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Wasn’t clear. Seemed to be a free-standing one that had some enclosure built around it. Would y matter to me cause I’d pay someone to demolish it anyway.
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May 15, 2022 21:46
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TerminalSaint posted:No. Don’t know about your area but around here doors between attached garage and the living space have to meet certain fire code requirements. No gaps around, metal core and a self closer, that sort of thing. You’d need to change the door or drop the existing one down.
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May 15, 2022 21:52
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Buying in Massachusetts sounds like the worst ordeal ever. Paying as much as SFBA but without any disclosures, more rain, winters, and houses 50+ years older than the ones here… drat.
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May 15, 2022 23:15
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I’m of half a mind to continue renting…if it wasn’t for the fact that renting means you live in the same kind of dump and can’t do anything about it. It gets better as you get further out west.
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May 15, 2022 23:20
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Pollyanna posted:Because it looked nice from the photos but the photos don't tell you the whole story and realtors will realtor and you should never buy a house sight unseen? This is really not that out of the ordinary. A 1600sq ft dilapidated house on the outskirts of Boston is $625K. I'm dumbfounded.
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May 15, 2022 23:25
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Oh ho ho ho trust me it gets fuckin nutty here.
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May 15, 2022 23:44
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Lol the garage Jesus Christ Would an appraiser flag that as a significant enough defect to hold up financing?
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May 15, 2022 23:49
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E: misread. Possibly, dunno.
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May 15, 2022 23:57
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I wish I could’ve waived my mortgage appraisal Some appraisers may not care. A VA or FHA appraiser would.
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May 15, 2022 23:58
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 Man I keep making that same stupid newbie mistake. More specifically, people are waiving mortgage appraisal gap clauses and conditions here, so it may not tank a deal.
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May 16, 2022 00:00
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CarForumPoster posted:A 1600sq ft dilapidated house on the outskirts of Boston is $625K. I'm dumbfounded. for boston area that's a steal 
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May 16, 2022 00:06
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No, seriously, that’s considered massively cheap. 
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May 16, 2022 00:07
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Upgrade posted:Lol the garage Jesus Christ Outbuildings like that wouldn't be appraised for much compared to the land and house (regardless of condition) but I absolutely would be concerned about insurance. That thing looks like a hazard and if its collapse zone could potentially be off the property lines and/or into some other structure it's even worse. Also, if you're in a place that required a certificate of occupancy or similar upon transfer you might be in for a nasty surprise from the building department about what you MUST do pretty immediately.
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May 16, 2022 00:07
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I wouldn’t be surprised if the POs have been sitting on city notices for a while now and are hoping their flight to Cali will excuse them.
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May 16, 2022 00:09
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A hot tub is a perfect opportunity to install an EV charger, and pay someone to haul off the hot tub.
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May 16, 2022 00:24
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Bold of you to assume it’s correctly wired and not just an extension cord into the basement.
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May 16, 2022 00:32
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I remember back in 2017 a house in Melrose MA burned down and the postage stamp lot sold for over 800k. Location location location.
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May 16, 2022 00:42
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It wasn’t even a very good location.
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May 16, 2022 00:51
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Even if the selling agent isn't getting you info you want before you show up, it's 2022. The majority of houses are going to have imagery available on some combination of Google Maps (satellite or street view), Bing Maps (satellite, aerial, street view), and perhaps your municipality's GIS. Where I'm at it's county-based GIS, looks like out there it's state-level but with fairly poor resolution available. Better yet, you might even have a range of dates worth of imagery across all of these. That particular house you can see from both the front and back on Google Maps, and it looks like that garage has been ready to collapse for at least three years now.
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May 16, 2022 00:54
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Biggest challenge to redoing floors is figuring out where the gently caress to put all the furniture during the process. Once my family leaves and goes back home, I'm gonna
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May 16, 2022 02:32
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Sundae posted:Biggest challenge to redoing floors is figuring out where the gently caress to put all the furniture during the process. If you can afford it and it is >1000 sq ft of flooring just pay someone man. I installed all our LVP floors before we moved in and it was NOT worth it. I do almost 100% of the work on my house but man...large areas of flooring is for people under the age of 30.
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May 16, 2022 02:36
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You can call a moving company and get a quote for storage and replacement after the work is done. I know for our big boy moving companies here that is not an uncommon request.
