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I got 12k in credit for repairs (7k in closing costs covered was max mortgage companies would accept directly and they also agreed to pay $5k towards the deposits for other repairs if I set them up to be done after the transfer, although they paid as part of the closing itself and the people doing the closing handled sending the money) I get the feeling refusing to do repairs is common because they just want to make the sale and don't want to deal with he hassle on top of their own move... But similarly, asking for a credit in a situation where you *can* just walk away means that becomes the easiest way for them to guarantee the sale goes through and minimize the hassle added on top of their own move. In my case I made it clear it wasn't a requirement because I would have enough cash left over to do the repairs myself but even so a few thousand to smooth things out over obvious issues is something the agents and everyone else will be pushing them to accept I'm guessing? My sellers to just said "we aren't fixing anything" as their first response and only agreed to the credit after further negotiation It's at least worth asking for, especially when the amount is fairly small. Side note: moving out of the old third floor apartment today the stairs partially collapsed underneath me. Really thought I would make it out before that happened, though it was obvious it would eventually. Got very lucky I caught myself on the railing and all I was carrying was a bunch of toys that survived the fall. Really absolutely loving the new house and it was definitely worth all the trouble and headaches and very serious issues I now need to tackle, and so glad to hopefully be out of that poo poo hole before it kills me, but man is it really acting like this is it's last chance. GlyphGryph fucked around with this message at 20:21 on Jul 19, 2023 |
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Jul 19, 2023 20:13
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This is absolutely poo poo you should fix before moving in, but $3k in repairs is also loving chump change in the grand scheme of things when it comes to home ownership. You do have enough set aside to cover, say, an unexpected $10k expense after you buy this house, right? My advice would be, assuming that everything else is good, decide if $3k is worth walking away and starting the home buying process over again on another property. If it isn't, grumble and eat it. Pay for the repairs out of the money you have set aside for maintenance and repairs in general, and then rebuild those funds over time as you live there. You are budgeting monthly for repairs/maintenance/etc. right? Because covering that surprise $5k emergency HVAC repair (or emergency plumber call, or surprise roof leak, etc) becomes a lot easier to swing if you've been pulling a couple hundred aside into a home maintenance fund every month.
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Jul 19, 2023 20:21
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Waiting on the inspection report, but I followed the guy literally everywhere and pretty much know what to expect. In addition to all of the minor issues you would expect, there are some glaring "oh poo poo fix this ASAP" issues so hopefully we'll be able to negotiate a lower price. "Oh poo poo" list includes: - The electrical panel being made by Federal Pacific, which apparently is illegal to have because there's about a 70% chance it will burn the house down. Doing some reading it looks like you might not even be able to get a mortgage/insurance in a home with a home with a Federal Pacific panel? - The header holding up the front of the house is warped and the wood is severely compressed where it meets the floor joists. - The main waste line has several leaks in it and is dripping water into the basement crawlspace. Also not as immediate but still necessary in the near future is a new roof on most of the house, though a portion was done within the last five years. There's some water getting in through some ground level windows that I'll have to deal with but that should be possible to fix myself. We're also waiting on the results of the Radon test. All in all, a very thorough 3.5 hour inspection. Hopefully we don't get a ton of seller push-back and we don't scare the owner into having a heart attack.
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Jul 19, 2023 20:31
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/\ - GL, hopefully goes better than what we are dealing with!Cyrano4747 posted:This is absolutely poo poo you should fix before moving in, but $3k in repairs is also loving chump change in the grand scheme of things when it comes to home ownership. Budgeting wise we are in YNAB and I have it setup for repairs (for example need ~10k for a roof in 20 years) I'll have to crunch numbers tonight, but it will be pretty close with closing costs and everything (looking at around $40k needed, have 50kish now saved)
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Jul 19, 2023 20:34
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Gravity Cant Apple posted:Waiting on the inspection report, but I followed the guy literally everywhere and pretty much know what to expect. In addition to all of the minor issues you would expect, there are some glaring "oh poo poo fix this ASAP" issues so hopefully we'll be able to negotiate a lower price. Federal Pacific Stab-Lok panels are very bad, and yes should be replaced.
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Jul 19, 2023 20:40
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Harminoff posted:/\ - GL, hopefully goes better than what we are dealing with! Just my take: you don’t have enough money to buy a house if you’re stressing over the $3k in radon/etc. Could you maybe do a smaller down payment if the PMI isn’t too bad?
