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Fair enough
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Jun 17, 2020 15:04
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My issue with poo poo like wall mounts is that they are attached to the wall and not always 'universal' so just leave them so the next person can just use it and get a new $50 one for your house
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Jun 17, 2020 15:21
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kw0134 posted:What counts as a "fixture" is hugely variable to interpretation. Stuff like a chandelier is easy. So is a TV for the opposite reason. A wall mount I can see going both ways, because I can undo it from the wall in about five minutes with a screwdriver. But it's also not intended to get up and move (then again, neither is a refrigerator and that's chattel.) Of course in practice you're gonna argue over the stuff that is thousands of dollars and not over the piddly things like a $50 wall mount. The general rule of thumb that I'm aware of is that if something is physically attached to the house, it should convey as part of the house unless specifically mentioned in the contract. Built in Microwaves, wall ovens, etc usually stay, but refrigerators and countertop microwaves usually don't. A built in BBQ grill on the back patio would stay, but a standalone grill would not. I know some listings will mention curtains and curtain rods if the owner is planning on taking them. My realtor advised me to leave the wall mounts, but the TV's were mine of course.
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Jun 17, 2020 15:38
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Right, that's the definition of "fixture" but even before anyone with a $50 power drill from Home Depot can turn a fixture into chattel with a few minutes of work it's been really fuzzy. There literally has been litigation on the matter, and the case law becomes a lot of "we'll kind of know it when we see it." The point is that if you're not sure, get it in the contract.
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Jun 17, 2020 15:48
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H110Hawk posted:.....but know that if you go out "hunting" and "fishing" it is quickly - instantly - going to become openly racist. I'm sorry. This could be more wrong. If you fish from land, the majority of the other fisherman will be literal minorities. Hispanics, Blacks and Asians to be specific. If you’re boating then you won’t be around people anyways except at the ramp where you are judged only be your competence at launching/retrieving and getting the gently caress out of the way. Also, don’t worry about the sea levels. While they’ll eventually rise it won’t be in our lifetimes, nor our children’s. I live on the water and have neighbors who have lived here 30+ years and the mean tide level hasn’t changed at all.
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Jun 17, 2020 16:33
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skipdogg posted:You’re not supposed to take the wall mount. Something about it being attached to the house, so it conveys unless specified in the contract. I've never heard this before. There's no way I'm not taking my mounts that I know work with, and are adjusted for my TVs. Plus, who says the buyer wants a TV where I had one? It'd be twice as annoying to take a mount down, repair/paint the holes (while trying to match the paint at Home Depot), and put it up somewhere else. Henrik Zetterberg fucked around with this message at 17:11 on Jun 17, 2020 |
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Jun 17, 2020 17:07
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joepinetree posted:I am going to be repetitive and say that trying to time the market is a fools errand when it comes to your primary residence and moving away from renting. Homes are unlike many goods that lose value in a recession. Your sellers have options besides selling and because homes store value. In some recessions prices drop, in others they don't. Unless you have a big financial crisis where desperate financial institutions face significant budgetary constraints that makes them willing to offload foreclosed properties for a deep discount, or a long term decline because of real economic shifts in a region, what happens in recessions is that on one hand supply dries up as sellers who can wait know it is a temporary bump they can wait out and on the other hand institutional investors with access to cheaper capital buy the deep discounted properties. The 08 crisis bottomed out 4 years later. The dot.com boom crisis did not see a decline in home prices. This is essentially an argument for staying in my current place until the landlord dies, since we are paying probably 30% less in rent than a mortgage alone would be anywhere we'd be looking. If we were to attempt to buy the place we live in now, the mortgage would easily be double what our rent is. But our landlord is a boomer who bought the place in the 70's sight unseen and just wants the money to show up in his account every month without thinking about it, so here we are. This place is great and the rent is a killer deal so I'm happy to stay as long as I can. But at some point I'd like to move somewhere permanent on my own terms, instead of having my housing security balanced on the knife edge of some out of town boomer's health. I look at all these listings of houses selling for double what they sold for 10 years ago, and it feels equally absurd to expect prices to come down as it is to expect them to keep rising like this. I guess I'm asking what are the right indicators that it's a good time to buy (or at least, not a bad time to buy), if not a widespread downturn? It's hard to read news of the current and looming crisis being deeper than 2008 and not think that has to have *some* impact on housing even in SoCal, but nothing makes sense anymore so maybe it all just keeps rocketing skyward until the collapse of the US at some unknowable future date. bawfuls fucked around with this message at 17:53 on Jun 17, 2020 |
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Jun 17, 2020 17:29
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skipdogg posted:You’re not supposed to take the wall mount. Something about it being attached to the house, so it conveys unless specified in the contract. Yes I'm sure it's to be compliant and not because people are lazy E. Not trying to call you out personally, maybe your realtor, def my previous owner Epitope fucked around with this message at 18:04 on Jun 17, 2020 |
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Jun 17, 2020 17:44
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bawfuls posted:I get the point that market timing is difficult if not impossible, same goes for STONKS. But since I do have some flexibility on timing, surely there are good and bad ways to leverage that? The right time to buy is ultimately a personal decision. Do you want to own your own space? Are you thinking of having children? Want to start gaining equity vs just dumping money into investment funds? The last question should be "is this a good buyers market?" because you'll never have a straight answer for that. If we could reliably choose a "good" time to buy we'd all be ridiculously rich by now.
