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revmoo posted:Btw those things are incredibly easy to replace and like 30$. I highly reccomend doing some reading up on house ac, you can save a ton of cash repairing extremely simple electronic circuits. Literally all you need is a multimeter and hand tools. Unfortunately it was also pushing 90 inside the house after 2 days so at the time my main motivator was to get the thing up and running. I've run into AC issues prior, just not with the compressor unit itself.
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Sep 14, 2016 11:41
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rural property.txt: offering less than asking, but to let the seller leave their dead cars, rusty farm equipment, and decorative animal skeletons.
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Sep 22, 2016 16:01
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I was in that exact situation once, almost put an offer on a house with a shitload of "beautiful antique" (rusted splintery poo poo) farm equipment and a road grader right in the front yard. I was like "uhh yeah this bid will be conditional on you hauling that poo poo out of here right" and they were all like "no it's beautiful landscaping". Horse people are the absolute loving worst.
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Sep 23, 2016 16:22
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My folks hauled off two full size very full dumpsters when we bought a horse farm. One of the tack rooms was PACKED with garbage. loving horse people. (We didn't have horses, we bought the farm for a gentlemans farm vs horse hoarding - but having both a covered and uncovered arena was great!)
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Sep 23, 2016 18:06
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The prior two posts sound like some racism against centaurs
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Sep 23, 2016 19:13
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I've been in the process of house selling (finally under contract and just working out my due diligence stuff) and I had a small story to share. Just as some background, houses in my neighborhood have been selling like hotcakes, and normally only stay around for two weeks to a month, and get very close to their asking price. I dealt with this one crazy guy who thought he was a master negotiator. I was told I got an offer, started to get excited, and my realtor prefaced this offer with "I have to tell you about this because I'm obligated to, but this is insane and I wouldn't even dignify it if I had the choice." Selling my townhouse, and nutso guy offered ~35k under asking, citing a bunch of nit picky poo poo (having to pay increased air conditioning bills due to autumn was mentioned  ), and I just laughed as a response. We told them to come back when he was serious (my realtor told me his realtor was really embarrassed by the whole thing), and we kept doing this back and forth where he kept trying to play some imaginary hardball. Next offer was 22k under, and eventually he finally beat the offer I was considering, but then he wanted ~8k extra, besides closing, "to fix up all his previously cited concerns."I went with the other guy who really loves my house and was very easy to deal with 
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Sep 23, 2016 19:29
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Does anyone have any experience buying a house on the cheap, living in it for while and making renovations, and then selling it for a better price? There are two houses literally right next to each other for sale in a great location that are very inexpensive. (80k and 60k) I could easily afford the 20% down payment and a 15 year mortgage on either one. Neither of these houses look in bad condition, they just need updates and renovations judging by looking at the photos and driving by them. I could afford to make expensive renovations like adding a garage, installing an air conditioner, paving the driveway, etc. Yeah, these places are quite small- 680 and 840 sq. ft.- but I'm a single guy with no kids so I don't really need a huge house right now. It is a bit troubling that they've both been on the market for a while in this hot seller's market, though. (45+ days) Is this a good plan? Or is it totally harebrained and I should leave this idea to a handyman/flipper?
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Sep 24, 2016 20:31
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It's a decent enough plan if the updates/renovations make sense for that neighborhood. I have a coworker who basically does 5-year ARM mortgages, he and his partner find a cheap house, live in it, renovate it, and then sell it before the 5th year. If you're not interested in full-time flipping and don't mind possibly losing a lot of money then it can be an interesting experience From what I've read, most people who try to do this get real lazy after the purchase and wind up not putting in any of the work that they intended to.
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Sep 24, 2016 20:41
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Vinny the Shark posted:Is this a good plan? Or is it totally harebrained and I should leave this idea to a handyman/flipper? Have you ever renovated a house before? If you don't know who will do the work and how much it will cost, this is a terrible plan. If you are looking at the house as an investment first, this probably isn't a good plan. You should make sure you can check all the boxes for homeownership:
If you want this house to be your primary residence, and it's undervalued for the area because it needs some work, and the price for the land is fair, and you know who will do the work, and you have a strong estimate for the costs, and you're going to be okay living through the renovation process (the kitchen will be in your bedroom for 6 weeks), and you've got enough money to spare after all that, fixing up your house might be a good way to increase your equity down the line. Just don't think of it as an investment if it's your residence. I'm currently renovating a house that I plan to rent out. I'm now expecting the final costs to be about 3 times my initial estimate, due to many issues found during construction and some I didn't think would be problems. I'll still come out ahead eventually, but the lesson is to be very aware that your costs will probably increase as soon as you put a hole in a wall.
