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I don't think anyone has said that buying with less than 20% down is a recipe for instant hair on fire failure. Just that it's a bad idea that exposes you to a domain of risks and that if you can't establish the saving habit to have 20% down, then you probably also don't have the savings habits to cover the additional liabilities that come with a home, or the financial literacy to actually determine if owning a home or renting is more economically advantageous to your particular situation.
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Feb 24, 2016 18:38
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Sperg Victorious posted:Assume someone is buying a $300k home. The difference in monthly payments between 10% and 20% down (4% interest, 1.25% PMI, 1.25% tax, .35% insurance) is $284 a month (the difference isn't very much once PMI goes away). The difference in interest over thirty years is about $21.5k. Nobody said anything about "financial tailspin", we're talking about what one feels is a comfortable emergency fund. In your example, the difference in down payment is $30k. That's a lot of money, even if you're good at saving and earn a good income. That's the difference between maybe a $10k emergency fund leftover and a $40k emergency fund leftover. While the prior fund would be totally reasonable for a lot of people, others might prefer having the much larger fund, in case poo poo really hits the fan. Not having 20% + closing + emergency funds on-hand is not necessarily a sign of a person being unable to save, in a lot of cases it's likely the result of someone wanting to buy now rather than in a few years. Financially this is riskier than waiting, everyone agrees with that, but if the person understands that and is able to handle the difference in monthly payment then it's fine
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Feb 24, 2016 19:54
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Can we hear some more anecdotes about expensive things unexpectedly needing replacement, bad neighbors, infestations, etc? That's what I come to this thread to see!
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Feb 24, 2016 20:23
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Thesaurus posted:Can we hear some more anecdotes about expensive things unexpectedly needing replacement, bad neighbors, infestations, etc? That's what I come to this thread to see! Here's one about why you always, always, always pay the $500 for a thorough inspection: We recently found what looked like a great house in a fantastic area. It was right in line with our budget. The house had recently been renovated, and we knew it had been foreclosed on about a year ago. When we viewed the house, we were blown away - granite, copper sinks, real hardwood flooring, a goddamn atrium, huge back yard, a game/billiard room, etc. It was crazy and superficially the house looked immaculate. The disclosure statement indicated absolutely zero problems: no foundation work, no termites, etc etc. We made an offer, contingent on inspection, and the seller jumped on it. A week later, we got the inspection report and a partial list of issues were:
That's only the things I can remember off of the top of my head. So, the moral of the story is to always spend $500 so that you don't waste $225,000.
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Feb 24, 2016 20:43
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-S- posted:Here's one about why you always, always, always pay the $500 for a thorough inspection: Let me guess, it sold a week later?
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Feb 24, 2016 20:54
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SpartanIV posted:Let me guess, it sold a week later? The Seller's realtor forced him to re-disclose (and was pissed as poo poo), so nope it's still sitting there.
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Feb 24, 2016 21:01
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Thesaurus posted:Can we hear some more anecdotes about expensive things unexpectedly needing replacement, bad neighbors, infestations, etc? That's what I come to this thread to see! Had a realtor selling his own house, but there had been one or two backups on the sewer. Just wanted to get it checked out. Turns out there was a blockage in the pipe, possibly roots. But the spot was right under ab bunch of big bushes and a tree, 6-7 feet deep and dropping down. Naturally, he said to hell with it. Sewer was working. It'll probably stop up again, but who knows when. And I know he didn't disclose it. Another one was technically an HOA problem, but the fees at this one small neighborhood, less than 15 homes, were under $40 a month. Until there was a leak on their water main, which was oversized, buried under the power, phones, and gas lines 7 feet deep. Had to bring out the big track hoe and a vac truck. Then due to the location of the leak, the HOA was on the hook for a new driveway and had to put the landscaping back together. No idea what the new fee was after that repair. Another HOA one was a leak somewhere in the neighborhood. One master meter for the neighborhood, and people paid by square footage of their home. Water bill had gone up to $30+k a month. Leak was on a service line to a home, so technically a home owners problem. But the way the home owner saw it, was they were already paying $500+ a month on the HOA fee, which wasn't going to go down even after the repair, and now the HOA wanted them to spend $800+ to repair or replace the line. Hoge owner wouldn't do it and dragged their feet, don't know what eventually happened.