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Jun 17, 2020 17:59
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Ultimately "want to start gaining equity vs just dumping money into investment funds" is not an issue of personal preference though. I mean, it could be, just the way "I want to buy TSLA because Elon is a supergenius" is a personal preference. But it feels like the kind of decision which ought to have some rational basis.
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Jun 17, 2020 18:03
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bawfuls posted:Ultimately "want to start gaining equity vs just dumping money into investment funds" is not an issue of personal preference though. I mean, it could be, just the way "I want to buy TSLA because Elon is a supergenius" is a personal preference. But it feels like the kind of decision which ought to have some rational basis. You're right that's more a pragmatic investment decision, you can probably better estimate the ROI of a house at X loan rate vs investing in (Index Funds - rent) over that same time period. But that does not factor in the benefits of owning a home and the opportunities it affords (or limits) vs renting. So ultimately it still comes back to, do you want to own a house right now?
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Jun 17, 2020 18:08
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It's a home. One of the things we should be cognizant of is that we're allowed to be a little irrational about this, because there's no algorithm that you can input and spit out a definitive answer on whether buying or renting is best for you. It might make fiscal sense, but if you hate your living circumstances then what's the point? You're getting a killer deal, and that's great. If my last rental was a third of what I was paying I'd probably still buy my current house because it's much more comfortable and convenient. That's not really rational in the sense that even if I'm "throwing" money away with the rental, the cost of living is still a fraction of what I'd be paying just to property taxes. But it means I can get multiple cats, I can bang up the walls, I can dig around in my yard and kill the plants I want to grow. I can use a spare bedroom to paint really bad Bob Ross knockoffs and get Prussian blue on the walls and no one but me will care. These are intangibly valuable things to me, worth more than the loss in ROI had I invested the difference. But that's not an answer that I can give to you for your circumstances.
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Jun 17, 2020 18:22
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Some of this is definitely my father's voice in my head repeating "a house is just a highly illiquid asset"
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Jun 17, 2020 18:39
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bawfuls posted:Some of this is definitely my father's voice in my head repeating "a house is just a highly illiquid asset" Now is a good time to buy if only because of historically low mortgage rates. Rates might keep dropping or not but at least you can say you’re getting a good rate today. The rest of it all falls into the timing the market bucket.
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Jun 17, 2020 18:56
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Henrik Zetterberg posted:I've never heard this before. There's no way I'm not taking my mounts that I know work with, and are adjusted for my TVs. Epitope posted:Yes I'm sure it's to be compliant and not because people are lazy I swear I'm not making poo poo up. Here's an excerpt from a standard Texas real estate sales contract https://www.trec.texas.gov/sites/default/files/pdf-forms/20-14_0.pdf quote:B. IMPROVEMENTS: The house, garage and all other fixtures and improvements attached to the
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Jun 17, 2020 19:18
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Seconding that the purchase agreement you use covers a lot of what is real estate vs personal property. For instance CA and a number of other states include the window treatments(drapes/curtains) by default, usually only the hardware would be a fixture. You can certainly keep the tv mount or drapes or chandelier if you put that in the agreement. If there is any grey area you should specify whether it will convey.
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Jun 17, 2020 19:43
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skipdogg posted:I swear I'm not making poo poo up. Here's an excerpt from a standard Texas real estate sales contract https://www.trec.texas.gov/sites/default/files/pdf-forms/20-14_0.pdf I don't doubt it's by the book (though standard and required are different). It just happens that this practice aligns with sloth, and thus is followed, while other requirements are too much work, and are ignored
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Jun 17, 2020 19:43
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When my friend bought his house, the previous owners had left a gigantic live-laugh-love-style family tree decal on the living room wall, complete with little photo frames in the tree’s branches. He said that getting it off without wrecking the paint was a gigantic pain in the rear end. Those same previous owners also asked to take the living room ceiling light fixture with them, and my friend turned them down because he didn’t want them or whatever cheap-rear end handyman touching the electrical. It was a super basic standard issue fixture, too, so why they wanted to take it with them is a mystery. TV/speaker mounts and such I don’t care about either way, but live laugh love decals? Take that cursed poo poo with you.