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Jul 19, 2023 20:49
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skipdogg posted:Federal Pacific Stab-Lok panels are very bad, and yes should be replaced. Yeah we're definitely getting it replaced and upgraded to a 200amp service but the question is will we even be able to get a mortgage with the house as-is? With how old the owner is we're assuming she's not going to want/be able to coordinate the repairs on her own so we were just going to use it as a point of negotiation on price, but who knows if we'll even be able to buy it until it's fixed?
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Jul 19, 2023 20:56
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Gravity Cant Apple posted:Yeah we're definitely getting it replaced and upgraded to a 200amp service but the question is will we even be able to get a mortgage with the house as-is? With how old the owner is we're assuming she's not going to want/be able to coordinate the repairs on her own so we were just going to use it as a point of negotiation on price, but who knows if we'll even be able to buy it until it's fixed? I'd be most worried about homeowners insurance. I'm not sure though, it's going to be dependent on your specific locale. I would reach out to your mortgage broker and insurance agent for specific advice.
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Jul 19, 2023 21:00
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Gravity Cant Apple posted:- The main waste line has several leaks in it and is dripping water into the basement crawlspace. Remember not to call this water, it's "sewage." A water leak is bad, a sewage leak is hazardous.
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Jul 19, 2023 21:01
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nwin posted:Just my take: you don’t have enough money to buy a house if you’re stressing over the $3k in radon/etc. This is my take as well.
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Jul 19, 2023 21:03
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Cyrano4747 posted:Because covering that surprise $5k emergency HVAC repair (or emergency plumber call, or surprise roof leak, etc) We just had a septic pump die *waves goodbye to $5k*
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Jul 19, 2023 21:11
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Harminoff posted:Valid points, and a better way to look at it, ty! So the issue here is that you're on the bleeding edge of being able to clear this entire transaction. Which means you can't actually afford this house. If nothing at all goes wrong you'll be fine. But this is how people end up in debt spirals when they don't. I agree with others on reducing your down payment, but this is all pretty precarious sounding. Especially with you as a first time homeowner who has little idea of the scale of what could go wrong and what might not be found as part of inspections.
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Jul 19, 2023 21:20
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Motronic posted:what might not be found as part of inspections. This is a huge thing to keep in mind. It's not like having a mechanic you trust inspect a used car, even an excellent home inspector who is really trying to make sure you don't get hosed isn't going to be able to look inside the walls or under the floors etc. There are a lot of unknown unknowns in buying a house, the inspection is just there to mitigate some of the really obvious ones (roof is hosed, water heater is EOL, there's a disconnected heating oil tank in the basement that is supposedly "empty" but god only knows how many lbs of sludge will fall out when it finishes rusting out, etc). No matter what's going on, you've got to have a cushion to be able to absorb poo poo going badly wrong. If it's a new house you need to worry about shoddy workmanship and improperly installed poo poo. If it's an old house you need to worry about that, plus maybe it was shoddily installed by a drunk homeowner in the 70s, plus poo poo just breaking from age. There's a lot of poo poo that a coat or three of paint (either literal or metaphorical) will cover up well enough to get a house sold, but which will start rearing its ugly head down the road.
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Jul 19, 2023 21:36
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H110Hawk posted:Remember not to call this water, it's "sewage." A water leak is bad, a sewage leak is hazardous. This probably isn't the place for this, but this reminds me - My almost-previous landlord, owner of the now shoddily patched stairs, left sewage sporadically being dumped out of my ceiling onto my head unrepaired for two weeks. Now that I'm out of the place, I'm curious, does anyone know if there's somewhere I could/should report that or the stairs to or something? I am super loving glad to be a homeowner now where at least it is hypothetically possible to fix dangerous poo poo instead of living day to day at the mercy of someone else who does not give a poo poo about me.
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Jul 19, 2023 21:53
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GlyphGryph posted:This probably isn't the place for this, but this reminds me - My almost-previous landlord, owner of the now shoddily patched stairs, left sewage sporadically being dumped out of my ceiling onto my head unrepaired for two weeks. Now that I'm out of the place, I'm curious, does anyone know if there's somewhere I could/should report that or the stairs to or something? Your state/province /whatever should have a department of housing or an analogous structure. If you start googling "report hazardous living conditions <state name> department of housing" you'll probably find resources pretty quick. edit: Health department is also a pretty common one to hit up.
