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What was the asking price?
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Sep 29, 2014 10:19
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notlibber posted:Coming in 200k under their asking price which hopefully works or god who knows oh god oh god anyhow wish me luck Unless you're buying a house for like $4.8 mil when they're asking for $5 mil, this seems unlikely. Can you tell us more about what's leading to you thinking this offer price has a chance of being accepted?
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Sep 29, 2014 14:23
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QuarkJets posted:Most people at age 26 do not own a home. Most people at age 26 aren't even close to buying a home. According to the Census, the percentage of people aged 25-29 owning a home has never exceeded 41% (in 2006), and has been steadily declining since then. Further to this, the median age in the U.S. for people to buy their first house has hovered from 30-32 for the past few decades. The National Realty Association had this to say about their 2013 edition of an annual survey: "The median age of first-time buyers was 31, unchanged from 2012, and the median income was $67,400. The typical first-time buyer purchased a 1,670 square-foot home costing $170,000..." The 2014 version should be out in a little more than a month, it will probably have a similar finding. That said, Dilbert's estimate for the cost of a first house seems ambitiously low for a lot of markets. Perhaps he is in a market with cheap housing so there are more younger than the median people buying. Or maybe he's going to park his Bimmer in front of a crack den.
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Sep 29, 2014 15:26
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I believe he's close enough to the DC madhouse that yeah, it'd be a crack den.
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Sep 29, 2014 15:46
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Should I prioritize getting to 20% down on my home over any other type of investment? I got in with 5% down, and I'm projected to hit 20% down by...2019? Basically I'm in a position now where I have a decent amount of liquidity and I'm wondering what I should do with my money. Would this be a better question in the investment thread?
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Sep 29, 2014 18:24
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Once you have the loan, you talk about loan-to-value  What is yours right now, i.e. loan balance divided by purchase price? If it's still around 95%, you should either pay it down more or keep plenty of extra cash around, because otherwise you have pretty high risk of getting hosed if you need to sell. It's a balancing act: how long you plan to be in the house, what the market is likely to do, how much cash you have, what your interest rate is, what the alternative investment could earn you, what the PMI is costing you... some of those things you can't really know, so you cover your rear end. At 95% LTV and ~4% interest rate it's probably a good idea to throw extra money at the mortgage instead of the market.
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Sep 29, 2014 18:35
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a shameful boehner posted:Should I prioritize getting to 20% down on my home over any other type of investment? I got in with 5% down, and I'm projected to hit 20% down by...2019? It's a great question, and unfortunately the answer is going to be different for everyone. Firstly, I think almost everyone would say maxing out a 401k to match takes precedence over a 20% down payment. You just can't beat 50-100% guaranteed returns. Investing over-all at least 10-15% of your gross income for retirement by maxing out your Roth and then continuing to contribute to the 401k is also a very good idea because you can't get back those tax advantages. That said, how much is your PMI? When can you cancel your PMI? (~80% LTV typically, but if you have a new FHA loan you have to keep it forever or refinance) Where would you invest your money instead and what sort of ROI do you expect from this? What is your income and how much lee-way do you have on spending? Now things get complicated. You have to take the answers to these questions and figure out the present value of paying $100 towards your mortgage principal versus investing $100. Note that these PV's will likely change depending on the amount you actually do pay off (due primarily to inflation and PMI ending at different points), so you may want to re-run the numbers for different payback scenarios and look at an average, or zero in on an apparent best path using an equation solver. Also, you have to take into consideration equity appreciation and refinancing. If your house value goes up while interest rates do not, it may be a no-brainer to refinance out of the PMI and your PV changes yet again. Good luck and have fun.
