|
couldcareless posted:I just want to chime in and say I hate all you people that don't need to have flood insurance. I wish my monthly escrow was sub $500 Yeah, I have to get an elevation certificate just so I can get a quote. Something something 100 year flood in the Coachella Valley.
|
#
?
Jul 31, 2014 23:21
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 31, 2024 21:10 |
|
|
 Insurance goon here! Floods are the most common disaster people suffer from! If everyone bought flood, the total cost would go down, down, down.
|
|
#
?
Jul 31, 2014 23:27
|
|
|
Leperflesh posted:You could just not buy a house in a flood plain? I live in New Orleans, that is unavoidable. And please don't start with the "lol well why do you live there in the first place" crap.
|
|
#
?
Jul 31, 2014 23:52
|
|
|
couldcareless posted:I live in New Orleans, that is unavoidable. And please don't start with the "lol well why do you live there in the first place" crap. I'm not. "LOL California is going to fall into the ocean" is the analogous idiotic statement applied to my own home state. What I am saying is, you are bearing the costs associated with where you live, just like everyone else. If you're arguing that insurance based on regional hazards should be nonprofit (run by the government?) or mandatory or whatever, I'm right there with you. But just being jealous of people who don't live with the same local hazards as you do seems nonsensical to me.
|
|
#
?
Jul 31, 2014 23:58
|
|
|
skipdogg posted:To be fair I live in Texas where this is no state income tax, but we do pay higher property taxes to compensate. I moved from texas and would rather have state income tax. I'll take 1% income tax over a property tax that would be on par of 8% income tax.
|
|
#
?
Aug 1, 2014 01:25
|
|
|
Jastiger posted:
I'll buy flood insurance when it doesn't fund Fema giving out $500k command vehicles across the country, pay out for other disasters that don't pay into it (tornados), and isn't basically a reset on a loan and actual insurance. It seems better to buy a lovely house and self insure instead of a nice house in flood insurance.
|
|
#
?
Aug 1, 2014 01:27
|
|
|
Christobevii3 posted:I'll buy flood insurance when it doesn't fund Fema giving out $500k command vehicles across the country, pay out for other disasters that don't pay into it (tornados), and isn't basically a reset on a loan and actual insurance. It seems better to buy a lovely house and self insure instead of a nice house in flood insurance. I don't think that's how it works actually.
|
|
#
?
Aug 1, 2014 01:44
|
|
|
And yeah the above guy is exactly right about more people buying in. The other big thing is that communites are given a score on a scale of 1-10 based on how 'compliant' they are with NFIP regulations (sufficient flood plains, minimal violation properties) as what your neighbor is building is going to have a direct effect on how high floodwaters get on your property. The higher the score, the lower everyone's rates are in a given community.
|
|
#
?
Aug 1, 2014 01:48
|
|
|
couldcareless posted:I just want to chime in and say I hate all you people that don't need to have flood insurance. I wish my monthly escrow was sub $500
|
|
#
?
Aug 1, 2014 02:02
|
|
|
Christobevii3 posted:I'll buy flood insurance when it doesn't fund Fema giving out $500k command vehicles across the country, pay out for other disasters that don't pay into it (tornados), and isn't basically a reset on a loan and actual insurance. It seems better to buy a lovely house and self insure instead of a nice house in flood insurance. Yes, the Federal Emergency Management Agency should stop helping the victims of other natural disasters, gently caress those tornado victims they don't pay flood insurance so they shouldn't get help. No seriously though, what are you talking about?
|
|
#
?
Aug 1, 2014 02:06
|
|
|
Like, yeah, fema is a giant ATM machine, but NFIP is woefully underfunded after Katrina and lol if you think that NFIP dollars are doing anything except paying off the 18 billion in debt it's in and paying out claims. It is funny though that the NFIP is under Homeland Security.
|
|
#
?
Aug 1, 2014 02:16
|
|
|
An email came in.  http://www.redfin.com/CA/Corona/14061-Vernal-Springs-Ct-92880/home/6607294 I think I'll pass on this one Redfin, but thanks. It was a marijuana grow house that caught fire FCKGW fucked around with this message at 02:51 on Aug 1, 2014 |
|
#
?
Aug 1, 2014 02:46
|
|
|
FCKGW posted:An email came in. You testing missiles out here or something?
|
|
#
?
Aug 1, 2014 02:53
|
|
|
Christobevii3 posted:I moved from texas and would rather have state income tax. I'll take 1% income tax over a property tax that would be on par of 8% income tax. I don't mind it. I ran the numbers against Arizona and Kansas, two former states I lived in and I come out ahead here in Texas. You have to keep your housing reasonable though. I can't imagine having a 300K house and paying almost 8K a year in property taxes.
|
|
#
?