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Sep 24, 2016 21:22
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QuarkJets posted:It's a decent enough plan if the updates/renovations make sense for that neighborhood. I have a coworker who basically does 5-year ARM mortgages, he and his partner find a cheap house, live in it, renovate it, and then sell it before the 5th year. If you're not interested in full-time flipping and don't mind possibly losing a lot of money then it can be an interesting experience The neighborhood has a very wide diversity of houses- there are 2500 sq. ft. mansions with outdoor pools, normal sized ranches and little shacks like these. Any renovations would actually bring these places closer to the average. Tricky Ed posted:
Yes, yes and (most likely) yes. Most of the renovations I'm thinking of doing would be outside of the house- adding a garage, paving the driveway, maybe making a little patio area near the fire pit, etc. I don't plan on making any huge renovations on the interior like adding a new bedroom or remodeling the kitchen. Any interior work would be repairs or minor things like painting a room or new carpet. At least that's the plan so far. What attracts me to this isn't really the idea of selling it later down the line. It's the great location and being able to very comfortably afford the house. I haven't actually toured either house yet, so maybe this is all a pipe dream that will evaporate upon viewing.
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Sep 25, 2016 04:45
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Vinny the Shark posted:Does anyone have any experience buying a house on the cheap, living in it for while and making renovations, and then selling it for a better price? Assuming with those square footages those are 2/1s or even 1/1s. Are those common in your market? If the hot market is for 3+ beds, may not be surprising that those are sitting a bit. How well have you researched what the market for your end result is? In my area, that might be downsizing empty nesters (especially if "good location" means on the water) or a first timer or turned into a rental, but in a generally desirable area with a sufficient sized lot they often wind up teardown targets.
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Sep 25, 2016 05:09
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Is there a good online tool for planning furniture & stuff placement in a room?
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Sep 25, 2016 17:45
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Cicero posted:Is there a good online tool for planning furniture & stuff placement in a room? None I've tried are good. However the one I eventually liked was Floorplanner.com we set the builders floorplan as the background, you can share the plan with multiple accounts so husband wife can edit. It has a mobile app that you can bring up the plan easily. It worked well for us but wasn't great.
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Sep 25, 2016 19:24
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Should I look into selling my house? This is just an initial feeler question, I don't know anything about buying/selling homes and I kinda admittedly went in half-cocked. Here's details: My wife and I currently own a home in the California SF Bay area. It was bought at 485k 2 and a half years ago, with the 100k down payment from her dad (he is also named on the mortgage) (edit: with 370k still left to pay off). I've paid all the mortgage and taxes since then. Zillow now says it's worth 655k, and I'm getting antsy that that is the ceiling and it can only go down. I REALLY don't want to get stuck with this house long-term if it does go that way. Plus we're really getting sick of the bay area (home and rent prices being one of the main reasons). There's a lot of work to be done on the house though. The electrical needs to be redone (still knob-and-tube), much of the plumbing needs to be updated, the roof (tile) starting leaking a while ago (we got someone to patch it, but it really should be replaced). The garage (unattached, in backyard) is pretty crappy, and there's a guest house attached to the garage that was DEFINITELY slapped together, with sewer pipes that connect to the main house exposed above ground and go in through a basement window. Oh, and there is a basement, which the previous owner started to finish, but it's a half-assed job like everything else he did, and it's 2 inches too short to be up to code as a living space anyway (unless I were to jackhammer down the floor). I was planning on correcting all these things as time and expense allowed, but I haven't been able to yet. The previous owner was able to sell it (to us) with all these issues, but I wonder if another buyer would accept them at the price we'd want. And if I did get them all fixed, it'd be on credit cards, which would screw me if we end up not finding a buyer for a long period of time. Anyway! Thoughts? Yes, I know I went in unprepared financially on this house, without enough savings (although things have been going better lately, we finally kicked out a non-paying family member renter). But I see an opportunity to get out and have a nice fat nest egg for starting over somewhere else. Rotten Red Rod fucked around with this message at 20:26 on Sep 27, 2016 |
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Sep 27, 2016 18:06
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Ignoring financial considerations for a moment, how do you actually feel about living in your house? Do you like it aside from the fact that it needs a bunch of work, or do you feel like it's a busted shithole? Do you have a solid plan on how you will move into a better, more affordable living situation using the money you earn? It sounds like you don't actually like your house and area, so an opportunity to sell and buy something you would like better and be more able to afford would be good to take advantage of. Make sure you're not just jumping into a different shithole that has also appreciated in value!
