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From the little I could see through that crappy image host what you have there is a pit of decades of maintenance debt that likely has significant water damage. It wouldn't surprise me for the final bill to be $50+k, especially in today materials/contracting prices. A standard inspection will not be able to reveal the extent of this type of damage so beware, but I'm sure a competent inspector with a moisture meter in the attic is going to show all manners of horrors on its own. No, the kitchen having grounded outlets almost definitely has nothing to do with the rest of the home. Unless this is well below your budget and you don't mind living in a construction zone for months this is a pass.
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Mar 25, 2021 12:04
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The outlets in the kitchen might have three prongs, but there's no guarantee they're actually grounded to anything but their own work box, or that there's actually modern romex running contiguously from those outlets to the panel. Having renovated a 1920s house from the studs out, I now believe that everything you see in an old house is a lie told by everyone who's worked on that house before, possibly including the studs themselves.
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Mar 25, 2021 12:56
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Thank you for the sanity check thread, this is my first home purchase and I am trying to be as realistic about what I can afford, and what I am willing to put up with. Walking into definite major repairs checks neither box and I will continue looking. I will also never use that image host again, amen.
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Mar 25, 2021 15:05
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vs Dinosaurs posted:Thank you for the sanity check thread, this is my first home purchase and I am trying to be as realistic about what I can afford, and what I am willing to put up with. Walking into definite major repairs checks neither box and I will continue looking. I will also never use that image host again, amen. We saw a positively beautiful place a week or so ago that ticked every single box we had. After checking out the first and second floors, we were absolutely convinced we were making an offer. Then we saw the basement. Flooding, bugs, wet foundation, waterlogged rafters (or whatever it's called, the poo poo that supports the floor), severely cracked and buckling concrete flooring, a support that seemed to be just a 2x4 hammered into place ... just tens of thousands of dollars in repairs, staring us right in the face. We still sat there for a bit trying to justify making an offer because we loved the house itself just that much. Not worth it, though.
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Mar 25, 2021 17:09
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Lighting chat, here is my sad boob light in the main bedroom in my new condo, built early 2000s. Any ideas? I think I'll probably just go with a ceiling fan with maybe 3 LED light bulbs attached. I know it's not the best vs. recessed fixtures. In a condo, am I looking at maybe $500 per new recessed fixture in a ceiling like that all in? Here is the main kitchen / living area. Bulb and entire other fixture was not working, seller agreed to have these functioning during final walkthrough. Not going to make changes here, seems like good lighting already: 
Inner Light fucked around with this message at 17:21 on Mar 25, 2021 |
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Mar 25, 2021 17:16
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PageMaster posted:As we just found out, if a VA appraiser finds items needing to be corrected like some peeling paint inside or weathered wood on the deck, and makes loan reliant upon correction, we were charged 1500 for the reinspection cost. I know VA is a little more regulated with standardized fees, so I don't know if it's the appraiser or the lender doing anything shady, but I don't understand how the reinspection is twice the cost of the original appraisal. A repair inspection/reinspection fee of $1500 is not normal. $150 was the limit in many states including VA, MD, DC as of 2018. It is probably a typo, I would double check with the lender.
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Mar 25, 2021 18:47
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lampey posted:A repair inspection/reinspection fee of $1500 is not normal. $150 was the limit in many states including VA, MD, DC as of 2018. It is probably a typo, I would double check with the lender. Thanks for catching this, it does look like a typo that we are fixing.
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Mar 25, 2021 22:12
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Yesssssss appraisal came through at our offer price. Another hurtle knocked down. No Pinhead for me.
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Mar 25, 2021 23:56
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My appraisal came in, it is 17% below our offer price, and 4.7% below the asking price. This is in Austin, where houses are going for 10-30% over asking, and this house had 15 offers in 3 days. One of the guys comps is from November. What a clown
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Mar 26, 2021 00:42
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Infinotize posted:My appraisal came in, it is 17% below our offer price, and 4.7% below the asking price. This is in Austin, where houses are going for 10-30% over asking, and this house had 15 offers in 3 days. One of the guys comps is from November. What a clown What's your next move my guy?
