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I posted this in the stupid questions thread and I was directed here Question about house buying. I could only find the apartment thread so if their is a better spot to post this let me know. Anyway, in August last year we made an offer and it was excepted pending inspection. Inspection relieved the septic system is the original from 54' and is way out of code. I ask for a new one and they agree with it. Quick back story for the home is its owned buy a brother and sister who got the home in 2001 for $1 from their mother. The daughter lived their rent free as long as she kept the house nice. She got sick and was moved to a home and the house went up on market. The disclosure was pretty much "don't know anything about the home" as the son who didn't live their is selling it. So closing date is set for the 30th of October and as it gets closer I notice little effort is put into getting the system in. I make calls and give them the contacts to have it done but nothing is done. I had paid for inspections and appraisal and had all my funds and loan set up as the 30th passes. We reschedule and still nothing we reschedule again and still nothing. It's December/January now and surprise they can't get the test needed due to the ground being to wet. Next date is set for Mid-March which passes with nothing happening. A new closing date is set for May 13th. In this time all the inspections I paid for have expired and will have to be redone for the loan. Also we have had are home packed and ready to move out since October. Last week we found another house. We go for a tour and it matches what we are looking for and is move in ready. My realtor talks to them and tells them the situation. We are ready to make an offer but since we are in contract need to wait till the 13th. In the meantime the realtor will inform ours if another offer comes in. I just want to make an offer and start the process on closing on the new house. I'm willing to take a hit on the inspections but want my good faith money back. Am I screwed till the 13th when the contract expires again? (nothing has been done to the system for 9 months now) or is their a way out so we can move on?
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May 2, 2016 15:33
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You've been under contract for 9 months? Please tell me I'm misunderstanding something here. Run away from the house and find a new agent that won't let something that awful happen, holy poo poo.
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May 2, 2016 15:38
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Pryor on Fire posted:You've been under contract for 9 months? Please tell me I'm misunderstanding something here. Run away from the house and find a new agent that won't let something that awful happen, holy poo poo. The house needs a septic system and to do that the ground needs a passing perc test. We're in Pennsylvania and it's been snow/rain since November. The house keeps getting push back because of that
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May 2, 2016 15:41
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Yeah I've had to deal with three installations and heard about many more, never seen it delay closing by more than a month total including waiting a week or two for the flaky county inspector to come certify it. If you get your ducks lined nicely up it can be done in two days. Your realtor explained the difficulty of doing these tests and actually cracking open the ground in the winter, yes? As well as the general difficulty in getting any contractor to deal with bad weather? All of this before you submitted an offer on a house with a failing septic system right? What has the agent's advice been to you as they keep missing deadlines? Just "submit another contract if you want the house"? What other advice have you been given from this agent to deal with this situation? God it's even worse than I thought after actually reading your post, you've been living out of boxes this whole time? That sounds awful. Have you been looking at other places the whole time or is this new one the first one for the whole 9 months?
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May 2, 2016 15:55
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slap me silly posted:Look on the bright side, for a mere 5-figure investment you'll get awesome modern plastic pipe and you'll never have to replace the sewer lines on either of those properties again. Unless you're one of those property owners who plant shrubbery or trees around their house like a dolt Do never plant anything but flowers.
