|
Wozbo posted:Dear housing thread: I need me some advice. I enjoy the Radiolab, This American Life and 99% Invisible podcasts. I'm sure they will help pass some of that time on your (hopefully soon to be) much longer drive to work. And enjoy your early retirement.
|
#
?
Oct 11, 2014 15:08
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 30, 2024 18:23 |
|
|
Wozbo posted:Dear housing thread: I need me some advice. My job is 30-45 minutes from my house depending on traffic and my wife's is about an hour. I don't mind the drive at all - I listen to Satellite radio and it gives me time to think about what I'll be doing or whatever. It's also a pretty drive as we're out in the country, but even still, it's really not that bad.
|
|
#
?
Oct 11, 2014 17:53
|
|
|
I had a ~25 minute highway drive into work for a while and it was fine. That's not an hour+ obviously, but it was still a ways for me. Two major points: 1: You'll get used to it pretty quickly 2: Many local libraries offer free access to sites like overdrive.com - audio books are your friend.
|
|
#
?
Oct 11, 2014 19:05
|
|
|
Wozbo posted:Dear housing thread: I need me some advice. This is of course why we advise people who might have a change of job or career not to buy a house. However now that you're in one, I advise you not to sell it, at least not for a year or two so you can see if this new job pans out or not. If you absolutely had to move, you could look into renting out your house and renting in your new location, but the math would have to work out well enough that you'd have substantial extra from the rental income (on top of your mortgage + taxes + interest etc.) for additional maintenance, because renters have a nasty habit of abusing your property and creating additional costs for you. Plus as a rental property you would lose any mortgage interest deduction. So the plan, if I were you: Stay in your home, do the commute, and give it six months. At that point you can decide if the commute is tolerable. If it isn't, you'll have to weigh the options... leaving the new job, or trying to sell the house at a likely loss (due to commissions and other transaction costs), or becoming a landlord and all the expenses and stress that comes with that. Good luck!
|
|
#
?
Oct 11, 2014 20:20
|
|
|
Commuting an hour each way is an entirely different ball game than commuting less than 30 minutes each way. In my experience, 20-30 minutes is exactly the right amount of time that you can call it a commute without going insane. It provides a nice window of time for your mind to sharpen in the morning, and an equally nice window of time to decompress and digest your day on the way home. There is absolutely a demarcation between work and not work provided by the commute. Once you begin to exceed 30 minutes, you begin to have a window of plain old wasted time. And once you hit 60 minutes each way, that's a full extra hour of your day gone over the 30 minute commute. Just gone. Less than 20 minutes, and it's easy to run home at lunch and all that, and you can't even call it a commute in my opinion.
|
|
#
?
Oct 11, 2014 20:50
|
|
|
adorai posted:In my experience, 20-30 minutes is exactly the right amount of time that you can call it a commute without going insane. It provides a nice window of time for your mind to sharpen in the morning, and an equally nice window of time to decompress and digest your day on the way home. My commute has been about 20-30 minutes for 3 years now and this is 100% true. It's not at all bad, especially since I don't work normal days/hours and reverse commute so I almost never have to deal with traffic. Any more than 30 minutes would be too much.
|
|
#
?
Oct 11, 2014 22:10
|
|
|
LARGE THE HEAD posted: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." Yeah, there's definitely a bubble in my area, and I'm eager for the prices to start coming down. Prices here didn't quite crash as badly as other parts of the country, and they've risen about $50k over the 2 years that I've been looking, while I was building a down payment. This is in an area were home prices were around $400k even after the crash for 1200 sqft Basically I think that the prices in my area are going to look something like this but on a several year scale:  It certainly isn't stopping us from looking and making offers, but there's no way that we're accepting the idea of perpetual price growth that we get from some selling agents QuarkJets fucked around with this message at 23:50 on Oct 11, 2014 |
|
#
?
Oct 11, 2014 23:48
|
|
|
QuarkJets posted:Yeah, there's definitely a bubble in my area It's never a sure thing.
|
|
#
?
