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Growing out of cracks I assume.
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May 14, 2015 17:16
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They're holding the house up. I think they were placed there intentionally.
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May 14, 2015 17:16
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That sounds exciting. Post pictures!
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May 14, 2015 17:18
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You're in luck. 
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May 14, 2015 17:32
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So did you buy the house without inspecting it....or?
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May 14, 2015 17:46
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Of course I had it inspected.
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May 14, 2015 17:46
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By a lumberjack?
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May 14, 2015 18:07
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Sellers came back and said they wanted to do a credit for the repairs. They originally only wanted to offer $1500, but it sounds like some of the masonry work will eat up a good chunk of that so I'm going to see if they'll up it to $2000. Looks like everything should be set to close on time at the end of the month.
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May 14, 2015 18:25
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You guuuys, wood is made from trees. You know that, right? If you use a piece of tree that is reasonably straight, dry, and at least the dimensions of the piece of cut lumber that would have gone there, it's fine. It's literally just extra wood.
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May 14, 2015 18:25
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The heartwood is the best wood. Those log timbers will outlast the cheap pine sawdust they glue together to make modern engineered lumber. You think you can do a better job then God making wood?
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May 14, 2015 18:54
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the littlest prince posted:By a lumberjack? they've been there holding the house up since 1900. I'm sure they'll last a little while longer.
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May 14, 2015 18:55
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Citizen Tayne posted:they've been there holding the house up since 1900. I'm sure they'll last a little while longer. lol
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May 14, 2015 19:18
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Citizen Tayne posted:What's the rule of thumb for affordability as a multiple of your yearly gross income? Multiples of gross income don't take into account current interest rates. Getting a 30-year mortgage on a $200k house at 3.5% costs the same as a 30-year mortgage on a $110k house at 9.0%.
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May 14, 2015 22:51
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I probably just did a dumb thing. Our lender seemed convinced that interest rates are rising (extremely slowly) so we just locked in an interest rate of 3.875 for 60 days. Naturally this costs like $1000 more than a 45 day lock, but our closing is in 60 days, not 45. So the alternative was to wait 2 weeks and potentially suffer a slightly higher interest rate, but there's always the chance that it could go down, too. All of the charts that I've seen look like we're at historic lows, and there has been the tiniest uptick between this month and last month, so who knows
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May 15, 2015 02:49
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I think the good rule of thumb is no one has a clue as to what interest rates are doing. That was just your lender trying to squeeze that extra lock fee out of you.
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May 15, 2015 03:17
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QuarkJets posted:I probably just did a dumb thing. Our lender seemed convinced that interest rates are rising (extremely slowly) so we just locked in an interest rate of 3.875 for 60 days. Naturally this costs like $1000 more than a 45 day lock, but our closing is in 60 days, not 45. So the alternative was to wait 2 weeks and potentially suffer a slightly higher interest rate, but there's always the chance that it could go down, too. All of the charts that I've seen look like we're at historic lows, and there has been the tiniest uptick between this month and last month, so who knows Sorry to hear man. That's not an amazing rate in today's market, can you get out of it? Also how many lenders have you talked to?
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May 15, 2015 03:24
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QuarkJets posted:Our lender seemed convinced that interest rates are rising (extremely slowly) Do not take this sort of advice from the party that benefits financially from it. Even if rates go up by an eighth, how many years will it take to get that thousand dollars back? Do the math, I bet it's a lot of years. (I'd do it for you but I'd need to know the size of the loan, obviously.)
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May 15, 2015 03:31
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Leperflesh posted:Do not take this sort of advice from the party that benefits financially from it. Even if rates go up by an eighth, how many years will it take to get that thousand dollars back?
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May 15, 2015 04:22
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Looks like the radon test came back showing elevated levels (about twice the EPA's recommended maximum). A cursory search says mitigation solutions run about $600-$2000 depending on the size of the house. Does that sound about right?