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Feb 24, 2016 21:50
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Water line busted in bathroom, flooded downstairs. Luckily, we got most of the water out and there was no substantial damage besides the carpet, which needed to be replaced anyways. Was like $3500 for the plumbing repairs and carpet. Then we had a copper water line bust under the driveway. We're able to get that fit with a new sleeve without digging the concrete up. About $1,500. Then, a tree root went through a sewage line causing backups. That was as another $1,500. All in all, not too bad for 3 years.
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Feb 24, 2016 22:43
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Thesaurus posted:Can we hear some more anecdotes about expensive things unexpectedly needing replacement, bad neighbors, infestations, etc? That's what I come to this thread to see! 2-3 months after we moved into our house we opened a lesser-used cabinet in the kitchen and were confronted with a a massive, wet, black mold spot. The shower that shares a wall with the kitchen had been leaking into it the whole time we lived there, and it had been spotless when we first moved in. The kitchen was newly remodeled, and I suspect they knew but just pulled the old cabinet out and put a new one in its place. Spent $60 to have the home warranty company send a plumber, who determined it was the shower pan leaking, which was not covered by the warranty. I do not know what the estimate would have been to only replace the pan, because they would have had to rip up the entire tiled-floor pan + about a foot up the tiled walls to properly replace it, and we had no idea where to find new tile that would match the existing pattern. So we blew about $3k to rip out the entire shower, move the wall it shared with the (too big) closet because "while we're at it, let's do this too", and rebuilt a new spacious shower. I was hoping to go at least 6 months without a big project, but houses don't care! Our sellers disclosure also told us that the 25-year-old house had absolutely no known problems, had no previous work done, nothing, totally perfect. We started getting bills in the mail for termite treatment because the previous owners never forwarded their mail NOR cancelled their termite service. Thanks for the free 3 months of termite prevention you assholes! Now I'm terrified that there's something termite-eaten somewhere we don't know about and the house will fall down while we sleep. Damn Bananas fucked around with this message at 23:06 on Feb 24, 2016 |
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Feb 24, 2016 23:03
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Um, I would go after them for failure to disclose because they clearly knew of a problem....
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Feb 24, 2016 23:36
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A few months after I moved in, the septic alarm started going off (which means the tank is filling up, and I can put 100 or so gallons down the drain before I start getting sewage in my basement). I called out a septic guy. Turned out he wasn't the right kind of septic guy to fix it, but he poked at it a bit and my septic pump kicked on, bringing the effluent level back down. 8 months later, the septic alarm goes off again. I call the right kind of septic guy. And then second one... and finally a fourth one that actually returns my call. Comes out the next day, pulls out my septic pump, but can't find anything wrong (and one of the guys gets a 120v shock because it wasn't correctly wired into a breaker); the pump activates again. Four days, the septic alarm trips yet again. Fortunately, I learned enough from watching the guys working to get out my multimeter and diagnosed it as a failing float switch; called them out again and they replaced the switch. All told, $500, and it would have been more if I weren't able to fix the breaker wiring myself. Then a couple weeks after that, a very heavy rain washed out part of my driveway. Combined with a sealcoating, $1500.
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Feb 24, 2016 23:36
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No Butt Stuff posted:Um, I would go after them for failure to disclose because they clearly knew of a problem.... Not necessarily; in many termite-prone areas getting a monthly preventative treatment is pretty normal even if you've never had damage.
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Feb 24, 2016 23:55
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Thesaurus posted:Can we hear some more anecdotes about expensive things unexpectedly needing replacement, bad neighbors, infestations, etc? That's what I come to this thread to see! I might have a couple from the first month of ownership. Before moving in, quite a bit of the place needed to be repainted since the previous owner burned a ton of candles. Since I had a bit of time before needing to move in, I decided to have the popcorn ceiling removed, and select rooms painted to deal with some stains. Some rooms had popcorn ceiling, but the walls were fine, so I decided to not have them painted. When the painters went to remove their blue tape that protected the walls from the ceiling, it ripped off a ton of wall paint in the rooms that were not painted. The painters have never seen anything like it, and believe that the drywall was never primed when it was initially painted, causing poor adhesion. For the moment, they "matched" the existing colors and touched up the paint, but it doesn't look great, and I have no idea what to do about the "missing" primer since throwing a new coat of paint over the old won't really address that. I was surprised to see someone replaced a telephone jack with a Cat 5 Ethernet jack, and wired up the phone wires to it. I have no idea how its supposed to work for either phone or network service. The deck has a nice privacy fence on one side to shield from the two story house next door. I happened to notice one section of the fence starting to fall down. Turns out it was attached with one nail driven at an odd angle, and the wood shrank enough to come off the nail. I've currently got a handful of heavy duty zip ties holding it together until I can figure out a better solution in spring. Apparently one of my neighbors down the block has nothing better to do than ask the HOA for stupid stuff (apparently now wants a tree ripped out of the common area near her place and replaced with a different kind of tree). One two blocks down in the other direction is likely to get his house taken from him for continued failure to pay some HOA fines from like 6 years ago.
