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What does meth do to a house that results in them getting insta-condemned? When I hear "rebuilt down to the studs" it's hard to think of what could still be an issue.
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Feb 26, 2016 01:38
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^^^ literally will poison you slowly: http://www.methinyourhouse.com/are-you-about-to-buy-a-meth-house-important-signs-to-look-for.html#.Vs-irHQrKjkantiga posted: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. Yeah our realtor pointed out that the roof was probably on its last few years and that the windows probably need to be replaced. It does have brand new appliances, new heat pump and exchanger, literally everything inside is new. But ya know, former meth house.... Looks like the owner was renting it out and a tenant was the one who was making the stuff, got caught last February and it just went on the market today, so not a quick turnaround job at least. My realtor said the asking price was about what he thought was right, but that was before he asked the sellers about why the whole house had been renovated.
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Feb 26, 2016 01:55
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I would at least look into that "professional renovation company" (all companies are "professional") and if it's been around for less than, say, ten+ years, that's a huge warning sign. Because contractors who do poo poo work or get sued can just dissolve the company and make a new company with the same people in it and carry on. e. And check if the house was actually decontaminated, vs just the interior being stripped? If you think the work was done right, then what is the remaining worry? Maybe just wait a month and if it's still on the market, come in with a way-under-market bid. "Was a meth house" is presumably on their disclosures and may scare a lot of people away. Leperflesh fucked around with this message at 02:06 on Feb 26, 2016 |
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Feb 26, 2016 02:04
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Celador posted:It was on my side of the meter so it was my responsibility. Believe me I tried to fight it. Shouldn't matter, since it doesn't go down the drain and get processed at the sewage plant, you get credit for it. That's a fairly normal thing. And sewer, at least where I'm at, is close to 2/3rds of the bill.
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Feb 26, 2016 02:07
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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. Even if everything was fixed to be better than a similar house you will never be able to sell it for as much in the future. Realistically it will still need more work. I wouldn't even consider it unless it is substantially discounted.
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Feb 26, 2016 02:10
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Yeah, I think that one is going on the backburner ( ) to see if it's still there in a month. Thanks, thread of reason.
Frinkahedron fucked around with this message at 02:32 on Feb 26, 2016 |
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Feb 26, 2016 02:28
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When you start looking at the costs of buying vs renting (and there are tons of tools that will do this for you online), one of the first things you'll notice is that if there is no appreciation in the property value you are almost always better off renting, even looking at 10+ years of ownership in really high rent places this is usually true. If real estate values don't go up at least a little bit you're almost always losing money as an owner. This is why affordable housing is largely a bad idea: it's a feel good gesture that actually hurts the people it is trying to help because there are strict restrictions on sale prices. At first it's great, you're a homeowner, yay! wonderful!, but when you want to move or sell you suddenly realize you have half the equity that everyone not in affordable housing has because of these price controls, and then you realize you have paid much more money to maintain the property and stay an owner than if you had just rented instead. It's also why you should avoid a meth house, it's just not going to appreciate along with everything else in the community because of that history, no matter how much you dump money into renovations because the demand just won't be there. Even if you plan on staying there until you die and don't care about resale at all you're probably better off renting and investing the extra money instead. Pryor on Fire fucked around with this message at 02:41 on Feb 26, 2016 |
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Feb 26, 2016 02:32
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Dunno how realistic or how much of an issue this is, but anyone that googles your address in the future is probably going to see "Meth House raided by DEA" or something like that, number one result. Like, I literally spent hours over the course of several weeks dealing with Home Depot in person, on the phone, over email trying to figure out why my credit card kept erroring out every time I went to check out online. I woulda bought elsewhere at that point, but nobody else had wavy cement fiber siding, so I kept pressing for an answer. Finally got it resolved, and the lady on the phone let slip that the address for my (new) house was blacklisted in their system because the previous owners bought something and did a chargeback or something scammy along those lines. Hours of my life, wasted, because of a black mark on my address that I had nothing to do with.
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Feb 26, 2016 03:10
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Sperg Victorious posted:Shouldn't matter, since it doesn't go down the drain and get processed at the sewage plant, you get credit for it. That's a fairly normal thing. And sewer, at least where I'm at, is close to 2/3rds of the bill. The house had a septic tank. Sewer bill = $0.
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Feb 26, 2016 07:59
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Pretty sure my sewer cost is part of the ad velorum items on my property taxes and is not in any way linked to my water bill or usage.
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Feb 26, 2016 08:25
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Pryor on Fire posted:When you start looking at the costs of buying vs renting (and there are tons of tools that will do this for you online), one of the first things you'll notice is that if there is no appreciation in the property value you are almost always better off renting, even looking at 10+ years of ownership in really high rent places this is usually true. If real estate values don't go up at least a little bit you're almost always losing money as an owner. I think it's important to mention that "affordable housing" refers to a lot more than just the weird sales-price-restricted form of home ownership that you're describing. Stuff like Section 8 and LIHTC make rentals more affordable and are very successful programs
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Feb 26, 2016 09:36
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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.
