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Queen Victorian posted:As we remodel, we will be upgrading wiring as we go through the rooms. Need to figure out how to keep the old style brass/Bakelite/mother of pearl push-button light switches though. Easy peasy https://www.amazon.com/dp/B005TH7ZZM/
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Sep 4, 2018 11:32
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I have a 4500sqft home built in 1914. Most of the electrical is new but the knob and tube that serves some of the ceiling light fixtures and baseboard outlets was left. The electrician cleaned it all up with modern junction boxes and Kevlar (I think, maybe just woven vinyl) boots. I was put off at first but assured that it was all in great shape and it didn’t need to be disturbed. It’s all on its own circuits and wasn’t mixed with any of the new ones.
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Sep 4, 2018 12:04
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YES. Thanks! Will be ordering a ton of those, plus black electrical sockets with brass face plates. The white plastic switches/outlets/plates to the new circuits look so bad in this house, especially when they're right next to the old brass stuff. I'm familiar with House of Antique Hardware (in need of some transom window hardware) but never thought to check for electrical stuff.
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Sep 4, 2018 13:27
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Two houses we were going to see tomorrow are pending sale as of tonight. This search is so discouraging. We found a house on ten acres with a stocked trout river running through it. Ideal part of town, best school district, and the property is extremely beautiful, quiet, and private. The house is fine, I could see us living there, but there are a few drawbacks that I don’t know how to feel about. 1. House was built in 1979 and appears to be in good shape. The foundation is wood, under the plywood is a vapor barrier, and under that is a “designed rock layer” to drain any water. The basement felt and smelled dry. There was major flooding here a few years back and the basement remained dry. Our realtor is concerned that there is no concrete slab foundation, and we aren’t very familiar with wood foundations. 2. Septic and well were installed in 1981. The septic will need to be replaced in the near future. 3. The asking price is about $20k above what we can afford, so if we take off $20k from asking to replace the septic, it’s at the tip top of our budget. Looking at all combined expenses, we would be paying about $800/month more than we do right now. I currently save $1,200/month, which is half my income. I know that’s a little unusual but we’ve had zero financial worries because of our spending/saving habits. We’d be down to saving $400/month, and with a baby on the way, that doesn’t seem like much at all. We aren’t planning on doing daycare, but it’s our first kid, who knows how it will actually pan out. That being said, the houses we’ve been looking at in town aren’t that much cheaper, and come with comparably postage stamp sized lots. For example, the house we made an offer on was $180k on a 6k sq foot lot, and we were outbid. The offer we would make on this house would be $230k for 10 acres and a river. Also, the house is fine, it’s nothing special, but the property is what makes it. I need to do some thinking on what I value more... a nice house that I love on not great property, or an okay house on beautiful property that I love.
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Sep 5, 2018 04:47
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Koivunen posted:Two houses we were going to see tomorrow are pending sale as of tonight. This search is so discouraging. Sounds like you already made up your mind. What's the potential for increased income in the next few years? You can always fix up a house, can't grow additional property.
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Sep 5, 2018 12:01
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Koivunen posted:Two houses we were going to see tomorrow are pending sale as of tonight. This search is so discouraging. Swinging from bidding on a 6k sqft lot to a ~420k sqft lot is a little odd. Have you really thought through what you want and considered the investment that much land takes?
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Sep 5, 2018 12:07
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Koivunen posted:Also, the house is fine, it’s nothing special, but the property is what makes it. I need to do some thinking on what I value more... a nice house that I love on not great property, or an okay house on beautiful property that I love. If it's near a running body of water, make sure you check out FEMA's site for 100-year flood areas: https://msc.fema.gov/portal/search Also, does the land support a second leach field for the septic? Ideally, there'd be another, say, 40'x40' area near the house that's downhill. Gravity systems are pretty cheap, but the exotic sand-mound, pumped systems are very expensive if you have to convert to one of those. Make sure you check out taxes. Big plots of land can sometimes be taxed much higher than you would think. I'd also mirror Jealous Cow in asking if you have a plan to manage that much land. Even if it's mostly wooded, you'll still want to do basic cleanup (i.e. own a chainsaw and brush hog) and keep watch over any trees that are tall enough to hit your house. Fall leaf cleanup? Winter snow removal? If you don't do these things yourself, they will be a significant ongoing expense.
