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Cyrezar posted:Salvador Dali was my interior decorator I noticed that both times I was house-shopping my actual "this is what I believe I can afford" budget was about half of the amount I was pre-approved for. My absolute uppper-end budget was $180k, and I was pre-approved for $350k  To think that my mortgage payment could be double what I pay now is absurd.
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Feb 21, 2014 20:10
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canyoneer posted:I noticed that both times I was house-shopping my actual "this is what I believe I can afford" budget was about half of the amount I was pre-approved for. My absolute uppper-end budget was $180k, and I was pre-approved for $350k Same here. My wife and I priced out what we think we could comfortably afford and the absolute upper end is like $240k. Wells Fargo was all ready to pre-approve us for well north of $400k. 
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Feb 21, 2014 20:47
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oxbrain posted:The whole business is shady as hell. ... there's no way around that conflict of interest. My employer, Redfin, reduces the conflict of interest by paying agents salary, and gives bonuses for good customer reviews (and firing them for lovely reviews). I think that reduces the main source of shadiness, but it's still within the paradigm of "nobody's paid unless a sale is made."
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Feb 21, 2014 23:04
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Misogynist posted:Man, divorce houses are the poo poo. Wife and I just had our offer accepted on a high ranch. They accepted our offer immediately even though their house was only on the market for like a week, they're leaving all their TVs, and since they're probably both living in apartments or townhomes now I think can convince them to leave the big box of high-quality latex Halloween decorations I saw in the garage. FYI, if you're getting a conventional loan talk to your LO about this before putting it into your purchase contract, assuming you haven't done so already. Fannie/Freddie don't allow personal property to be included in the transaction and if it's in there it can potentially mess up a few things related to your loan approval/cause additional delays. The lender/appraiser has to document the value of the personal property and reduce the purchase price accordingly, documenting the value in some cases can be a big pain in the rear end. Also if you're at max financing it will drop your allowed loan amount which will require you to bring more funds to closing.
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Feb 22, 2014 00:43
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Cyrezar posted:To follow up on my post from last night, I decided this morning to cancel the closing scheduled for today. The house was not ready, although most of the problems were cosmetic and the house is 99% good. I would bring a builder's square as a gift when you give them the bad news.
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Feb 22, 2014 05:54
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Tricky Ed posted:I would bring a builder's square as a gift when you give them the bad news. This is going to happen. Maybe I'll bring extra to give to their lovely subs.
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Feb 22, 2014 19:38
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My mom had a house built a few years ago and managed to get lucky and get one of the good ones. It was a couple farmers that did farming during the summer and construction during the off seas. While it was being built she lived a few blocks away so she stopped by a lot, and also my dad, who has a lot of construction experience, was around a lot too. Back in the early 90s our family had a cabin built in the middle of nowhere, and for whatever stupid reason we went with the lowest bidder. This guy was a giant piece of poo poo. His subs would come by asking us for money, after we'd paid him the contracted amount, he'd ask us for more money. A bunch of poo poo had to be redone. My uncle helped us, and he actually teaches construction in a program where the students actually build houses, so he knows his poo poo. I think at a certain point he just disappeared, we figure to whatever part of the country was recovering from a natural disaster at that point in time so he could totally screw them over and ride on to the next disaster. I was a little kid back then but I remember meeting him and he just seemed like a slimeball.
