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CloFan posted:So how is that not grounds to eliminate the HOA. Like they didn't plan properly or save for unexpected but predictable expenses like deferred maintenance. So gently caress em, dissolve the current board and remake it if it's still necessary 
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Feb 3, 2024 15:52
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Lockback posted:If you're getting a Heloc at 5% right now then, yes, things would look different. 7% evens seems low, I would expect the rate is going to be closer to 9%. My mother in law is getting a heloc right now and she's going to pay about 9% right now, but it will adjust down with rates (supposedly)
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Feb 3, 2024 17:19
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They also can adjust up. I wouldn't take a big gamble that rates are definitely going to come down in the near future. Inflation spikes again (not out of the question) they could raise them again.
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Feb 3, 2024 18:18
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Lockback posted:They also can adjust up. I wouldn't take a big gamble that rates are definitely going to come down in the near future. Inflation spikes again (not out of the question) they could raise them again. I think people are also getting overly optimistic about lowering rates and how far down they'll go. They hear the fed is lowering rates and think we're going to be back to sub-3% in a year or two. Even if rates lower I think it's far, far more likely that we see them drop into the 5-6 range. Which to go back to Zaurg's original question: zaurg posted:
That option would be disastrous. Do whatever is needed to keep the 30y/2.75% mortgage. Because: Lockback posted:
Even if he refi'd in a few years it's very likely not going to be at sub-3% rates. Refi'ing at 5% in two years would be a victory in this situation, which is still really poo poo when compared to a 2.75% rate.
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Feb 3, 2024 18:23
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Yeah if I had a sub 3.5% rate I'd do everything in my power to rent it out, and then use 75% of the rental income as qualification for income to go buy a new house. 30 year, 2.5% loan is a once in a generation kind of wealth gift Typically it's a wash at best to keep the rental and deal with the landlording, especially at 5%, but at 2.5% it's a slam dunk especially if you have more than ~40% equity or whatever the magic number is My guess is that we won't see ~5.25% until 2027 at the earliest
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Feb 3, 2024 18:59
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CloFan posted:So how is that not grounds to eliminate the HOA. Like they didn't plan properly or save for unexpected but predictable expenses like deferred maintenance. So gently caress em, dissolve the current board and remake it if it's still necessary It's a condo complex, so it's still necessary to have a COA to cover ongoing shared maintenance, but yeah whoever's in charge should probably be booted out
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Feb 3, 2024 19:17
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QuarkJets posted:It's a condo complex, so it's still necessary to have a COA to cover ongoing shared maintenance, but yeah whoever's in charge should probably be booted out It is hard to say that they should go as they may be new and the ones making the unfortunately hard decision to make sure the building doesn't collapse. An assessment of that size is very hard to plan for in reverses over 20+ years and numerous boards. All it takes is a board who wants to do projects without raising dues and looking at the long picture. Unfortunately when you are buying it is hard to know what needs to be completed for maintenance and how that correlates with the dues and reserves. Especially in the first 20 years when when you have a chance to really build the reserves. You will find people spend the money and nothing bad and expensive has happened so X reserves are fine. But looming maintenance really means you should have 10X reserves. It is very hard to catch up without an assessment.
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Feb 3, 2024 19:46
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Can I get some anecdotes from people adding central air conditioning to a house that was only running central air for heat? I've seen a few houses up in the Pacific Northwest that are like this and want to get an impression of how "easy" it actually is to make that adjustment. I know there's a lot of "it depends" in there but I kind of curious how it went for anybody regardless.
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Feb 3, 2024 19:52
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Rocko Bonaparte posted:Can I get some anecdotes from people adding central air conditioning to a house that was only running central air for heat? I've seen a few houses up in the Pacific Northwest that are like this and want to get an impression of how "easy" it actually is to make that adjustment. I know there's a lot of "it depends" in there but I kind of curious how it went for anybody regardless. I mean it depends but I've done it twice now and it was really easy both times. You just need to make sure you can run a line to your furnace and you have a little extra room in your furnace room. It's pretty painless. I would suggest checking out a heat pump though if you're in the pacific northwest, that will work alongside your furnace and will probably be a great option. It'll cost a bit more but save some significant energy costs on heating. Also depending on the size of the house a split system can also be effective and can be installed pretty cheaply. You'd think that would be a waste if you have ducts already but depending on the house it could very well be the cheapest/easiest solution and still do a good job, especially if it's only used sparingly for cooling.
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Feb 3, 2024 20:18
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Rocko Bonaparte posted:Can I get some anecdotes from people adding central air conditioning to a house that was only running central air for heat? I've seen a few houses up in the Pacific Northwest that are like this and want to get an impression of how "easy" it actually is to make that adjustment. I know there's a lot of "it depends" in there but I kind of curious how it went for anybody regardless. I just did this in LA last summer. Replaced our natural gas furnace with a heat pump adding AC. Took the crew 6 hours all in to do the work, including replacing all the duct work in the house.
