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Mitchnasty posted:So I bought a house Pilot light not lighting could be a pretty easy fix at least. Make sure the gas is even turned on to the thing first of all if it's gas. Make sure you are following the lighting instructions exactly. It could be the thermocouple which is like a $50 part maximum. Look at a guide like this: http://homerepair.about.com/od/heatingcoolingrepair/ss/pilot_light.htm
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Oct 6, 2014 19:14
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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?
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Yeah make you the gas is turned on, make sure the thermostat has batteries, make sure the breaker to the furnace is on, and if it is old enough to have the above mentioned thermocouple. make sure the pilot is clean etc and lit. Also make sure the furnace is turned on, I had one with a light switch on it before that you could turn off.
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Oct 6, 2014 19:32
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shortspecialbus posted:Finally, furry outdoor creatures will want to move in once it starts getting chilly out. Also, this applies to your vehicles as well. Well notes: Getting good, city level water pressure and flow rate can be costly (need a stronger pump, pump has to work harder). Also, your well can have limited, slow to refill water capacity. For example, depending on the current water table height, my well bore should have somewhere in the range of 100 to 150 gallons, and after using that I'll be limited to a lower recovery rate (I'm guessing around 10gpm for me, though I haven't tested it). Recovery slows as the well ages, and eventually you'll need to drill a new well to get enough water. How big of a deal this stuff is depends on your location; around here the water table is good so my well will produce a lot of water for a long time, and it will be cheap to replace, but some places it can be a big problem. Also, well water will have some hardness, which can be an added cost if your city water supply comes from surface water (but my well water is actually much softer than the local city water). Also, a power outage means you've only got the water currently in your pressure tank to work with. And rural areas are more likely to experience extended power outages. Septic notes: in the simple cases (crap goes downhill into a leach field) you're probably not looking at a big added cost (might even be a savings). Things can break in expensive ways, or clog and back up sewage into your house, but sewers do this too (there have been numerous posts in this thread about expensive sewer lateral replacements). You have to pay to get the tank pumped occasionally, but you don't have to pay a sewer bill. My system has to pump effluent a hundred feet uphill, which means more components to maintain (I spent about $600 on mine last year figuring out the pump's float switch was flaky), and at the top of the hill is a mound that's only supposed to last about 30 years, and is supposed to cost $15000-$30000 to replace (and I don't think that includes the cost of my landscaping that's going to be destroyed in the process).
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Oct 6, 2014 19:54
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Curious: How do you know when the septic tank needs to get pumped? Is this a "do it every X months" type thing or is there some sort of gauge? I bet it is highly location dependent, but is this a costly service?
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Oct 6, 2014 20:47
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Probably come up 50 times in this thread but mover costs? $125-$150/hr sound pretty typical? Any other hidden fees or other ways movers try to screw you?
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Oct 6, 2014 21:11
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Fancy_Lad posted:Curious: How do you know when the septic tank needs to get pumped? Is this a "do it every X months" type thing or is there some sort of gauge? I already did some looking into this, depends on how big the tank and how many people you have pooping in it every day. As an example: 1,000 gallon tank is pretty common, with two people you can expect to need that pumped every five to six years. From that it sounds you can plan on about 100 pounds of poop sludge per person per year that needs to get pumped. As far as I can tell they do not sell any with gauges or other ways to tell how full they are, (maybe inspectors do this with a scope or something?) so sticking to a schedule and measuring how much gets pumped out seems like what most people do. Good poop chat thread guys. Pryor on Fire fucked around with this message at 21:21 on Oct 6, 2014 |
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Oct 6, 2014 21:15
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Fancy_Lad posted:Curious: How do you know when the septic tank needs to get pumped? Is this a "do it every X months" type thing or is there some sort of gauge? It's do it every X months/years, basically. The guy who pumps your tank can measure how full it is and see if you need it pumped, but if he's already out there and has the lid off the tank, he might as well pump it too (though measuring before pumping can help you know how often it is needed). I'm legally required to have my tank pumped or inspected every two years, even though it shouldn't need it that frequently. I haven't done it yet (though I need to, I'm just about due), but it should cost me around $150.