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May 15, 2015 14:38
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psydude posted:Looks like the radon test came back showing elevated levels (about twice the EPA's recommended maximum). A cursory search says mitigation solutions run about $600-$2000 depending on the size of the house. Does that sound about right? Yes. I think for our last house the system cost $1200, and for this one is was around $1000. Depends on where you are I guess.
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May 15, 2015 15:20
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swenblack posted:It's ~$25/month per $200,000 borrowed. So around 3-4 years if it's around the national median. Definitely worth it if rates actually go up, but they've been stuck at this level for 3.5 years. Rates fluctuate by 1/4 of a point on an almost daily basis, so while it's probably not the optimal decision, paying $1k to lock in at near unprecedented historical lows isn't necessarily bad. Yeah and we're talking about a $600k purchase anyway, I'm feeling better about this. Buying a house is expensive it turns out
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May 15, 2015 17:55
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Oh. That's a Jumbo loan, too, right? I have no experience with those, do rate locks affect both loans, do you get the same rate for both? Actually given housing prices these days, it'd be cool if someone could do a writeup of Jumbo loans and what the key important details are about them.
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May 15, 2015 17:58
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QuarkJets posted:Yeah and we're talking about a $600k purchase anyway, I'm feeling better about this. Buying a house is expensive it turns out Does your house have trees in the basement?
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May 15, 2015 17:59
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Citizen Tayne posted:Does your house have trees in the basement? No. It has PV. That's sort of like a tree, isn't it?
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May 15, 2015 18:03
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I don't know what PV is.
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May 15, 2015 18:20
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Peter Venkman. Ghostbuster.
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May 15, 2015 18:55
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Citizen Tayne posted:I don't know what PV is. Photovoltaic, it has solar panels. Not as many panels as I'd like, but it's a significant reduction in the monthly electric bill, so that counts for something. Unfortunately it also means one more thing to inspect, which isn't cheap (you basically need a specialized electrician, so it's like its own class of inspection) but still worth it I feel
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May 15, 2015 18:57
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The PV would be on the roof, then, or outside somewhere. I don't think you have PV cells in your basement. Unless you're storing them there...
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May 15, 2015 19:09
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Leperflesh posted:The PV would be on the roof, then, or outside somewhere. I don't think you have PV cells in your basement. Unless you're storing them there... Maybe they live in the southern hemisphere.
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May 15, 2015 19:40
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psydude posted:Looks like the radon test came back showing elevated levels (about twice the EPA's recommended maximum). A cursory search says mitigation solutions run about $600-$2000 depending on the size of the house. Does that sound about right? I've heard about a thousand myself, but I've only been looking at tiny houses. Our test also just came back with 8 picocuries per whatever. One person I told this to laughed and said to open a window - but I'm not about to pass on an opportunity to get more money from the seller.
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May 15, 2015 19:41
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Leperflesh posted:The PV would be on the roof, then, or outside somewhere. I don't think you have PV cells in your basement. Unless you're storing them there... Yes, they're on the roof. I guess I was assuming that the trees growing in the basement of that one house had to come out somewhere and weren't just completely contained in the basement
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May 15, 2015 23:44
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QuarkJets posted:Yes, they're on the roof. I guess I was assuming that the trees growing in the basement of that one house had to come out somewhere and weren't just completely contained in the basement Citizen Tayne posted:You're in luck. You must have missed the photo. They're not growing, they're dead trees. You know: just like all wood houses.