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May 2, 2016 16:16
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Pryor on Fire posted:Anecdotally here in Colorado we're willing to hire completely unexperienced people with or without college degrees and are willing to pay them while training them into entry level tracks in web dev, db engineering, project management, biz dev & sales which all pay over $50K to start and we literally can't find anyone left to hire. Occasionally some 22 year old bites and moves here from Indianapolis or whatever shithole, but aside from that we just can't find anyone left to employ even paying way over market rate for salaries. I can't PM you. Does your company want to hire me? I do IT infrastructure and project management and would like more money and more interesting work
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May 2, 2016 16:45
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Pryor on Fire posted:Yeah I've had to deal with three installations and heard about many more, never seen it delay closing by more than a month total including waiting a week or two for the flaky county inspector to come certify it. If you get your ducks lined nicely up it can be done in two days. I signed the contract and closing based on inspections. Found the bad system and asked for a new one which they agreed to at no additional cost. I figure like an extra month tops. I did all the calling and scheduling of the stuff and most of the time would get three or four different stories on what was going on and who talked to who. The found has been broke since September but their realtor keeps saying they are waiting on the perc test. I've talked to the guy who does the planning for the county and he seems a little on a power trip about stuff but also makes in seem like the seller barely contacts him or talks with him. I know we let this go on for way to long and that's why we're done. Were the installations you saw similar to this situation? Old junk system that needs to be completely replaced? And no pushing the contract back was the only thing done
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May 2, 2016 16:56
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Wickerman posted:Unless you're one of those property owners who plant shrubbery or trees around their house like a dolt Trees are what keep my property from washing away and taking my house with it.
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May 2, 2016 17:18
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Looked at a 4 unit multiplex last week. It has water coming up from underneath the house, foundation is a little low so termite report might be a worry and they just replaced the roof but there's still some water damage in one unit and it will need new sheetrock. It's actually the best property I've looked at since I started looking several years ago and only priced at $750k. Considering the market I'm a little worried there will be a decent amount of interest but going to try to get an offer out quickly on it. Plan is to put an offer of $700k and take it as is after inspections.
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May 2, 2016 18:13
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Taste the Rainbugh posted:I signed the contract and closing based on inspections. Found the bad system and asked for a new one which they agreed to at no additional cost. I figure like an extra month tops. I did all the calling and scheduling of the stuff and most of the time would get three or four different stories on what was going on and who talked to who. The found has been broke since September but their realtor keeps saying they are waiting on the perc test. I've talked to the guy who does the planning for the county and he seems a little on a power trip about stuff but also makes in seem like the seller barely contacts him or talks with him. Out of curiosity, what county in PA?
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May 2, 2016 18:18
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HEY NONG MAN posted:Trees are what keep my property from washing away and taking my house with it. West coast? Trees falling on your house and killing you while you sleep is a thing in the midwest
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May 2, 2016 18:32
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HEY NONG MAN posted:Trees are what keep my property from washing away and taking my house with it. Do you live on a houseboat tied to a tree?
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May 2, 2016 18:40
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Trees and woody shrubs are absolutely the best way to stabilize slopes or streambanks. I've seen multiple cases where a homeowner tears out a bunch of shrubs and trees "so they can see the stream better", and in a relatively short time, the bank erodes 10-20 ft towards their house. Same with slopes. Lawns are horrendous for a number of reasons and the area devoted to pure grass should be minimized if you can get away with it. But yeah, no need to have trees right up against the foundation. LogisticEarth fucked around with this message at 19:38 on May 2, 2016 |
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May 2, 2016 19:28
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Large root systems stabilize slopes and prevent erosion. Shallow root systems aren't as great.
lightpole fucked around with this message at 19:37 on May 2, 2016 |
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May 2, 2016 19:35
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Tree talk reminds me of a goofy Nashville zoning thing my wife told me about the other day: a tree density requirement for residential property. example: quote:(ii) Individual single and two-family lots on a cul-de-sac shall attain a tree density factor of at least two two-inch caliper trees for each thirty feet of lot frontage (or portion thereof). Such trees must be chosen from the Forestry Recommended and Prohibited Tree and Shrub List, and shall be of a form and quality set out in the American Standard for Nursery Stock (ANSI Z60.1, latest edition). If I'm reading that correctly it seems like you would be fine in the city's eyes to choose a tree from the Prohibited list, which is kind of funny.