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Oct 6, 2014 21:28
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Fancy_Lad posted:Curious: How do you know when the septic tank needs to get pumped? Is this a "do it every X months" type thing or is there some sort of gauge? Where I live, Dane County, WI, the county sends you a notice every three years saying you have to have you septic tank pumped and inspected and send them proof, ie the bill, showing this was done. You are free to choose the contractor but the county knows most of the major well and septic companies so it would be hard to spoof them. I just had this done in July and it cost about $250. Some tips to make your septic work: - Do not use ANY antibiotic soaps/cleaners as they will kill the helpful bacteria in the septic system. - Make sure anything you flush down the toilet/drain is septic safe. I had to change toilet paper brands because of this. I was always told to not flush food waste into a septic system if you can avoid it. - Every year or so you may need to treat the system with RID-X or the like. - Don't let bushes/trees grow on your septic field.
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Oct 6, 2014 21:34
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Elephanthead posted:Yeah make you the gas is turned on, make sure the thermostat has batteries, make sure the breaker to the furnace is on, and if it is old enough to have the above mentioned thermocouple. make sure the pilot is clean etc and lit. Also make sure the furnace is turned on, I had one with a light switch on it before that you could turn off. beejay posted:Pilot light not lighting could be a pretty easy fix at least. Make sure the gas is even turned on to the thing first of all if it's gas. Make sure you are following the lighting instructions exactly. It could be the thermocouple which is like a $50 part maximum. Look at a guide like this: http://homerepair.about.com/od/heatingcoolingrepair/ss/pilot_light.htm Thanks for the help guys, I checked all that stuff beforehand and have gone over the furnace with a multimeter and replaced the thermostat (needed a new programmable one anyways) and I think it's the hot surface ignitor. An HVAC technician is coming out tomorrow anyways. 
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Oct 6, 2014 21:35
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My friend just bought a house, and also in some way works in the mortgage industry, so this may be hopeless, but any way I can get him to stop telling me I should buy a house? Mostly my wife and I aren't settled in our lives yet, so we don't know where we want to be. We also have no down payment and more consumer and student loan debt than I'd like. We pay $1000 a month for rent, and my friends house is $800 a month payment I guess, but they got pre-qualified for something like twice as much house. I'm just fine renting right now, but I don't want to hit him with a double whammy of "you've made a financially horrible decision because $800 is your minimum not your maximum and also I may move out of this city" (he's worried about that last one). So, probably hopeless and I'll just have to smile and nod every time he brings it up.
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Oct 6, 2014 21:45
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Pryor on Fire posted:Probably come up 50 times in this thread but mover costs? $125-$150/hr sound pretty typical? Any other hidden fees or other ways movers try to screw you? Wow, I feel lucky. First move this year was at $85 an hour for 2 guys with a truck, second move was $65 for 2 guys with a truck. Bonded/insured/whatever. Just moved my boxes, didn't pack anything, and had a 3hr minimum. This was in socal outside of LA, though.
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Oct 6, 2014 21:46
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FISHMANPET posted:My friend just bought a house, Ask him how much work he had to do on his house this week and tell him how you had free time to post on awesome internet forum BFC.
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Oct 6, 2014 21:48
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Pryor on Fire posted:Probably come up 50 times in this thread but mover costs? $125-$150/hr sound pretty typical? Any other hidden fees or other ways movers try to screw you? The cost of labor is highly variable depending on where you live, so asking how much a mover costs without saying exactly where you are hiring them is fairly pointless. Make sure that your belongings are insured against damage or theft during the move. Also go through your house and take photos of everything. If you are doing your own boxing, number your boxes and make an inventory. If the movers are also boxing your stuff, do them and yourself a favor and go through and throw out all your lovely stuff you would have been throwing out while you pack anyway. And make sure they number the boxes and give you an inventory. Leperflesh fucked around with this message at 21:52 on Oct 6, 2014 |
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Oct 6, 2014 21:49
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Pryor on Fire posted:As far as I can tell they do not sell any with gauges or other ways to tell how full they are, (maybe inspectors do this with a scope or something?) You can measure how full they are by taking the lid off and carefully sticking a special stick in them. Working with septic tanks is dangerous enough that it's not really a DIY task, though. MH Knights posted:- Do not use ANY antibiotic soaps/cleaners as they will kill the helpful bacteria in the septic system. MH Knights posted:- Make sure anything you flush down the toilet/drain is septic safe. I had to change toilet paper brands because of this. I was always told to not flush food waste into a septic system if you can avoid it. Some systems have solids pass through moving parts (like a grinder pump), which makes flushing some things (like condoms) much riskier. MH Knights posted:- Every year or so you may need to treat the system with RID-X or the like. Edit: why does everyone with a septic tank in this thread live in Dane county?
