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IT BURNS posted:So, MY WIFE and I are getting ready to purchase our first house. Read the OP and here's our situation: You'd be a dream client for any mortgage broker. We're building a new house an got approved for 350K no problem. We gross a bit more than you, but also have car payments and student loans to pay. I don't know what part of Texas you're in but research the property tax rates very carefully. A subdivision down the road from where we're building has a 0.85% MUD tax, whereas we won't. Our tax rate before Homestead is a touch under 2.1%, theirs is 2.95%, which is almost a 3,000 dollar a year difference on a 350K house. With the Homestead exemption in Comal County/Comal ISD effective property tax rate is closer to 1.7%. which I won't complain about.
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Mar 15, 2018 17:46
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IT BURNS posted:So, MY WIFE and I are getting ready to purchase our first house. Read the OP and here's our situation: This is about where my wife and I were when we bought out place about a year and a half ago, although we make around $85k, and were looking in the $160-200k range in PA.. You're a banker's wet dream and should have no problem getting a great rate and a good loan. Just don't let your realtor (or your dreams) let your budget creep up. I know ours was always trying to push us into more expensive places. Take your time and find the right place. Realtors will also love you since financing (which torpedoes so many deals) is almost a given.
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Mar 15, 2018 18:11
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LogisticEarth posted:Just don't let your realtor (or your dreams) let your budget creep up. I know ours was always trying to push us into more expensive places. Take your time and find the right place. Realtors will also love you since financing (which torpedoes so many deals) is almost a given. Agreed. I didn't tell my realtor what I was pre-approved for, only what my desired price range was.
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Mar 15, 2018 18:14
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At which stage with a loan officer are you past the point of no return? We were pressured by our realtor to choose a loan officer early in the process. We like them (Guild Mortgage), but we never did much shopping around. Now we've found a property and have had a bid accepted. Seems like THIS is the appropriate time to shop for mortgage rates now that we actually have a real place in mind, but it feels too late. We've signed some forms but our we have yet to go into underwriting (Monday) nor officially agree upon a rate (no official loan estimate has been shown/signed) so I think we still have time. Am I accurate in my assumption?
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Mar 17, 2018 17:05
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Suppose that really depends on the forms that you signed. Do you have copies of them? Some forms have exclusivity clauses or cancellation fees burrowed into the fine prints.
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Mar 17, 2018 17:48
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negativeneil posted:At which stage with a loan officer are you past the point of no return? We were pressured by our realtor to choose a loan officer early in the process. We like them (Guild Mortgage), but we never did much shopping around. Now we've found a property and have had a bid accepted. Seems like THIS is the appropriate time to shop for mortgage rates now that we actually have a real place in mind, but it feels too late. We've signed some forms but our we have yet to go into underwriting (Monday) nor officially agree upon a rate (no official loan estimate has been shown/signed) so I think we still have time. Am I accurate in my assumption? No loan estimates? Don't worry about it. Read the OP.
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Mar 17, 2018 17:52
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H110Hawk posted:No loan estimates? Don't worry about it. Read the OP. Ugh, I should know better than to partially read the OP  A question that isn't covered there: we were informed that CONGRATULATIONS! We've received an appraisal waiver on our property. It was explained to us that given our excellent credit as well as by sheer luck of the draw, Fannie and Freddie will just appraise the house at the purchase price and we can skip the appraisal part and not have to pay the $750 to have it done. I'm immediately distrustful, seems like a too-good-to-be-true situation. We asked our realtor and she said nope, you really just got lucky. The only thing we lose out on from not having the appraisal done anyway is no sketched floorplan of the home (which we could obtain separately for much less money anyway). Are we being given sound advice? I've never heard of this before. Context: The home is built in 2012, we've a bit above asking price, and the asking price was reasonable according to our agent.
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Mar 17, 2018 19:03
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I also waived my appraisal. The appraisal could potentially come in under the offer price, which may or may not be of benefit.
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Mar 17, 2018 19:14
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negativeneil posted:Ugh, I should know better than to partially read the OP Those are normal if your purchase price is a match (or over) to the formula they use to value the house.
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Mar 17, 2018 19:19
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Why would purchase price being over the valuation be ok? I thought that’s what got people into last-minute LTV problems.