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May 2, 2016 20:03
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LogisticEarth posted:Lawns are horrendous for a number of reasons and the area devoted to pure grass should be minimized if you can get away with it. http://99percentinvisible.org/episode/lawn-order/ 
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May 2, 2016 20:03
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Thoguh posted:Oh God I just had an offer accepted. What have I done? Thanks thread. I have lurked here a long time. If you didn't write the Nest into your contract, my bet is that it will be gone when you get the keys.
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May 2, 2016 20:52
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resident posted:If you didn't write the Nest into your contract, my bet is that it will be gone when you get the keys. Heh, probably. That would most definitely be in violation of the contracts I've signed, though.
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May 2, 2016 21:24
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slap me silly posted:Heh, probably. That would most definitely be in violation of the contracts I've signed, though. Yeah, that would definitely count as a fixture considering the drat thing is wired into the wall.
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May 2, 2016 22:24
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Plus it is essential to the operation of the hvac. Walk through before closing. Right before.
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May 2, 2016 22:33
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Septic installation is no loving joke, especially if it involves access easements, abandoning old systems, wells nearby that could become contaminated, etc. It cost me twenty six thousand loving dollars to put in a new system in an admittedly difficult space, and it took nearly four months even after I had picked an engineer. It could have run more if they needed to blast. Like, with explosives. My guess? They didn't know what they had agreed to when they agreed to install a new system.
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May 2, 2016 23:26
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resident posted:If you didn't write the Nest into your contract, my bet is that it will be gone when you get the keys. I asked about it and they said they intended to leave it. But yeah, I'm assuming I've got a 50/50 chance at best. I'm actually pretty indifferent about it as long as they replace it with the original control box or equivalent.
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May 3, 2016 00:48
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Also had my first "DO NEVER BUY" moment. Though it was a lot my own fault. I followed the advice of this thread and found an inspector different than the ones suggested by my Realtor. Penciled in a time. let my realtor know, and get a quick reply "FYI that guy is on the sex offender list and if you use him someone will have to be in the house with him the entire time and we'll have to let the sellers know". Not a dealbreaker for me since he had good reviews and I planned on being there anyway. But my fiance wasn't down with it and we decided to get somebody else (we did confirm he was actually on the list though it didn't say what for). Most awkward phone call ever even though neither of us actually mentioned the real reason I was calling him back to cancel, no money had been put down or contracts signed or anything so neither of us was out anything. Then apparently he called my realtor extremely pissed and they had a 15 minute chat. So a half hour after giving a guy my contact info plus current and future address I pissed him off by not giving him a shot after he served his time. I assume I'm getting murdered tonight.
Thoguh fucked around with this message at 01:04 on May 3, 2016 |
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May 3, 2016 00:53
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Radbot posted:Septic installation is no loving joke, especially if it involves access easements, abandoning old systems, wells nearby that could become contaminated, etc. It cost me twenty six thousand loving dollars to put in a new system in an admittedly difficult space, and it took nearly four months even after I had picked an engineer. It could have run more if they needed to blast. Like, with explosives. Yeah but aren't you the person who had to install an entire powered treatment system on basically a vertical wall of rock?
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May 3, 2016 00:53
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LogisticEarth posted:Trees and woody shrubs are absolutely the best way to stabilize slopes or streambanks. I've seen multiple cases where a homeowner tears out a bunch of shrubs and trees "so they can see the stream better", and in a relatively short time, the bank erodes 10-20 ft towards their house. Same with slopes. This brings my next point up: don't ever buy a house built on the side of a hill or 50yds from a stream that floods unless you enjoy role-playing Oklahoma during tornado season or New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina
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May 3, 2016 01:09
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A hill can be mitigated, proper drainage is the most important and not very hard to put in yourself. After that, plants with deep root systems to prevent erosion as has been pointed out.