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Oct 6, 2014 22:01
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MH Knights posted:Where I live, Dane County, WI, the county sends you a notice every three years saying you have to have you septic tank pumped and inspected and send them proof, ie the bill, showing this was done. You are free to choose the contractor but the county knows most of the major well and septic companies so it would be hard to spoof them. I just had this done in July and it cost about $250. I, too, am Dane County  I think the 3 years thing is pretty common, or at least some sort of regulation. All of this is good advice, although I'm not so sure about the RID-X as I haven't heard that from anyone else. Maybe if you don't have a very good septic field - ours had the inspector really excited and apparently it's a really good one or something. I've never seen someone so pumped about a septic field. I hadn't known about the toilet paper thing but I looked up the brand we get (Charmin) and they're pretty adamant that it works great in Septic Tanks.
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Oct 6, 2014 22:06
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Great now I know everything about pooping I just need to keep reading about the thousand ways groundwater can get contaminated and kill me through my well. At least I'd be upstream of any agriculture and there's no fracking so I mostly only have to worry about heavy metal poisoning 
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Oct 6, 2014 22:22
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Zhentar posted:You shouldn't be using antibacterial soaps/cleaners in the first place, but they aren't particularly harmful to septic systems. The concentrations are low enough that there's not a big impact. I was going by what my Realtor(R) told me. The guy who built my building, about 1971-ish, cut a some corners so I have always been cautious with my septic system because holy hell I never want to repair/replace it unexpectedly. Just had a $300 bill for replacing my well pump motor ($1200 split between the two buildings/four units that use it) and I have heard costs for septic system work range from  to  .Dane County best county. Oregon/Town of Dunn represent.
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Oct 6, 2014 22:57
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Dane county is full of poo poo.
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Oct 6, 2014 23:09
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Tomorrow is D-Day for putting in an offer on the place I've been checking out for the last month. The owner wants $225k but everything I've seen (comparable homes nearby, current tax assessment, advice from an uncle who has done appraisal work in the past) suggests that $190k is a more realistic price. It's been on the market for about four months despite being in a very desirable neighborhood and they've dropped the price by $10k once already so hopefully reality has sunk in a bit and they'll entertain the lower offer. I'm fairly certain I'll be the first offer they've gotten in that time and since I've done all my prep/research already I can also give them a pretty easy no-hassle sale if they just want to get out of the place. Option B is that they get angry over being confronted with the fact that they aren't going to get their full 2006 buying price out of the thing and they tell me to go to hell. That's fine too, my apartment is comfortable and month-to-month so I'm in no rush. e: I also lived in Dane Co. for 16 years, the poster above me is only correct between November and March of each year.
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Oct 7, 2014 01:14
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MH Knights posted:
Town of Black Earth  Except they shut down our meat market 
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Oct 7, 2014 05:24
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PDP-1 posted:Tomorrow is D-Day for putting in an offer on the place I've been checking out for the last month. The owner wants $225k but everything I've seen (comparable homes nearby, current tax assessment, advice from an uncle who has done appraisal work in the past) suggests that $190k is a more realistic price. If it's been listed for 4 months with no traction, I think they will consider any offer. Put in what you feel as fair knowing they might counter with something higher or not reply at all. Is it sale by owner or through a normal agency? If you have an MLS listing, curious what the agency commission is...
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Oct 7, 2014 18:47
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PDP-1 posted:Tomorrow is D-Day for putting in an offer on the place I've been checking out for the last month. The owner wants $225k but everything I've seen (comparable homes nearby, current tax assessment, advice from an uncle who has done appraisal work in the past) suggests that $190k is a more realistic price. Do you have a real estate agent? If you have a good one, hopefully they can place your lowball offer in such a way that it doesn't insult the seller. It's just business, but sellers can take it very personally when you tell them that their pride and joy isn't worth what they think it is.
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Oct 7, 2014 19:39
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It's also possible that the sellers simply cannot sell for below $X, so don't be shocked if they come back with a plain old "no." But I would still not offer any more than what you think it's worth, and actually coming in $5k below what you think its worth isn't a terrible idea either (because it gives you room to come up a little bit and make the sellers feel like they were able to gain something in negotiation).
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Oct 7, 2014 19:45
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Talked with a friend who is purchasing a basic starter home (1,600 sq. ft./3 bed/2 bath) in a suburban community of ~30,000 people. He and his wife can both afford it, but he told me, "If we didn't do it now, that same house would cost $10,000 more in another six months." So excited for this bubble to burst, y'all.