Aug 1, 2014 05:30
|
|
|
FCKGW posted:An email came in. Great fixer upper! Former owner was a gardener, and it shows! If you buy that house, you may get to meet some interesting strangers. Brother in law bought a house in Virginia, and got these North African dudes knocking on the door at all hours of day and night and then looking really confused to see that he was living there. Months later they found a garbage bag of khat in the attic. Sounds like the guy who lived there beforehand was a lot of fun, is what I'm saying.
|
|
#
?
Aug 1, 2014 05:56
|
|
|
FCKGW posted:An email came in. Some realtor thinks they're funny as hell for pricing it at $420k.
|
|
#
?
Aug 1, 2014 18:08
|
|
|
Four thousand square feet. My wife and I have been binging (to a ridiculous degree) on home shopping/renovating/property brothers/home search international/etc shows on that one home buying channel. A lot of the episodes are interesting, just to see different choices in remodeling, interior design, the kinds of weird priorities some buyers have (like "must not be split level, because I don't want to come in the front door and have to choose which part of the house to go to that really stresses me out!"), and the horrible things they find behind the drywall. Some of them are just infuriating though. Last night we watched an episode with this young couple in (I think) Georgia. They were shopping for a $500k house, they had a toddler, and they were turning their noses up at 4000 square foot homes because the family room (which was bigger than any living room in any house I've ever lived in) just "was way too small" for her toddler to have room to play in. My house is under 1200 square feet, it has three bedrooms and two baths, and it's easily big enough for a family of four+. Makes me lose my poo poo when some mega-entitled fucks are just certain that their 2-year-old needs 1000 square feet of family room or there won't be enough room for their loving toys.
|
|
#
?
Aug 1, 2014 18:18
|
|
|
Sold my old house today! I walked away with 12k not including the 8k Obummer gave me when I bought it when it was in foreclosure. Thank god I bought into that neighborhood as well.
|
|
#
?
Aug 1, 2014 18:32
|
|
|
Leperflesh posted:Four thousand square feet. Yeah, some of the people on those shows are legit worthy of getting stabbed by the host or whatever realtor they're working with. Got my hard loan approval yesterday, gonna forward my list of demands to the sellers tonight.
|
|
#
?
Aug 1, 2014 19:06
|
|
|
So it isn't possible to take out a bigger mortgage to finance upgrades in the house, you either have to have it in cash or get a second equity loan, right?
|
|
#
?
Aug 1, 2014 19:53
|
|
|
I would like to thank the previous owner for using clear non-paintable caulk to seal some crown molding in my family room, and then proceeding to finger paint it all over the place 18 inches further down the wall. At least now I know that when I sell I should spell REDRUM in the master bedroom with the same stuff so I in turn can become the hated Previous Owner. And I would like to thank Zinsser Bin for being the only thing that contained that stuff after a day and half of trying everything.
|
|
#
?
Aug 1, 2014 20:02
|
|
|
Jastiger posted:So it isn't possible to take out a bigger mortgage to finance upgrades in the house, you either have to have it in cash or get a second equity loan, right? It is. There are special fixer-upper loans for just this sort of thing. I believe they typically involve the bank being careful about the cost of your fixing up and ensuring that the real estate's value goes up by at least the cost of the up-fixing.
|
|
#
?
Aug 1, 2014 20:08
|
|
|
Leperflesh posted:Four thousand square feet. I grew up in a 5k foot house, it was absurd. My parents bought it in the mid 80's after a housing crash for around $100k, and it was a fairly run down house in a dying city (over an hour from Boston without rush hour traffic). It had been originally built by a factory owner for his daughter to throw parties after WW1, so the entire first floor had I think 16 doors to the outside. The master bedroom also had a buzzer that connected directly to the servant quarters in the attic, which ended my plan of moving up there back in high school after a week. My sister had already claimed the basement, which had been remodeled in the 60's with shag carpeting... on the floor and walls and ceiling and a remarkably lovely bar. There were only four of us in that monstrosity, and it was way too drat large, impossible to clean and had a list of needed home repairs that never ever shrank. My parents each grew up in large families in tiny apartments, so I can understand where that dream came from, but I'm now very happy in a 1500 sq. ft ranch. And if you want a show that is nothing but rich people bitching about not having enough house, watch Love it or List it and probably start posting in one of the LF spinoffs a lot demanding communism now.
|
|
#
?
Aug 1, 2014 20:21
|
|
|
Leperflesh posted:Four thousand square feet. My house is 4200 sq. ft. I didn't even want a house that big, we needed a 5 bed and were looking at around 2500-3000 but that one was bank owned and had all out features in our budget (and was the only one who accepted our offer). You really don't realize how much more work a house that large is. There's a lot more to vacuum, a lot more to clean. A lot of furniture you feel like you have to buy to fill up all this open space you have now. Heating and cooling costs are insane, especially of you have an open floor plan. We have essentially two families in here so it's nice to have the room but I often feel like it's too much house at times. I like that they gave the random square carpeted area special names like formal living room, formal dining room and bonus room to make everything seem fancier.
|
|
#
?