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May 3, 2016 01:26
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So, I've lived in Portland Oregon my whole life and would really love to stay here. Currently I am renting a very old but pretty nice house from the owner. He's retired and very relaxed about stuff and also very responsive to our problems. The catch is that we are not on a lease (which was good at the beginning since we used to move around a lot) and now he's raising the rent a by about $100 every eight months. We are at $1850/month which is $400 more than the average mortgage for the area. Nothing crazy, I suppose but my job is lovely and doesn't keep up with inflation. If I wanted to buy in my neighborhood, the minimum I'm looking at would be 400k. Everything beneath that is a foreclosure listing and obviously a shitpile. Moving out of the city isn't an option right now but prices for everything are through the roof with no signs of slowing down. The vacancy rate is something nuts like 0.9% so everything is hyper-competative. I have no debt and she has college debt that is getting paid quickly. Those familiar with the market, should I follow my instincts and wait for this bubble to burst or think about moving to the outskirts?
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May 3, 2016 02:00
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Inzombiac posted:I have no debt and she has college debt that is getting paid quickly. Those familiar with the market, should I follow my instincts and wait for this bubble to burst or think about moving to the outskirts? What matters is if you plan on living there for more than 5 years, are you married to "she", and do you have a down payment? If you answered no to one of these questions, try to avoid buying a house.
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May 3, 2016 02:45
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Bozart posted:What matters is if you plan on living there for more than 5 years, are you married to "she", and do you have a down payment? If you answered no to one of these questions, try to avoid buying a house. Oh sorry, I thought I said I live with my GF earlier. We aren't married but easily could be. Neither of us would buy before then. I read through the OP. Is 20-30% the new normal for down payments? I am seriously behind the times because I never thought I would have the chance to buy so I didn't keep myself educated.
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May 3, 2016 03:14
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Inzombiac posted:Oh sorry, I thought I said I live with my GF earlier. 20% down, expect to need another 10% after closing costs, which can be 6%+.
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May 3, 2016 03:21
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Inzombiac posted:Oh sorry, I thought I said I live with my GF earlier. We did 5% down and had no trouble getting a loan. Obviously your mileage may vary depending on dozens of factors, but it's worked out fine for us. (Cost of living being relatively cheap around here probably the biggest factor.)
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May 3, 2016 03:48
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Bozart posted:20% down, expect to need another 10% after closing costs, which can be 6%+. Yeah, hahahaha.... Okay I'm going to be a poor renter my whole life.
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May 3, 2016 03:54
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Frinkahedron posted:We did 5% down and had no trouble getting a loan. Obviously your mileage may vary depending on dozens of factors, but it's worked out fine for us. (Cost of living being relatively cheap around here probably the biggest factor.) Getting a loan is easy. It's when you have to sell in a lousy market and don't have any equity or cash to cover transaction costs that you are royally hosed.
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May 3, 2016 04:03
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Inzombiac posted:Yeah, hahahaha.... Okay Yeah I mean those are the really "safe" numbers. For me I went through the whole amount, but a lot of people are ok with less.