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Jul 19, 2023 21:57
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You can start at city hall, but the health department is what I would call immediately. You cannot call a place with sewage leaks into living space habitable (except probably Arkansas.)
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Jul 19, 2023 22:02
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nwin posted:Just my take: you don’t have enough money to buy a house if you’re stressing over the $3k in radon/etc. Echoing this. In just my first 2 years I’ve had tons of stuff fail after closing that wasn’t an issue at inspection. Oil tank leak which ended up being like $10k all in. Water heater leak which ended up being $4k, but only because I heard it happen and prevented the flood damage. it was midnight and I happened to be next to the open basement door. I also have easily $20k more in stuff I need to do, but can put off for a little bit. You’re also going to need to pay for movers. And furnishing your new home which is likely bigger than whatever rental you’re in is going to be more expensive than you’re expecting. And you need to consider how long it’s going to take you to rebuild this $10k.
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Jul 19, 2023 22:45
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Gravity Cant Apple posted:Yeah we're definitely getting it replaced and upgraded to a 200amp service but the question is will we even be able to get a mortgage with the house as-is? With how old the owner is we're assuming she's not going to want/be able to coordinate the repairs on her own so we were just going to use it as a point of negotiation on price, but who knows if we'll even be able to buy it until it's fixed? Talk to an insurance agent. Be up front about what the house has and when you want to remedy the FEP panel issue. They will be able to tell you your options.
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Jul 19, 2023 22:51
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daslog posted:Well, the people living there now are not dead Yet.
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Jul 19, 2023 23:52
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GlyphGryph posted:This probably isn't the place for this, but this reminds me - My almost-previous landlord, owner of the now shoddily patched stairs, left sewage sporadically being dumped out of my ceiling onto my head unrepaired for two weeks. Now that I'm out of the place, I'm curious, does anyone know if there's somewhere I could/should report that or the stairs to or something? I’m not a homeowner thanks to greedy loving landlords, but I had to call my local Bureau of Housing and Inspections because I too fell through a flight of steps going to my apartment a couple months back. I’ll +1 the Health Department rec too—that’s uninhabitable conditions.
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Jul 20, 2023 01:00
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They actually threatened to evict me for "not keeping my apartment well enough organized" after the second week complaining about the sewage problem if I kept bothering them about things, so I'm exceptionally glad to be out. I guess I'll make a couple calls tomorrow, I guess, although thinking more about it I don't even know what I would want or expect to happen.
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Jul 20, 2023 01:24
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GlyphGryph posted:They actually threatened to evict me for "not keeping my apartment well enough organized" after the second week complaining about the sewage problem if I kept bothering them about things, so I'm exceptionally glad to be out. I guess I'll make a couple calls tomorrow, I guess, although thinking more about it I don't even know what I would want or expect to happen. It will piss off an rear end in a top hat, so that alone makes it worth it.
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Jul 20, 2023 01:33
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GlyphGryph posted:They actually threatened to evict me for "not keeping my apartment well enough organized" after the second week complaining about the sewage problem if I kept bothering them about things, so I'm exceptionally glad to be out. I guess I'll make a couple calls tomorrow, I guess, although thinking more about it I don't even know what I would want or expect to happen. You can save another tenant from it. You might ask them if there are any automatic penalties you are owed if you have a paper trail, especially of the retaliation threat. Did they give you your deposit back? Did they give you a itemized list of deductions? Did they give it to you in time? If not, small claims might be your friend here. It's so easy anyone can do it and the compensation is statuatory at up to 3x your deposit.
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Jul 20, 2023 01:42
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GlyphGryph posted:They actually threatened to evict me for "not keeping my apartment well enough organized" after the second week complaining about the sewage problem if I kept bothering them about things, so I'm exceptionally glad to be out. I guess I'll make a couple calls tomorrow, I guess, although thinking more about it I don't even know what I would want or expect to happen. if you have a record of this you could make poo poo uncomfortable for them at the very least.
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Jul 20, 2023 03:11
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Yeah our "hurrrrr" middle-aged joke about house repair and renovation expenses is that they come in increments of $10k, which we call a "financial unit" or "FU" for short. Real hit at the parties.
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Jul 20, 2023 03:19
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GlyphGryph posted:They actually threatened to evict me for "not keeping my apartment well enough organized" after the second week complaining about the sewage problem if I kept bothering them about things, so I'm exceptionally glad to be out. I guess I'll make a couple calls tomorrow, I guess, although thinking more about it I don't even know what I would want or expect to happen. You want the current tenants to be relocated to hotel/etc at the landlord's expense while the problem is fixed. Helps tenants, forces the landlord to pay for repairs.
