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Magicaljesus posted: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. Thanks for the solid insight. My job is extremely stable but I don't make a ton. My GF's job is pretty drat stable and she makes close to twice what I make. We are both mizerly and always put a good chunk into savings each month. We both grew up very poor so it's done two things: 1) We are both obnoxiously good with, and saving, money but 2) Spending any of it makes us want to vomit. I don't think I could live in Gresham again. Right now I am basically on the edge of Laurelhurst (old, beautiful houses for old, disgusting money). It's such a perfect location, I've been in and out of the area for half of my life.
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May 3, 2016 05:40
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Magicaljesus posted: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. I switched from looking for single family to multi unit properties in the SF Bay Area as the multi units are under valued and in better condition. If you can handle being a landlord it might be worth considering in this type of market.
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May 3, 2016 05:57
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lightpole posted:I switched from looking for single family to multi unit properties in the SF Bay Area as the multi units are under valued and in better condition. If you can handle being a landlord it might be worth considering in this type of market. I'm contemplating further from downtown, deeper Beaverton... Ugh, I work downtown, that drive is going to be fun! I love SW and wish I bought 3-4yrs ago when prices were still 'depressed', or 'reasonable'.
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May 3, 2016 07:40
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Hey, you could be me. I work around the airport and my girlfriend works in Beaverton. Try finding a compromise that isn't in the river.
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May 3, 2016 08:09
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Inzombiac posted:Thanks for the solid insight. It sounded like maybe you hadn't done all of the math on home ownership yet. You should definitely try to wrap your arms around that whole situation. Figure out not only your monthly mortgage expenses but also utilities (you might not have to pay for sewer and trash as a renter, but you will as a homeowner), insurance, taxes, HOA fees, and maintenance (this one many people forget but it's quite significant). You're probably also going to pay more in water, electricity, gas, etc assuming you're moving up in square footage. Once you've figured out the difference in what it'll cost to buy, do what it says in the OP: sock away that much each month and see how well you like it. This amount needs to be removed after retirement and emergency fund saving, because you shouldn't sacrifice those just to be a homeowner. Make a budget, basically. Being miserly is good and all but it's no substitute for a real budget. Someone said 6%+ for closing, but for a buyer in the $400k+ price range I don't think that's accurate. You're probably looking more at 3%. Talk to a loan officer at your bank, they'll tell you what's up. But yeah, you will need to have money to close, on top of your down payment. If you only have like 5% down then it can still work out if you plan on living there for a very long time. Inzombiac posted:Yeah, hahahaha.... Okay It's important to keep in mind that "poor" and "renter" are two different things. There are plenty of poor homeowners and plenty of wealthy renters. Home ownership isn't going to make you feel wealthy, it can actually have the opposite effect
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May 3, 2016 09:04
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SiGmA_X posted:MF units worth buying are sold within 5 days of list in PDX for well over list - there are a few shitholes sitting, for good reason... I've been looking for the last few months. Lots of CA investor money! I was running into that looking at houses. Places with foundation problems, terrible construction or no permits going for all cash above asking.
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May 3, 2016 09:26
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I feel like a wealthy renter to be honest. We pay 12% of our net monthly into rent. It's really nice to just call a the management company when something breaks.
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May 3, 2016 13:09
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Hot Dog Day #91 posted:I feel like a wealthy renter to be honest. We pay 12% of our net monthly into rent. It's really nice to just call a the management company when something breaks. Unless said management company does nothing, or sends you a bill/counts it against your deposit, or sends out some skeevy chain smoking neck tatted dude to half assedly fix or just look around at something while you're not there, leaving your apartment reeking of cigarette smoke. No way, no how, never again for me. ... Until I'm inevitably on the other end of having to hire that exact same guy to fix something I can't 
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May 3, 2016 14:00
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Taste the Rainbugh posted:Montgomery County I'm up in Northampton County, so not too far. I also used to do pre-construction infiltration tests, which are very similar to perc tests. The ground hasn't been frozen for months now and it's actually been fairly dry. I'm 95% sure they're blowing smoke up your rear end. The contractor probably sucks and you're a low priority since they're not getting paid till after the job is done and the house is sold. Go find a new place unless you want to wait another few months (or longer).