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Jun 17, 2020 21:03
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Epitope posted:Yes I'm sure it's to be compliant and not because people are lazy The next time I buy a house I’m going to ask that all big wall fixtures get taken down just so I can repaint what needs to be painted before moving in.
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Jun 17, 2020 21:13
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kw0134 posted:Right, that's the definition of "fixture" but even before anyone with a $50 power drill from Home Depot can turn a fixture into chattel with a few minutes of work it's been really fuzzy. There literally has been litigation on the matter, and the case law becomes a lot of "we'll kind of know it when we see it." The point is that if you're not sure, get it in the contract.
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Jun 17, 2020 21:15
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bawfuls posted:I guess I'm asking what are the right indicators that it's a good time to buy (or at least, not a bad time to buy), if not a widespread downturn? It's hard to read news of the current and looming crisis being deeper than 2008 and not think that has to have *some* impact on housing even in SoCal, but nothing makes sense anymore so maybe it all just keeps rocketing skyward until the collapse of the US at some unknowable future date. The right time to buy is when you find a house you like and you have the means to purchase it without stretching your finances. You are in a place where you can afford to save money, which is great! Keep doing that. When you have a good down payment saved, start looking and evaluating homes for sale. Learn what you like and don't like. Learn what's important to you and what isn't so important. If you don't find a place that makes you want to jump, keep saving and keep looking. Once you know what you want in a house and where you want to be you'll feel a lot more comfortable. If an economic downturn happens you will be in a great position: A lot of cash saved (because you're saving your down payment in a high yield savings account that's FDIC insured), no pressure to leave your current home, and the freedom to be picky. If an economic downturn doesn't happen you will still be in a great position, you just might not be able to buy as much house. As long as you make a deal that works for you financially when you make it, a crash won't gut you.
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Jun 18, 2020 01:01
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Wheels, tongue, and axles removed, affixed to a permanent foundation with steel tiedowns, and detitled with the DMV so that it is no longer legally separate from the real property upon which it sits. This, of course, assumes you have title or leasehold for the property it's on.
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Jun 18, 2020 01:45
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bawfuls posted:Ultimately "want to start gaining equity vs just dumping money into investment funds" is not an issue of personal preference though. I mean, it could be, just the way "I want to buy TSLA because Elon is a supergenius" is a personal preference. But it feels like the kind of decision which ought to have some rational basis. Even if you want to be 100% rational and profit driven in your decision, it still makes no sense to try to time it. The financial advantage of buying a house is only there if you keep it for a while. The right house at the wrong time will be more profitable than the wrong house at the right time, because if you end selling your house 3 years in because it's not what you want you'll lose a bunch of money on transaction costs. And if you find the right house at the wrong time, odds are that it will not be there when the time is right. If you are flexible in terms of timing, that means you can be picky and wait for the right house, not that you should wait for the right time. joepinetree fucked around with this message at 16:15 on Jun 18, 2020 |
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Jun 18, 2020 15:55
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joepinetree posted:Even if you want to be 100% rational and profit driven in your decision, it still makes no sense to try to time it. I had a horrible Finance teacher for Grad school but she did say one thing that stuck out to me, just after I bought my house and was fretting over if I bought at a high or something. “Do you like your house?” Yes “Is your mortgage fixed rate?” Yes “Can you make the payments comfortably?” Yes “Then what are you worrying about”
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Jun 18, 2020 17:25
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Lots of good perspective, thanks all
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Jun 18, 2020 18:51
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I really hate to ask this, but let's run through a theoretical situation. Lets say I wanted to raise my max price compared to what I've been offering by 10K, just to try and see if instead of being beat we can actually end up having our offer be accepted. By increasing by 10K we -should- still be good with regards to closing costs etc but it depletes us more than I'd like to be depleted. To be clear, we've saved up a minimum 15-17% down payment and have additional funds set aside for closing costs etc. Again I hate to ask but I am curious/hate this Seattle market. If I pulled out 10K from my Roth to go 10K higher and then end up not needing to have pulled the money out, can I put all 10K or part of it back into the Roth after having moved in and ensuring costs are covered and our e-fund isn't too depleted? Or once I pull it out have I lost that advantaged space with no grace period? We are maxing my 401k and I have an auto conversion post the 401k max to Roth set up on my account (~3K this year) , and my wife isn't changing her retirement funding level.