Oct 12, 2014 00:34
|
|
|
Leperflesh posted:This is of course why we advise people who might have a change of job or career not to buy a house. However now that you're in one, I advise you not to sell it, at least not for a year or two so you can see if this new job pans out or not. Yeah, again not expected, too big to pass up (a whole tier higher in pay, if you get my drift).
|
|
#
?
Oct 12, 2014 01:52
|
|
|
daslog posted:It's never a sure thing. Of course not, which is why we're still making offers and looking at houses, like I said
|
|
#
?
Oct 12, 2014 19:04
|
|
|
Pryor on Fire posted:It's hard to generalize the US, depends on the city. To generalize, I think in cities the housing market is climbing close to the highs of the 2006 era, bolstered by a little bit of new money, immigration, government spending on development districts and others. In the suburbs, there hasn't been as much activity but new construction appears to just now be booming. People want anything but the old poo poo on their lot. I travel to a number of rural areas for my work, and most of those places are still living in 2007. Very little if any recovery, and many of the same signs (increased debt load, etc.) that plagued the lower class in the last recession.
|
|
#
?
Oct 13, 2014 05:54
|
|
|
From the OPmoana posted:Step 2 Dammit internet, you're not helping.
|
|
#
?
Oct 13, 2014 18:24
|
|
|
gvibes posted:From the OP It's not a crime to live below your means. Obviously only buying what you're comfortable with is a prereq.
|
|
#
?
Oct 13, 2014 18:48
|
|
|
gvibes posted:Dammit internet, you're not helping.
|
|
#
?
Oct 13, 2014 18:59
|
|
|
What I considered "affordable" was about half of the amount I was approved for. Heard a story on the radio this morning about multibillion dollar corporations buying up houses across the US in cash over the last few years to rent out. Nice houses foreclosed in nice neighborhoods, thinking the collapse in housing prices and subsequent run-up would lead to increased rents and appreciation of home value. They sold bonds to this effect, but no, it's totally different this time guys! Instead of being backed by sub-prime mortgages, they are being backed by rent income from the same group of consumers who were sub-prime and got foreclosed on. Now they're a little bothered because rents aren't rising at the level they thought they would, especially in markets with an oversaturation of housing (Phoenix).
|
|
#
?
Oct 13, 2014 19:09
|
|
|
gvibes posted:From the OP I checked up real quick and online calculators tell me my wife and I can afford around 2x what we actually paid. There is no way in hell we could do that and still have money for luxuries like saving for retirement, travel or you know - eat food that isn't ramen. If anything I wish that we had bought even cheaper than we did - it would make things like going down to one salary when we have a kid even easier.
|
|
#
?
Oct 13, 2014 19:29
|
|
|
Yeah, online calculations and the mortgage company told us that on my income alone my fiancé and I could do a $250k house. We wound up buying a $100k house and never even looked at anything over $120k. Where our payments are right now is very nice, but I sure as hell wouldn't want to pay twice as much and I honestly don't know if we could afford both that and anything but beans and rice for food. And the miscellaneous expenses that crop up with older homes haven't been such a big deal because we're not putting every last cent towards a mortgage payment.
|
|
#
?
Oct 13, 2014 19:46
|
|
|
I'm glad there are online manuals for programmable thermostats (Honeywell), because apparently I am an idiot and couldn't figure it out on my own \/\/ - Thanks for the recommendation. I've actually been considering a Nest because it seems awesome if expensive. I'm just a bit concerned that it won't work for me - my furnace is brand new (replaced last fall), but the home was built in 1961. ex post facho fucked around with this message at 20:26 on Oct 13, 2014 |
|
#
?
Oct 13, 2014 19:49
|
|
|
a shameful boehner posted:I'm glad there are online manuals for programmable thermostats (Honeywell), because apparently I am an idiot and couldn't figure it out on my own Honeywell's engineers dont seem to give a poo poo about usability. Just get a Nest
|
|
#
?