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Sep 29, 2014 18:38
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slap me silly posted:Once you have the loan, you talk about loan-to-value Yeah, it's around 95% right now: Loan type: Conventional Note: $228,000 (paid $2880 to date) Rate: 4.375% Plan to be in the house: at least 9 years (I'm in an MCC program  )Cash on hand: $13,000 MI: ~$100/month No plans to move anywhere for a long, long time. I don't know that this is a "forever home", but circumstances would need to change drastically for myself and my to-be wife to consider elsewhere. Family is close, jobs are stable, market is poo poo hot (Denver area). There's been something like an ~8% appreciation in the last year. When I got into the home it appraised $2,000 higher than list. The location is close to schools, a block from a beautiful walking lake and park, a block from a fire station, and 3 blocks from the major arteries into the metro areas. It really is a perfect location in a quiet, established neighborhood. I feel like I got very lucky. I guess the real question is what the alternative investment can earn me, which is where I am not really too sure. ex post facho fucked around with this message at 18:49 on Sep 29, 2014 |
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Sep 29, 2014 18:44
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Weird question: Let's say that a COA has a lien against a condo for dues etc, and the COA forecloses on the owners, so that now the COA owns the deed from the auction, but the owners still have the mortgage because it is the senior loan. Then, let's say the owners stop paying their mortgage and there's foreclosure action brought against them by the bank. If the house goes to foreclosure, then do they take the deed away from the COA and bring it back to auction? What would happen in this case? (The reason being due to research I believe this is the situation happening to the condo I am renting currently, and I'm trying to come up with a strategy for maybe buying it, but don't really want to fight the COA for it.)
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Sep 29, 2014 18:51
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I really think this should be in the OP: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/upshot/buy-rent-calculator.html It's the most comprehensive calculator I've seen, and allows you to take a lot of things into consideration. The default assumptions also seem to be more conservative than not.
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Sep 29, 2014 18:52
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$13k on hand is about the minimum you should have, and if your house is older (say, built in 1970 or earlier?) you should probably have more liquid cash. Hard to say exactly because it depends a lot on your cost of living, but that cash has to serve as both your emergency savings (like for if you lose your job or have a big medical problem not covered by insurance) and as the emergency fund for house issues (like if your heater needs to be replaced, or your sewer line has to be excavated, or your roof needs to be replaced, or you discover termites). Driving towards 80% LTV is how you get to the point where you can eliminate PMI. $100 a month is significant; you should project how many months you'll be paying that before you hit 80% based on your current/minimum regular payments. That'll give you a hard number and then you can decide by how much you want to 'beat' that number by paying your loan down faster, and that'll give you a new/extra payment number and you can decide whether that extra cash amount has too high of an opportunity cost. Don't ignore the possibility of refinancing if your house gains value, though. I just refi'd out of my mortgage insurance, although it cost me over a percent increase in my interest rate. If I own my house for more than about another 16-18 years or so, it will have been a mistake, but we consider this our 'starter home' and are likely to sell in maybe 5-10 years, and in that case, I'll have saved way more on the unpaid mortgage insurance than I spent refinancing and on the higher interest rate. You can't be sure what an alternative investment will earn you. The matching on a 401(k) is just about the only 'sure thing' where it's worth getting, because even a 50% match is basically like earning 50% on that money instantly and that's always going to be great. Beyond that, we can talk about average market returns for various investments but in a short-term projection like over the next 5 years, you just don't know with high enough certainty to make a big bet. Here's one last thing to think about, though. When you retire, you'll need the money in your retirement fund to live on. But will you still own your home? If so, that equity is only available for you to draw against if you are willing to reduce your equity via a HELOC or reverse mortgage or something like that. Or if you will have extra space to take in renters. I think the right approach is to visit the long-term investing and retirement thread and figure out how much you will need to have saved when you retire, and then work backwards and make sure you're putting in enough now to get to where you need to be then. After that, you can see how much is in your budget for accelerating payments on the house, and if there's room there, then go for it.
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Sep 29, 2014 18:58
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Yeah, the home was built in 1961. The roof was replaced last year along with the furnace, water heater, and all appliances except for the refrigerator. I did spend about $800 fixing some leaky galvanized pipes but otherwise the place is beautifully maintained. Again, very very lucky. That's basically why I've been holding on to my $13k, to serve as the emergency savings and house fund, but I guess what's bothering me is that I haven't really begun to map out my long-term retirement savings and planning - I'm turning 30 next month and I really want to start. My company does offer a 401(k) plan but no matching (yet), and otherwise my only other savings is around $1,500 in a long term investment account. On the plus side, I have zero debt, credit or otherwise.