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Feb 25, 2016 00:38
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Thesaurus posted:Can we hear some more anecdotes about expensive things unexpectedly needing replacement, bad neighbors, infestations, etc? That's what I come to this thread to see! Moved in to a new place in September knowing I would need to replace the roof in a year or two but wasn't expecting to have the furnace maintenance guy show me a giant crack in the heat exchanger and disable the furnace telling me not to turn it back on if I wasn't a big fan of CO poisoning. That was a quick $5k so that I could get the heat back on. Put some legs back on the ancient water heater at least by shoving a new dip tube in there (to replace the "tube" that was corroded to the point that it was just the nozzle screwed into the top of the tank) so that was a cheaper fix. Neighbors have been pretty nonexistent so far and the only infestation has been some ants so I'm still calling this a win so far. I'll be back with the real horror stories later I imagine.
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Feb 25, 2016 01:22
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Brigdh posted:I was surprised to see someone replaced a telephone jack with a Cat 5 Ethernet jack, and wired up the phone wires to it. I have no idea how its supposed to work for either phone or network service.
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Feb 25, 2016 02:00
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QuarkJets posted:Not necessarily; in many termite-prone areas getting a monthly preventative treatment is pretty normal even if you've never had damage. Yeah my parents get it done every 2 months and they've never had an infestation in their 2003-built home.
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Feb 25, 2016 02:47
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Those were some excellent horror stories, thank you! Infestations, flooding, mold, broken appliances, bizarre and expensive/recurring problems... the whole package. Now I'm wondering what the hell a septic alarm is and how I even know the tank's location? Edit: my superficial research has revealed that I don't have or need a septic tank. Hooray for municipal sewage treatment systems! Thesaurus fucked around with this message at 06:03 on Feb 25, 2016 |
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Feb 25, 2016 05:53
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Why do people even plant trees with deep root systems near sewer lines? It's not like the issue isn't foreseeable, and the initial landscaping was probably done by the builders, who obviously know where the sewer main is.
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Feb 25, 2016 06:15
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Our house lost a few shingles during a recent wind storm. The roof is supposed to be of the "20-year" variety and was built a little less than 20 years ago. Luckily we got a roofer out to look at the damage and the estimate for repair is very cheap, so I'm happy about that, but it does remind me that I'll probably have to pay for a new roof in the near future. And the old wood fence is falling apart, the boards are all rotting from the inside, someone threw a coat of paint over the front and back as a temporary fix We've really got to get someone out to look at the AC too, it's been working fine but the thing's ancient and I don't want it to crap out in the middle of summer And I keep seeing carpenter ants outside in the early evening, who the gently caress knows where the nests are I just don't want them inside the house what if they're already in the walls wrecking poo poo 
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Feb 25, 2016 08:49
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Konstantin posted:Why do people even plant trees with deep root systems near sewer lines? It's not like the issue isn't foreseeable, and the initial landscaping was probably done by the builders, who obviously know where the sewer main is. Actually the subdivision landscaping subcontractor probably has no idea where the sewer lines were buried 6 months before his crew ever set foot on the site, and wouldn't give a single poo poo even if he did. His job is to make the houses look good for the next maybe one or two years, and that's it. After that, every house has sold and everyone got their money. e. There's a ~100 foot sycamore, a riparian, water-seeking, non-native tree, planted directly on top of my ceramic sewer line, in California, and both tree and line have likely been there since the house was built in 1958, judging by all the other similar-sized sycamores in my development. I have the root ball cleared out annually for $180. I'm m not sure which would cost more: trenchless replacement of 150 feet of sewer, or removal of this very large tree, but I'm pretending I won't have to do either one. Leperflesh fucked around with this message at 09:11 on Feb 25, 2016 |
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Feb 25, 2016 09:05
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QuarkJets posted:
What if indeed:   I started scratching at an oddly lumpy bit of paint on the window sill, only to discover more and more the further I ripped things out. Previous owners just puttied over the rotted out poo poo and painted it to hide the infestation, full disclosure my rear end. Wound up partially reframing the wall, and installing new windows, trim, and finicky cement fiber siding. Luckily my dad had some old banned termite poison sitting in the garage, so I just slathered it all inside the wall cavity. Either there's a big hole in the ozone layer above my house or I've got cancer brewing in my lungs, but at least there's no more buggers happily chewing away in there.