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Jun 19, 2020 00:25
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Hawkeye posted:Again I hate to ask but I am curious/hate this Seattle market. If I pulled out 10K from my Roth to go 10K higher and then end up not needing to have pulled the money out, can I put all 10K or part of it back into the Roth after having moved in and ensuring costs are covered and our e-fund isn't too depleted? Or once I pull it out have I lost that advantaged space with no grace period? We are maxing my 401k and I have an auto conversion post the 401k max to Roth set up on my account (~3K this year) , and my wife isn't changing her retirement funding level. Don't do this, and no you can't as far as I know. If you have to pull money out of your roth, don't do it until the moment you have to as you can withdraw your contribution amount, presumably more than 10k, at any time with no tax liability so there's no reason to withdraw it "just in case"
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Jun 19, 2020 00:47
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gwrtheyrn posted:Don't do this, and no you can't as far as I know. If you have to pull money out of your roth, don't do it until the moment you have to as you can withdraw your contribution amount, presumably more than 10k, at any time with no tax liability so there's no reason to withdraw it "just in case" That is more than reasonable, thanks!
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Jun 19, 2020 00:53
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What y'all think about 2nd homes here? Like, the fiance and I have come to hate Austin, but still love our 2 friends who are part of our coronafamily, and also don't know where we want to have our next "permanent" home (and can't really travel to visit some of the long-shot places until covid clears). OTOH, I do know that I'd love to have a vacation home that we can live in for a month here and there on South Padre Island, where I basically grew up. Long term dream of mine. Have the financing figured out with my CU: cash out equity, of which I have plenty, get the other under the "jumbo" size, keep both. And then when we do find a place where we want to move, if it's before next summer, say, "oops, situation changed. election results yada yada, sorry we refinanced, now we're gonna move." Found a place we like, too. Hesitation is that I'm gonna have to low-ball them. I just don't see it being valued as high as they have it. Currently have it priced like a beachfront townhome while it has an unimpeded view of the ocean on a technicality with a lot that could be built on at any moment. They overpaid a decade ago when they bought it and they're not gonna sell it in this market without taking a loss, imo. Anyway, should I write them a letter professing my local credentials and attempt to convince them to sell for about $150k under ask? I'd love some beach time later this summer and fall. Offer low with preferred price, or come in at max already?
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Jun 19, 2020 04:06
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Hawkeye posted:but it depletes us more than I'd like to be depleted. Did this. Regret it. Stay strong, don't let the pressures convince you to do something you know you shouldn't
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Jun 19, 2020 04:41
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Hawkeye posted:I really hate to ask this, but let's run through a theoretical situation. We are in a similarly competitive market and we did something stupid like what you described above and we ended up buying our house. We've been very happy with the decision, but we're in a situation where we can comfortably recover the money pulled out of "the couch" and put it back in a year. We decided the cost benefit analysis was better for us as a family to buy the house than keep the money in savings. Penny pinchers might be happy living in a rental for 10 years at the whim of their landlord, we did not want to do that as we're planning on staying in the same location for several years. I will happily cede any and all arguments about the downsides of missing out on 12 months of compounding interest plus the 4$% apr stuff and all the tax stuff. Owning a house in a competitive market makes more sense to us, even in the current covid situation. So there's your vote for doing that.
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Jun 19, 2020 08:42
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First time buyer here, not in the US so forgive my inexperience. I was looking at a property that is really good, selling for €210k. Turnkey condition, nice area and has a converted attic. Wrong side of town for me but whatever. The one issue is a massive tree near twice the size of the house in the neighbor's garden (which I can do gently caress all about), close enough to cause real damage if it fell. The following happens: I put a bid a €205k on it on a Monday. Friday evening after work, the estate agent calls me to say someone else has put an offer of €206k. Following Monday I increase to €208k. The Thursday after that the offer goes up €208.5k, with the seller "off the record" saying that they're close to or perhaps over their limit. I go gently caress it and bid €210k. A day later the same bidder now has gone to €211k. The forums have turned me into a big cynic, but do you think this is a case of the house price being "puffed" up (I realise there's no way for me to prove this)? Or is it more likely it's a legitimate bid and I'm salty as gently caress? Because I am salty as gently caress over this.
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Jun 19, 2020 13:32
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What is the title of the person I would talk to, if I wanted them to look over my financials to see the amount of home I can afford? I basically wanted a realistic look at what I can afford taking into account what I have in savings and my local market. A loan officer?