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Sep 5, 2018 14:14
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I think a wood foundation is significantly more likely to fail catastrophically than a block or concrete or stone foundation. That would scare me away.
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Sep 5, 2018 17:27
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You should get a perc test to see if the land would support a second septic system or hire someone to inspect the septic. It could be that the septic was pumped out and is not in need of replacement in the short term. You could hire a geotechnical engineer to inspect the foundation for peace of mind but if there are no cracks or flooding or signs of problems it isn't really needed.
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Sep 5, 2018 17:42
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$400 a month is $4800 a year and I suspect that's not enough to cover maintenance on a house with a wood foundation and dodgy or replacement septic and also a well on a big chunk of land. I advise you to make more money or not buy this house. Even if you stretch and make it work, you wind up house-poor with zero money going into savings for other fun things. When you first buy a house it's your big new project and that's kind of OK but after four or five years of no vacations, no new TV, stuck with your aging vehicles, etc. it gets to be pretty discouraging.
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Sep 5, 2018 18:28
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I've owned a few homes on on lots ranging from .5 to .75 acres, and I think on average I've spent $300-400 a month on upkeep, sometimes more when I've used landscapers. In most places you can't let 10 acres just manage itself and will need to keep frontage clear, your driveway and area around the house clear, you may have an obligation to keep the creek/river clear of debris in some cases. You may also have to take special precautions to ensure runoff/drainage does not pollute the water. I don't think buying 10 acres on a whim is a good idea. Particularly combined with the construction of the home and other confounding factors such as a septic system and well water. Each of these has the potential to be monumentally expensive, and their operation is essential to habitation of the property so it isn't like you can 'let it go'. Jealous Cow fucked around with this message at 20:47 on Sep 5, 2018 |
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Sep 5, 2018 18:43
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I have a half acre in town and it's a pain to keep up even without a river and woods to deal with. Unless you have big plans for land and love to be outside maintaining it, would not recommend.
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Sep 5, 2018 20:44
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I bet you could grow a lot of blackberries on that much land. They don't require too much work to keep up.
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Sep 5, 2018 21:16
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sullat posted:I bet you could grow a lot of blackberries on that much land. They don't require too much work to keep up. LOL yeah as long as you are going for the same look as the castle in Sleeping Beauty.
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Sep 5, 2018 21:32
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I just paid a crew $3000 to remove many truckloads of blackberries from my property and the visibility change is tremendous. Property is expensive don’t own it.
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Sep 5, 2018 21:40
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HEY NONG MAN posted:I just paid a crew $3000 to remove many truckloads of blackberries from my property and the visibility change is tremendous. You are a farmer, and should be collecting farmer subsidies, and selling your crop!
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Sep 5, 2018 21:44
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Are you in bear country? Filling your land with berries might not be wise.
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Sep 5, 2018 21:45
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Leperflesh posted:You are a farmer, and should be collecting farmer subsidies, and selling your crop! The worst part is that it was 100% vines and thorns and no actual fruit. At least my neighbors get sweet treats from their invasive growth.
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Sep 5, 2018 21:59
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In a perfect world, the house we buy would be on land, but most places with land are either dumpy shacks, or houses we can’t afford. We are looking at places in town too because we need to move regardless since our neighborhood isn’t safe and I don’t want to have our newborn here. 10 acres isn’t a whim, we’re just looking at all our options. Dream house is a log cabin in the woods. Ten acres is just the right size. We are very outdoorsy and being surrounded by trees and nature and quiet would be the dream life. That’s why it’s so hard to make this decision. The property is absolutely perfect. The stuff on the property, well, I’ve already written a novel about it. You all have brought up some really good points, though. It’s looking like it would be a pretty financially unwise decision to go forward with making an offer. I wonder if there’s any way we could make it work...