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Jul 20, 2023 03:35
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Harminoff posted:/\ - GL, hopefully goes better than what we are dealing with! Is that including your emergency fund? If not, the other question to ask yourself is how long it's going to take to put that $3k back into the maintenance fund. $7k is probably fine for a maintenance/repair fund for now as long as you can get it back up to $10k in a few months. Unless the house is significantly above $500k, in which case you definitely need to save more. The usual guideline is 2% of value/year for repairs/maintenance.
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Jul 20, 2023 03:45
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Rocko Bonaparte posted:Yeah our "hurrrrr" middle-aged joke about house repair and renovation expenses is that they come in increments of $10k, which we call a "financial unit" or "FU" for short. Real hit at the parties. Oh this is good and unfortunately true. New HVAC? FU. New flooring? FU. Windows? FU. New kitchen? That was 2.5 FUs. Garage doors, plumbing, bug/pest incidents and repairs are Mini-FU’s.
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Jul 20, 2023 12:33
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For those of you following along, we got quotes back from an electrician and HVAC tech. Electrician gave us three options at $20k-$24k, HVAC tech was supposed to give us a service quote, a gas replacement quote, and an electrical replacement quote, but only gave us the gas replacement quote at $20k. The HVAC is basically what I was expecting, but the electrical seems ludicrous for what the issues are. I made a more detailed post about it in the home repair thread if anyone cares. Our appraisal is today, we're meeting this evening to discuss what to do from here. My suspicion is we lower our offer considerably. I feel like we need to be ready to walk away, as difficult as it is.
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Jul 21, 2023 16:33
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LMAO, that electrician is absolutely trying to take you for a ride.
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Jul 21, 2023 17:25
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SlapActionJackson posted:LMAO, that electrician is absolutely trying to take you for a ride. Or he doesn't want the work
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Jul 21, 2023 18:24
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Ham Equity posted:Electrician gave us three options at $20k-$24k I replaced my 100A service with 200A, moving the box across the house, new meter/mast, plus relocating all affected wiring in the crawl in a not-small house for under $5k this winter...and that was partially FU pricing due to timing. Did you or your agent set this up? Maybe it's an abnormally high quote to use in concession negotiations? It's sleazy, but it's definitely a thing.
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Jul 21, 2023 19:19
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Magicaljesus posted:I replaced my 100A service with 200A, moving the box across the house, new meter/mast, plus relocating all affected wiring in the crawl in a not-small house for under $5k this winter...and that was partially FU pricing due to timing. Did you or your agent set this up? Maybe it's an abnormally high quote to use in concession negotiations? It's sleazy, but it's definitely a thing.
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Jul 21, 2023 20:25
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Ham Equity posted:We scheduled it with a relatively big company that had a ton of reviews. We definitely weren't looking for an inflated quote, but we may wind up using it in concession negotiations. You should try lining up some alternate bidders for the work if time permits. Always shoot for 2, 3 is best.
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Jul 21, 2023 20:44
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My house got listed on wednesday, so my realtor signed me up for automated texts that tell me when people schedule viewings, and this system sucks rear end, every single text comes from a slightly different number (it seems to increment up by one with each new text) so none of them are threaded together. It's truly astounding.
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Jul 21, 2023 23:39
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As someone working in exactly the kind of telecom company that provides services like that to platforms that want to send SMSes without knowing anything about telecom: whatever platform they are using is cheap as hell and doing this to save $0.00001 per SMS on their "telecom via API" bill.
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Jul 21, 2023 23:59
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Motronic posted:As someone working in exactly the kind of telecom company that provides services like that to platforms that want to send SMSes without knowing anything about telecom: whatever platform they are using is cheap as hell and doing this to save $0.00001 per SMS on their "telecom via API" bill. Yup. For whole dollars/year more they could have consistent numbering, even a number that rings through to their main office! My Physical Therapist had this issue as well.
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Jul 22, 2023 01:10
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100% setup a burner phone when buying selling so you can discard the number when done
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Jul 22, 2023 13:52
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I only give out a real estate-specific phone number and email.
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Jul 22, 2023 14:51
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I can truthfully say this google voice number is my number under penalty of purjury. Then when I get that settlement package from the escrow company? Goodbye number!
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Jul 22, 2023 15:09
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