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May 16, 2022 02:52
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Pollyanna posted:No, seriously, that’s considered massively cheap. In my experience, in life, but especially in housing, you get what you pay for There are A, B and C properties. That is probably a B or B-. A lot of "A" properties never hit the market - they're that good - there's a buyer with cash in hand waiting for the owner to fulfill their promise 30 years ago to sell to the guy when they were ready to move. Stuff on Zillow, MLS etc are generally A-, B+ and B properties. "Massively Cheap" properties typically have weird poo poo like, yeah, the garage is probably getting condemened the day after your closing paperwork ink dries, or weird layout (layout in this case seemed fine). Often times it's two blocks past the good part of the neighborhood on the street, or whatever. I'll buck the trend and say the house is fine, extra points for matching the fake shutters and landscaping with that (japanese maple?) tree with red leaves. Garage is absolutely a total tear down, but garages aren't prohibitively expensive to build. Given the housing shortage, you might be able to talk the city into permitting a mother-in-law suite to be built above the garage, which would really improve the value of the house, as well as provide some income to offset housing expenses. Water heaters are like a $1000 ticket item, which while not cheap, not a deal breaker for someone working in tech. I know nothing about oil heating except that it's popular in climates I am unwilling to live in so I can't speak to that. Seems expensive. I would go in to that deal expecting to pay 20% the initial price in additional deferred maintenance over 10 years. Sounds like you are looking for a 100% turn-key property with no deferred maintenance. You might look into a 3 bedroom condo.
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May 16, 2022 06:05
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Sundae posted:Biggest challenge to redoing floors is figuring out where the gently caress to put all the furniture during the process. This is also an issue for me. If I could turn the clock back two years, I'd just stay in my old house for a few months longer and do the renovations on my new house before moving in, rather than taking care of everything while I live here. I guess that's a lesson learned for my next house purchase in a few years.
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May 16, 2022 10:56
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The house we’re moving into has hardwood flooring in everything except the kitchen/bathrooms (linoleum) and bedrooms (carpet). Assuming there is hardwood flooring under the carpet, what’s involved in just going back to hardwood? When I was there for the inspection, the carpet isn’t completely trashed but it’s not new.
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May 16, 2022 12:54
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Pull up carpet pull up tack strips pull up 10000 loving staples, refinish floor.by sanding, staining and putting poly over it. Any time you put rug over hardwood it kills it. The pad sands the floor, so it'll need to be refinished.
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May 16, 2022 13:23
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Hadlock posted:In my experience, in life, but especially in housing, you get what you pay for I’m fine with addressing deferred maintenance from POs, as long as nothing is fundamentally or irreversibly screwed. I’m even fine with a fair amount of maintenance that needs to be spaced out over time, I can save up for it. But the state of that garage is a step beyond, and makes me worry about what else has been allowed to rot so much that I can’t immediately find. Especially right now, when GCs are expensive and hard to get ahold of. And a condo is tempting, to be honest, but condo prices in this area are so high for getting so little that you may as well buy your own house. Or may as well continue renting.
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May 16, 2022 14:01
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CarForumPoster posted:If you can afford it and it is >1000 sq ft of flooring just pay someone man. I installed all our LVP floors before we moved in and it was NOT worth it. I do almost 100% of the work on my house but man...large areas of flooring is for people under the age of 30. I pulled up about 3 feet of carpet, had to get a tetanus shot, AND got pinkeye (wearing eyepro but not full goggles I guess) so now I'm at gently caress it, I'm paying someone. I just need it ripped up, there's nice hardwood under it. Slate Slabrock fucked around with this message at 17:10 on May 16, 2022 |
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May 16, 2022 14:04
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Pollyanna posted:I’m fine with addressing deferred maintenance from POs, as long as nothing is fundamentally or irreversibly screwed. I’m even fine with a fair amount of maintenance that needs to be spaced out over time, I can save up for it. Sometimes it just is what it is. A lot of your posts could be summed up with “I’m unhappy with what I get for my money in this market.”
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May 16, 2022 14:21
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Oh gently caress yes, that’s for sure. I hate that Boston requires you to choose between sacrificing time and comfort. I’d be out west if it didn’t take an hour+ in the morning to get into the office.