Oct 13, 2014 19:56
|
|
|
How often do you really need to do poo poo to your thermostat though? I just program the days/times/whatever and leave it. Most of the ones I've used, both Hunter and Honeywell, were simple enough for that. Some older ones can be a pain but if they're that bad just pick up a newer $20 one. I put this Hunter in my old apartment and it worked great: http://www.amazon.com/Hunter-Fan-Co...ermostat+hunter
|
|
#
?
Oct 13, 2014 21:01
|
|
|
adorai posted:Commuting an hour each way is an entirely different ball game than commuting less than 30 minutes each way. In my experience, 20-30 minutes is exactly the right amount of time that you can call it a commute without going insane. It provides a nice window of time for your mind to sharpen in the morning, and an equally nice window of time to decompress and digest your day on the way home. There is absolutely a demarcation between work and not work provided by the commute. Once you begin to exceed 30 minutes, you begin to have a window of plain old wasted time. And once you hit 60 minutes each way, that's a full extra hour of your day gone over the 30 minute commute. Just gone. Less than 20 minutes, and it's easy to run home at lunch and all that, and you can't even call it a commute in my opinion. Really depends on where you live. Around 45 min+ one way for a commute and you will REALLY get bored of it after a shortwhile. You also will be getting oil changes frequent and paying alot in gas. I just bought a new 2014 vehicle, already have 16k miles on it this year along and I bought it in January. My commute is 40 miles one way. Now take everything I said and if you live in a state with frequent snow fall (I live in MN), that commute time can easily double during bad road weather.
|
|
#
?
Oct 13, 2014 21:30
|
|
|
I find that a 40 minute commute in stop-and-go ugly traffic is much more stressful than an hour-long commute on clear open freeways, so there's definitely considerations to make based on just how aggravating your commute traffic turns out to be.
|
|
#
?
Oct 14, 2014 00:27
|
|
|
First tree guy comes by to quote on cutting back some overgrowth in a honey locust tree that's overhanging my roof ($500) and help trim some dieback on a silver maple in the backyard ($650), recommends "deep root" fertilizer. Never mind the roots are exposed. Total cost (with fertilizer) $1,550. I suspect that's high so I get a second opinion from a different company. Second tree guy comes by. Same trees. Total cost (with fertilizer) $1,275. Yuck. I have a recommendation from a neighbor for a guy who came by and removed a tree from their property for $300, but apparently he was just some dude off craigslist. A little different when I don't want the whole tree gone. I really don't want to drop $600 on trimming off dead limbs on a maple tree, but at the same time I want it to live. It's not overhanging my roof like the honey locust is, so I'm tempted to just do the locust ($400) and punt on the silver maple until spring. I would cut the dieback myself but of course both tree trimmers recommend against doing it myself due to risk of killing the tree or introducing infection. It's not risking imminent death to leave it as it is, but I'm tempted to just use the second tree guy's service and have it all taken care of at once. I can afford it, my budget just wouldn't be so happy about it.
|
|
#
?
Oct 14, 2014 00:39
|
|
|
powderific posted:How often do you really need to do poo poo to your thermostat though? I just program the days/times/whatever and leave it. Most of the ones I've used, both Hunter and Honeywell, were simple enough for that. Some older ones can be a pain but if they're that bad just pick up a newer $20 one. I put this Hunter in my old apartment and it worked great: http://www.amazon.com/Hunter-Fan-Co...ermostat+hunter Yeah but then you can't change the temperature from the couch 4 feet away from your thermostat.
|
|
#
?
Oct 14, 2014 03:08
|
|
|
uwaeve posted:Yeah but then you can't change the temperature from the couch 4 feet away from your thermostat.
|
|
#
?
Oct 14, 2014 03:59
|
|
|
SiGmA_X posted:Can't say I've ever wanted to do that with decent central air and a programable thermostat... I bet it's one of those things that sound completely stupid and then you get it and wonder how you ever lived with having to walk those 4 feet to your thermostat.
|
|
#
?
Oct 14, 2014 05:13
|
|
|
The Nest isn't ugly.
|
|
#
?
