this house and have a significant amount of money saved up, I'd have it put in your name and give your brother everything else in the estate plus whatever cash is needed to make him whole. Joint ownership with someone who you aren't married to is a bad idea for a whole host of reasons.
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Aug 14, 2013 17:49
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Konstantin posted:Do you really want to live there, and do you have the money and skills to make the place habitable and attractive to potential buyers? If you wanted to sell the place today, as-is, what would you get? I'd talk to a real estate agent to get that number, if it's enough to pay off the mortgage and give you and your brother a significant amount of money, I'd do that and apply that money towards a solid down payment for the house you do decide to buy. If you really want to keep this house and have a significant amount of money saved up, I'd have it put in your name and give your brother everything else in the estate plus whatever cash is needed to make him whole. Joint ownership with someone who you aren't married to is a bad idea for a whole host of reasons. I don't particularity want to live there. Same with my brother, but there are some more e/n details that makes moving into the house where he found dad stone cold dead on the floor better than living at mom's house at this point... I've met with several real estate agents, and have a rough idea of what they think the house it worth (anywhere for 250k-350k). They universally agreed that the land, combined with the neighbors properties if sold to developers is the way to get the most money out of the property. It does require a time commitment though (up to 4-5 years). The house itself is in not in the greatest condition. The bathrooms (it is a 1.5 bath house) need to be re-done, as does the kitchen. It's been neglected for about 10 years--and it shows, selling it as-is to a private party, after paying off the balance of the mortgage would not leave us in a substantially better position. With some of the inheritance money (would have to cash out some investments--but have to do that anyway to settle some estate debt), I would be able to purchase the materials to do renovations. Between my brother, myself & our collective friends we do have the skills to do the labor. He went to trade school, and our father (who was a hoarder) liked to go to builders auctions in the area and buy surplus materials, we still get the flyers for the auctions (and could get a decent deal on much of the materials). I do fully understand the liability of jointly owning something with anyone (watching your parents attorneys fight over multiple houses in multiple states can do that). However in this case, the decision is not mine entirely. Due to the fact that my father never updated his beneficiary forms  after he divorced my mother (10 years ago), she ended up getting about a quarter million total and decided not share with her children (they agreed in the terms of the divorce us kids were supposed to be the beneficiary, but nothing we can legally do now, named beneficiary trumps everything--so review your forms regularly), neither one of us can afford to buy the other out. Basically the house is the largest asset that is in the estate, and the entire rest of the estate does not equal half of the house's worth (it would have but ), but selling it as-is would not be as financially beneficial as using some of the estate money to renovate it and live there until we sell it to developers (because the monthly payment on the mortgage is significantly lower than market-rate rent and I would actually be saving money by living there).Speaking of multiple properties in multiple states, there is still the issue of the jointly owned house (by my parents, but now my mother,& the estate) in Illinois that is in the 29th year of it's 30 year mortgage and has had a tenant in it the entire time, and no one knew all the details but my dad, who was still paying the mortgage......  Ugh, 25 feels way to young to have these issues and family drama. But I have to look out for myself and my younger brother, in this because it became obvious that my mother isn't going to. Sorry for the e/n derail, it kinda needs to be said because the more that is known about the situation, the better advice can be provided. 
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Aug 14, 2013 19:15
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Okay, so let's assume that selling now means that you'll end up even. In that case, you are making an investment. If you decide to renovate, you are looking at taking out a loan, living in a place where you don't particularly want to live for several years, with a roommate, and investing a lot of money and sweat in order to get a return. There is a ton of risk here, this whole deal with the development might fall through, the general market might crash again, you or your brother might need to move for a job/marriage/kids sometime in the next few years, there could be unexpected problems with the house that cost a fortune to fix, and so on. If I were you I would wash your hands of it, sell it for what you can, live where you want, and put your other financial resources in safer investments.
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Aug 14, 2013 20:18
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I agree with the other poster's sentiment. This is a house you don't want and don't need, and the only reason you'd want to hang onto it (and put more money in) is to sell it to a developer in a few years. That's a lot of financial risk and family drama risk for a payday 4 years away.
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Aug 14, 2013 20:28
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There are some other upsides to it, like the huge driveway and garage, so I would actually have a place to park & work on my vehicles. But, yeah I see what you guys are saying, the family drama is already here, but not between my brother and myself, it's between us and my mother. Although I can see how it could easily develop between him and me about the house.
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Aug 14, 2013 20:45
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Despite the listing agent's best efforts, we are closing on our house purchase today. Without getting into the whole thing, the listing agent has been an incompetent obstruction from the first day. Is there anywhere we can file a complaint or write a review of a realtor that would actually matter? I feel sorry for his clients since I don't think they understand enough of what is going on to know how their realtor has screwed them over by not communicating in a timely way, putting bad information on their initial listing, and most recently, lying to us.
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Aug 15, 2013 00:02
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Economic Sinkhole posted:Despite the listing agent's best efforts, we are closing on our house purchase today. Without getting into the whole thing, the listing agent has been an incompetent obstruction from the first day. Is there anywhere we can file a complaint or write a review of a realtor that would actually matter? I feel sorry for his clients since I don't think they understand enough of what is going on to know how their realtor has screwed them over by not communicating in a timely way, putting bad information on their initial listing, and most recently, lying to us. File a complaint with the listing agent's brokerage, and if you think they did something illegal or unethical, your department of state's licensing division. daggerdragon fucked around with this message at 21:30 on Aug 15, 2013 |
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Aug 15, 2013 00:24
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Try Yelp, you can review practically anything there and it shows up well in searches.
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Aug 15, 2013 21:18
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Economic Sinkhole posted:Despite the listing agent's best efforts, we are closing on our house purchase today. Without getting into the whole thing, the listing agent has been an incompetent obstruction from the first day. Is there anywhere we can file a complaint or write a review of a realtor that would actually matter? I feel sorry for his clients since I don't think they understand enough of what is going on to know how their realtor has screwed them over by not communicating in a timely way, putting bad information on their initial listing, and most recently, lying to us.
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Aug 16, 2013 01:56
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Dik Hz posted:Why would you buy the single most expensive thing you're ever going to buy from someone that you know is lying to you? If they're lying about poo poo you can verify, what else are they lying about? Because he lied during closing, after we signed papers already. He claimed we agreed to pay for a repair that was done without our knowledge or consent, and made that claim after we signed. We and the title company both told him "tough poo poo, we're not paying" and it's been sorted out. It's still a lie though. Edit: his latest trick is that he's withholding the keys. Our agent got the key from the lockbox and we have since changed the locks, but he has the mailbox keys still (the house closed escrow 2 days ago). Dude's a capital-A rear end in a top hat. Economic Sinkhole fucked around with this message at 16:55 on Aug 16, 2013 |
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Aug 16, 2013 16:51
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Economic Sinkhole posted:Because he lied during closing, after we signed papers already. He claimed we agreed to pay for a repair that was done without our knowledge or consent, and made that claim after we signed. We and the title company both told him "tough poo poo, we're not paying" and it's been sorted out. It's still a lie though. Report him to whatever territories Real Estate Association he is in. Also, blast him and his agency on Yelp and Google Places or whatever they are calling their review site this week.
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Aug 16, 2013 17:50
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