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Sep 5, 2018 22:02
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Koivunen posted:In a perfect world, the house we buy would be on land, but most places with land are either dumpy shacks, or houses we can’t afford. Nothing wrong with wanting to live somewhere with a little bit of property, you just have to understand that it will require a good amount of work+time or money. I recently moved to a house on 1.5 acres, because I can't stand the postage stamp-sized lots that accompany most new construction (with some of these houses, you could borrow sugar from your neighbor by reaching out the window.) I've been an outdoorsy person, so I had a good idea of what I would have to do, and how much I would need to spend year-one in order to buy all the power tools that make it bearable work. It's really not that expensive if you do the work yourself, but you will be spending multiple hours a week doing general yard work, especially in the summer. For every idyllic looking house in the country/woods, there's someone unseen busting their rear end to keep it that way.
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Sep 5, 2018 22:17
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Our old construction city house has a < .10 acre lot, which gives us enough space to have a pretty yard with a garden and nice trees, but it's small enough that it's pretty quick and easy to maintain. It means the houses (which are large, but tall with relatively small footprints) are like four feet apart. The upside is the proximity lets the houses shade each other so they don't get hot in the summer, and it makes for a compact, highly walkable neighborhood. And we are only a few blocks from a 600 acre city park consisting predominantly of primeval Pennsylvania woods. Trade offs abound. In a perfect world, we'd have a neat old house on a more spacious lot, but the ones with big yards in city proper were over our budget and the ones we could afford were out in the suburbs, and we didn't want to live in the suburbs. If I were to get a place in the country, it'd have to be totally rural with nothing around it, and a lot of land. Some of my family is in ranching, so I know what goes into maintaining a totally rural property. Still, I would love to have a place in the country. Good luck, the woods are so pretty up north.
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Sep 5, 2018 22:48
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B-Nasty posted:I've been an outdoorsy person, so I had a good idea of what I would have to do, and how much I would need to spend year-one in order to buy all the power tools that make it bearable work. It's really not that expensive if you do the work yourself, but you will be spending multiple hours a week doing general yard work, especially in the summer. I recently dropped around $20k on a subcompact utility tractor (think oversized diesel lawn tractor/baby farm tractor with a loader and real 3-point hitch) and implements to manage a 2+ acre property that has about an acre of grass, much of which is under heavy tree cover, and a acre or so of mature woods leading to a creek on the property line. Even with exactly the equipment I want, just mowing (actual grass, not counting periodic brush hogging of part of the woodland interface), trimming and blowing takes a couple of hours a week. When the leaves start coming down make that 3 hours twice a week or more for a few weeks. We haven't gotten into time for periodic landscaping or managing the woods yet. I also need to spray for mosquitoes and ticks every 2 weeks if I want my back yard to be inhabitable by humans (garlic based concentrates works awesome - no need for nasty stuff). And when it snows its going to be HOURS of removal to hit the entire driveway and the paths, even with a snow bucket on the tractor for the big parts and a snowblower for the detail work. (I also got a soft cab for the tractor because I'm a big baby and don't want to be in the wind) If you don't want the place to quickly turn into a disaster this poo poo needs to be done frequently. I's time consuming, even with all the right toys. You can certainly do with much less than I've got, but that just increases the time and effort you spend on upkeep. This is perfect for me because I 1.) knew what I was getting into 2.) was a landscaper much earlier in life so I know what I'm doing and how to do it 3.) enjoy the time to turn off my brain and get near immediate gratification when I'm done. This is not the lifestyle for many people, and if you want this without the work you're on the hook for around $10k per year (according to the previous owner who had someone else do everything for him). It's so worth it: 
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Sep 6, 2018 14:53
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Motronic posted:I recently dropped around $20k on a subcompact utility tractor (think oversized diesel lawn tractor/baby farm tractor with a loader and real 3-point hitch) and implements to manage a 2+ acre property that has about an acre of grass, much of which is under heavy tree cover, and a acre or so of mature woods leading to a creek on the property line. Beautiful! I'm on .75 acres in an urban area but about .2 acres of that is behind my carriage house and sunken about 10 feet below street level so it floods all the time. There are several trees back there over 6 feet in diameter that are dead and need to be removed. I'm dreading actually dealing with it but I need to at some point.