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May 3, 2016 14:25
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Inzombiac posted:Hey, you could be me. I work around the airport and my girlfriend works in Beaverton. Try finding a compromise that isn't in the river. Also going back to your first post, the 'average mortgage amount' you cited is way low based on sales prices and 20% down. And PDX tax. Maybe you were referring to principle and interest only - add in taxes, insurance, possibly PMI, and maintenance - a couple % of purchase price per year. SiGmA_X fucked around with this message at 15:42 on May 3, 2016 |
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May 3, 2016 15:37
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OSU_Matthew posted:Unless said management company does nothing, or sends you a bill/counts it against your deposit, or sends out some skeevy chain smoking neck tatted dude to half assedly fix or just look around at something while you're not there, leaving your apartment reeking of cigarette smoke. They're actually a real estate firm, and the home owner is an agent there. But it asks helps that I did tenant side law for two years, and have done real estate law for four. It's worked out really nicely. It's also unlawful for them to hold wear and tear against the deposit, and most improvements have been things like "a storm knocked out half the fence" or "these outlets don't work." But maybe I'm lucky.
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May 3, 2016 15:41
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LogisticEarth posted:I'm up in Northampton County, so not too far. I also used to do pre-construction infiltration tests, which are very similar to perc tests. The ground hasn't been frozen for months now and it's actually been fairly dry. I'm 95% sure they're blowing smoke up your rear end. The contractor probably sucks and you're a low priority since they're not getting paid till after the job is done and the house is sold. It's rained 3+ times a week now for months here. Is that still considered dry enough for the tests? From what I understand the guy doing the test isn't working for the contractor but working for the county. I told the realitor I want out and that's getting dragged out and doesn't seem like she wants to do anything besides let the contract expire. Should I just call her and say I'm out and find a new realitor? Should I start new with a different mortgage company? All the work the mortgage company put in expired and besides keeping them up to date with bank statements I have no completed paperwork anymore since they were waiting for the system also. The mortgage company and the realitor work together a lot. Edit to add We did find a new home. We are ready to make an offer and literally have been ready to move for eight months now. It just seems like everyone is dicking around and I get different answers from everyone involved HOT! New Memes fucked around with this message at 16:10 on May 3, 2016 |
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May 3, 2016 16:07
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Email to real estate commission posted:Hi, Real estate commission posted:We're very uncomfortable with that... wtf? Do your due dilligence! Ugh, gently caress.
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May 3, 2016 16:25
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slap me silly posted:Yeah but aren't you the person who had to install an entire powered treatment system on basically a vertical wall of rock? Not even, really. It's a steepish slope, maybe 15%, and they had to bring in a ton of extra sand by dumptruck to decrease the percolation rate in the drainfield. Apparently they can do stuff like install it in a vertical wall of rock, and it can get up to nearly $100k in the most insane situations. I was just lucky I had enough land to install a drainfield. A lot of the homes lower in the valley are more crammed together, and had just enough land to install a '40s compliant leach pit. Getting a drainfield in there would be impossible, so they need to install intensive secondary treatment systems beyond the tank.
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May 3, 2016 16:28
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Taste the Rainbugh posted:It's rained 3+ times a week now for months here. Is that still considered dry enough for the tests? I just checked the weather history on Weather Undergound for Montco versus my neck of the woods and I'm not seeing any of this wet weather you're talking about. A bit of rain here and there shouldn't really throw off the test. Obviously the system has to work when it's raining too. The county guy just needs to inspect, I don't think they actually do the test themselves. Are you scheduling stuff with him directly or is the contractor? Either way the whole thing sounds fishy. Who is the one telling you it's "too wet" again?
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May 3, 2016 16:41
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Bozart posted:Do your due dilligence! Ugh, gently caress. Holy poo poo!
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May 3, 2016 17:24
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Bozart posted:Do your due dilligence! Ugh, gently caress. Such a scummy industry. Good on you for figuring it out.