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Sep 27, 2016 18:40
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I would interview a few realtors. They will tell you what they think you could sell for, what you need to fix to sell, what you might want to consider fixing, all for free. Just make sure you don't blindly believe the one realtor that says everything is perfect and they can sell it for $1m, because they are likely blowing smoke in hopes you list with them and then he can talk you into lowering the price later.
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Sep 27, 2016 18:48
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Alereon posted:Ignoring financial considerations for a moment, how do you actually feel about living in your house? Do you like it aside from the fact that it needs a bunch of work, or do you feel like it's a busted shithole? Do you have a solid plan on how you will move into a better, more affordable living situation using the money you earn? I do like our house, and I see a lot of potential in it. But it's been a lot of work, energy, and money that I think I would rather put into other things. I'd be just as happy renting, as long as we had a garden. The main concern is the area. The bay area is crazy expensive and we're not making engineering money - I like the bay area other than that, but my wife grew up here and is kind of sick of it. She's dreamed about moving to Portland or Seattle (or similar) and I'm not opposed to either one. Someplace urban with a similar vibe to the bay area - but with a lower cost of living and good job opportunities. I don't have a solid plan at this point. I've just been thinking about it for a long time, and the financials don't make sense for us to keep living in the bay area - if we ever want to build up a decent savings, we need to move somewhere without this crazy cost of living. The idea I have is sell the house, move to the new city (renting), then live off of the income from the house sale for a month or two while we both job search. Although I'd be ok staying in the bay area too if we found somewhere reasonable to live - again, I just really, REALLY don't want to get stuck in this house if the market turns. Hashtag Banterzone posted:I would interview a few realtors. They will tell you what they think you could sell for, what you need to fix to sell, what you might want to consider fixing, all for free. Just make sure you don't blindly believe the one realtor that says everything is perfect and they can sell it for $1m, because they are likely blowing smoke in hopes you list with them and then he can talk you into lowering the price later. There is the realtor who helped us buy the house - my wife's dad knows him - but we're not too happy with him because he didn't tell us the house was in an area we needed flood insurance in. Any resource suggestions for finding/evaluating realtors other than just browsing yelp? Rotten Red Rod fucked around with this message at 20:02 on Sep 27, 2016 |
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Sep 27, 2016 19:56
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If you're trying to escape an exploding real estate market Seattle or Portland aren't going to be much better.
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Sep 27, 2016 20:00
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novamute posted:If you're trying to escape an exploding real estate market Seattle or Portland aren't going to be much better. I'm not planning on buying another house. Even with rents going up, I doubt they're going to match the bay area - and they're not the only ones I'm looking at.
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Sep 27, 2016 20:02
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It's something to consider. You should consider scoping out some of the places where you might want to live before you list your house, that way you're definitely not under any time pressure and can take your time while doing so. You can do most of this online and then go visit places that catch your attention. Maybe then apply to some jobs, and then list the house.
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Sep 27, 2016 20:15
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QuarkJets posted:It's something to consider. You should consider scoping out some of the places where you might want to live before you list your house, that way you're definitely not under any time pressure and can take your time while doing so. You can do most of this online and then go visit places that catch your attention. Maybe then apply to some jobs, and then list the house. It is - that's not my primary question right now though. What I want to know is, should I sell at all, or am I off in base in thinking the time is right? I completely forgot to clarify in the opening post, but there's still 370k left to pay off on the mortgage. I'm not entirely sure how much I'll actually have left after selling - I used Zillow's calculator, and it estimates 240k proceeds, but I don't know how accurate that is, if I get that all at once, if there's taxes involved that will take a chunk, etc.
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Sep 27, 2016 20:27
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People who can actually predict market peaks to useful granularity are too busy washing their space yachts to post on this forum.
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Sep 27, 2016 20:28
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Portland's market (both rent and buy) is skyrocketing right now. I actually had to get a house out in Hillsboro because of how asinine the prices are. Seattle is somehow even worse. If you're looking to buy into a market, these are probably two bad markets to look into right now.