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Sep 29, 2014 19:06
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I will be honest with you: I'm surprised you went ahead and bought a house without doing that first. When you buy and how much you buy for needs to be integrated into that calculus, and it's such a huge amount of money (for most people) that you don't want to accidentally gently caress over your retirement savings by spending too much on a house. But don't worry, just get cracking on your homework. The long-term investment and retirement thread has some recommended reading on the first page, grab a book or two and start crunching the numbers with your fiance. I can tell you from my own experience, even if you're behind where you want to be, just knowing what exactly you need the numbers to get to can be reassuring. You can make a plan for how to get to where you want to be and then execute on that plan.
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Sep 29, 2014 19:12
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This isn't a homebuying question exactly, but doesn't deserve its own thread. I have about a 30 year old townhouse with the original heat pump. I put a new fan in it a few years ago because the original blower finally threw a bearing. Hack paid off nicely. Anyway - I'm thinking about getting a home warranty. I figure if I pay something like $100 - 150 a year for a few years, then that gets me a $3000 heat pump when the exchanger blows up, then cancel the warranty. Problems with that idea? Thoughts on a good company for that? Northern VA.
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Sep 29, 2014 19:52
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pr0k posted:$100 - 150 a year Hrm, did you actually price any warranties? Anyway, you might find that whatever breaks on your heat pump isn't covered, then you're out the full repair cost plus the cost of the warranty - actually that's the most likely outcome. Keep in mind the warranty company is in the business of paying out less than they take in, and they are better at it than you.
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Sep 29, 2014 21:05
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pr0k posted:This isn't a homebuying question exactly, but doesn't deserve its own thread. My limited experience with our home warranty is the people they send out tend to be totally inept and will do the bare minimum to get you up and running then blame the problem on something that isn't covered because they aren't familiar with it.
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Sep 29, 2014 21:39
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We close Friday, woo! Then we get a call from our agent, saying that the sellers are doing final move-out things Thursday and can't do the walkthrough. I'm pissed. These assholes are going to leave the house dirty at the last minute, aren't they?
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Sep 29, 2014 23:05
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Warranty chat: our warranty company kept assigning contractors who didn't have valid contractors' licenses or whose licenses had been revoked by the state. We got so fed up with the run-around that we just hired someone ourselves. We chose not to renew our warranty once the initial year was up.
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Sep 29, 2014 23:13
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wintermuteCF posted:We close Friday, woo! I'm pretty sure our final walkthrough was written into the contract. Browbeat them into it if it was in yours. On a home warranty note, our dishwasher is leaving gobs of water everywhere and is constantly bitching about not having any hot water (via the LCD saying "HO" all the time.) To find out how well our home warranty that came with the house works, I filed a claim with them. We'll see how it pans out. I'm out $85 at worst here, so it's more of an experiment than anything else - we'll just buy a new dishwasher or call a plumber or something if we need to.
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Sep 29, 2014 23:22
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shortspecialbus posted:On a home warranty note, our dishwasher is leaving gobs of water everywhere and is constantly bitching about not having any hot water (via the LCD saying "HO" all the time.) To find out how well our home warranty that came with the house works, I filed a claim with them. We'll see how it pans out. I'm out $85 at worst here, so it's more of an experiment than anything else - we'll just buy a new dishwasher or call a plumber or something if we need to. This is my plan in a few days. The dishwasher works great and cleans everything, but it has stopped changing wash types and is stuck on sanitize. Hoping they just replace it with a similar dw, otherwise they would be replacing the dw door. Thankfully my realtor made the sellers get the premium warranty instead of the basic, so under Dishwasher it says it covers everything. I am still doubtful...
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Sep 29, 2014 23:27
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El Jebus posted:This is my plan in a few days. The dishwasher works great and cleans everything, but it has stopped changing wash types and is stuck on sanitize. Hoping they just replace it with a similar dw, otherwise they would be replacing the dw door. Thankfully my realtor made the sellers get the premium warranty instead of the basic, so under Dishwasher it says it covers everything. I am still doubtful... Ours is a UHP and I think it covers dishwasher. I really am not certain, honestly. I'm not expecting much out of this. I know our sellers were able to get the entire water heater replaced right before we moved in because the fan was making a horrifying noise on the old one, and they specifically asked us to rewrite our contingency for the water heater to allow them to use the home warranty. It works great and was a middle-of-the-road Home Depot model that appears to have been professionally installed or at least installed by someone who knows what the gently caress.