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Mar 26, 2021 01:02
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Downpayment paid, loan docs signed, walkthrough tomorrow, close on Monday (presumably). Ping-ponging between excitement and anxiety.
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Mar 26, 2021 01:12
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Inner Light posted:What's your next move my guy? The difference is real money but we can eat it if it comes down to it. Our agent is going to take a big poo poo on the report with more recent comps (appraiser is not supposed to but sometimes this can move the needle from what I've been told). We'll have to speak with everyone tomorrow to see what if any options there are. My first thought is get another appraisal, which could be an issue due to timing, although this appraisal was done 8 business days after being ordered which would just barely give us enough time to get another one assuming equal timing. Infinotize fucked around with this message at 01:26 on Mar 26, 2021 |
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Mar 26, 2021 01:22
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Infinotize posted:My appraisal came in, it is 17% below our offer price, and 4.7% below the asking price. This is in Austin, where houses are going for 10-30% over asking, and this house had 15 offers in 3 days. One of the guys comps is from November. What a clown The last time we had an appraisal done for I think a HELOC the appraiser used 3 town homes in our area as comps. We threw a huge fit about that and he had to come back out and do comps against actual houses, like what we actually live in.
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Mar 26, 2021 13:50
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It's been a day and I'm still in complete awe of this. Perfect in every way.
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Mar 26, 2021 13:55
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Condo docs are in! There is a reserve study (good!) that projects the modified bitumen roof will need to be replaced by 2023 for ~$280K (bad) I swear the sellers are dumping this thing at the perfect time. Old HVAC, old roof.
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Mar 26, 2021 15:05
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It's me, the guy that's doing a +40k over asking, waiving (almost) all contingencies blind bid. In just three weeks I've become everything I hate. The only thing I can't waive is the VA appraisal, which is fine because that's the only thing I'm genuinely concerned about even though I have no logical reason to given the market. I'm still not going to get it, and I'll be stuck in this apartment forever.
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Mar 26, 2021 15:30
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Literally less than five new-to-market houses in a two county area fitting my criteria this week. What is going on?
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Mar 26, 2021 16:17
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Got a question for the thread. I'm in the process of selling my house; specifically, currently getting contracts for some updates to prep it for sale (paint, replacing some severely damaged floor, replacing the roof). One item that realtors keep suggesting is the front of the house - there are some bushes that have become overgrown and are just kinda bleh. (In my opinion, they were the wrong bushes for the location anyway - that close to the house, they should not have planted something that was going to grow more AROUND than UP, but I digress). So, question: if I decide to remove the bushes entirely, should I just drop some mulch/rock and leave the area a blank canvas for the next owners? Or should I try and plant something there to not make it feel so "empty" in those spots?
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Mar 26, 2021 18:25
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Zarin posted:Got a question for the thread. In this market? No one is going to give two shits about the shrubs.
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Mar 26, 2021 18:33
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Whether you should be doing any of what you're doing as well as the answer to your question are heavily dependent on your local real estate market, and to some extent what "tier" of properties you home is in. If you're in a hot market you probably don't need to do much of anything.
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Mar 26, 2021 18:35
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Zarin posted:Got a question for the thread. We have a similar situation with some giant overgrown shrubs that were way too large and close to the house - we ended up having them removed. Our realtor advised us to mulch over the area and plant a few cheap flowers for a splash of color, so that's what we've done. It really does look quite a bit better, and wasn't too expensive or time consuming - if you're not dealing with a huge amount of space it's probably worth doing.
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Mar 26, 2021 18:42
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The house we bought a month ago has foundation leak issues. We found out because the new carpet we had installed in basement this week was wet lol just kill me now Never buy a house
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Mar 26, 2021 18:53
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Selling my current place and I am decluttering and throwing some fresh paint on some walls. There is nothing else for sale in town and for some reason this place is seen as a hot place to live in so I expect no one will care. I was told specifically by my selling agent to not spend a ton of money as it won’t make a difference.