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May 16, 2015 01:19
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Weird, anyone have experience with old permits that are still open? Articles seem to indicate that the seller should insist that any open permits be closed and in most cases this can be done in less than 2 months if started early enough. In our case, it looks like a final passing inspection was filed, maybe that will help to expedite the process? The weirdest part is that the open permit is on the main structure, from back when the house was first built and owned by some real estate company 20 years ago. And there have been a number of improvements successfully installed and permitted by other owners since then. So apparently it hasn't been an issue for previous lenders or the county permitting office, but I'd be worried about potentially having an insurance claim denied on the grounds of an open permit should something seriously bad happen (this might be a slim chance, but no point in risking it I'm guessing; but I have no idea) In any case, we've got plenty of time to pester the seller and kill the deal if they're unwilling to do anything about it QuarkJets fucked around with this message at 10:22 on May 16, 2015 |
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May 16, 2015 10:16
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Have you called the permitting office? My normal action is checking permits on a house before looking at it, and usually I'll see a few items listed on houses that have done work. In some cases one or two might be listed as open, but if you look down the list or the detailed info some are canceled and a new one superseded it. You'd really need to call them to see what all is going on since some of that info might not be fully available.
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May 16, 2015 13:22
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Hahaha, due to a typo in the listing the listed square footage is about 30 sqft smaller than the actual square footage. gently caress. I don't even know how to begin approaching thisdietcokefiend posted:Have you called the permitting office? My normal action is checking permits on a house before looking at it, and usually I'll see a few items listed on houses that have done work. In some cases one or two might be listed as open, but if you look down the list or the detailed info some are canceled and a new one superseded it. You'd really need to call them to see what all is going on since some of that info might not be fully available. Sounds like the permit is in fact open, but the selling agent has had experience in getting this kind of thing closed, so they're willing to just do whatever needs to be done to fix it. That's a relief at least
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May 17, 2015 09:32
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QuarkJets posted:Hahaha, due to a typo in the listing the listed square footage is about 30 sqft smaller than the actual square footage. gently caress. I don't even know how to begin approaching this Normally I'd say no big deal, but was this a problem because the listing agent rounding up every single room measurement? Or was it even worse where they went 5 feet up on width and length in like one particular room? If I were looking at a 2000-3000 sq ft house and it was an overall problem not really an issue. If it was all in say the master bedroom, someone is in trouble.
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May 17, 2015 13:06
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dietcokefiend posted:Normally I'd say no big deal, but was this a problem because the listing agent rounding up every single room measurement? Or was it even worse where they went 5 feet up on width and length in like one particular room? It was a typo, the ones and tens digits got swapped. Like if you were to type 30 instead of 03. The house is roughly 1500 sqft, so it's not a huge difference in square footage at least. Should I ask for some sort of closing credit? I usually use $/sqft when evaluating whether I want to submit an offer. Based on the tax records (so as to only evaluate the house, and not house + land), we're looking at a difference of thousands of dollars. Maybe ask for half the difference, since it seems like an innocent mistake?
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May 17, 2015 20:13
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When shopping around for home insurance are they any "gotchas" that I should be looking out for? Any things I absolutely must have on the policy?
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May 17, 2015 20:20
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Jose Cuervo posted:When shopping around for home insurance are they any "gotchas" that I should be looking out for? Any things I absolutely must have on the policy? There is a separate ask/tell thread on insurance with some really good information. There usually aren't tons of surprises since most major insurance providers can offer similar coverage, but there are a lot of variables. It comes down to knowing what coverage you want, and know what you are paying for so you can compare apples to apples when comparing policies. It usually helps to actually read the policies (which a lot of people don't do) since it only takes 15 minutes and you'll be paying a lot of money on insurance over the long haul.
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May 17, 2015 21:13
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| # ? May 14, 2024 22:28 |
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QuarkJets posted:Should I ask for some sort of closing credit? I usually use $/sqft when evaluating whether I want to submit an offer. Based on the tax records (so as to only evaluate the house, and not house + land), we're looking at a difference of thousands of dollars. Maybe ask for half the difference, since it seems like an innocent mistake? If I were the seller, I probably wouldn't give in, but it can't hurt to ask. You saw the house and inspected it, right? And saw a bunch of other houses? You understood the actual size of the house you were buying, there's just a numbers difference.
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May 17, 2015 21:52
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