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Sep 6, 2018 14:59
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Jealous Cow posted:Beautiful! Thanks - I'm loving this place. Dealing with large trees close to structures sucks, and is one of the few things I call in other people for. In fact, I've got someone coming in to this property soon for some trimming and removal with their insane "wont damage your lawn" 75 foot crane-saw contraption. If it's something farther away or in the woods I'll climb/trim or just drop the tree myself as with the last property. I can use the wood, but dealing with the slash is still either a pain in the rear end or expensive (getting someone else in with a chipper).
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Sep 6, 2018 15:06
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Motronic posted:Thanks - I'm loving this place. Yeah this is going to require a crane from the street. I'm then trying to decide how to deal with the low spot. It's about 50' by 30', with the surrounding land roughly level with the street. My carriage house was built into the hill the depression forms so it has a weird walk out basement. If I wanted to fill in the depression it would take a gently caress load of dirt and bury the walk out basement which has windows and no access from the main floor, so I'm thinking about putting in a cistern and sump pump to move the water someplace else. Not sure where since water that collected on the ground can't be pumped into the storm drain system here. Also considering an extra deep cistern and a gravel field above it, some soil on that, and then grass. I don't know. Kind of at a loss.
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Sep 6, 2018 15:15
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Jealous Cow posted:If I wanted to fill in the depression it would take a gently caress load of dirt and bury the walk out basement which has windows and no access from the main floor, so I'm thinking about putting in a cistern and sump pump to move the water someplace else. Not sure where since water that collected on the ground can't be pumped into the storm drain system here. Talk to your zoning/building officials. There is every chance that some of your possible solutions are an immediate no-go based on regulations and/or will cause you to get sued by whomever you end up dumping that water on. The cistern/french drain combo sounds pretty minimal impact to neighbors if one can be created with sufficient volume to drain between flooding events. You're probably going to end up needing some manner of engineer to come in and look at the situation and potentially even make a formal and stamped plan to get building/zoning approval. Drainage is always a bitch like that. Sorry to hear you've got one of the top 5 nastiest problems a homeowner is likely to face.
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Sep 6, 2018 15:36
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Motronic posted:I recently dropped around $20k on a subcompact utility tractor (think oversized diesel lawn tractor/baby farm tractor with a loader and real 3-point hitch) and implements to manage a 2+ acre property that has about an acre of grass, much of which is under heavy tree cover, and a acre or so of mature woods leading to a creek on the property line. Please post a picture of your shiny new tractor.
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Sep 6, 2018 15:42
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Sirotan posted:Please post a picture of your shiny new tractor. If I have to.......  (everything is a tractor-solvable problem when all you have is a tractor)
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Sep 6, 2018 15:45
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Motronic posted:If I have to.......  I will probably never have 10 acres, but I have fond childhood memories of tooling around my grandparents' 40 acres in a couple of their tractors. Granted, I was pulling a cart full of my younger cousins and not mowing the lawn or clearing brush...
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Sep 6, 2018 15:58
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Our house is on a 6000sqft plot (I think that's ~0.10 acres?) and these posts make me so glad that I am not responsible for more land. Don't get me wrong, I love the woods, but I'd really rather visit them and leave the caretaking to park rangers or arborists or whoever gets employed to do that stuff for public preserves.
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Sep 6, 2018 16:14
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Motronic posted:Talk to your zoning/building officials. There is every chance that some of your possible solutions are an immediate no-go based on regulations and/or will cause you to get sued by whomever you end up dumping that water on. The cistern/french drain combo sounds pretty minimal impact to neighbors if one can be created with sufficient volume to drain between flooding events. You're probably going to end up needing some manner of engineer to come in and look at the situation and potentially even make a formal and stamped plan to get building/zoning approval. Luckily it has no impact on the structures. The house is far enough away and so much higher up that there's no hydrostatic issues due to the flooding. My neighbors behind me put in an un-permitted driveway that has an insane would-need-a-trucks-use-low-gear-sign grade to it that has severely exacerbated the issue. Their driveway used to be gravel. I'm trying to gently nudge the city to intervene on that.