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May 3, 2016 17:25
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Whoa. I hope the real estate commission hits them hard
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May 3, 2016 17:44
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QuarkJets posted:Someone said 6%+ for closing, but for a buyer in the $400k+ price range I don't think that's accurate. You're probably looking more at 3%. Talk to a loan officer at your bank, they'll tell you what's up. But yeah, you will need to have money to close, on top of your down payment. If you only have like 5% down then it can still work out if you plan on living there for a very long time. lightpole posted:I was running into that looking at houses. Places with foundation problems, terrible construction or no permits going for all cash above asking. Keep in mind that when you're buying at the very low end of the price range (it seems ridiculous to say this about a $400k house but in inner Portland it really is the low end) you're much more likely to get hit with potentially high deferred maintenance costs so you really want some extra money on top of the down payment socked away. Plus the "cheaper" houses in an area tend to be quite competitive. I ended up out in the west burbs but the folks I know who bought recently on the east side ended up slowly raising their initial offers to around list + 15% over the course of many months before they finally had an offer accepted. Bozart posted:Do your due dilligence! Ugh, gently caress. Holy poo poo. In a just world they'd be losing their license at the very least, jesus.
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May 3, 2016 18:15
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Welp, just got an email that the bank took another offer on the short sale we had bid on. Can 1/3 of the country please die in a plauge so some decent inventory opens up? If that's too much, I'll accept another housing market collapse. I'm tired of seeing so many homes with a crap load of deferred maintenance that are priced way above what is reasonable for incomes in the area. And I'm not even in some super hot housing market. I feel for you guys in an actually competative area.
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May 3, 2016 18:30
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OSU_Matthew posted:Unless said management company does nothing, or sends you a bill/counts it against your deposit, or sends out some skeevy chain smoking neck tatted dude to half assedly fix or just look around at something while you're not there, leaving your apartment reeking of cigarette smoke. What are the renting laws in your state like? In most states I'm certain that the landlord has to pay for maintenance and poo poo breaking down through use, they can't take it out of your deposit. Even in a backwards state like Arizona, you can hire a professional to fix things and send the bill to your landlord if they don't fix it in something like 30 days or if they don't fix it adequately. The issue here is that really poor people can't really afford to risk using these legal mechanisms, but if you can afford to buy a house then you can certainly afford to legally gently caress with a bad landlord.
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May 3, 2016 18:56
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I've been looking in the Vancouver area of Portland for a while, If your job is in Portland on the I-5 side your going to hate traffic. The search has been ugly but not as bad as yours, with 200k getting townhomes and condos (and crap homes) and 300k to 400k getting some good stuff with top end at around 600k. Thanks to this thread Ill be a renter in the market till I have 20% Or prices come down to more reasonable levels now that things are crashing.
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May 3, 2016 19:13
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PyRosflam posted:I've been looking in the Vancouver area of Portland for a while, If your job is in Portland on the I-5 side your going to hate traffic. The search has been ugly but not as bad as yours, with 200k getting townhomes and condos (and crap homes) and 300k to 400k getting some good stuff with top end at around 600k.
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May 3, 2016 19:17
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LogisticEarth posted:I just checked the weather history on Weather Undergound for Montco versus my neck of the woods and I'm not seeing any of this wet weather you're talking about. A bit of rain here and there shouldn't really throw off the test. Obviously the system has to work when it's raining too. From what I understand it's the county inspector that is requiring the passing tests.
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May 3, 2016 19:32
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SiGmA_X posted:Please explain the statement "now that things are crashing"? In the last 30 days or so inventory is up would be a more correct statement. Point is that stuff is not selling site unseen anymore, nor are my friends and agents seeing 10k over asking.
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May 3, 2016 19:37
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Taste the Rainbugh posted:From what I understand it's the county inspector that is requiring the passing tests. OK. I just asked one of my co-workers who used to do septic design, and he said there was no requirement he was aware of regarding recent rainfall events and perc test. Now, you might fail a perc test if the ground is very saturated and doesn't drain well but...that's the point of the test, to identify those conditions. So "normal" rainfall usually isn't a concern. Obviously you want to avoid testing 24 hours after Hurricane Sandy or whatever, but we've had a relatively dry April and average March here. I bet someone was jerking you around somewhere. Edit: Unless this is some weird Montgomery County policy. Best I can say is see if they can give you information in writing or an email somewhere next time. LogisticEarth fucked around with this message at 20:41 on May 3, 2016 |
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May 3, 2016 20:30
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PyRosflam posted:In the last 30 days or so inventory is up would be a more correct statement. Point is that stuff is not selling site unseen anymore, nor are my friends and agents seeing 10k over asking. They are just early to the May housing market action (when things heat up).