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Jun 19, 2020 15:57
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obi_ant posted:What is the title of the person I would talk to, if I wanted them to look over my financials to see the amount of home I can afford? I basically wanted a realistic look at what I can afford taking into account what I have in savings and my local market. A loan officer? The loan officer will tell you how much you'll be approved for but they aren't interested in your financial well being, they are interested in selling you a loan. What you're looking for is an independent financial advisor. However, the fees associated with financial planning are kind of ridiculous and tailored towards the wealthy, so when I went down that path I never found one that I felt would have been worth the cost ($1500 ish if I remember correctly). The Internet really is your best resource as sad as that sounds.
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Jun 19, 2020 16:27
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obi_ant posted:What is the title of the person I would talk to, if I wanted them to look over my financials to see the amount of home I can afford? I basically wanted a realistic look at what I can afford taking into account what I have in savings and my local market. A loan officer? A loan officer will tell you how much you qualify for in terms of a loan. A good loan officer will also look up local taxes and HOAs to tell you what the estimated monthly payment would be. When I got a preapproval from BoA, they just told me "you qualify for a loan of this much" and did nothing else. With the lender I ended up going with I could text him addresses I was interested in and he would look a county tax records, average insurance, etc and give me a loan sheet that said what the estimated downpayment, closing costs and monthly payments would. But as mentioned, it is in their interest to get you to borrow as much as possible (I qualified for about 6x my yearly income, and obviously it would have been a very bad idea to use the max). If you can't afford an independent financial advisor, check if your employer provides one. At my university it is probably the most underutilized benefit we get. But personally I have found that when it comes to budgeting, their recommendations are mostly common sense and self evident. I've found them to be really good for stuff like playing around with your retirement contributions to minimize taxes, but everything else you can probably keep track and decide for yourself.
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Jun 19, 2020 16:53
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joepinetree posted:A loan officer will tell you how much you qualify for in terms of a loan. A good loan officer will also look up local taxes and HOAs to tell you what the estimated monthly payment would be. When I got a preapproval from BoA, they just told me "you qualify for a loan of this much" and did nothing else. With the lender I ended up going with I could text him addresses I was interested in and he would look a county tax records, average insurance, etc and give me a loan sheet that said what the estimated downpayment, closing costs and monthly payments would. But as mentioned, it is in their interest to get you to borrow as much as possible (I qualified for about 6x my yearly income, and obviously it would have been a very bad idea to use the max). This is great advice I knew pretty much nothing about before your post, so thank you!  Is what the lender you mentioned looking up for you atypical of lenders, or should that be a good litmus test for if they're decent or not?
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Jun 19, 2020 17:00
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The title you're looking for is "goon" and if you're afraid of being outed, a 10 dollar burner account is still gonna be cheaper than any advisor. This will at least get you a good idea of what your situation is from an objective view. It's still up to you to take that advice and apply it to your whole situation.
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Jun 19, 2020 17:23
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Johnny Truant posted:This is great advice I knew pretty much nothing about before your post, so thank you! I have no idea how typical it is. I first went on the market last year and BoA was completely unhelpful. At first they didn't even tell me how much I would qualify for and instead would just ask "how much do you want?" and then spit out a yes or no answer, and it was a real pain to have any sort of conversation about it. When I went on the market again this year, I got preapprovals from BoA and from the people I ended up going with, Fairway. Looking at online reviews, it seems that the consensus review of Fairway is precisely that they have great customer service, but are pickier about who they lend to and offer fewer loan options. So whether what they did was part of this "great customer service" or something more common is not something I can answer. Do keep in mind though that using someone for a pre-approval does not bind you to them. All the estimates and etc. that the Fairway guy ran for me did not bind me to going with them when I finally put down an offer.
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Jun 19, 2020 17:24
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Goons aren’t going to be able to give anyone good estimates of house insurance and property taxes, except by geographical coincidence.
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Jun 19, 2020 17:24
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joepinetree posted:I have no idea how typical it is. I first went on the market last year and BoA was completely unhelpful. At first they didn't even tell me how much I would qualify for and instead would just ask "how much do you want?" and then spit out a yes or no answer, and it was a real pain to have any sort of conversation about it. When I went on the market again this year, I got preapprovals from BoA and from the people I ended up going with, Fairway. Looking at online reviews, it seems that the consensus review of Fairway is precisely that they have great customer service, but are pickier about who they lend to and offer fewer loan options. So whether what they did was part of this "great customer service" or something more common is not something I can answer. Do keep in mind though that using someone for a pre-approval does not bind you to them. All the estimates and etc. that the Fairway guy ran for me did not bind me to going with them when I finally put down an offer.  More great advice, thank you!
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Jun 19, 2020 17:27
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