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May 3, 2016 04:18
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My wife and I are looking at homes, and it looks like our down payment savings + refinancing the equity in our current place down (bought in 2011) to about 25% gives us enough to get a pretty respectable place with 25% down. Is it bad with money to hang onto it as a rental ($400/mo profit at current numbers, and that's after the new mortgage), or should we just sell it? We're in San Diego, and this rental is in coastal north county, vacancy rates are extremely low. Bastard Tetris fucked around with this message at 05:06 on May 3, 2016 |
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May 3, 2016 04:52
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Inzombiac posted:So, I've lived in Portland Oregon my whole life and would really love to stay here. Portland is one of the hottest markets in the country right now. It will have cycles, like all markets, but it's one of those nice west coast cities that I doubt will be cheap in the near future. Home prices are skyrocketing, but rent is worse by a wide margin (because there are fewer millennials able to cough up enough money for a down payment on a $400k home than to pay $2k/mo in rent). That's not to say that renting is a poor decision. It could very easily be the safer and wiser decision in the short term if you won't be there much longer or don't have a down payment, plus there's home maintenance when you buy. As for your particular quandary, you're going to have to make some concession if you intend to buy. Anything on the inner east side is going to be $400k+ dropping to 300k as you move toward 205. East of 205 is cheaper but is also a crapshoot, and it sounds like you know that. Vancouver is legitimately cheaper and not terrible, but your commute will take years off your life, at least until they extend the MAX line into town. I'm at the appraisal stage on what I think is a reasonably priced, but very nice house in Brentwood (the current gentrification hot spot). Even so, in the 5 days this house was on the market, there were 8 offers up to $25k over asking. Anything in the hipper parts of town could easily see $30k-50k over an already absurd listing price. Having never been in the housing market before this year, it's easy to see why bubbles occur. I asked my lender for a pre-approval in the maximum amount and she returned some absurd figure I'd never consider, before factoring in my wife's salary. To sweeten the pot, the lender said there would be no interest rate hit if I put down as little as 5%, just PMI. Instead, I'm doing 20% down on a home that costs half what the bank says I can afford. In markets like Portland, I'm sure there are countless people who don't think twice about buying a house at or near their maximum (because you just MUST live near Alberta) with drat near nothing down. Banks are encouraging it (again) and people have short memories, or weren't in the market 5 years ago. You don't need 20-30% down to buy a house, nor is it always the best idea. If your career is stable, you buy less than you can afford, you plan to stay in your home long term, and you're confident an earthquake won't destroy your home, buying with 10% may not be terrible now. Magicaljesus fucked around with this message at 05:17 on May 3, 2016 |
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May 3, 2016 05:01
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Bastard Tetris posted:My wife and I are looking at homes, and it looks like our down payment savings + refinancing the equity in our current place down (bought in 2011) to about 25% gives us enough to get a pretty respectable place with 25% down. Is it bad with money to hang onto it as a rental ($400/mo profit at current numbers, and that's after the new mortgage), or should we just sell it? If $400 is the difference between the monthly rent and the mortgage payment, you haven't finished doing the math yet. There are also maintenance and repair expenses to account for, plus vacancy, plus the extra time it takes you to manage it. It also increases your exposure to the local housing market risk. Really, unless you specifically want to be a landlord, you should probably just sell it. Lots of people have built little empires this way, but lots of people have hemorrhaged money doing it, too.
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May 3, 2016 05:06
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LogisticEarth posted:Out of curiosity, what county in PA? Montgomery County Radbot posted:Septic installation is no loving joke, especially if it involves access easements, abandoning old systems, wells nearby that could become contaminated, etc. It cost me twenty six thousand loving dollars to put in a new system in an admittedly difficult space, and it took nearly four months even after I had picked an engineer. It could have run more if they needed to blast. Like, with explosives. The septic system is $30k. The house was gifted to them so they have no money really into it and I arranged that the company putting in the system will take the payment after the purchase.
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May 3, 2016 05:10
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Of course, I factored in some maintenance, potential special assessments, etc. based on what I've spent living here, but it sounds like it'll be a lot of effort for not a ton of profit, and my main motivation for keeping it is that we've seen almost no vacancies longer than a month in several years, since this is a "starter home" in a neighborhood that is almost impenetrable for non-millionaires. We are close to a UC and have a lot of visiting professors with small families, I'll have to dig a little deeper on this. DO NEVER BUY is good advice, but DO DOUBLE BUY may be worse. VVVVV The potential rental is in Carmel Valley, and we are looking to move approximately 6 miles away.
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May 3, 2016 05:16
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Bastard Tetris posted:We're in San Diego, and this rental is in coastal north county, vacancy rates are extremely low. How far is the coastal north county from you? If the "profit" is the difference between the mortgage and the projected rent, then sell for the reasons slap me silly said. But if this is a true profit after you factor in maintenance, repairs, and the cost of your time, but if it is a long distance rental, then you should sell it no matter how good it looks on paper.
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May 3, 2016 05:16
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