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May 3, 2016 21:26
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PyRosflam posted:I've been looking in the Vancouver area of Portland for a while, If your job is in Portland on the I-5 side your going to hate traffic. The search has been ugly but not as bad as yours, with 200k getting townhomes and condos (and crap homes) and 300k to 400k getting some good stuff with top end at around 600k. A lot of my coworkers commute in from Vancouver and it's amazing how much time they spend on that loving bridge. Taking the other is only better until you loop around and hit that huge hive of traffic every morning and night. We need another bridge but no one wants to pay for it. I almost got a job that would let me telework so we could move to Beaverton or Hillsboro but for now I am pretty stuck.
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May 3, 2016 21:56
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A friend of mine just bought a house on an 80-10-10 mortgage. I, being the renting type, was unfamiliar with those - it sounds like the second 10% loan is a HELOC, and lots of stuff I'm reading says it's an interest-only loan. How long is that 10% equity line interest-only generally? Do they usually require a balloon payment at the end or does it eventually enter a principal repayment period? Maybe you refinance before that to get rid of the HELOC, although that seems like a pain with two loans on the same property. Also it seems strange to me banks are leveraging housing again like this but I guess that doesn't totally surprise me
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May 3, 2016 23:59
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Inzombiac posted:A lot of my coworkers commute in from Vancouver and it's amazing how much time they spend on that loving bridge. Taking the other is only better until you loop around and hit that huge hive of traffic every morning and night. If you both live and work in Vancouver you get a really good tax break. This can be setup if you Telework 100% of the time. Then go shopping in Portland for the tax break. (Does not apply to cars)
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May 4, 2016 01:26
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Anyone contemplating purchasing a house in Portland - or for that matter, anywhere west of the Cascades - should price in a big chunk of money for an earthquake retrofit. http://oregonstate.edu/ua/ncs/archives/2012/jul/13-year-cascadia-study-complete-%E2%80%93-and-earthquake-risk-looms-large I'm in California and a lot of people think we're "the place with the earthquakes." Well, they're right, we have hundreds of earthquakes all day every day, all of which serve in very small way to relieve the pressure of the Pacific plate and the North American plate grinding past one another. Occasionally a fault line gets stuck for a few decades and then becomes un-stuck with a big quake, but those "big quakes" can range from the really really bad (7.0+) down through the "damaging but probably doesn't kill more than a handful of people" (5.0+) to the much more common "felt it, maybe some cracks in a chimney or whatever" (4.0+). In the Cascadia subduction zone, everything is stuck for a century or two and then everything becomes unstuck all at once. quote:...the [Cascadia] study concludes that there is a 40 percent chance of a major earthquake in the Coos Bay, Ore., region during the next 50 years. And that earthquake could approach the intensity of the Tohoku quake that devastated Japan in March of 2011. To quote this much longer and more detailed article in The New Yorker, "Counting from the earthquake of 1700, we are now three hundred and fifteen years into a two-hundred-and-forty-three-year cycle." That translates to something near a 1% annual chance of a fuckoff 8.0+ mega-quake that will drown the coast in a Tsunami (which will also hit Japan, by the way, which is where some of the frequency data comes from), very probably destroy the power, bridges, and shipping infrastructure along the Columbia River, destroy or severely damage every non-retrofitted masonry construction in Oregon and Washington states, and leave Oregon in the 19the century for possibly six months to a year afterwards. I don't want to sound like an alarmist, but my wife and I were seriously considering moving to Portland (yes yes I know) because we could sell our house here and buy a much nicer one there for a lot less money, until we factored in the $20k+ for a retrofit and realized it starts to get a lot less attractive. The existence of the 1700 quake (which was approximately a 9.0) and the realization of exactly what the subduction zone is doing and how often wasn't really solidified until 1991. Housing build before then was based on a 200 year assumption that there are no earthquakes in the area frequent enough to worry about or plan for. Which means that basically all older construction in Portland is bricks and mortar over a basement, basically the worst possible way to build an earthquake-safe house. The threat to the state's power and other infrastructure is difficult to overstate, either. quote:Across the region, other, larger structures will also start to fail. Until 1974, the state of Oregon had no seismic code, and few places in the Pacific Northwest had one appropriate to a magnitude-9.0 earthquake until 1994. The vast majority of buildings in the region were constructed before then. Ian Madin, who directs the Oregon Department of Geology and Mineral Industries (DOGAMI), estimates that seventy-five per cent of all structures in the state are not designed to withstand a major Cascadia quake. FEMA calculates that, across the region, something on the order of a million