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Feb 3, 2024 20:28
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Final update on property buying attempt. The city's zoning will let me turn the house into a duplex, but not one with an upper and lower unit. Since all the plumbing is on one side of the house, renovating it back into the other kind of duplex would be prohibitively expensive. Thanks to everyone who told me to bother everyone in the city about this before buying, the relevant official was deep in the phone tree.
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Feb 3, 2024 21:21
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I'm sorry that's what happened, but so very glad you did the legwork.
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Feb 3, 2024 21:44
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ScooterMcTiny posted:I just did this in LA last summer. Replaced our natural gas furnace with a heat pump adding AC. Took the crew 6 hours all in to do the work, including replacing all the duct work in the house. I'd like to hear more about this, why did they replace the duct work? Just generally old poo poo that was falling apart, insufficient airflow for your home size, something else?
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Feb 3, 2024 21:57
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Rocko Bonaparte posted:Can I get some anecdotes from people adding central air conditioning to a house that was only running central air for heat? I've seen a few houses up in the Pacific Northwest that are like this and want to get an impression of how "easy" it actually is to make that adjustment. I know there's a lot of "it depends" in there but I kind of curious how it went for anybody regardless. Chiming in to say I've done this twice as well (in the Pacific NW). Both times I had the furnace replaced at the same time (they were close to end of life, plus the AC installer said something about it being ideal to match tonnage or something between the existing indoor parts and the new condenser), so be prepared for that to be an issue in your case. It didn't seem to add too much - since they're already in there doing stuff, popping in a new furnace had pretty trivial labour costs so it was mostly the cost of the unit. That being said, I agree with the other poster that suggested looking into heat pump options too, depending on your locale. It didn't pencil out for my current place, but I think it would've been more efficient in my last place if I'd known about them. As for the logistics, seemed pretty straightforward in both cases, maybe half a day's work. I didn't need much in the way of new ductwork in either place. It was significantly more expensive the second time around than I was expecting, but I think that was a combination of having new owner fatigue and not shopping around enough, plus the covid influence on pricing vs the first time I did it (in 2017).
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Feb 3, 2024 22:27
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QuarkJets posted:I'd like to hear more about this, why did they replace the duct work? Just generally old poo poo that was falling apart, insufficient airflow for your home size, something else? I think a combination of old and falling apart, and not sized well for the layout of the house. The master bedroom is an addition so the duct work for that room was half assed whenever it was done the first time.
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Feb 3, 2024 22:52
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Rocko Bonaparte posted:Can I get some anecdotes from people adding central air conditioning to a house that was only running central air for heat? I've seen a few houses up in the Pacific Northwest that are like this and want to get an impression of how "easy" it actually is to make that adjustment. I know there's a lot of "it depends" in there but I kind of curious how it went for anybody regardless. I just replaced a 2.5 ton gas furnace in my SoCal home with a 3 ton heat pump with AC. We kept our existing ducts, they were in fine shape. We had to upgrade electrical service to the furnace and find a good spot for the condenser, but it was otherwise straightforward. The electric heat isn’t as warm out of the duct as gas was but it’s totally fine and WAY more efficient. Most of the bigger outfits quoted $16-22k and I ended up getting a York installed by a coworkers mechanical contractor brother for $9500 E: I have an oversized solar system, which drove my decision to go with a heat pump. We considered adding just a compressor to get AC but the furnace was almost 20 years old so it was an easy decision to go with a total replacement. Anza Borrego fucked around with this message at 23:58 on Feb 3, 2024 |
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Feb 3, 2024 23:56
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pointlesspart posted:Final update on property buying attempt. Did you take to them about a variance? Seems like they would prefer it renovated generating tax revenue, vs sitting dilapidated until it must be torn down
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Feb 4, 2024 00:02
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pointlesspart posted:Final update on property buying attempt. Oof. I’m sorry that it didn’t work out, but happy you found this out before jumping into the property.
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Feb 4, 2024 01:15
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Hadlock posted:Did you take to them about a variance? Seems like they would prefer it renovated generating tax revenue, vs sitting dilapidated until it must be torn down Yes. The current owner does pay the taxes on it and filed a renovation plan, so it doesn't qualify as a delinquent property anymore, even though it was a year ago. This reduces the options available to me, since I would not actually be buying a delinquent property. Theoretically, the city can grant me an exception anyway and let me do the renovations and rezone after purchase, but I want a promise, in writing, before purchase. Anything else seemed like assuming too much risk for too little reward. The partial renovation situation seems to be turning into a quagmire and it doesn't have to be my headache. Also, you're kidding about the "torn down" part right? There are thousands abandoned structures in city limits, this goes to the back of the line.
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Feb 4, 2024 01:23
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pointlesspart posted:The partial renovation situation seems to be turning into a quagmire and it doesn't have to be my headache.  This is the way.
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Feb 4, 2024 02:10
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e: don't read this post yet
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Feb 6, 2024 03:56
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Thanks for all the suggestions on the central air conversions. That does give me some confidence. The old system is heating from oil and is ancient so I would anticipate using something else anyways. Our previous house was using a heat pump and it seemed fine. I'm now in a situation where I need to start showing proof of money. We want to take a mortgage so we have the necessary cash to fix up that house (we could just about just dump out all our cash and maybe float it otherwise but that's scary af). A problem is that I have a bunch of that money parked in SGOV on Etrade to make me something while it's been otherwise idle for over a year. I'm trying to figure out how I can show I have the money in that situation. I don't want to have to sell the stuff just to have it as liquid cash to print it on a piece of paper. Any ideas here?