Oct 14, 2014 06:53
|
|
|
a shameful boehner posted:First tree guy comes by to quote on cutting back some overgrowth in a honey locust tree that's overhanging my roof ($500) and help trim some dieback on a silver maple in the backyard ($650), recommends "deep root" fertilizer. Never mind the roots are exposed. Total cost (with fertilizer) $1,550. I suspect that's high so I get a second opinion from a different company. Rent a pole saw and do it yourself
|
|
#
?
Oct 14, 2014 13:39
|
|
|
a shameful boehner posted:I would cut the dieback myself but of course both tree trimmers recommend against doing it myself due If you think you can do it without hurting yourself, I agree with the poster above.
|
|
#
?
Oct 14, 2014 15:21
|
|
|
DIY! Just make sure you get that black spray stuff from home depot to cover up the cuts on the tree.
|
|
#
?
Oct 14, 2014 16:23
|
|
|
moana posted:DIY! Just make sure you get that black spray stuff from home depot to cover up the cuts on the tree. No don't http://puyallup.wsu.edu/~linda%20chalker-scott/horticultural%20myths_files/Myths/Wound%20sealer.pdf Just look up some videos on YouTube about pruning trees and the 3 cut method. Just be safe and work from the ground only. If you have to use a ladder, you should probably bite the bullet and hire someone.
|
|
#
?
Oct 14, 2014 16:45
|
|
|
Duck and Cover posted:The Nest isn't ugly. Its also a $300 thermostat that doesn't do much more than a $25 5-2 thermostat.
|
|
#
?
Oct 14, 2014 16:53
|
|
|
moana posted:DIY! Just make sure you get that black spray stuff from home depot to cover up the cuts on the tree. Lots of trees and shrubs will heal up wounds pretty quick. If you ever read roundup instructions it says to spray within a minute of a cut to have a chance of getting it. The dead stuff is probably more at risk of infection than cutting it off.
|
|
#
?
Oct 14, 2014 18:10
|
|
|
a shameful boehner posted:recommends "deep root" fertilizer. Never mind the roots are exposed. The thick exposed roots you see are structural, and have more in common with the tree trunk than the nutrient absorbing roots below ground. Your lawn also makes for stiff competition if nutrients are scarce. It's not a fundamentally unsound technique. That said, I gather that it's generally unnecessary. It might help save a sick tree with a severe nutrient problem, but you can keep a healthy tree healthy just by maintaining sufficient nutrients through regular lawn fertilization.
|
|
#
?
Oct 14, 2014 19:08
|
|
|
Economic Sinkhole posted:No don't http://puyallup.wsu.edu/~linda%20chalker-scott/horticultural%20myths_files/Myths/Wound%20sealer.pdf Thanks for the advice, everyone. The silver maple is about 50' high and the honey locust 40', both would require a harness to safely remove the areas that need to be trimmed. There are lower parts that I could cut myself, but I definitely don't want to be climbing up there myself with no experience.
|
|
#
?
Oct 14, 2014 19:38
|
|
|
If you want cheap tree guys, call your insurance agent and make sure you are covered for workers injuring themselves and damage caused by cutting a tree down on to your house, then find some maroon on craigslist for $100 a day. The guy I found turned out to be awesome at cutting down and removing trees. He didn't even steal anything.
|
|
#
?
Oct 14, 2014 20:12
|
|
|
Hey guys, just discovered this thread and wanted to offer my assistance. I'm a Realtor in Ohio. I'm not very comfortable answering specific finance type questions. Maybe some general finance questions. Things I am able to help with are: Negotiating tactics Realtor questions Commission questions or concerns Federal housing laws Ohio real estate laws Condo questions and concerns Frequent home repairs or defects in a home transaction Myths vs facts of real estate That being said, I'm of the opinion that 80% of real estate agents are either terrible at their jobs or terrible people and most of the horror stories you hear about them are probably true. The unfortunate thing is that a lot of people get into the business do it because they either think they can make a ton of money doing it or do it effectively part time. For most people, neither of those things are possible. So, anyways, ask away if you have any questions.
|
|
#
?