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Feb 26, 2016 13:39
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Leperflesh posted:Pretty sure my sewer cost is part of the ad velorum items on my property taxes and is not in any way linked to my water bill or usage. This is true but you may also pay a usage fee on your water bill. Why only charge you once?
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Feb 26, 2016 17:44
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My water bill is always based on the actual water I use, and the sewer bill is based off the water bill in the winter months. The assumption is that the amount of water going down the drain every month will stay about the same over the course of the year, but in the summer you'll be watering the lawn and what not, and that water doesn't have to be treated.
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Feb 26, 2016 18:00
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I wish my town took that into consideration. Sewer gets charged based on water usage every month of the year. I called and asked if they had any sort of credit they could apply during summer due to lawn watering, and they said "No." No explanation as to why or room for discussion. I suppose I could bring it to a town council meeting, but  . I'll just continue having the brownest lawn on the street in the summer, and the most money in my bank account. 
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Feb 26, 2016 19:21
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My current city has two gauges for water: one for the house and one for the irrigation system. They are billed at separate rates for this very reason.
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Feb 26, 2016 19:36
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Good-Natured Filth posted:I wish my town took that into consideration. Sewer gets charged based on water usage every month of the year. I called and asked if they had any sort of credit they could apply during summer due to lawn watering, and they said "No." No explanation as to why or room for discussion. I suppose I could bring it to a town council meeting, but I'm a fan of removing grass and replacing it with something that doesn't need to be watered. Growing traditional grass is loving retarded in most places and there are a bunch of alternatives, including drought-resistant grasses. Often there are local varieties of plants that don't look like grass but require no watering and provide the same ground-covering purposes as grass. Our sewer gets charged based on water usage every month as well. It's also all tiered. We manage to stay in the cheapest tier through very minimal irrigation, which keeps the grass green enough. I'm hoping to replace all of that grass with something else some day QuarkJets fucked around with this message at 20:11 on Feb 26, 2016 |
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Feb 26, 2016 20:03
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Celador posted:My current city has two gauges for water: one for the house and one for the irrigation system. They are billed at separate rates for this very reason. I'm assuming that irrigation is billed higher?
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Feb 26, 2016 20:04
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Yes.
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Feb 26, 2016 20:06
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How are refi rates calculated? I'm on Zillow and it's telling me 30 year refi rates in Ohio is 3.45%, but when I put in all my details, I'm getting rates even higher than the 4.125 I have now. I don't have a lot of equity in the house, but I have great credit, good income and low debt. There's one 15 year that's even higher than my current rate. Is it primarily loan to value that determines it at this point? Any suggestions to getting a more reasonable rate?
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Feb 27, 2016 16:02
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Panthrax posted:Any suggestions to getting a more reasonable rate? If you don't have 20% "equity" you are going to have to pay PMI either monthly or through some higher rate kickback cost. You should talk to a broker about doing a 80/15 or some other method to lower your interest cost and avoid PMI if you don't have 20% equity. 20% down is a magical number that makes your loan conforming. It can then be bundled and sold as a "good" mortgage which people are willing to lend money to for cheap.
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Feb 27, 2016 17:44
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Question about credit relating to the mortgage. I'm a green card holder with no US credit since my Canadian credit is not transferrable. My wife has excellent credit (I'd like to think.) She makes roughly 50-60k/year. I will probably make somewhere in the 55-65k/year range. I assume her credit alone, we wouldn't be able to get a mortgage in the 400k range so her sister agreed to co-sign. Any idea roughly how long it would take for me to build up credit good enough to be put onto the mortgage and the in law removed as the cosigner? Also our down payment would be like 50-70k, would we even be able to get a 400k mortgage?
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Feb 27, 2016 18:13
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lol internet. posted:Question about credit relating to the mortgage. There is probably a bank somewhere that can pull a Canadian credit bureau and work with that. The rate and/or fees may be higher but I know that my shop has done them in rare circumstances (only on us collateral with us permanent residwncy). I only do refi and consumer lending but I am sure someone can do it for mortgage.
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Feb 27, 2016 18:19
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You may also be able to build a non traditional credit profile depending on your lender and get approved that way, which generally requires proof of 12 months of timely payments to 3-4 different sources that don't typically report to the bureaus. Things like your home / auto / health (non payroll deducted) insurance, utilities, cell phone bills, etc are all feasible depending on your lender, it's just more of a pain in the rear end to collect the necessary proof. If all of that is jointly owned with your wife it may not work depending on who you go through, but it's worth a shot. Talk to a broker and see what options they have available. To answer the original question, very generally speaking 3-4 trade lines with a 2 year total US credit history is fairly standard but there is a some flexibility on that especially when there is another borrow who does have a good credit history.
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Feb 27, 2016 19:06
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lol internet. posted:Question about credit relating to the mortgage. Dik Hz fucked around with this message at 21:11 on Feb 27, 2016 |
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Feb 27, 2016 21:09
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Yeah, you should definitely talk to a couple of loan officers at your local banks / credit unions, at the very least. They're really the ones who are going to be able to tell you whether or not you'll need a co-signer, and how long it would take to get that requirement dropped.