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Sep 27, 2016 20:38
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Subjunctive posted:People who can actually predict market peaks to useful granularity are too busy washing their space yachts to post on this forum. I'm not too worried about exactly predicting the market - if I sold this place now and then tomorrow the market jumps to a million for my house, I'd still be happy. I just don't want the possibility of being stuck here after a bubble. Is that 240k a reasonable expectation of profit from selling the house? Can someone who has sold houses before shed a little light on it? Kirios posted:Portland's market (both rent and buy) is skyrocketing right now. I actually had to get a house out in Hillsboro because of how asinine the prices are. Seattle is somehow even worse. Good to know. From everywhere I look, though, it's still WAY more reasonable than the Bay Area - according to Zillow the average price here is 800k+, while it's half that in Portland. I admittedly haven't done a ton of research on other cities, those were just the first two that pop into my mind. Rotten Red Rod fucked around with this message at 20:43 on Sep 27, 2016 |
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Sep 27, 2016 20:40
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Rotten Red Rod posted:It is - that's not my primary question right now though. What I want to know is, should I sell at all, or am I off in base in thinking the time is right? You should sell if you want to move. I don't think that you should get hung up on trying to time the market. If you and your SO are ready for a change, then that's a good enough reason. Once you sell, the proceeds go toward paying off your closing costs (including the remainder of your mortgage), and then the rest of the proceeds go to you. You get all of it at once. Most people don't pay any taxes on a home sale; the first $250k (or $500k if you're married filing jointly) is tax-free so long as it has recently been your primary residence for awhile (there are a lot of little details here that may make even more of the sale tax-free, if you went over those amounts). And note that only the profit gets taxed; this is the difference between (price when you bought) and (price when you sold minus any major improvement/renovation costs, not including maintenance and simple repairs) without regard for however much is left on the mortgage Zillow has a bunch of garbage useless calculators, you should do what someone else suggested and ask a few realtors. Don't sign anything with them, just get their advice and make it clear that you're not totally set on selling yet (even if you are). QuarkJets fucked around with this message at 20:51 on Sep 27, 2016 |
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Sep 27, 2016 20:48
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QuarkJets posted:You should sell if you want to move. I don't think that you should get hung up on trying to time the market. If you and your SO are ready for a change, then that's a good enough reason. Thank you, this is exactly the kind of info I was looking for. And thanks to everyone for tolerating my horribly ill-informed questions. And if anyone has suggestions on which cities to look at I'm all ears. (Denver, CO looks good...)
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Sep 27, 2016 20:50
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Rotten Red Rod posted:Thank you, this is exactly the kind of info I was looking for. And thanks to everyone for tolerating my horribly ill-informed questions. And if anyone has suggestions on which cities to look at I'm all ears. (Denver, CO looks good...) Oh I was also only addressing federal taxes, you've got to look into your state's tax laws too (but most states do something similar to the federal rules, I think)
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Sep 27, 2016 20:52
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Keep in mind when comparing costs of living to other cities that incomes in many different kinds of work are also lower. Your career might be different, but do some research into typical salaries for your jobs in those cities.
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Sep 27, 2016 21:01
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Leperflesh posted:Keep in mind when comparing costs of living to other cities that incomes in many different kinds of work are also lower. Your career might be different, but do some research into typical salaries for your jobs in those cities. Definitely doing that, yes. I'm under no illusions that I won't get a pay cut. I'm going to be crunching the numbers to make sure we can actually afford rent and build savings before doing anything (already learned my lesson on that one).
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Sep 27, 2016 21:15
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For what it's worth I made X in San Francisco, but my career is X-15k in Portland. My money still goes a significantly longer way in Portland than San Francisco. It's not even close.
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Sep 27, 2016 21:16
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Kirios posted:For what it's worth I made X in San Francisco, but my career is X-15k in Portland. Yeah this is what I'm banking on. I don't want to be rich - we want to live comfortably and build savings. The bay area is just draining us. Out of curiosity, what major expenses other than rent/home prices are less there? Gas? Food? Etc? Rotten Red Rod fucked around with this message at 21:35 on Sep 27, 2016 |
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Sep 27, 2016 21:32
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Vinny the Shark posted:Does anyone have any experience buying a house on the cheap, living in it for while and making renovations, and then selling it for a better price? As a person who owns an 800 sqft house, they are a really bad choice for flipping. Tiny houses are hard to sell and have a real ceiling on what they can potentially be worth. I bought my house because it was a good fit for me, but if I'd had more money to spend I might have bought a slightly bigger house for resale value alone.