buildings—more than three thousand of them schools—will collapse or be compromised in the earthquake. So will half of all highway bridges, fifteen of the seventeen bridges spanning Portland’s two rivers, and two-thirds of railways and airports; also, one-third of all fire stations, half of all police stations, and two-thirds of all hospitals. That terminal will probably be ruined in the next significant quake. But wait, that's not all: quote:OSSPAC estimates that in the I-5 corridor it will take between one and three months after the earthquake to restore electricity, a month to a year to restore drinking water and sewer service, six months to a year to restore major highways, and eighteen months to restore health-care facilities. On the coast, those numbers go up. Whoever chooses or has no choice but to stay there will spend three to six months without electricity, one to three years without drinking water and sewage systems, and three or more years without hospitals. Those estimates do not apply to the tsunami-inundation zone, which will remain all but uninhabitable for years. The purpose of your earthquake retrofit will not to make it so you can stay in Portland after the big quake: it'll just be to ensure that your property does not sustain such terrible damage that it will be among the several hundred thousand properties too damaged to do anything other than bulldoze and write off. You'll still probably have to move out of the state for six months to a year, maybe more. Plan accordingly. quote:How much all this will cost is anyone’s guess; FEMA puts every number on its relief-and-recovery plan except a price. But whatever the ultimate figure—and even though U.S. taxpayers will cover seventy-five to a hundred per cent of the damage, as happens in declared disasters—the economy of the Pacific Northwest will collapse. Crippled by a lack of basic services, businesses will fail or move away. Many residents will flee as well. OSSPAC predicts a mass-displacement event and a long-term population downturn. Chris Goldfinger didn’t want to be there when it happened. But, by many metrics, it will be as bad or worse to be there afterward. TL:DR, don't buy a masonry house in Portland, unless you're both A) going to have it retrofitted, or B) can afford a total loss of your home and probably months or years before federal disaster aid pays you pennies on the dollar for the remains of your property. I dearly love Portland and will visit it many more times in the coming years, but my wife and I have determined that our investment in a house 1/4 mile from the North Concord fault line is far safer (and yes, we have earthquake insurance, but our home is stick build and has no basement like most CA houses; good luck affordably insuring your 2 story masonry 1950s house with a basement in Portland.)
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May 4, 2016 01:27
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How much does earthquake insurance cost? You could move, pay insurance for awhile, then retrofit so that your insurance premiums go down.
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May 4, 2016 01:51
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Alright, I'm (hopefully) ready to ditch renting and jump into the wide world of home ownership. I think I'm doing things a little backward and looking at a couple places before talking to the bank or a lender or agent of any kind. Went on zillow, found a couple places in my price range and desired location, drove by them and called the numbers on the lawn signs. I've got an appointment to check out both places later this week. However, I also have an appointment with my main bank's loan officer in a few days, and my local credit union next week. Is it totally the wrong idea to go house hunting and then talk to possible lenders? I could postpone my house appointments until I talk to the loan officers if that would be a better move. As long as I stay within my price range (<150k) I can make the full 20% down payment. I'm a single guy with no kids. Also, out of curiosity, one of the houses I saw on zillow had a "money back guarantee!" I've never heard of that being offered for a house before. What exactly does that mean?
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May 4, 2016 02:03
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You can go ahead and look at homes before you're pre-approved, though that puts you at a disadvantage when bidding (but not necessarily a huge disadvantage unless you're in a seriously competitive market) Also you'll find a few places that require you to present your pre-approval letter before they'll even show you, but in my experience they are total shitholes.
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May 4, 2016 02:11
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wyoak posted:A friend of mine just bought a house on an 80-10-10 mortgage. I, being the renting type, was unfamiliar with those - it sounds like the second 10% loan is a HELOC, and lots of stuff I'm reading says it's an interest-only loan. How long is that 10% equity line interest-only generally? Do they usually require a balloon payment at the end or does it eventually enter a principal repayment period? Maybe you refinance before that to get rid of the HELOC, although that seems like a pain with two loans on the same property. 10 years is the typical interest only period, though I have seen some 5 and 15 year options. Some are balloons but it's more common to enter a principal & interest payment for a ~15 year term after the interest only period ends. HELOCs come in all shapes and sizes since they're a loan product offered by that specific lender unlike conventional / government loans where the options are pretty much the same across lenders.