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Sep 6, 2018 17:41
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Ashcans posted:Our house is on a 6000sqft plot (I think that's ~0.10 acres?) and these posts make me so glad that I am not responsible for more land. Don't get me wrong, I love the woods, but I'd really rather visit them and leave the caretaking to park rangers or arborists or whoever gets employed to do that stuff for public preserves. 1 acre is 43,560 square feet.
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Sep 6, 2018 17:41
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Jealous Cow posted:My neighbors behind me put in an un-permitted driveway that has an insane would-need-a-trucks-use-low-gear-sign grade to it that has severely exacerbated the issue. Their driveway used to be gravel. I'm trying to gently nudge the city to intervene on that. Perfect. Get that engineer out, show the additional damage and you get to present a bill to your neighbor for part of your work. Unfortunately you'll end up having to sue them because lol, nobody is going to actually pay for things they damaged by doing things on their property.
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Sep 6, 2018 17:50
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Motronic posted:Perfect. Get that engineer out, show the additional damage and you get to present a bill to your neighbor for part of your work. Unfortunately you'll end up having to sue them because lol, nobody is going to actually pay for things they damaged by doing things on their property. They own the house under an LLC, did a complete gut renovations with no permits or inspections, have no occupancy permit, and are lying on their tax assessors complaint trying to get the taxable value reduced from 190k to 30k by saying the house is uninhabitable and no work has been done since they bought it. What would be awesome is if I could get a fairly large judgement against the LLC and then force the house to be sold.
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Sep 6, 2018 17:55
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Just go scorched earth on these assholes.
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Sep 6, 2018 17:58
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Jealous Cow posted:They own the house under an LLC, did a complete gut renovations with no permits or inspections, have no occupancy permit, and are lying on their tax assessors complaint trying to get the taxable value reduced from 190k to 30k by saying the house is uninhabitable and no work has been done since they bought it. Oh my God I didn't realize it was you again with yet another back-breaking issue. Seriously, sue these loving idiots back into the stupid hole from which they arose.
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Sep 6, 2018 18:05
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Jealous Cow posted:They own the house under an LLC, did a complete gut renovations with no permits or inspections, have no occupancy permit, and are lying on their tax assessors complaint trying to get the taxable value reduced from 190k to 30k by saying the house is uninhabitable and no work has been done since they bought it. OMFG, I remember that story. I just didn't remember it was yours. HEY NONG MAN posted:Just go scorched earth on these assholes.
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Sep 6, 2018 18:24
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Ashcans posted:Our house is on a 6000sqft plot (I think that's ~0.10 acres?) and these posts make me so glad that I am not responsible for more land. Don't get me wrong, I love the woods, but I'd really rather visit them and leave the caretaking to park rangers or arborists or whoever gets employed to do that stuff for public preserves. Yeah I'm not even happy about my big lawn, can I just turn it into dirt and rocks please
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Sep 6, 2018 19:13
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silvergoose posted:Yeah I'm not even happy about my big lawn, can I just turn it into dirt and rocks please Should have bought in the south, then you could sweep your yard to dirt and it would just be a family tradition.
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Sep 6, 2018 20:56
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This may be a dumb question and/or one I can have easily answered by making a phone call, but since it's after 5 I'll toss it out here. I closed on 8/31 and got some documents today from the title(/escrow?) company which included a ~$350 check to me for "excess cash to close." I did a quick Google but didn't immediately find anything, and I don't remember anyone telling me to expect any sort of check in the mail. Is this common in California? The seller did extend a couple thousand in credits prior to closing, although I'm not sure if that's relevant.
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Sep 7, 2018 02:55
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