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Feb 24, 2014 01:49
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I bought a house custom built for someone who's day job is in commercial construction. All of the quality construction, none of the work managing it myself 
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Feb 24, 2014 04:50
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LogisticEarth posted:Same here. My wife and I priced out what we think we could comfortably afford and the absolute upper end is like $240k. Wells Fargo was all ready to pre-approve us for well north of $400k. I've never understood this complaint. The bank is giving you more options, not fewer. For example maybe you could rent a room in a larger house (or rent two) with that increase in mortgage. Or, you could just use your own common sense and buy smaller, which it sounds like you're going to do anyway. So I have a question about rental income and I am not sure this is the right thread for it. My wife and I both have careers and we have no children. The only debt we have is our vehicle (roughly $20k car payment at 2.85%) and our home, which we owe about 275k at 4.75%. Our goal for the remainder of 2014 is to be really thrifty and pay off the car loan, and then starting in 2015 begin massively overpaying our mortgage with the hopes of paying down the remainder of the loan over the course of roughly 6 years. My rationale is that it's a guaranteed 4.75% return and once it's paid off we were planning on buying a rental property, probably a duplex and then working on that mortgage. How heavily taxed is rental income from a a property that isn't your primary residence? Are there any major flaws with this plan? For reference, we prioritize 401k first, liquid emergency savings second, and then overpayment of debt last.
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Feb 24, 2014 17:41
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Defghanistan posted:I've never understood this complaint. The bank is giving you more options, not fewer. For example maybe you could rent a room in a larger house (or rent two) with that increase in mortgage. Or, you could just use your own common sense and buy smaller, which it sounds like you're going to do anyway. Two major flaws: 1) It's not a guaranteed return on your money. The value of your home can drop, and/or you could find yourself in a position to have to sell it for less than it's worth. 2) Dumping all that extra cash into paying down your mortgage is the opposite of diversifying. Remember, by buying a house, you're not only dumping a huge chunk of your wealth into a single asset class, but also into a single asset—the house. What happens if, for example, the house is destroyed by something not covered by your home insurance? Edit: That's not to say that it's not worthwhile to pay down the mortgage faster, but I would make a personal rule that for every dollar you pay down on your mortgage, you have to allocate another dollar (or a set portion of a dollar, or two dollars, or whatever) to some other investment(s)—so as to diversify your wealth. Then again, I subscribe pretty thoroughly to the portfolio theory championed in the long term savings thread. Cranbe fucked around with this message at 18:28 on Feb 24, 2014 |
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Feb 24, 2014 18:22
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Cranbe posted:Two major flaws: Thanks for the feedback, what I was referring to by a guaranteed return is that my interest rate is 4.75% so by overpaying the mortgage I am saving myself money at a rate of 4.75% over the life of the loan. 4.75%, while pretty good for a mortgage, is still a lot of money. Totally get what you're saying about point 2 though, it's sure not diversified. Good advice.
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Feb 24, 2014 19:00
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canyoneer posted:I noticed that both times I was house-shopping my actual "this is what I believe I can afford" budget was about half of the amount I was pre-approved for. My absolute uppper-end budget was $180k, and I was pre-approved for $350k I think those pre-approval rules probably factor in people like us in the SF Bay Area to let us afford "standard" houses at $1m 
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Feb 24, 2014 19:24
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Rental income goes on schedule C. The income after expenses is taxed at your marginal rate as ordinary income. If you self manage you can deduct loses with no limit.
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Feb 24, 2014 19:48
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My husband and I put in an offer on Saturday afternoon for $19k below the list price of $349k. The CMA our agent put together placed the house more at $340k, which is why we started where we did. Its the first offer we have ever made, and neither of us realized how long the days would feel when waiting for an answer. This house is already upgraded and has the basement finished, which is why we decided to go for it. The work that the homeowners put into it was really well done, and surprised us. If we don't get it, there are houses with similar floorplans also on the market just without the upgrades (listed 30-40k below this house) that we could go for. We want to get into this neighborhood because of the amenities it has, plus it falls within the city limits of the town we are looking at, which provides city resident-only parking for the commuter train to where we work.
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Feb 24, 2014 20:39
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NintyFresh posted:My husband and I put in an offer on Saturday afternoon for $19k below the list price of $349k. The CMA our agent put together placed the house more at $340k, which is why we started where we did. Its the first offer we have ever made, and neither of us realized how long the days would feel when waiting for an answer. This house is already upgraded and has the basement finished, which is why we decided to go for it. The work that the homeowners put into it was really well done, and surprised us. Sounds like you guys are skirting the "falling in love with it" line dangerously closely. That puts you in a really bad negotiating position. Relax. As you say, there are other houses. I myself just got under contract on a house. I like this house, but I don't need this house. I'm ready to walk if the inspection turns up anything more than relatively minor. It's an incredible zen feeling to have, and it makes me at ease to properly handle the next round of negotiations.