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Mar 17, 2018 19:21
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Subjunctive posted:Why would purchase price being over the valuation be ok? I thought that’s what got people into last-minute LTV problems. Er under. This is what I get for posting before I get my coffee.
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Mar 17, 2018 21:09
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Appraisal waivers are slightly more common now on purchases than they have been the last few years. Generally speaking the investors (Fannie/Freddie) are a little more confident that housing values arent going right back in the tank. It isn't a scam, basically your borrowing profile is considered strong enough for the house you are buying, that they do not feel the need to appraise the collateral. Worth saying that just because you don't get an appraisal, doesn't mean you don't get an inspection done. You should still consider a home inspection.
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Mar 17, 2018 21:47
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Appraisals are $750 bucks? Mine have been much less.
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Mar 17, 2018 23:57
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Yeah appraisals in Dallas TX are a standard $400. Anyways, the appraisal thing doesn't strike me as weird. What strikes me as frightening is that you're actually considering moving forward on this buy without knowing loan terms or shopping loans from other vendors. It's just tens of thousands of dollars, don't worry about it.
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Mar 18, 2018 00:15
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Now is crunch time. After my purchase agreement was signed I was on the phone with 5-10 different loan providers. From banks to brokers to online shops. I want a 30 year fixed loan at X, how can you help? If it was a good quote I’d demand a LE. Lots of paperwork and phone chatting for sure (spent hours on the phone and emailing) but so worth it.
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Mar 19, 2018 11:52
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I need a sanity check. I bought a new construction house about 2 years ago and generally feel like they did a pretty bad job. We've had issues with mechanical systems, leaks in the roof and plumbing inside the house, the latches on all of the windows in the house failed in the first year, we can hear our neighbors easily through the party wall. Just a few of the headaches we've dealt with. The finish work is especially bad and the builder either ignored or did not take our concerns seriously, we also filed a complaint with the attorney general which went nowhere. The builder has insisted that they did a good job and this is the standard across the board, but I wasn't born yesterday and I've been in hundreds of houses that didn't have these issues. Since this was our first house and we were really excited about it, we didn't notice a lot of this stuff until we'd been there for a while. A lot of it also got worse over time. During walkthroughs, some items were pointed out and we were just told that they would address before settlement, but we kept getting a runaround until we gave up. Most of the stuff has gotten worse over time. The house is "settling" and by settling I mean vibrating from the traffic on the street in front of the house, from the neighbors slamming their doors and running up and down the stairs - we're able to feel these vibrations easily throughout the house. There are cracks all over the house that have formed in the last year or so and the whole thing just looks pretty bad. A lot of gaps have formed between floorboards throughout the house, all the ceiling/wall drywall joints have fractured and all the drywall window frames have cracks in the corners. All of the baseboard trim is 1x4 and doesn't line up with the floor at all. Some of the gaps are 1/4" and almost all are above the 1/8" size quoted in the warranty. The only issue is they want to fill the gaps with caulk, which is not ideal - especially considering all of the caulk work they did initially has failed. What I'm looking for is just some general advice and a sanity check - are my expectations too high here or are we living in a nightmare and I'm in the right to complain? I really don't have the knowledge or time to deal with most of this stuff, we bought a new house because we wanted to avoid having to deal with a fixer upper, but this house has a lot of problems. We're already thinking about selling it, but it's going to be tough without fixing all this stuff first. I snapped photos of stuff that stood out just to give an idea: https://imgur.com/a/XbzlF
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Mar 19, 2018 17:11
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BusinessWallet posted:I need a sanity check. If you think they aren't living up to their warranty on the home (did they provide one?) then it's a "construction defect" attorney. Talk to them. They will need to see all of the details about the promises, purchase agreement, failures, out of pocket costs, etc. Your state bar association likely has a referral service where you can get 30 minutes on the phone with someone to see if you have a case.