Aug 1, 2014 20:27
|
|
|
Kalli posted:And if you want a show that is nothing but rich people bitching about not having enough house, watch Love it or List it and probably start posting in one of the LF spinoffs a lot demanding communism now. Yeah I saw one episode of that. The one I saw wasn't too bad, but it might have been atypical. FCKGW posted:You really don't realize how much more work a house that large is. Oh sure, no doubt, but you're not going to get much sympathy from me. I mean some, if you've got two whole families living there, but it's really hard to feel sorry for people with these kinds of first world problems. Especially when they paid $600k for it. If you can afford a $600k house you can afford a cleaning service too.
|
|
#
?
Aug 1, 2014 20:44
|
|
|
Leperflesh posted:Oh sure, no doubt, but you're not going to get much sympathy from me. I mean some, if you've got two whole families living there, but it's really hard to feel sorry for people with these kinds of first world problems. Especially when they paid $600k for it. If you can afford a $600k house you can afford a cleaning service too. See also: you can buy literal castles and fancy historic chateau estates for way less than you'd think. Part of the enormous cost of ownership is taxes and maintenance. For me it's fun to see what size an upper-middle class home from the early 20th century looks like compared to today. Two bathrooms, small bedrooms, and smaller in every single way than the enormous homes built today for the same demographic.
|
|
#
?
Aug 1, 2014 21:25
|
|
|
You don't even have to go that far back. Pretty much all the houses from the post-war 1950s era when the middle class grew to its largest ever, everyone had money to spend, and we were all living the American Dream unless you were black, houses (like mine) were around 1200 square feet or so. I suppose the silver lining to all these 4000 square foot tract homes being built like poo poo is that by the time cleaning and maintaining a 4000 square foot house goes out of style, the houses themselves will have collapsed and we can just go back to building reasonable sized buildings on the same lots.
|
|
#
?
Aug 1, 2014 21:58
|
|
|
Leperflesh posted:I suppose the silver lining to all these 4000 square foot tract homes being built like poo poo is that by the time cleaning and maintaining a 4000 square foot house goes out of style, the houses themselves will have collapsed and we can just go back to building reasonable sized buildings on the same lots. I really do think a lot of the newer suburban neighborhoods are going to look like inner city neighborhoods in the not too distant future. The houses are just so shittily built that any lack of maintenance is going to ruin them and then there will be empty lots and boarded up houses all over. Leperflesh posted:Yeah I saw one episode of that. The one I saw wasn't too bad, but it might have been atypical. It's literally the exact same thing every show. One person wants to move, the other doesn't. They both make lists of requirements to stay/what they need in a new house. For entertainment purposes there's no contingent budget for things that go wrong and then the person that wants to move cries because "x" has to get cut from the list of things they want. Repeat this for every single episode.
|
|
#
?
Aug 1, 2014 23:33
|
|
|
Do they make zero turn ride on vacuums for houses over 5000 square feet?
|
|
#
?
Aug 2, 2014 00:17
|
|
|
Christobevii3 posted:Do they make zero turn ride on vacuums for houses over 5000 square feet? No, they just expect you to buy 10 Roombas.
|
|
#
?
Aug 2, 2014 00:26
|
|
|
Christobevii3 posted:Do they make zero turn ride on vacuums for houses over 5000 square feet? Sort of, but it depends on who is riding
|
|
#
?
Aug 2, 2014 00:37
|
|
|
Christobevii3 posted:Do they make zero turn ride on vacuums for houses over 5000 square feet? Who gives a poo poo how the maid gets her job done?
|
|
#
?
Aug 2, 2014 01:28
|
|
|
Bah declined our offer for the house. It looks like if she accepted our offer they would have to put money up to break even. So...they are going to change the carpet and hold an open house in hopes of getting an offer. I think that is ridiculous. If you're going to lose money, it doesn't matter if its in the sale price or if you spend it on cheap lovely carpet, you STILL lose. Should have took our offer and not deal with even more home expenses. Oh well, their loss. The search continues.
|
|
#
?
Aug 2, 2014 04:24
|
|
|
Kalli posted:And if you want a show that is nothing but rich people bitching about not having enough house, watch Love it or List it and probably start posting in one of the LF spinoffs a lot demanding communism now. The one that gets me screaming at the TV at the gym is House Hunters International. "Well yeah it's a 6 bedroom 5 bath house that's part of a literal estate and the back door opens on a white sand beach the color of pure cocaine with a view of the sun setting over the ocean for $20,000, BUT I WANTED A THREE CAR GARAGE AND IT ONLY HAS TWO." Fortunately my fellow gym-goers tolerate me shrieking "FUCCCCCK YOOOOOOOOOOOOOU" Though I must admit I enjoy it when the foreign real estate agents are exactly like our own. "I know you said you wanted a house on the beach for $100,000, but this apartment in the busiest part of town that's miles away from the beach for $200,000 is pretty great!  "
Dr. Kyle Farnsworth fucked around with this message at 05:51 on Aug 2, 2014 |
|
#
?