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Feb 24, 2014 20:45
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Speaking of walking away from a house due to inspection concerns, how huge of a problem is an improperly vented roof? My understanding is that it's not only a problem in the winter due to ice damming, but year round due to moisture problems. We just were considering placing an offer, and we decided to hold back after I saw a bunch of signs that the roof wasn't vented properly when the attic was finished off.
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Feb 24, 2014 21:38
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Elephanthead posted:Rental income goes on schedule C. The income after expenses is taxed at your marginal rate as ordinary income. If you self manage you can deduct loses with no limit. Should be E, not C, but yeah. Isn't the mortgage interest write off changing? Or was that just for your primary residence.
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Feb 25, 2014 00:43
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Captain Windex posted:Should be E, not C, but yeah. Isn't the mortgage interest write off changing? Or was that just for your primary residence. Real estate rental activities generally go on Schedule E and the mortgage interest deduction claimed on Schedule A is not changing, again generally speaking. You may be thinking about the PMI deduction which has not been extended for tax year 2014. Mortgage interest can be claimed on Schedule A for a primary residence and one secondary residence (vacation home) but this also has limitations. Elephanthead posted:Rental income goes on schedule C. The income after expenses is taxed at your marginal rate as ordinary income. If you self manage you can deduct loses with no limit. This first part is false, the second part is true, and the last part is most certainly false. There are any number of limitations to deducting rental losses that are beyond the scope of this thread. The instructions to Schedule E http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/i1040se.pdf is a good place to start. All of the above applies exclusively to the US tax laws.
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Feb 25, 2014 01:28
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What is the standard requirement for home insurance for a mortgage? Our lender is asking us to dwelling coverage equal to the mortgage amount, but this is about 80k higher than the actual replacement value of the house (due to the land value..). This is raising the cost of our quote. Is this normal?
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Feb 25, 2014 17:12
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It is normal for them to ask, and honestly it is normal for people to accept it because it is less hassle. My understanding is that they cannot compel you to buy, or the insurance company to insure for, more than the replacement cost of the building. Whether or not you feel like fighting them on it at closing is gonna be up to you. It is also entirely possible you could comply with the bank, get insurance for the loan amount, and then a month later when or if the company gets around to inspecting the house they adjust the value down to its actual replacement cost.
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Feb 25, 2014 17:32
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I called the loan officer again and its all worked out, we're doing insurance for replacement value now. They had made a mistake on it. Thanks
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Feb 25, 2014 18:57
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LARGE THE HEAD posted:Related to this tangent: How do any of you find a contractor you can remotely trust? Short of being one yourself or being on site 10 hours every day I wouldn't even know where to start finding one to make sure nothing goes majorly wrong. We found someone who isn't too much higher than market price, and who is a completely ridiculous perfectionist. He spent like ten minutes trying to point out to me some error his hardwood floor subcontractor made and I couldn't figure out for the life of me what was wrong with it, so I said it was OK. He had the guy come out and re-do anyways.
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Feb 25, 2014 19:27
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Have a weird idea I am going to do, im wondering if anyone has done it or heard of people doing it. I did the Wrong Thing(tm) and totally fell in love with a condo. There are two in the building I want and since I know the addresses I am going to send a letter basically saying "hey your place is great, if you ever think about selling it let me know".
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Feb 26, 2014 12:12
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notlibber posted:Have a weird idea I am going to do, im wondering if anyone has done it or heard of people doing it. I did the Wrong Thing(tm) and totally fell in love with a condo. There are two in the building I want and since I know the addresses I am going to send a letter basically saying "hey your place is great, if you ever think about selling it let me know". If I got a letter like that in the mail the first thing I'd do is look up the comps in my neighborhood, add 15-20% and make you an offer. There's nothing wrong with testing the waters per se, but there's almost no chance it would ever end up with you getting a bargain.