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Feb 25, 2016 13:19
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Counterpoint: I bought my house almost 4 years ago, and the only thing that needed to be replaced was the roof, which was accounted for in the bid. Then late last year, a major hail-storm came through our town and half the homes in our area got a new roof covered 100% by insurance  They also covered a wall of siding, new fascia, new gutters, and deck re-staining. I was amazed that insurance didn't try to deny anything, but I guess they don't play that game when the state declares an emergency.Pray for devastating hail, I guess is what I'm saying. (I'm sure my insurance will go up, but still...) lapse fucked around with this message at 15:49 on Feb 25, 2016 |
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Feb 25, 2016 15:44
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Thesaurus posted:Can we hear some more anecdotes about expensive things unexpectedly needing replacement, bad neighbors, infestations, etc? That's what I come to this thread to see! We lived in the last house we owned for about 8 years, with relatively few problems besides occasional A/C maintenance and a roof replacement, because of age. The year before we sold the house we got a water bill one month that was over $700, when the usual monthly amount was $20 or less. We called to complain that they must have made a mistake and they said "maybe you have a leak you don't know about, that's what the meter is reading". So I go out to the meter at the street and it's spinning like a motherfucker, counting gallons per minute even though we aren't running any water in the house and no sign of a leak anywhere. After further investigation, we found a slightly soggy section of our front yard (house was about 75' from the road/meter) and called a plumber. Sure enough, the water main to the house had sprung a leak in the front yard but all of the water was staying underground and we had no idea this was happening. The lovely builder used thin, sprinkler-grade PVC instead of the thicker version they were supposed to use, and after 15 years it finally broke (we were second owners of the property). He easily fixed the line for us, total cost of service call was only like $75. Since this happened over halfway through the next utility billing period, we received a bill the following month for over $300 for water. It went back to normal monthly amount after that. tl;dr: unknown water line break cost us over $1k before we knew anything was wrong. do never buy.
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Feb 25, 2016 17:40
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The City of Chicago will proactively call you if you start racking up a ridiculous water bill and tell you to go searching for a leak.
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Feb 25, 2016 18:59
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My water district does, as well, any time they catch the meter running 24 hours straight.
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Feb 25, 2016 19:01
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Yeah, this was rural North Florida, so I'm surprised they even had the technology to remotely monitor my water usage, less actually notify me if something was up within the last billing period.
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Feb 25, 2016 19:07
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QuarkJets posted:Our house lost a few shingles during a recent wind storm. The roof is supposed to be of the "20-year" variety and was built a little less than 20 years ago. Luckily we got a roofer out to look at the damage and the estimate for repair is very cheap, so I'm happy about that, but it does remind me that I'll probably have to pay for a new roof in the near future. Does your insurance not cover a new roof or repair at this point? I mentioned this a while back, but in the Denver area you're guaranteed to get a bad hail storm at least every few years. Most houses get a new roof and gutters through their insurance way before it would otherwise need replacement. I haven't heard of anyone paying out of pocket for a roof around here.
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Feb 25, 2016 19:30
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Thesaurus posted:Does your insurance not cover a new roof or repair at this point? We asked, and they said that they'd cover the repair if we just sent them a quote. But the quote was like $150 for the entire job which is below our deductible We don't get hail here, just the occasional tropical storm or hurricane. QuarkJets fucked around with this message at 20:14 on Feb 25, 2016 |
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Feb 25, 2016 20:10
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Dealing with contractors and service people is amazing, they are more flakey than 19 year olds on Tinder. Hey I have thousands of dollars I want to give you for painting, why are four separate people just never showing up to do the work then falling off the face of the planet please I have money take it from me.
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Feb 25, 2016 20:28
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Pryor on Fire posted:Dealing with contractors and service people is amazing, they are more flakey than 19 year olds on Tinder. Hey I have thousands of dollars I want to give you for painting, why are four separate people just never showing up to do the work then falling off the face of the planet please I have money take it from me. Someone told me they had their house painted and wrote a check for $3k. The painters never cashed or deposited it. 5 years later they never did
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Feb 25, 2016 20:43
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canyoneer posted:Someone told me they had their house painted and wrote a check for $3k. The painters never cashed or deposited it. 5 years later they never did That person was probably required by state law to deposit that money into the unclaimed fund account the state holds so the state could get the cash in 7 years. Rat them out for the 10% whistle-blower fee.