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Mar 19, 2018 17:33
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Drywall cracks as a house settles, especially along the drywall tape, are expected and easily repaired. Generally if they are diagonal that indicates a foundation problem. The gaps in your floorboards and baseboards seem like a really lovely workmanship issue TBH. If it were me I would get a consultation with a construction defects attorney. They've seen this stuff a hundred times before and they'll be able to tell you if your builder is being reasonable or not. The process would probably be to get third party quotes for repairs, demand that the builder reimburse you those costs, and then the lawyer would take a percentage (30-40%) with you keeping the remainder. The bonus of this option is that you don't need cash up front, but you may need to come out of pocket for your attorney's cut of the payout. Or you could negotiate an hourly rate for your attorney but I don't know what is standard in your area and I'm not a lawyer. If you don't want to jump straight to a lawyer I'd at least get a foundation company out to get an engineer's report. You'll have to pay for that, but they can give you the ammunition to convince the builder to make it right.
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Mar 19, 2018 17:45
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Andy Dufresne posted:Drywall cracks as a house settles, especially along the drywall tape, are expected and easily repaired. Generally if they are diagonal that indicates a foundation problem. The gaps in your floorboards and baseboards seem like a really lovely workmanship issue TBH. Do the cracks look significant enough that it might be foundation/structural? I've been told the cracks are minor, but some do look to be diagonal.
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Mar 19, 2018 18:12
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I'm so far from an expert on this that I'm reluctant to give an opinion, and frankly I'd be wary of any Internet opinions in your situation. When you boil it down you've got serious issues with the house and the builder isn't budging. The next step is clear, you have to get a 3rd party expert involved.
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Mar 19, 2018 18:30
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BusinessWallet posted:Do the cracks look significant enough that it might be foundation/structural? I've been told the cracks are minor, but some do look to be diagonal. I agree with Andy Dufresne. It's possible that you've got the early signs of widening cracks due to foundation issues developing: or, it could be just poor framing, changes in moisture levels in the framing wood, poor drywall, or something else happening. You need an expert. I'll say I don't think your complaints are trivial. That tile work in particular is atrocious, and no, you should not have to put up with cracks spreading from the corners of every window. The builder is dragging his feet because of course he doesn't want to do thousands of dollars of work for free, and that's why you need a lawyer.
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Mar 19, 2018 18:47
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Some of those cracks look pretty serious to me. I'm no expert or anything but I would be pissed about that stuff to. It looks like they did a poo poo job all around.
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Mar 19, 2018 18:59
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I feel like lack of perfectly straight features may be something you may just have to deal with, but the cracks and ability to see drywall tape and poo poo should be repaired. I'd be pissed about your list of concerns, too. However I'll mention that none of the cracks look particularly worrisome, they're possibly just ugly But IANAL. That french drain picture is lol  "Eh just put a plant in front of it" is a completely unreasonable response to what is clearly incomplete work
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Mar 19, 2018 19:01
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BusinessWallet posted:During walkthroughs, some items were pointed out and we were just told that they would address before settlement, but we kept getting a runaround until we gave up. Right here is where you lost all of you leverage. You won't get any of it back without paying a lawyer. Also, your house looks like they unleashed all of the apprentices on it and walked away. That's some seriously poor workmanship. The cracking is either a foundation issue, or more likely more apprentice poo poo: not tarping the material pile, framing with wet lumber and now it's finally drying out and the completely expected result is occurring. You need some expertise on-site to figure out what's what, and someone to request a financial apology from the builder.