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Oct 8, 2014 23:04
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In most of the US it's not really a bubble, though. Prices might well go down, but not in a 'popped bubble' sudden kind of way, because credit is still tight and borrowers are not getting liars' loans, balloon mortgages, etc. Unemployment is also slowly falling, not rising, and that was the other thing that triggered the last crisis. The next financial crisis (and are sure to have one eventually) will not look like the last one. That's always the mistake folks make after each big crisis, thinking that the next one will be similar.
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Oct 8, 2014 23:09
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It's hard to generalize the US, depends on the city. Where I live prices have gone up by 20-40% in about two years on houses that haven't been improved at all, and multiple offers above asking price the day it gets listed is very common. And for the first time I've ever seen the prices of condos/townhouses are rising nearly as fast as detached housing, which is unheard of. So yeah the bubble argument could be made. In other cities you can buy poo poo for less than new construction costs still and prices have barely budged from 2009, just depends.
Pryor on Fire fucked around with this message at 20:16 on Oct 9, 2014 |
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Oct 9, 2014 20:14
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Since we closed last year, I keep getting stuff in the mail talking about FHA approved refinancing and stuff. Is there a possibility I could refinance this soon or should I just keep shredding this stuff?
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Oct 10, 2014 16:48
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Check out refinancing with Pentagon Federal. Their rates own. You will have to do more paperwork from your side, since they most likely don't have local offices near you, but it's still well worth it. I'll be going back to them for a 5 year arm in 6 months for my "new" place.
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Oct 10, 2014 16:54
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JPrime posted:Since we closed last year, I keep getting stuff in the mail talking about FHA approved refinancing and stuff. Is there a possibility I could refinance this soon or should I just keep shredding this stuff? We refinanced twice. Both times, we used a broker specializing in FHA mortgages. If you decide not to use a broker, you should at least get multiple quotes from banks that you pick and contact, rather than just some random bank that mails you stuff. We also get mailings constantly and always have done, including some that are apparently based on the original loan from 2009 - a loan that was bought less than three weeks later by Wells Fargo. Pryor on Fire posted:It's hard to generalize the US, depends on the city. Where I live prices have gone up by 20-40% in about two years on houses that haven't been improved at all, and multiple offers above asking price the day it gets listed is very common. And for the first time I've ever seen the prices of condos/townhouses are rising nearly as fast as detached housing, which is unheard of. So yeah the bubble argument could be made. In other cities you can buy poo poo for less than new construction costs still and prices have barely budged from 2009, just depends. Ehhh. Even cities that have seen very rapid rise in prices are generally returning to prices from 2006-8. And while it's clear that many of those prices were unsupportable in 2008, they were unsupportable in large part because they were financed with garbage loans, and in another large part because of rising unemployment. Of course the economy could take another hit, and people could lose their jobs again, and that would put downward pressure on home prices. My argument though is that a "bubble" is more than just an unsustainable rise in prices - it's a situation that can catastrophically 'pop'. I think the likely scenarios that see home prices fall in the near or middle future involve much slower triggering factors, like a rise in unemployment, a decline in demand, an excess amount of new home production (which so far we have not seen signs of), or (most probably) a continuation of the 20-year trend of stagnating real wages. In that kind of scenario I expect prices to fall gradually, rather than losing 20% to 50% in the space of six months. Not a bubble popping, more like Japan's real estate situation throughout the 90s and 2000s.
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Oct 10, 2014 17:22
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dietcokefiend posted:If it's been listed for 4 months with no traction, I think they will consider any offer. Put in what you feel as fair knowing they might counter with something higher or not reply at all. Is it sale by owner or through a normal agency? If you have an MLS listing, curious what the agency commission is... daslog posted:Do you have a real estate agent? If you have a good one, hopefully they can place your lowball offer in such a way that it doesn't insult the seller. It's just business, but sellers can take it very personally when you tell them that their pride and joy isn't worth what they think it is. This is being done through an agent, but it is the seller's agent since I found the place on my own by driving around through a neighborhood I like. I got a lawyer with a real estate specialty looking over stuff from my side, it's probably not really necessary in this case since there aren't any contentious issues with the property but the price was pretty reasonable and I just feel better knowing that a non-conflicted expert thinks that everything is in order. Cheap insurance given the overall cost of a home. Anyway, it was a brutal week at work so I ended up delaying the offer until today. I included a short cover letter to the effect of "I really like this property and would like to place an offer for [15% below asking price]. I have researched the final sale price of comparable homes in the area and believe that this offer is in line with these market values. In addition, I have all the loan/insurance/etc prep work done and no schedule constraints or requests for actions on the part of the seller, so we should have a quick, hassle-free sale if this offer is accepted." Basically I was trying to frame the offer not as a lowball but as a neutral evidence-based market analysis with the conclusion "this is the best you're likely to get from anyone" and then sweeten the deal by basically asking for nothing outside of standard contingencies. Nothing to do now but wait and see how the seller reacts.
