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DirtyFalcon posted:Well got my appraisal back. 1k over the contract price. Unsure how to feel about that. the appraisal is useless. pay it no attention.
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Nov 22, 2016 17:09
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My last one was exactly my sales price.
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Nov 22, 2016 17:12
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I'm getting my place appraised soon, 3 months after I closed (7 after it was priced). Quite curious as to where they end up.
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Nov 22, 2016 19:49
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Aren't the appraisers basically in cahoots with the mortgage bankers (and realtors etc) so that the mortgages go through
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Nov 22, 2016 19:57
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My appraiser is the bank's for a HELOC (don't plan to use it, but would like it available in case), so I don't know what their motivation is. I'm expecting them to come in 25K above my purchase price, I guess.
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Nov 22, 2016 20:01
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Oh are we having this conversation again for the thousandth time? The most important indicator of how much a house is worth, is what the highest bidder offered for it. That's you! That's your bid! The appraiser's job is to look for any strong evidence that your bid was like, totally wrong because either you or the sellers are idiots. If they don't find strong evidence, they are supposed to appraise it at the sale price.
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Nov 22, 2016 21:07
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What are the plusses and minuses of updating your house info on sites like Zillow as the owner? The only thing I've done is gone through and removed photos of the inside and I don't plan on adding updated ones. If I'm not planning to sell, does it do me any favors to update the house info? I'm talking about things like upgrades, remodels, etc.
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Nov 22, 2016 21:14
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Both of my appraisals were, to the cent, what our offer was. Well, the first one was actually $100,000.00 higher than our offer, but once we pointed that out they caught that tiny little typo.
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Nov 22, 2016 22:35
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Rated PG-34 posted:Aren't the appraisers basically in cahoots with the mortgage bankers (and realtors etc) so that the mortgages go through Not really, the laws that passed after the mortgage meltdown are supposed to give consumers a buffer between the appraiser and the banker/realtor. Having said that, as leperflesh pointed out, a signed contract showing how much someone is willing to pay for a house, is a pretty decent place to start, when you are trying to figure out how much someone is willing to pay for a house.
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Nov 23, 2016 00:12
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When I sold my last place, the bank's appraiser came in $60K under the purchase price. Caused some drama. (I agreed with the appraiser, really.)
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Nov 23, 2016 00:15
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gtkor posted:Not really, the laws that passed after the mortgage meltdown are supposed to give consumers a buffer between the appraiser and the banker/realtor. $800 for some chump to look at a piece of property and go, "yup, looks right". Although my appraisal report was long and pretty detailed so I do think there was some value in it to me.
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Nov 23, 2016 00:20
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HEY NONG MAN posted:What are the plusses and minuses of updating your house info on sites like Zillow as the owner? None as far as I can tell. All of that stuff only matters when you're going to sell it and zillow will probably disappear and get replaced by something else anyway, so in the meantime who cares
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Nov 23, 2016 02:25
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The best (worst) part of home ownership is that every time you start working on a project, you get sidetracked by either something else that catches your eye, that you can totally knock out in I knew it was going to be a lot of work, but I really thought I'd feel like I was accomplishing something. Right now, it just feels like I've broken a lot of stuff.  On the plus side, I made a giant leaning tower of bulk trash comprised of an indoor jacuzzi tub, multiple rolls of carpet that smell like dog and allergy fuel, and probably three hundred board feet of drywall framing. And then literally three minutes later the bulk trash guys showed up and took it all. (A day early.)
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Nov 26, 2016 00:30
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MrYenko posted:I knew it was going to be a lot of work, but I really thought I'd feel like I was accomplishing something. Right now, it just feels like I've broken a lot of stuff. My first day in our house I managed to convert $1 in plumbing parts to cover the ice maker outlet in the cold water supply (cap, teflon tape) into a $400+ plumber bill. I slipped off the cap and broke the hose for the sink integrated sprayer faucet. It rapidly exceeded what I knew how to fix. Most of the bill was for a new faucet setup.
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Nov 26, 2016 00:57
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Is there any reasonable way to evaluate different homeowner's insurance providers? If you go by reviews every insurer is the worst on Earth, since nobody bothers reviewing unless they are not happy with their claim.
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Nov 26, 2016 00:58
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RICHUNCLEPENNYBAGS posted:Is there any reasonable way to evaluate different homeowner's insurance providers? If you go by reviews every insurer is the worst on Earth, since nobody bothers reviewing unless they are not happy with their claim. Actually it's because every insurer is the worst on Earth
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Nov 26, 2016 01:24
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QuarkJets posted:Actually it's because every insurer is the worst on Earth Yeah I mean, sure, but seeing that they all have 100+ one-star reviews doesn't really help me determine if one is any better than another.