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Feb 26, 2014 18:03
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Isn't that basically the premise behind Zillow's "Make Me Move" thing? People who aren't actually selling their home can go on their and put a 'dream' price that they would theoretically sell for and contact details. Of course those prices tend to be 20%+ above market value, even in my stupid expensive and fast-moving real estate market. The chances of finding a bargain of any sort doing that is very very low. Then again, what's the worst that can happen? They either say no or just don't ever respond to you which isn't any worse than not trying. Guinness fucked around with this message at 19:01 on Feb 26, 2014 |
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Feb 26, 2014 18:59
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If your offer would be financed, a significant overprice would just wind up getting rejected from the lender after the appraisal came in too low. That said, it's definitely not a good position to be bargaining from. (Also condos suck don't buy a condo.)
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Feb 26, 2014 19:24
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Thanks for the opinions. Yeah im sort of thinking the "whats the worst that could happen". I feel like I understand the tradeoffs pretty well and want to get a condo. Not looking for a deal here, I would pay 5 to maaaaybe 10% over the last sale price (from oct 2013) for this place and have an all cash offer. I will let you guys know if anything comes of it.
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Feb 26, 2014 21:51
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Cranbe posted:Sounds like you guys are skirting the "falling in love with it" line dangerously closely. That puts you in a really bad negotiating position. Relax. As you say, there are other houses. Quoting myself to follow up. Inspection took place this morning. Full report forthcoming, but everything seems to be in really great shape, other than some relatively minor stuff (fence repairs; water heater is beyond its projected life, even though it still works; attic could use additional insulation). Might be able to negotiate a slight discount, but the main structural and electrical items seem to be good to great. Now I'm allowing myself to start getting excited.
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Feb 26, 2014 22:23
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notlibber posted:Thanks for the opinions. Yeah im sort of thinking the "whats the worst that could happen". I feel like I understand the tradeoffs pretty well and want to get a condo. Not looking for a deal here, I would pay 5 to maaaaybe 10% over the last sale price (from oct 2013) for this place and have an all cash offer. I will let you guys know if anything comes of it. See if you can get HOA communication (ie emails, board minutes, bylaws) and sit in on a meeting before buying. I was in a condo for 3 years. I'm pretty easy going and not cash strapped so I didn't really mind some of the negatives that come with condo ownership, but I'm glad to be rid of mine. In retrospect, the HOA there was run by incompetent, directionless idiots before I bought and it lead to major headaches for the current members/residents. Headaches I'm glad I don't have to deal with. If an HOA board isn't smart enough to run their meetings at least somewhat in accordance with parliamentarian law run the gently caress away because meetings will take 5 hours and they will never get anything done. e: I would buy a condo again under the right circumstances but here are things I would consider *DO NEVER BUY* red flags: *HOA reserves <6 months operating budget *No HOA reserve study within past 5 years *Litigation within the past 5 years *Incompetent developer if buying newly converted condo *>1% HOA monetary responsibilities *Elevators *Pools, especially very large ones *Excessively old or young median occupant age resident fucked around with this message at 23:26 on Feb 26, 2014 |
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Feb 26, 2014 23:16
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Leperflesh posted:If your offer would be financed, a significant overprice would just wind up getting rejected from the lender after the appraisal came in too low.
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Feb 27, 2014 02:57
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SiGmA_X posted:True - but the appraisal wouldn't come in too low. I've seen a handful of appraisals and remarkably they are all exactly (+-1%) the same as the sale price. Maybe that's because the market demanded that price..? I doubt that strongly though, I think it's done to close the sale. That said, I have seen a few appraisals that are well above sale price.
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Feb 27, 2014 03:12
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It's almost as though the appraisal is a rubber stamp and a half assed walk through. 