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Mar 19, 2018 19:32
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BusinessWallet posted:What I'm looking for is just some general advice and a sanity check - are my expectations too high here or are we living in a nightmare and I'm in the right to complain? I really don't have the knowledge or time to deal with most of this stuff, we bought a new house because we wanted to avoid having to deal with a fixer upper, but this house has a lot of problems. We're already thinking about selling it, but it's going to be tough without fixing all this stuff first. Just my thoughts on your situation, take them for what you will. Looking at the pictures, it's clear the drywall and tile subcontractors did a piss poor job. Unfortunately once you close on the house, you lose a lot of leverage. It's always better to get things like the tile and the drain cutout addressed before you close even if it means delaying closing. I'm building a new house right now and I hired a 3rd party home inspector to catch things during the construction process I might miss. They weren't thrilled about it, but I don't give a poo poo. I'll just mention the drywall work, so even though they did a poor job, the problem you're going to run into is what problems are so bad they might have to come out and fix them. I can't find the specifics, but there's a set of guidelines for Drywall work. You are not going to get perfect drywall without paying out the rear end for it. If you look hard enough in the right light you'll find imperfections in almost every drywall job. Your drywall job is pretty bad, but is it bad enough for you to get them to correct it? I don't know. When I built the house I live in now, the drywall specs allowed for no more than 1/4 of an inch of deviation/bumps/voids over a 4 foot span. Drywall cracking, especially along windows and doors is considered normal as a house settles and goes through a few weather cycles. My current home was built during an unseasonably cold winter, and the first summer I had quite a few nail pops and a few drywall cracks show up. All were easily repaired by the builder and are considered normal and haven't come back since. So the biggest issue you face right now from my perspective 1 - Are you still within any kind of fit/finish warranty? Many builders only offer 1 or 2 years on the fit finish warranty, not sure if you're still inside that or not. If not I would expect you're not going to get any sort of relief from the builder. 2 - Are the drywall imperfections bad enough they fall outside of generally accepted installation specs? That is a poo poo job, but is it lovely enough? The window cracks are considered normal and can be easily repaired with a flexible latex caulk and touch up paint. The uneven ceiling issues, do they fall out of spec? I'm not sure. The drywall tape thing though, that's some BS and should be fixed. Read through the pile of documents you got when you bought the house, it should clearly lay out what they feel is reasonable and what warrants repair. I don't know a ton about flooring, so I won't try to offer an opinion on that. I feel bad for you dude, you bought a new house expecting a quality product, and you definitely got poor quality workmanship, the question is, is it bad enough to have them do something about it? Your expectations might be a touch high on certain things (wall straightness over a long span), but the sheer number of defects adds up. Drywall is extremely labor intensive to do perfectly. Generally corners aren't going to be 100% perfect, long ceiling wall spans are going to have some deviation to them. If you're building a high end home and the drywall guys skimcoat everything for a high end level wall finish, you would expect no deviations, but most builders don't go that far. Good luck
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Mar 19, 2018 19:47
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Thanks everyone. All the info provided has been super helpful. I'm a little too exhausted from this to keep replying individually right now, but I will say this house cost $400k, which is about double the cost of a starter house in my area. I have talked to a couple lawyers about this and the ones that were even willing to talk to us said that we had an obvious case, but they wanted the other 3 households in the development to partake in the suit or they weren't interested, which was a big ask. One of the other households sold again within 9 months of buying and complained to us non stop up until the day they listed, then they immediately shut up about it, produced a fully clear (bullshit) seller's disclosure and moved to the burbs. The other two households won't talk to us about it anymore because they don't want to spend money to get anything fixed. We all have the same problems. Honestly what I posted is just scratching the surface of the issues we've had, overall this has been an absolute nightmare.
BusinessWallet fucked around with this message at 20:02 on Mar 19, 2018 |
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Mar 19, 2018 19:58
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drat man, that sucks so much. Not much of a help, but the cosmetic stuff inside shouldn't cost a fortune to fix. It'll cost a few thousand, but shouldn't be tens of thousands. I'm sure that doesn't help at all. The noise and stuff, there's really no fixing that poo poo. I'd make the cosmetic repairs you need and sell the joint before interest rates go up anymore. It'd probably be best for your long term happiness, at this point even if everything was fixed properly would you still be happy in the home?
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Mar 19, 2018 20:32
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skipdogg posted:drat man, that sucks so much. Not much of a help, but the cosmetic stuff inside shouldn't cost a fortune to fix. It'll cost a few thousand, but shouldn't be tens of thousands. I'm sure that doesn't help at all. Nah, not really because the cosmetic issues really just skim the surface of the problems we have with this place. These are just the surface issues that make it difficult to sell the place, which is what we want to get done so we can get the gently caress out. The rest of it is "subjective" poo poo like being able to hear neighbors talk through every wall in the house. Both mine and my neighbor's air conditioner is mounted directly to the wood framed ceiling which is 14' high in the master bedroom, so the air conditioners vibrate and resonate the poo poo out of the entire house. When they run, I have to use earplugs or sleep in the basement or I can't sleep. I tried all kinds of vibration isolators and nothing made much of a difference because at the end of the day, it's 2 big vibrating appliances on top of a huge reverberation chamber. When we moved in, the house was 80 degrees and wouldn't get cooler. Found out we had the same size HVAC system as the 3 other houses in the build - which reported no issues with their air conditioning - I'm the end unit and have a whole 36' wide, 40' tall southern exposed side that the other houses do not share, (it's four 12' wide rowhouses and mine has an exposed wall since it's on the end) which means my house has a higher heat load than almost all the other houses combined. They had to cut out our A/C coil and replace the condenser with a larger unit, but this didn't help much because the ducts are undersized for the larger unit they put in. We've been running our furnace blower with the cover off and a filter taped to the front of it because the return ducts are too small for the furnace. I have literally hundreds of emails to the builder over the last two years trying to sort out this stuff. BusinessWallet fucked around with this message at 21:44 on Mar 19, 2018 |
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Mar 19, 2018 21:26
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Click any of the photos to see more detail. Hard to see from thumbnails. Click any of the photos to see more detail. Hard to see from thumbnails. Click any of the photos to see more detail. Hard to see from thumbnails.