Aug 2, 2014 05:49
|
|
|
House Hunters starts filming the episode when the buyers already have a house under contract, then they try to find two other houses that they can pretend they were also looking at. It's got as much real drama as, say, Unwrapped. Still, the renovation shows do good jobs of showing you how nothing behind the wall is what you expect, so that's good. I handled my home renovation process way better having seen so many people royally mess things up by buying older homes at their upper budget limit.
|
|
#
?
Aug 2, 2014 07:48
|
|
|
I've only seen maybe five house hunters internationals but none of them have been particularly bad so far. Some ladies moving to paris to start a business doing planned parties was good (even though their business idea makes no sense to bring to loving paris of all places); some dude and his wife moving to the beach in mexico was good (they seemed like really chill nice people and they stayed inside a very reasonable budget); a couple moving in together for the first time in Greenland was really weird but interesting to see what housing in greenland is like; and a couple of "where are they now" retrospective episodes where they catch up with people from seasons past (that I never saw) which was OK. What annoys me the most about all of these shows is how they stretch them out, actually. A recap after every drat commercial break, there's so much repeated footage. If you cut all that out (and the commercials) there'd only be 15 minutes of show. Some of the reno shows are bleh and some are great. I like it the most when the buyer starts making tons of changes and eventually the reno guys are like "look you are killing the budget and the schedule here loving stop it" (except nicer) and the couple is like oh, yeah good point. The best ones are the ones done on a real budget, like buying a 120k house and spending 25k on reno. There's some couple in Waco Texas who have a show where they do renos together and it's really cute (they have chickens!) and they're all pretty low budget since Waco Texas is a cheap as hell shithole. Also: that show about the guy that builds treehouses is great, watch that.
|
|
#
?
Aug 2, 2014 07:57
|
|
|
My favorite part about Love it or List it is how the designer lady is always surprised that the entire budget gets spent on bringing the basement up to code on every single episode. Edit: That reminds me, I'm supposed to be setting tile, not goofing off on the internet.
|
|
#
?
Aug 2, 2014 18:27
|
|
|
Our offer on a foreclosure has just been accepted, and the real estate agent sent us a short list of home inspectors. What's the probability that she's in cahoots with them? Should we go with another agency? It's a relatively small community (~100k people), so there aren't a lot of options. Running a Google search for "home inspector" in this area basically pulls up the names that she recommended Help me house buying thread, I'm scared of getting a home inspector who intentionally ignores some hard to find major problem and causes us to pass the contingency period 
|
|
#
?
Aug 2, 2014 19:56
|
|
|
QuarkJets posted:Our offer on a foreclosure has just been accepted, and the real estate agent sent us a short list of home inspectors. What's the probability that she's in cahoots with them? Should we go with another agency? It's a relatively small community (~100k people), so there aren't a lot of options. Running a Google search for "home inspector" in this area basically pulls up the names that she recommended The primary concern is that it's in the buyer's agent's personal interest that the house have no major problems that could sink the purchase, because then she'd have to start over looking at houses with you, potentially doubling her total work for the same final commission. It would of course be unethical for her to collude with inspectors to fail to mention problems with the house. On the other hand, she might well know that certain inspectors just tend to be a little less thorough. You will have to decide how much you trust her. Of course if she's simply giving you a list of all of the inspectors in your area, that's not much of a direct recommendation. One option is to contact several and have them send you example inspection reports, but they'll probably choose to send you their very best ones and not necessarily what would be "typical" of their work. Your best option is if you have someone you know who bought a house, used a particular inspector, and that inspector found every problem with their house (that is, two years later they haven't found anything the inspector didn't catch). Ideally it should be older construction rather than newer. If you don't know anyone like that, you may have to just check review sites and go with your gut.
|
|
#
?
Aug 2, 2014 20:08
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 31, 2024 21:10 |
|
|
QuarkJets posted:Our offer on a foreclosure has just been accepted, and the real estate agent sent us a short list of home inspectors. What's the probability that she's in cahoots with them? Should we go with another agency? It's a relatively small community (~100k people), so there aren't a lot of options. Running a Google search for "home inspector" in this area basically pulls up the names that she recommended http://www.independentinspectors.org may help. If you pick one and your agent says not to use him, you've made the right choice.
|
|
#
?
Aug 2, 2014 23:54
|
|