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Oct 11, 2014 02:22
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Newbie question alert First-time prospective home buyer here. Met with a realtor today that I really got along with. She has a no-bullshit approach that I think would jive with me. That said, she works for a major corporation (Berkshire Hathaway) and apparently they charge a $349 administration fee, payable at time of sale. Thoughts on this? I haven't signed anything yet, because I wanted to ask the knowledgeable folk here in BFC. If I foolishly left out any information you guys need to know, let me know. (and yes I searched first, maybe I just failed to find this question  )
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Oct 11, 2014 03:29
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Cretin90 posted:Newbie question alert Holy poo poo, so she can collect 3% from the seller (your payment) AND charge you $349? Tell them to gently caress off and find someone else that isn't trying to scam you.
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Oct 11, 2014 03:50
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My agent collects nothing from me when I buy, just the 3% from the seller. You can easily find someone who will not charge you a thing and also polish your shoes if you asked. Charging you a fee is not a no-bullshit approach.
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Oct 11, 2014 04:29
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Manslaughter posted:My agent collects nothing from me when I buy, just the 3% from the seller. You can easily find someone who will not charge you a thing and also polish your shoes if you asked. Charging you a fee is not a no-bullshit approach. It's pretty debatable whether you, as the buyer, are actually paying both agents because you're paying more for the house than you otherwise would, but fees are definitely pretty dumb. I'd agree to a fee if it only applied to properties that were shown pre-MLS listing and there was no exclusivity agreement for the agent other than on those properties.
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Oct 11, 2014 05:02
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dietcokefiend posted:Holy poo poo, so she can collect 3% from the seller (your payment) AND charge you $349? Tell them to gently caress off and find someone else that isn't trying to scam you. Manslaughter posted:My agent collects nothing from me when I buy, just the 3% from the seller. You can easily find someone who will not charge you a thing and also polish your shoes if you asked. Charging you a fee is not a no-bullshit approach. baquerd posted:It's pretty debatable whether you, as the buyer, are actually paying both agents because you're paying more for the house than you otherwise would, but fees are definitely pretty dumb. Interesting point.
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Oct 11, 2014 05:26
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Cretin90 posted:Seems pretty scammy, huh? I will turn her down, I think. Shame, because I liked her. Con artists are likable. If an agent told me that there was a fee I'd tell them to shove it up their arse on the spot. I do treat real estate agents like poo poo because they are arseholes if they gently caress me around in any way. I found all of the agents I dealt with this year to be poo poo and useless as I walked away from a number of deals due to their stupidity.
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Oct 11, 2014 09:39
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Long time reader, first time poster. This poo poo is intense, we've picked out block of land we want to build on, and found the house we want to build on it along with a builder who will do it, now it's just nailbiting times waiting on the bank to agree to lend us some money. On the other hand, it's loving scary being on the edge of being $400k (but it's AUD and house prices here are loving bullshit to start with) in debt.
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Oct 11, 2014 10:56
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Cretin90 posted:Seems pretty scammy, huh? I will turn her down, I think. Shame, because I liked her. Tell her you like her but you aren't willing to pay the extra fee. Realtor fees are always negotiable.
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Oct 11, 2014 12:44
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Dear housing thread: I need me some advice. The long and short of it: just got a new job with a ridiculously huge raise. And it's one hour+ away from my house (that I bought a year and a half ago). The raise is enough to blast away commute costs and even have me retire at not 50+, but I've only been in the current house for a year and unless there's another bubble that I sell at the top of, its gonna be a wash or a short while. Simply put, it was an unplanned "in" an ex coworker who thought highly of me helped me get. I'm guessing I just need some advice. I'm not counting eggs or anything but I kind of want a plan to go on if this job looks to shake out to be on the longer term (and from what I see, I really hope it is). Basic help?
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Oct 11, 2014 13:09
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Got a surprise $810 check in the mail yesterday for Flood Insurance rebate due to the HFIAA signed back in March. I can finally say this with a straight face: Thanks Obama!
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Oct 11, 2014 14:26
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