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Nov 26, 2016 01:37
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RICHUNCLEPENNYBAGS posted:Yeah I mean, sure, but seeing that they all have 100+ one-star reviews doesn't really help me determine if one is any better than another. What most people do is get a bunch of quotes for comparatively similar coverage and see whether it makes sense to bundle with your auto or life or whatever insurance. "Better" in that case is going to just come down to cost and coverage, which is different for everyone. Anecdotally, you get better service with higher cost. Being treated like a human being can be invaluable in a time of crisis, but you will pay for it in the meantime.
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Nov 26, 2016 06:28
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QuarkJets posted:What most people do is get a bunch of quotes for comparatively similar coverage and see whether it makes sense to bundle with your auto or life or whatever insurance. "Better" in that case is going to just come down to cost and coverage, which is different for everyone. I mean "better" in the sense of "tends to pay out claims more generously/fairly than competitors" which doesn't seem like something that's totally impossible to measure. Maybe I should just pony up for the damned Consumer Reports ranking. Or just take my chances with whatever.
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Nov 26, 2016 06:37
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RICHUNCLEPENNYBAGS posted:I mean "better" in the sense of "tends to pay out claims more generously/fairly than competitors" which doesn't seem like something that's totally impossible to measure. Maybe I should just pony up for the damned Consumer Reports ranking. Or just take my chances with whatever. That's probably going to depend on the people working for your local office. I don't think that's an easy thing to measure
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Nov 26, 2016 06:39
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QuarkJets posted:That's probably going to depend on the people working for your local office. I don't think that's an easy thing to measure It's what Consumer Reports purports to measure in their rankings, available only to subscribers. But I guess you don't get that kinda wisdom for free.
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Nov 26, 2016 06:46
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RICHUNCLEPENNYBAGS posted:It's what Consumer Reports purports to measure in their rankings, available only to subscribers. But I guess you don't get that kinda wisdom for free. You can check and see if your local library is a subscriber. I'm pretty sure that mine has consumer reports under their "research" section, although idk if it does what you need but might be worth a shot.
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Nov 26, 2016 06:58
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RICHUNCLEPENNYBAGS posted:It's what Consumer Reports purports to measure in their rankings, available only to subscribers. But I guess you don't get that kinda wisdom for free. JD Powers ratings are free, and are based on customer surveys. http://www.jdpower.com/ratings/study/U.S.-Home-Insurance-Study---Homeowners-Insurance/1503ENG E. Amica always wins. I have them for auto, but not hmeowners, because amica doesn't work with brokers and I wanted a broker for my homeowner's plus earthquake policy. But I can say, anecdotally, that I was very well treated by them and happy with their payout when a drunk totalled my car (it was parked, drunk fled and was not caught, but I had uninsured motorist coverage). Their offer was more than my own research had suggested was my replacement value. E2 USAA always scores even higher, but JDP doesnt qualify them for their awards because of the eligibility restrictions. But if you can ger USAA, do it. Leperflesh fucked around with this message at 10:17 on Nov 26, 2016 |
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Nov 26, 2016 10:07
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I also have Amica, and the only way to get ahold of anyone is to call the 800 number and talk to whoever answers. The local agent that set up my policy initially is almost impossible to reach and never returns emails or phone calls, and talking to a new person each time is infuriating because they don't have any context from previous discussions. I must be the only person in America with bad Amica customer services experiences.
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Nov 26, 2016 13:23
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When my mother's house had a burst pipe in winter state farm was pretty good, even though they could have technically denied it because it was unoccupied (but heated and getting renovated). I've heard that Chubb is very good at paying out from people that know insurance well.
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Nov 26, 2016 15:25
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Leperflesh posted:when a drunk totalled my car (it was parked, drunk fled and was not caught, but I had uninsured motorist coverage). How do you know they were drunk?
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Nov 26, 2016 20:17
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I bought a dumpy two-unit a year ago with no intent to rent one unit out. I figured "hey the appliances are ancient garbage but at least I have two of all of them if one breaks!" The second fridge broke last night. The first one broke a few weeks after we moved in.