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Mar 26, 2021 18:53
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slave to my cravings posted:The house we bought a month ago has foundation leak issues. We found out because the new carpet we had installed in basement this week was wet lol just kill me now condolences
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Mar 26, 2021 19:04
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I maintain that basements are a sacrificial offering to the water gods, so that they may spare your improved living areas above
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Mar 26, 2021 19:05
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Motronic posted:Whether you should be doing any of what you're doing as well as the answer to your question are heavily dependent on your local real estate market, and to some extent what "tier" of properties you home is in. Good point - I'm in Central IL, so it's warm (maybe?) but not hot, I don't think. Inventory is low, but I don't think things are nearly as crazy as I'm seeing in the thread. The two realtors I talked to as part of the relocation agreement basically said the same things: "You're gonna wanna take care of these 3 (paint, roof, floor) and do something about the bushes." My tier of property is very solidly "Starter Home", I feel - so I think the plan is to try and have it as move-in ready and hassle-free for someone trying to move from renting to buying as we can. The one thing that I think may make things hard is the lack of a garage. It's easily my most massive dislike of the place, and I regret not having one built when I bought the house 10 years ago. But . . . I didn't think I was gonna be here this long, and I also didn't think that it would be worth it whenever I did consider it 
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Mar 26, 2021 19:08
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Zarin posted:So, question: if I decide to remove the bushes entirely, should I just drop some mulch/rock and leave the area a blank canvas for the next owners? Or should I try and plant something there to not make it feel so "empty" in those spots? Spend an afternoon buzzing at them with a hedge trimmer before they take pictures for the listing. Maybe throw some mulch down if it's bad, but honestly as long as it doesn't look totally unkempt nobody's going to care all that much. If they do, most US markets are hot seller's markets, so someone who doesn't care will be along soon enough. Zarin posted:(In my opinion, they were the wrong bushes for the location anyway - that close to the house, they should not have planted something that was going to grow more AROUND than UP, but I digress). lmao we have 3 loropetalums behind our garage where the electrical and telecom service comes in. They were planted 2' from the foundation and 3' from each other. Problem is, these fuckers get 15+ ft tall/wide if you let them. I hacked them down to a 1' tall stump almost exactly a year ago, and they're easily 4' tall today. Builders put whatever garbage shrubs they can get their hands on for foundation cover, and they give precisely zero shits how it will look in 5 years. As long as it meets local minimum plant requirements for new construction, they don't care.
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Mar 26, 2021 19:12
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Zarin posted:My tier of property is very solidly "Starter Home" In my opinion the most important thing for starter homes is to make sure there are no expensive things that need doing, as the people buying it probably do'nt have the additional cash, can't handle coming up with it quickly and might have homeowner insurance issues if it's 25+ years old. So I'd say definitely on the roof. The rest......I don't know your market. But take a look at listings for similar properties and how quickly they've sold and what condition they're in.
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Mar 26, 2021 20:13
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slave to my cravings posted:Depends on the house and the area but major foundation issues are probably the walk away point for me. A bad roof with associated water damage might be another. Any house will have some issues and if the inspector is any good they should be able to find and focus on the big issues (although not guaranteed). If the house has a lot of DIY work or recently renovated I would be wary of electrical and plumbing issues too. slave to my cravings posted:The house we bought a month ago has foundation leak issues. We found out because the new carpet we had installed in basement this week was wet lol just kill me now You jinxed yourself! Sorry m8 
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Mar 26, 2021 20:16
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GoGoGadgetChris posted:I maintain that basements are a sacrificial offering to the water gods, so that they may spare your improved living areas above This used to be more or less true in a way. Basements in old houses were never meant to be finished/livable - foundation walls were made from stone and lime mortar and weep excess moisture. Floors were either concrete with a drain (and/or cistern) or plain dirt, so in cases of water inundation, it’d flow into the drain/cistern or soak into the ground. If you seal the walls and finish the space, you gently caress everything up because the water can no longer escape and you get mold and spalling and poo poo. We are never finishing our basement - don’t want to anger the gods of rain and the water table (as we are on a flat and not a hill). Also really glad we did not buy an old house with a finished basement knowing what we now know about old house basements.
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Mar 26, 2021 21:21
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Epitope posted:You jinxed yourself! Sorry m8 I know I know  I think the problem isn’t as bad as I initially thought and may be solved by fixing a downspout that currently drains underground. Gonna try to route it above ground with an extender and see how it goes next time it rains.