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Feb 27, 2014 03:21
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resident posted:See if you can get HOA communication (ie emails, board minutes, bylaws) and sit in on a meeting before buying. I was in a condo for 3 years. I'm pretty easy going and not cash strapped so I didn't really mind some of the negatives that come with condo ownership, but I'm glad to be rid of mine. In retrospect, the HOA there was run by incompetent, directionless idiots before I bought and it lead to major headaches for the current members/residents. Headaches I'm glad I don't have to deal with. If an HOA board isn't smart enough to run their meetings at least somewhat in accordance with parliamentarian law run the gently caress away because meetings will take 5 hours and they will never get anything done. Dang okay. I will check this stuff out for sure if my crazy letter idea works. A strict no elevators policy seems...unfeasible. Rest seems very solid, thanks.
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Feb 27, 2014 04:35
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oxbrain posted:It's almost as though the appraisal is a rubber stamp and a half assed walk through. That they want to charge you several hundred dollars for!
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Feb 27, 2014 04:39
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notlibber posted:Dang okay. I will check this stuff out for sure if my crazy letter idea works. A strict no elevators policy seems...unfeasible. Rest seems very solid, thanks. Just be aware of anything that can be a maintenance headache. An elevator breaking can mean huge repair bills. If it injures or kills someone it can mean an even bigger lawsuit. The place I'm working on buying has several man made ponds with well pumps that are under near constant repair. Just those add ~$25/mo to the dues for everyone. Even with that their total dues are reasonable for the area and they seem to be managing it well. I'd look for something similar with an elevator, just make sure they keep up the maintenance and have an emergency fund for bigger repairs.
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Feb 27, 2014 06:49
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notlibber posted:Dang okay. I will check this stuff out for sure if my crazy letter idea works. A strict no elevators policy seems...unfeasible. Rest seems very solid, thanks. Elevators are not such a big deal in a large enough complex but there were places in Kansas City specifically that probably had around 50 units and a loving ancient elevator. That means you might be on the hook for 2% of a $100k+ expensive if the thing needs to be replaced. At my old condo we had these stupid loving parking lot gates that broke every 4 weeks like clockwork. They were poorly cared for, there were no funds for total replacement, and they didn't even stop our cars from getting broken into once a month. I'd guess old elevators would be a similar money pit. Proper long term care and a reserve study to ensure will be $100k in the bank to replace it in year 20XX means the HOA has its poo poo together enough that it is a non-issue. Reserve studies are critical to avoiding large, unexpected expenses and are indicative of a well run HOA so that is probably the number 1 thing I'd recommend you look for. resident fucked around with this message at 19:51 on Feb 27, 2014 |
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Feb 27, 2014 19:49
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oxbrain posted:It's almost as though the appraisal is a rubber stamp and a half assed walk through. It's almost like that! Except a number of posters have posted in this very thread that they've had an appraisal that came in under their bid. So it does happen. What is supposed to be done is that the appraiser starts with the accepted bid, because that's strong evidence of the market value, but then also should take comps and evaluate whether the accepted bid is way off from those. In a high-volume market it's easy to see if a given price is an aberration or if it's inline with the comps. In a low-volume market, there's much less evidence for the appraiser to use to determine that the accepted price is wrong, so I think they're more likely to go with the accepted bid as the appraised value. But then of course adjust all of the above for state law, the appraiser's personal feelings about house values, and the phase of the moon.
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Feb 27, 2014 20:15
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Leperflesh posted:But then of course adjust all of the above for state law, the appraiser's personal feelings about house values, and the phase of the moon. Is there any harm in introducing your appraiser to your friend Benjamin?
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Feb 27, 2014 20:20
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baquerd posted:Is there any harm in introducing your appraiser to your friend Benjamin? Good lord yes, that would be illegal. My guess is that defrauding your bank with a bogus appraisal is a felony.
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Feb 27, 2014 20:23
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Leperflesh posted:Good lord yes, that would be illegal. My guess is that defrauding your bank with a bogus appraisal is a felony. Yeah, don't do that but do be very nice to the appraiser and offer them water and such. Do not volunteer bad facts about the house.
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Feb 28, 2014 00:37
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