Oct 15, 2014 17:03
|
|
|
Feel free to decline to answer this question, and this may be an inappropriate thread for it, but as a realtor how do you feel about the current compensation scheme of realtors? Do you feel a flat percentage based commission is fair for both parties? What would you change if you could? I, as a consumer feel the percentage based fee needs to be changed. I'm not sure to what, but I find it a bit ridiculous. I live in San Antonio, where you can get a crappy house in a not good part of town for 60K, or you can get a fancy mansion for a couple million. I'm sure it's similar in Ohio. A realtor could spend 3 months and dozens of hours trying to sell the 60K house only to gross 1800 on the transaction, and probably pocket less than 600 net after the agency split and taxes. On the other hand you could close a million dollar transaction in 2 weeks to a cash buyer and gross 30K, netting close to 10K for maybe 10 or 12 hours of work. Both scenarios seem extreme to me. I will say I'm negatively biased to the entire housing industry though. Way to many terrible people involved all looking to make a quick buck. My parents have been in residential construction for almost 30 years and I've seen a lot of poo poo. Shady builders, shady mortgage people, shady realtors. The amount of money to be made, combined with the low barrier to entry almost encourages shady poo poo. Please don't take personal offense to these statements, there are some really good people out there, and I'm sure you're one of them, just watching the industry over the last couple of decades has left a sour taste in my mouth. edit: I also want to say, that I do feel realtors provide a necessary service. I'm not saying get rid of them all, I just don't think the compensation lines up properly. In scenario 1, a realtor is working for peanuts, in scenario 2, a realtor basically lucks into a windfall. Neither scenario lines up for what I feel is a reasonable compensation for a realtor. skipdogg fucked around with this message at 17:32 on Oct 15, 2014 |
|
#
?
Oct 15, 2014 17:26
|
|
|
On the other hand, sometimes those multi-million dollar houses really do cost a lot to market and sell (expensive photo shoots, fancy broker's open houses, etc), but I don't know if those hard to sell expensive properties happen more or less often an easy sale. On another thought, my mom is trying to sell her house, and she's using a broker where the fee is negotiable (after the sale I guess?) and because of that no other realtors are showing the house because they don't know how much money they're going to get from it.
|
|
#
?
Oct 15, 2014 17:41
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 30, 2024 18:23 |
|
|
skipdogg posted:Feel free to decline to answer this question, and this may be an inappropriate thread for it, but as a realtor how do you feel about the current compensation scheme of realtors? First off, I don't take offense to anything you said. That is pretty much why I ended my post the way I did. Ask any Realtor about other Realtors and they will be the first to tell you how awful they are. Trust me, whatever your worst experience is with a Realtor, any good Realtor could probably tell you 5 stories worse than that. That being said, you're absolutely right. The lower priced homes require the most work and provide the least amount of pay. And the large homes pretty much sell themselves. Unfortunately, I can't give you a better system off the top of my head. The rich folks in the big houses usually want the best agents selling their homes (not realizing that often times the home sells itself) and the only way to attract those agents is with money. In the end, I think it all kind of evens out. The ease of selling a more expensive home sort of makes up for working so hard to sell the $50,000 home. As for your other point, I think the housing market crash really weeded out a ton of shady real estate agents and other real estate professionals. It's a lot harder to EASILY make money than it was 8 years ago or so. A ton of shady builders have either gone bankrupt or are involved in lawsuits that have scared them straight. Condos are really where the builders got themselves in trouble, but that is a huge can of worms. I want to say something else.....while real estate agents are generally good for home buyers and sellers, many people do not need them. The problem is, the people who don't think they need an agent are often just cheap or cocky and don't do enough homework or have enough knowledge or connections to really justify going without an agent. If you are going to buy or sell without an agent.....call a couple agents anyway and ask for advice. Most of them will pretty much tell you to gently caress off in a nice way, but a good and smart agent will probably give you a ton of free device because they know that the majority of people will not buy or sell a home on their own and they'll want you to refer friends and family to them.
|
|
#
?
Oct 15, 2014 17:49
|
|