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May 16, 2022 14:39
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CarForumPoster posted:If you can afford it and it is >1000 sq ft of flooring just pay someone man. I installed all our LVP floors before we moved in and it was NOT worth it. I do almost 100% of the work on my house but man...large areas of flooring is for people under the age of 30. It's a living room area in a condo. Wide open, mostly rectangular (I bet I'll find out how non-rectangular it is the moment I start doing double-checking the measurements), about 300 square feet. The problem I'm running into is that the labor costs are insane right now. Home Depot and Lowes are reasonable price-quotes (but the quality you get tends to be unpredictable), and everyone else is quoting me over $10 per square foot for labor alone.  I can afford it, but I don't want to afford it. quote:Sometimes it just is what it is. A lot of your posts could be summed up with “I’m unhappy with what I get for my money in this market.” I agree with you on this. The Boston area is absolute poo poo to buy in right now. So many of my friends ended up living / buying there recently, and even the ones with high-paying jobs came out unhappy with their purchases. They're happy to have a place, yes, but it's one of those bittersweet "yay, but jfc look what it cost us / what we got for it" kind of things. If Polyanna wants to buy in the Boston metro area right now, a poo poo-sandwich will be eaten one way or another. 
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May 16, 2022 18:40
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Pollyanna posted:Oh gently caress yes, that’s for sure. I hate that Boston requires you to choose between sacrificing time and comfort. I’d be out west if it didn’t take an hour+ in the morning to get into the office. That's the trade off though isn't it. Re: condo we bought our 3bd/2ba condo 8 blocks from my wife's office and ~16 blocks from mine (~pre pandemic, anyways) and really enjoyed the flexibility of being a 10-20 minute walk from the house/office. There's a tremendous amount of value in that kind of proximity to everything. Being able to delete more than 10 min a day on public transit (or going to 0 min a day on PT) is worth a lot. Huge boost to quality of life The value drops off if you have kids though (or plan on having them in the next ~3 years), as you don't get a yard with most condos. My kid recently gained a very tiny amount of autonomy and I'm very glad we have a yard in the house we recently moved to If you're planning on not having kids soon the condo isn't a terrible option as at least it puts you on the property ladder, and you've locked in now before inflation and interest rates really start to take off. In three years you can swap to a house, probably (past results don't guarantee future results...)
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May 16, 2022 19:11
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E: this is a better discussion for elsewhere. Actually, gently caress it, I’ll cover it here. I agree that the Boston housing market has been quite dire, and I’ve considered shrugging and continuing to rent my little sub-average rent 1br hovel unless/until I go full WFH and can move out further west. The one saving grace is that at least I still have the equity I paid into a property, so I can always start trading up if/when I think it’s time for a nicer or different place. But I don’t think Boston is ever not going to be disgusting. Pollyanna fucked around with this message at 20:21 on May 16, 2022 |
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May 16, 2022 20:11
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House ownership: I CAN afford but I don't WANT to afford it.
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May 16, 2022 20:26
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Pollyanna posted:But I don’t think Boston is ever not going to be disgusting. Cities.txt tater_salad posted:House ownership: I CAN afford but I don't WANT to afford it.
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May 16, 2022 20:34
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Pollyanna posted:no access to the attic whatsoever (just a panel dropped over a square hole in the ceiling) That's access to the attic, it's typical for California homes. Bearing in mind in this case the attic is unfinished space, it's not a place to store things, you get a ladder and go through the hole when you need to do some sort of servicing - wiring, hvac ducting, insulation, inspect the roof for leaks, etc. I realize you're not buying that dump, but for the future: you don't need to add like a pull-down stairway or whatever if you have an unfinished attic space you're not intending to finish and inhabit in some way. You just need an ~8 foot ladder, which you'll need as a homeowner regardless.
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May 16, 2022 20:39
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Yes but consider: gently caress hauling a ladder up the stairs.  Anyway I’m from Florida, attics and basements are enigmas to me.
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May 16, 2022 20:46
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My aluminum ladder is light enough to carry with one hand, it's really far easier to tote around than, say, furniture or a mattress or something. e. this ladder https://www.lowes.com/pd/Werner-360-8-ft-Aluminum-Type-1-250-lbs-Capacity-Step-Ladder/3048119 weighs 21 lbs.
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May 16, 2022 21:01
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Pollyanna posted:Yes but consider: gently caress hauling a ladder up the stairs. I was doing work in my stairwell and had the fun opportunity to carry the little giant up and down and set it up straight, then reset to uneven and back while mudding the ceiling. I got stronger quick.
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May 16, 2022 21:16
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Pollyanna posted:Whether it’s located in freezing-rear end Greater Boston or not. iv46vi posted:Don’t know about your area but around here doors between attached garage and the living space have to meet certain fire code requirements. No gaps around, metal core and a self closer, that sort of thing. You’d need to change the door or drop the existing one down. TerminalSaint posted:detached garage
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May 17, 2022 00:59
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