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Mar 26, 2021 21:57
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I do not recall reading about backup offers in the past 10-20 pages of the thread, so I’ll ask the thread for opinions. The only downside to taking a backup offer position as a buyer is that you have to wait to get your earnest money back should you decide to offer on another house, correct? This is in Oregon where closing is handled via escrow. This house has a non-owner tenant, but the tenant has agreed to be out by close. The contract will state that the seller is responsible for ensuring the tenant has vacated the property by close.
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Mar 26, 2021 22:07
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vs Dinosaurs posted:I do not recall reading about backup offers in the past 10-20 pages of the thread, so I’ll ask the thread for opinions. The only downside to taking a backup offer position as a buyer is that you have to wait to get your earnest money back should you decide to offer on another house, correct? This is in Oregon where closing is handled via escrow. We're in Portland and just agreed to be a backup offer on a house last weekend. No earnest money changed hands. The seller just said we were close enough that they were willing to sign an agreement to go with our offer if the first fell through. I don't know how common that is, but our realtor recommended it and already had a standard offer amendment ready to go. It seemed pretty low risk and standardized. My understanding is it basically just saves the seller the effort of re-listing if the first offer went south.
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Mar 26, 2021 22:13
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incogneato posted:We're in Portland and just agreed to be a backup offer on a house last weekend. No earnest money changed hands. The seller just said we were close enough that they were willing to sign an agreement to go with our offer if the first fell through. Ok cool, what’s up fellow future Portland homebuyer! Thanks for the details, if there is no earnest money down then I see literally no reason why not to do this.
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Mar 26, 2021 22:28
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incogneato posted:We're in Portland and just agreed to be a backup offer on a house last weekend. No earnest money changed hands. The seller just said we were close enough that they were willing to sign an agreement to go with our offer if the first fell through. I imagine you're realtor has already covered it, but I would just check to see how this interacts with you putting in other offers and continuing to house hunt in the extremely unlikely chance that you get an accepted offer on another place at the exact same time this seller signs and accepts your backup offer. My guess is they would give you a verbal first before signing anything since they obviously understand you're still looking at other places.
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Mar 26, 2021 22:50
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So I'm passed inspection, appraisal, and conditional mortgage approval. We're working on scheduling a closing. I'm currently shopping for insurance (I just went to policy genius to make my life easy, and I'll consider a hardcore look later like suggested). NYC 5 boroughs. Policy Genius said a bunch of the final quotes came back really high because there were what they think were 2 "wind damage claims" or something similar, one in 2017 and one in 2020. We checked with the owner, and the claims were for the deck + fence being destroyed by a blizzard (replaced) and just a check in because a piece of siding fell off in a windstorm. It is normal to consider previous owners claims on a home or were some of the quotes they got dumb bullshit? We got a quote that was fine and ignored it, just wondering if this is going to limit our options later.
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Mar 26, 2021 23:33
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Pilfered Pallbearers posted:It is normal to consider previous owners claims on a home I know nothing but I think the answer to this is "yes, absolutely". I can't imagine why one of the quotes you received didn't take into account previous claims on the property. For those goons that are wary about filing claims, if you can painfully afford to replace a deck + fence after it was damaged, would you skip filing a claim in that case?
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Mar 26, 2021 23:37
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Inner Light posted:I know nothing but I think the answer to this is "yes, absolutely". I can't imagine why one of the quotes you received didn't take into account previous claims on the property. The quote is from Swyfft, who apparently just doesn't take it into consideration according to Policy Genius. Their quote was 55% lower (~$2800 from Mercury vs ~$1550) than the ones that did consider it, with not huge differences in coverages as far as I could tell.
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Mar 26, 2021 23:51
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Yeah prior claims on a property can affect rates https://www.kiplinger.com/article/insurance/t028-c001-s000-how-past-claims-affect-homeowners-insurance-rates.html
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Mar 27, 2021 00:06
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Pilfered Pallbearers posted:It is normal to consider previous owners claims on a home or were some of the quotes they got dumb bullshit? Of course it is. This is what a CLUE report is for.
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Mar 27, 2021 00:25
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