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Feb 27, 2016 22:17
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I haven't done nothing yet as I won't be in the US till next month but I wanted to get a head start to figure out what my options were. Thanks!
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Feb 27, 2016 23:36
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I think this thread has proven that your best option is almost definitely going to be "you'll be happier and richer if you rent" but marketing and the mythical American Dream have created some powerful emotions driving people into home ownership anyway
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Feb 28, 2016 02:51
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QuarkJets posted:I think this thread has proven that your best option is almost definitely going to be "you'll be happier and richer if you rent" [citation needed]
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Feb 28, 2016 03:18
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Series DD Funding posted:[citation needed] 410 pages ITT of people doing the math isn't enough? More often than not, when you actually run the numbers, ownership is more expensive than renting.
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Feb 28, 2016 04:03
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QuarkJets posted:"you'll be happier and richer if you rent" Happiness is subjective. You can't put a price tag on happiness. Maybe we'd be richer if we rented, sure, but then we couldn't do fuckall to our places. That doesn't make us happy. Therefore, we'll happily (subjectively and objectively) pay a "house tax" in order to have the ability to paint the thing neon pink if we want to.
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Feb 28, 2016 05:43
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daggerdragon posted:Happiness is subjective. You can't put a price tag on happiness. Maybe we'd be richer if we rented, sure, but then we couldn't do fuckall to our places. That doesn't make us happy. Therefore, we'll happily (subjectively and objectively) pay a "house tax" in order to have the ability to paint the thing neon pink if we want to. I was being facetious. I'm a homeowner and also prefer that to renting, although I suspect that this has a lot to do with American marketing; I don't think that people in other countries have as much of a homeownership obsession as we Americans do. But let's not pretend that it's all highs; the freedom of being able to do whatever you want with a house that you own has to be contrasted against the sorrow of loving up your modifications, the worry of losing it all, the heartbreak when poo poo breaks unexpectedly, the frustration experienced when you have a bad neighbor, etc. Renting comes with its own kinds of freedoms e: And don't forget about HOAs! If you buy a house in an HOA neighborhood (basically any house built after the 80s) then good luck with that neon pink thing QuarkJets fucked around with this message at 06:58 on Feb 28, 2016 |
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Feb 28, 2016 06:54
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QuarkJets posted:I think this thread has proven that your best option is almost definitely going to be "you'll be happier and richer if you rent" but marketing and the mythical American Dream have created some powerful emotions driving people into home ownership anyway
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Feb 28, 2016 13:46
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QuarkJets posted:410 pages ITT of people doing the math isn't enough? More often than not, when you actually run the numbers, ownership is more expensive than renting. Some people have done math, some people have done math incorrectly, some people have done the math and found renting to be better, some people have just memed about how horrible houses are
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Feb 28, 2016 14:13
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ITT a bunch if homeowners talk endlessly about why buying houses is wrong as they ask for advice on the best way to buy more houses. My favorite self-hating thread on SA!
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Feb 28, 2016 19:35
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I don't get that conclusion at all, I'm much happier in a home than renting... even though I didn't think I would be. Financially it's a wash at worst, and I've remodeled the entire place.
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Feb 28, 2016 20:12
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Thesaurus posted:ITT a bunch if homeowners talk endlessly about why buying houses is wrong as they ask for advice on the best way to buy more houses. Ha, that about covers it! I think it's a great thread to solicit advice, and just be reminded that home ownership isn't exactly mortgage=profit, which is the message you get nearly everywhere else. My interpretation isn't that it's 100% do never buy, but just be aware of some pitfalls and maybe some people who've been there before can help guide you to the best decision or point out something helpful to consider. The relentless negativity kinda gets on my nerves sometimes
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Feb 29, 2016 03:42
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Dik Hz posted:Oh god not this again. Adding a middle man doesn't make things cheaper. That's very true, and you have to deal with a lot more middle men as a homeowner than as a renter Thesaurus posted:ITT a bunch if homeowners talk endlessly about why buying houses is wrong as they ask for advice on the best way to buy more houses. I'm with Andy, I don't get that vibe at all. The advice that this thread offers is that buying a house is often not a slam dunk financial victory, contrary to what the baby boomers keep saying e: You're also coming into the thread right after someone asked people to start posting horror stories. More often I think the thread offers a pretty positive vibe with a lot of cautionary advice (aka be aware of this, that, and the other) QuarkJets fucked around with this message at 05:36 on Feb 29, 2016 |
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Feb 29, 2016 05:29
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This thread exists to over-compensate for all your boomer parents and their hosed up relatives that won't stop asking you when you're gonna just buy a house already. "They're not making more land!"
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Feb 29, 2016 05:38
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QuarkJets posted:I think this thread has proven that your best option is almost definitely going to be "you'll be happier and richer if you rent" QuarkJets posted:More often I think the thread offers a pretty positive vibe with a lot of cautionary advice (aka be aware of this, that, and the other)
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Feb 29, 2016 05:57
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