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May 4, 2016 03:24
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wyoak posted:A friend of mine just bought a house on an 80-10-10 mortgage. I, being the renting type, was unfamiliar with those - it sounds like the second 10% loan is a HELOC, and lots of stuff I'm reading says it's an interest-only loan. How long is that 10% equity line interest-only generally? Do they usually require a balloon payment at the end or does it eventually enter a principal repayment period? Maybe you refinance before that to get rid of the HELOC, although that seems like a pain with two loans on the same property. It can be a good product. You can get a conventional mortgage with as little as 5% down. Someone putting down 10% is still coming up with tens of thousands of dollars of their own money, so it's not like the banks are getting people highly leveraged. But the main benefit is that the borrower avoids PMI.
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May 4, 2016 03:40
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quote:Subduction Zone Chat I have it on very good authority that the FEMA estimates are way off. The Army Corps. of Engineers knows that it would take around three months just to get in enough potable water. The idea of anyone West of I5 surviving is almost laughable. Portland sits on earth that is nearly perfect for mass liquefaction (mud quicksand). That plus, at this scale of disaster, the military ensures that it has taken care of themselves and their families before even thinking about helping civilians. Every federal emergency meeting I've been a part of on this matter has boiled down to, "LoL, if you somehow survive, start walking East and pray."
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May 4, 2016 03:56
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Here are some cute numbers from my house sale. The increase in price over the seven years I owned it was 100k. The actual capital gain was 70k. Do never be fooled by bad house math! I'm obviously not complaining about my case, but what if I hadn't lucked into a period of high appreciation? I'd be sad (and/or hosed).
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May 4, 2016 04:06
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Maybe it's because I'm drinking, but the more I think about it the "get a pre-approval letter before you shop" advice is probably perpetuated by realtors to make sure they aren't wasting their time. Not that that's a bad thing, I don't think anybody should work for free, but the only 2 people I've ever heard say it are the 2 realtors I've worked with.
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May 4, 2016 04:13
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Bozart posted:Yeah I wish there was a kind of home ownership thread or something, I need a place to complain about this week's latest fuckery. If I weren't in the middle of purchasing a house and getting ready for a trip to Europe, I'd be willing to start one, because I'd love a general "help me own a house" thread. Though then again, I suppose most of it will be pointing at other threads (such as the fix-it thread and the tools thread), but it'd still be kind of nice to have a centralized place. Also, it should totally include basic lawn care. Not like, super deep Kentucky monoculture lawn care, but "how do I use a trimmer?" lawn care. Clearly, I do not get most people, because I simply do not care what the state of my lawn is, so long as the grass isn't ridiculously high (because rodents and bugs) and it won't erode away. Of course, we've also been really bad about in the past, and have been cited pretty much every summer we owned our last house. (Of course, I'm pretty sure it's also a way of generating revenue for the municipality (St. Louis is terrible about this) because we conveniently always seemed to get the notice we had to pay a fine for right at the end of the season, even though the lawn had been way worse in the middle of summer). We also owned a house on the edge of a block with an alley behind us, so we had three sides of our lawn exposed. I hope our neighbors in our next house aren't too picky about our lawn  I'm a bit less worried because we won't have a 45-degree hill to mow, it's flatter, and I'm pretty sure the actual grassy area is smaller. Not to mention I won't be using a 20-year-old mower my wife found on craigslist for twenty bucks.I also should learn more about lawn care and work more at it. I say this every year, but then the dog days of St. Louis summer hit. Vinny the Shark posted:I think I'm doing things a little backward and looking at a couple places before talking to the bank or a lender or agent of any kind. We started with open houses, before we even engaged an agent or got a pre-approval. They're pretty low on the time investment scale, and you can see a wide variety of stuff pretty quickly. It actually helped a lot, I thought, because my wife and I got to see a bunch of houses and talk through what we did like and didn't like. And as we went on, we started getting a much more precise idea of what we were looking for. Though by the time we actually got a pre-approval and an agent on board to start with showings, we had seen one in an open house that we compared everything else to, and we ended up making an offer on that, and that offer got accepted, so our grand plan didn't completely come to fruition. But hey, we're buying a house 
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May 4, 2016 04:30
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