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Nov 27, 2016 20:02
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e: double post
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Nov 27, 2016 20:02
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baquerd posted:How do you know they were drunk? Well, it was like 1 AM on the night of july 4, my car was parked at the curb on a residential street with speed humps, and they hit it hard enough to push the entire car over a 8 inch stack of retaining pavers onto my front lawn, and the drove away leaving a trail of radiator fluid that the cop said eventually petered out about a mile away when they ran out of coolant and kept going. They might not have been drunk, but it's likely.
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Nov 28, 2016 00:03
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Leperflesh posted:Well, it was like 1 AM on the night of july 4, my car was parked at the curb on a residential street with speed humps, and they hit it hard enough to push the entire car over a 8 inch stack of retaining pavers onto my front lawn, and the drove away leaving a trail of radiator fluid that the cop said eventually petered out about a mile away when they ran out of coolant and kept going. I had a similar situation years ago. Someone hit my friend's car that was parked on the street in front of my house. The girl that did it literally left a trail of broken car parts all the way to her house 2 miles away. The cops just followed that and found her. She claimed she "thought she hit a deer." That was a quick insurance claim.
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Nov 28, 2016 03:54
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So I just bought a house and downloaded the Nextdoor app. How do I stop this gnawing terror of drug-crazed burglars?
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Nov 28, 2016 09:42
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If you can't beat 'em, join 'em.
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Nov 28, 2016 13:34
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Drunk Tomato posted:So I just bought a house and downloaded the Nextdoor app. Where'd you end up?
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Nov 28, 2016 18:27
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Drunk Tomato posted:So I just bought a house and downloaded the Nextdoor app. My neighborhood is a really quiet tame neighborhood full of retirees, so our Nextdoor page is great. Currently there is a neighborhood wide witch hunt for the person who drove around the neighborhood measuring sidewalk gaps and noting cars that hadn't moved in a while and other frivolous things no one actually cares about and reported a list of 200+ minor infractions to the city. It's not like it's a run down beat up neighborhood, the sidewalk infraction was literally a gap being 3/4" instead of 1/2", and the car being reported was a fully functioning car someone had parked in their driveway but hadn't driven in a couple weeks due to weather. There is no HOA, some old retired geezer just has way too much time on their hands. Is there a way to spy on neighborhood drama without being part of that particular neighborhood's Nextdoor page? We're going to be househunting in the next year and I feel like that would be a good insight into the neighborhoods we're looking at.
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Nov 28, 2016 20:55
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Drunk Tomato posted:Nextdoor app.
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Nov 28, 2016 21:03
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Anyone have experience living next to a highway? It's a three lane interstate with a decent sound barrier. Cul de sac backs up to the sound barrier. The house we are looking at is not against the barrier, but one over. Sound is not really an issue (we went around rush hour and stood in different parts of the yard and it wasn't any more noticeable than a white noise machine - could still have conversations at normal volume and hear each other across the yard.) but I do have some pollution concerns? Not sure if those are valid or not. Anyone with experience?
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Nov 28, 2016 21:12
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marchantia posted:Anyone have experience living next to a highway? It's a three lane interstate with a decent sound barrier. Cul de sac backs up to the sound barrier. The house we are looking at is not against the barrier, but one over. Sound is not really an issue (we went around rush hour and stood in different parts of the yard and it wasn't any more noticeable than a white noise machine - could still have conversations at normal volume and hear each other across the yard.) but I do have some pollution concerns? Not sure if those are valid or not. Anyone with experience? Not an expert, but I personally wouldn't live near a highway if I had a choice. http://www.lung.org/our-initiatives/healthy-air/outdoor/air-pollution/highways.html?referrer=https://www.google.com/ http://sandiego.urbdezine.com/2015/05/28/what-is-a-safe-distance-to-live-or-work-near-high-auto-emission-roads/
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Nov 28, 2016 21:19
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Noise, break dust, road dust, general property value...living near a highway is pretty annoying. Don't forget Jake breaks too! I mean, lots of people do it, and it's not the end of the world, but it's far from desirable and personally I'd never go for it.
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Nov 28, 2016 21:28
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marchantia posted:Anyone have experience living next to a highway? It's a three lane interstate with a decent sound barrier. Cul de sac backs up to the sound barrier. The house we are looking at is not against the barrier, but one over. Sound is not really an issue (we went around rush hour and stood in different parts of the yard and it wasn't any more noticeable than a white noise machine - could still have conversations at normal volume and hear each other across the yard.) but I do have some pollution concerns? Not sure if those are valid or not. Anyone with experience?
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Nov 28, 2016 21:38
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And now I am paranoid about nox.
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Nov 28, 2016 22:53
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