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Mar 20, 2018 00:34
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Did you click any of the photos to see more detail? It's hard to see all of the detail from the thumbnails.
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Mar 20, 2018 00:46
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6/10 on the grovehouse scale.
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Mar 20, 2018 02:45
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How concerned does one have to be about drywall if a house was built between 2001-2009, when I'm told some bad Chinese drywall was used in some builds. Is there some kind of specific evaluation you can ask an inspector to do to evaluate for this?
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Mar 20, 2018 18:01
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Why would you buy one of these Fishtown knock-ups in the first place?
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Mar 20, 2018 20:52
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Going with the title of the thread, I need some advice. I found what appears to be exactly the loving house I'm looking for - great location, spacious rooms, a pool, and a few minutes to both work and the kiddo's school. HOWEVER, on the seller's disclosure report, they said that during the roof replacement last year, there was water penetration into the house but that the carpet and sheet rock were replaced where necessary. Also, while viewing the house, I saw this on one of the ceilings a few feet away from the air conditioning: Our agent (who is awesome and we trust her) says that it's probably from one of the air conditioning drainage pipes getting clogged, but I'm wary. It looks like a new stain, but is this plus what's in the disclosure report a cause for concern? It really is an amazing house otherwise.
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Mar 26, 2018 18:12
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IT BURNS posted:Going with the title of the thread, I need some advice. I found what appears to be exactly the loving house I'm looking for - great location, spacious rooms, a pool, and a few minutes to both work and the kiddo's school. HOWEVER, on the seller's disclosure report, they said that during the roof replacement last year, there was water penetration into the house but that the carpet and sheet rock were replaced where necessary. Also, while viewing the house, I saw this on one of the ceilings a few feet away from the air conditioning: You need an inspector your realtor isn't buddies with and permission from the sellers to move any insulation that's in the way of that stain. If it's loose-fill that should be easy to get, if it's fiberglass they may balk. You can also ask them for invoices and work orders from the repair for the water intrusion and what happened for the stain. AC exhaust pipes do back up, it's a thing. It looks like they didn't have a sensor in the drip pan to cut the A/C, so it spilled. If on inspection that stain is right at the A/C it's a pretty plausible explanation. You can write an offer that's contingent on review of those documents even, on top of your general inspection and financing contingencies. The fact that they're disclosing that now-invisible water damage happened in the past is at least a point or two in their favor. Why would you tell people that something you allegedly fixed entirely is a little dubious, but it does give them something to point to if you ever find something they missed.
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Mar 26, 2018 18:47
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We're still happy with our house that had an undisclosed water damage issue (we had to tear out drywall, replace insulation, treat it with biocide, etc to deal with mold) so if that house is "exactly what you're looking for" then you are right to be concerned but it doesn't have to be a dealbreaker.
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Mar 26, 2018 18:58
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If it really is just a clogged drainage pipe from the AC it's a relatively easy fix. Of course you should have the seller pay professionals to repair it, but two years ago I solved that issue with some good old lung power. Luckily it was in a carpeted area of the first floor so no lasting damage was done.
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Mar 26, 2018 20:11
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I would like to purchase one (1) house please, thanks.
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Apr 1, 2018 13:17
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Vonnie posted:I would like to purchase one (1) house please, thanks. Your total will come to all your money. We are also running a special this week where you hand over your sanity as well.
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Apr 1, 2018 14:27
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Ah, the vaunted  , of course.
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Apr 1, 2018 14:35
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