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Feb 25, 2016 21:05
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Leperflesh posted:Actually the subdivision landscaping subcontractor probably has no idea where the sewer lines were buried 6 months before his crew ever set foot on the site, and wouldn't give a single poo poo even if he did. His job is to make the houses look good for the next maybe one or two years, and that's it. After that, every house has sold and everyone got their money. You could probably save some money and use rootx on your line. If you have an outside clean out, the application is pretty easy. Pour the root x down, run some water so it'll foam up, then just let it sit. Celador posted:Since this happened over halfway through the next utility billing period, we received a bill the following month for over $300 for water. It went back to normal monthly amount after that. You should have at least gotten a credit for the sewer portion of the bill.
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Feb 25, 2016 21:11
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Pryor on Fire posted:Dealing with contractors and service people is amazing, they are more flakey than 19 year olds on Tinder. Hey I have thousands of dollars I want to give you for painting, why are four separate people just never showing up to do the work then falling off the face of the planet please I have money take it from me. This blew my mind when I encountered it. I never knew it was so hard to give people money! e: For example, my fridge went out. I had a repair guy come look at it. Said it was the LV board & a panel. He'd order them and come install them. WEEKS go by of my wife and I living out of a cooler. I keep calling the guy and he keeps saying he's waiting on the parts. I finally get to googling, and it turns out my fridge model was known for the issue, and the issue was NOT the LV board, but the HV board. So, I ordered an HV board off of Amazon for $300, installed it, and voila!, the fridge worked flawlessly. I never heard back from the repair guy (I never called him to tell him I had fixed it or anything, nor that he had misdiagnosed it). I mean, in this case I'm glad b/c apparently he was a moron, but dang, man, I was going to just give you money. big trivia FAIL fucked around with this message at 21:29 on Feb 25, 2016 |
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Feb 25, 2016 21:25
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Do I even bother with a house that had a literal former meth lab in its basement, then was gutted down to the studs and restored by a professional restoration company? Apparently tomorrow it'll be certified to be "clean" again. The house itself was laid out well, nice yard, on a quiet cul-de-sac, the restoration/renovation appeared to be done well walking around it, yada yada.... e: I should never think about this house again, right? Please tell my house-searching brain this is a dumb house. 
Frinkahedron fucked around with this message at 01:10 on Feb 26, 2016 |
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Feb 26, 2016 01:01
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Sperg Victorious posted:You should have at least gotten a credit for the sewer portion of the bill. The leak was in our yard and the water just went into the ground, that's why we never knew it was happening.
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Feb 26, 2016 01:10
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Celador posted:The leak was in our yard and the water just went into the ground, that's why we never knew it was happening. I had a water main leak in my (rental) house and I was able to show a bill from the plumber to the town to get a portion of the bill credited back.
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Feb 26, 2016 01:11
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I had a lead paint test done over nine months ago and wrote the guy a check for $150. It's never been cashed... They were going to send me a report documenting the results and of course never did, but the guy showed me the results as he scanned everything, so I learned what I needed to know free of charge. I would be suspicious of the flaky contractor's lead free findings if it weren't for a positive reading on a single board in the garage.
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Feb 26, 2016 01:13
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Frinkahedron posted:I had a water main leak in my (rental) house and I was able to show a bill from the plumber to the town to get a portion of the bill credited back. Yeah but we're talking about :florida: Sperg Victorious posted:You could probably save some money and use rootx on your line. If you have an outside clean out, the application is pretty easy. Pour the root x down, run some water so it'll foam up, then just let it sit. I didn't imagine such a thing even existed, so thanks! I do have a cleanout and I will look into this.
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Feb 26, 2016 01:17
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Frinkahedron posted:I had a water main leak in my (rental) house and I was able to show a bill from the plumber to the town to get a portion of the bill credited back. It was on my side of the meter so it was my responsibility. Believe me I tried to fight it. And, like Leperflesh said: Florida.
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Feb 26, 2016 01:26
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Frinkahedron posted:Do I even bother with a house that had a literal former meth lab in its basement, then was gutted down to the studs and restored by a professional restoration company? Apparently tomorrow it'll be certified to be "clean" again. I would stay away, but if you do investigate make sure you get a big big discount and have a very thorough inspection. There will likely be lots of deferred maintenance.
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Feb 26, 2016 01:33
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