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Sep 29, 2014 23:29
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wintermuteCF posted:We close Friday, woo! See my post up-thread. Got a note from my agent, apparently the renters in there are trying to get out of the house so they can get into the house they've bought, but are having problems with the movers. They have new movers, should be out Wednesday, with a few days for cleanup, walkthrough Sunday, closing Monday. Let's see how well this goes. Hopefully they don't break anything on the way out and I have to push closing to fix poo poo. And the three (empty) fuel oil tanks (I think) in the driveway better be gone too, because I ain't taking over no house with big rear end tanks that I need to figure out how to make disappear.
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Sep 29, 2014 23:37
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It seems like everything checks out on the home I've been looking at and I'm starting to read up on making an offer. The realtor is taking off for a few days of previously-announced vacation time so I'm going to wait until he's back to formally pull the trigger. In the meantime I made up a list of contingencies I want to see in the offer letter, am I missing anything big here? home inspection able to secure finance able to secure insurance final walk-thru - demonstration of working HVAC, water, electric, kitchen appliances title clearance earnest money amount? appraisal closure/possession dates kitchen appliances, hot water heater included & in working order settlement location @ my lawyer's office prorate property taxes to possession date get radon test wood destroying organisms (termite) inspection
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Sep 30, 2014 00:50
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Still waiting on the VA to finalize my paperwork. Was supposed to close last Thursday. God drat is this infuriating
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Sep 30, 2014 03:03
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Panthrax posted:
Hot homebuyer tip: if it's anything metal, the answer is always "free section" on Craigslist. A scrapper will pick that up in a heartbeat.
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Sep 30, 2014 13:39
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If you are already closed then there really is no recourse against the sellers beside litigation for your contaminated fuel tank collection. Scrappers will come get them though as stated. They will also dump them out on your driveway before loading.
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Sep 30, 2014 19:13
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Jastiger posted:Still waiting on the VA to finalize my paperwork. Was supposed to close last Thursday. God drat is this infuriating What's up with this? I'm closing on a VA in about 20 days.
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Sep 30, 2014 23:48
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I'm a homeowner! Closed at 11:30 today, went to the house, and peeled every piece of wallpaper off, felt amazing. Hoping to have all the painting done within the next month, get the floors refinished then move in! Thanks for the great OP!
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Oct 1, 2014 00:54
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always be closing posted:I'm a homeowner! Closed at 11:30 today, went to the house, and peeled every piece of wallpaper off, felt amazing. Hoping to have all the painting done within the next month, get the floors refinished then move in! The house I bought had towels on the wall. 
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Oct 1, 2014 13:50
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Had a pretty good storm go through today and had my first leak  Can't wait to see how much that's gonna cost.
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Oct 2, 2014 00:45
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hallo spacedog posted:Weird question: Well I don't know how it works in every state, but in Indiana the sheriff sale of foreclosures releases all liens except IRS liens which the IRS has 180 days to assert. In your example it is unlikely the mortgage company won't bid its loan fair market value as the opening bid.
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Oct 2, 2014 22:18
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Anyone moved from city to country recently? Trying to get a ballpark estimate for how much more I'd pay throwing in expected maintenance and inspections and other higher costs going from city to rural, so well water, septic, propane and wood stove with similar sized house and use patterns. I know it's pretty variable depending on inefficiencies of various things but trying to get a realistic range from people who have made the leap.
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Oct 4, 2014 15:45
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Previously I owned a home in Broomfield, CO (population around 55k) and now live in the outskirts of Vergennes, VT (population 3k). Here are the biggest changes that I've seen: Water. In CO I paid less $30/m during winter months and $70/m during the summer for the sprinkler system. In VT we have a well (that is still active for outdoor watering) but the previous owners switched to municipal water around ten years ago. We pay $40/m (no sprinkler system). Heating. In CO we used a natural gas furnace and electricity for central AC and the water heater on the same bill. It was between $130-170/m for extreme hot/cold months and around $120/m for all others. In VT we use oil (propane for a fireplace insert). We've only filled once since moving in July so it's hard to know what we're really going to use until fall/winter kicks in earnestly. I pre-paid for 800 gallons of oil and am pre-paying $280/m for ten months (based on how much oil we've used for hot water this summer and a weekend where we used heat, my gut tells me that it will take a full year, possibly longer, to use that much oil). Our electricity was around $120 this summer with window ACs. Lawncare. In CO, I had half an acre, used a push mower, and went through 5 gallons of gas maybe every month and a half. In VT I have around three acres and go through about 5 gallons of gas every couple of weeks. Property taxes. In CO, around $2k/y. In VT, $4k a year.