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Sep 27, 2016 21:47
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Rotten Red Rod posted:Out of curiosity, what major expenses other than rent/home prices are less there? Gas? Food? Etc? Sales/income/property taxes. Insurance rates. Utilities (price and how often you have to heat/cool). Child care if/when appropriate. I'd caution against putting too much weight on average house prices, since mixes of property types vary and you may not want to buy the average house. A realtor should be able to give you some exemplars from different neighborhoods of 2 bedroom detached with a garage, or whatever you're interested in.
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Sep 27, 2016 22:45
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Subjunctive posted:
Well, again, I DO NOT want to buy. I'll be renting for the foreseeable future. I just spent an hour looking at rentals in Denver instead of working... Now this idea won't get out of my brain.
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Sep 27, 2016 22:50
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Rotten Red Rod posted:Well, again, I DO NOT want to buy. I'll be renting for the foreseeable future. Sure, I more meant if you're using house prices as a proxy for affordability. You sound like you're all set, though.
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Sep 27, 2016 22:57
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Trillian posted:As a person who owns an 800 sqft house, they are a really bad choice for flipping. Tiny houses are hard to sell and have a real ceiling on what they can potentially be worth. I bought my house because it was a good fit for me, but if I'd had more money to spend I might have bought a slightly bigger house for resale value alone. Are small houses ideal for renting though? My wife and I have been kicking around the idea of buying a smaller place with the intention of becoming landlords in 5-8 years when the hypothetical kids start to get to the age where sharing a room and such may become an issue. We plan on staying in the area we're in for the next couple decades.
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Sep 27, 2016 23:08
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I loved renting a small (600 sqft) house. Renting something like that out after N years of living there seems like a pretty reasonable plan if you're prepared to deal with the headaches of being a landlord
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Sep 28, 2016 09:30
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Hughlander posted:None I've tried are good. However the one I eventually liked was Floorplanner.com we set the builders floorplan as the background, you can share the plan with multiple accounts so husband wife can edit. It has a mobile app that you can bring up the plan easily. It worked well for us but wasn't great.
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Sep 28, 2016 10:28
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howdy all. I've previously posted about my dad's efforts to buy a house, and now he is very close to buying a house. He's put in an offer that's been accepted on this place ($24k lower than the asking price). Apparently he has ~13 days now to get an inspector in (he's getting one of his own, not the selling agent's inspector) and make his final decision. The house does need septic work (either a cleanout or replacement; not sure if a septic company has given an estimate or not), and needs the back porch/deck repaired or replaced. What happens if the inspector finds more problems? Does the seller pay for work to be done, or do they renegotiate on the price? What's the best thing for him to do right now, basically? He has his own agent and his brother (a lawyer who's very experienced at house-buying) on his side, but I want to make sure nothing's about to slip through the cracks. The seller is a bank (the house is a foreclosure), if that affects anything, and my dad's paying cash. This is his first time buying a house himself. Me and my brother (an architecture student) are going to try to drive up and take a look at it this weekend. Thanks! atomicthumbs fucked around with this message at 23:11 on Sep 28, 2016 |
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Sep 28, 2016 23:06
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Some musings on manufactured homes and financing I've made a couple previous posts in this thread about manufactured homes. There's a lot of FUD out there about them being difficult to finance and not appreciating in value, but I couldn't find much hard information. Now that I've tried to buy a couple manufactured homes I can provide a bit more information on what I've encountered. You have to own the land: This is basic but I'll mention it up-front, a manufactured home on a rented lot is a liability, not an asset. It will depreciate like a car, can't be financed with a real property loan, and you're at the mercy of a lot owner. This is about the worst possible housing situations, with all the downsides of both renting and home ownership. Also, "park model" manufactured homes are usually much lower quality. You can't move the home: Banks will typically not offer a mortgage on a manufactured home that has been moved, because of the potential for damage and the difficulty of joining the sections properly. In a weird complication, I heard from multiple lenders that they allow them to be moved once, but count the initial installation as a move. So double-check if someone tells you that! I found that a lot of perfectly reasonable manufactured homes were sitting on the market because they had been moved and so were cash-only. Banks don't like old homes: Some lenders have a cut-off and won't finance homes more than 30 years old, though I understand you can work around this if you shop around. Basically no one will finance Mobile Homes from before 1976, when the federal standards that defined Manufactured Homes went into effect. Neglected homes turn to poo poo fast: Never consider a manufactured home with a leaky roof, the ceiling and walls are probably already structural mold. Aside from the caveats above, it seems like manufactured homes appreciate in value similarly to stick-built homes of comparable quality and location.
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Sep 28, 2016 23:51
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