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Oct 4, 2014 16:20
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That's a great example, thanks for all the details.
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Oct 5, 2014 14:28
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So I bought a house  and it was 3 degrees out yesterday while painting and flooring and the furnace won't light. It's only 4 years old and worked fine during the home inspection 45 days ago. Is the seller responsible at all for not disclosing this? Or am I screwed because I didn't try it on the closing date?e: I'm in Ontario
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Oct 5, 2014 15:15
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Mitchnasty posted:So I bought a house How long have you had the house? Also, this is why people should test/look at everything during closing. It'll probably be difficult to prove that the furnace was broken before you took ownership, and you don't even know that's true.
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Oct 5, 2014 15:27
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WeaselWeaz posted:How long have you had the house? Also, this is why people should test/look at everything during closing. It'll probably be difficult to prove that the furnace was broken before you took ownership, and you don't even know that's true. 5 days.
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Oct 5, 2014 15:31
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Do you have enough fuel for the furnace?
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Oct 5, 2014 16:11
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It was inspected and found working? Sounds like you did your due diligence and just got whacked by the hand of fate. Get somebody out to look at it. What kind of furnace, gas? Hopefully it's a minor thing like needing a new inducer fan.
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Oct 5, 2014 16:30
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Pryor on Fire posted:Anyone moved from city to country recently? Trying to get a ballpark estimate for how much more I'd pay throwing in expected maintenance and inspections and other higher costs going from city to rural, so well water, septic, propane and wood stove with similar sized house and use patterns. I know it's pretty variable depending on inefficiencies of various things but trying to get a realistic range from people who have made the leap. We moved to the country, but I don't have a previous house to compare to. The best advice I have is that if you have LP, buy in bulk in July or so when it's cheap. That way you don't get raped by the winter prices. Find out what the previous people used before you and add a safety margin. The people before us averaged about 700 a year. I bought a thousand in July. Whatever we don't use gets added to next year's amount. It's better to overbuy unless you don't have the cash on hand to do so because running out in January can mean paying $4.50/gal instead of $1.65/gal in July. They'll do multiple deliveries to bring it out. Also if you don't like the prices from the co-op that currently leases your tank (assuming it's a leased tank) call other co-ops. They'll come pull the tank out for free and stick their own tank in I'm told. No penalties really and it can pay off in the long run. For well/septic, just make sure they work and that you clean the septic tank as required. You should be getting an inspection on both before buying. Make sure you test the water for all sorts of stuff including Nitrates. Edit: We tested for nitrates because there's a cornfield nearby as well as a pig farm. You may not need to if you don't have manure runoff to worry about. Fortunately the pig farm is considerably downhill so ours was within the safe range. Last thing for well - If you hear the well pump running all the time, like when you turn the faucet on and 5 seconds later the pump comes on, and you can cycle the faucet and hear the pump cycle, have the pressure checked in the pressure tank. It's almost undoubtedly low in that scenario and it's an easy fix. The pump shouldn't cycle a lot unless you have like 2 tubs and a washer going all at once. Otherwise it should do longer cycles with not a lot of on/off. If that makes sense. I can't comment on wood stove specifically, but ceiling fans and the blower are your friend for circulating single-point heat sources. Edit: Couple more small things - if you buy a new stove (or gas dryer or gas water heater) you need to make sure they're set up properly for propane. Normal gas stoves will give you a hosed up flame and not work properly until they're converted to propane somehow. I don't have details but I know it's a thing you need to make sure about. Probably furnaces too, I dunno. Another thing is because your water isn't chlorinated you have to be a bit more careful about mold, as we discovered to our dismay.  Finally, furry outdoor creatures will want to move in once it starts getting chilly out. As we're also discovering to our dismay but not surprise. Finally Finally, don't forget to eat a lot of peaches. Peaches for free. ssb fucked around with this message at 17:19 on Oct 6, 2014 |
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Oct 6, 2014 16:22
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