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Feb 6, 2024 09:42
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As long as it is readily accessible you're fine. Our underwriter was perfectly happy seeing an account statement from Vanguard showing our funds. I had ours parked in a money market fund but the loan officer said they just apply a bit of a discount to investments based on approximate market risk and possible capital gains taxes, basically considering an index tracking mutual fund as being worth only 85% of its value, sector funds 75%, individual stocks something less, etc. They didn't even ask to make sure we were outside of the one-year lock-up period for our Treasury I-bonds. That said you might want to move it over to a high yield savings account, as many of those are returning over 4.35% now.
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Feb 6, 2024 11:30
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Shifty Pony posted:That said you might want to move it over to a high yield savings account, as many of those are returning over 4.35% now. SGOV's close to 5.5%.
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Feb 6, 2024 14:34
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Sorry, I left off the reasoning behind it. It's a lot quicker to move money out of a high yield savings account and you already have had the capital gains accounted for. I now realize that I had assumed that the funds were going to serve as a down payment; if they are just there as proof of reserves then leave it.
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Feb 6, 2024 14:40
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Rocko Bonaparte posted:Thanks for all the suggestions on the central air conversions. That does give me some confidence. The old system is heating from oil and is ancient so I would anticipate using something else anyways. Our previous house was using a heat pump and it seemed fine. Eww, Oil heat. You may have a problem getting the blower integrated but I guess it depends on the age of the oil furnace. I've dealt with NG and Propane, so I have no idea about oil. Get the model number of the existing furnace unit and you should probably be able to look up the conversion potential. Rocko Bonaparte posted:I don't want to have to sell the stuff just to have it as liquid cash to print it on a piece of paper. Any ideas here? You just show a statement. They usually give you a date when you need to liquidate if you need it for a down payment. It'll mean losing out on a week or two of returns but it is what it is. If it's just a matter of showing reserves a statement is fine.
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Feb 6, 2024 15:32
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So I show my reserves to the lender (NOT the seller) and use that for proof?
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Feb 6, 2024 20:29
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Rocko Bonaparte posted:So I show my reserves to the lender (NOT the seller) and use that for proof? Yeah the seller doesn't care, or at least not care much. If you can do a cash offer it helps because the seller will know you are less likely to drop out because you didn't realize mortgages cost money each month. But the seller doesn't give a poo poo if you can't pay your mortgage once it's granted. Usually you get pre-approval first, which you may need to show a statement to the bank and plan out ballpark your down payment. This will be enough for a seller and once you have an offer you actually go through getting the mortgage. You'll almost certainly want to get to 20% down, beyond that it can help get a lower rate if you can get to 40 or 60%, but it's not a huge difference. You'll need to have the cash on hand for the down payment by closing and your lender may require you to have that money liquid prior, the loan I just got this fall they wanted to see it in my bank account like 10 days before closing. That may have been because I was doing a large down payment, or it might be typical now. If you aren't using any of that money in that account in the down payment then you'll potentially just need to show it's not a gift a relative is sticking in your account to make you look better. Usually 3 months of statements is enough to show that.
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Feb 6, 2024 20:38
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Thanks for all of the knob and tube comments. I’ve spoken with a couple insurance brokers now and they’re saying that in the past 6 months their insurers have gone from signing off with an electricians safety report to simply not writing policies with active knob and tube. This is the CA Bay Area. I’m looking at a small house with some k&t in the attic right now and my real estate agent was quoted $500 to switch it over to modern. My gut is telling me to run as far away from that guy as possible and get another quote. That seems impossibly low.
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Feb 6, 2024 22:25
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I mean, get another quote. But If it's JUST hanging in the attic and can be replaced without tearing down any walls and isn't being run down into the house then it's probably only a 3-4 hour job to run new line, splice it in, and secure it up. $500 is low but not like outrageously low. If the guy is charging $100 an hour + material that's probably about right. I am just assuming it's running lights and a fan in the attic and not actually then running through the rest of the house.
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Feb 6, 2024 22:31
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I would have thought that in a high COL area like the Bay Area $500 is barely over the call-out fee for a decent electrician. Can't imagine you would get meaningful work done.
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Feb 6, 2024 22:37
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Knob and Tube isn't, like, asbestos. It's just an old way of doing things that is kinda dangerous and gets more dangerous the older it is, but you don't need to do anything special to get rid or it or run new wires. I would guess that quote is probably just leaving the wiring and tube up there just unhooked, which is ugly but fine. Doesn't hurt anything. If it's dark you can even take it down yourself, but if you don't know what you're doing don't try to take down live wires. As you've noted with insurance, they don't want active knob and tube, which is understandable. But if it's just an attic replacing it is pretty straightforward.
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Feb 6, 2024 22:38
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The homeowners have done several renovations. It’s possible that it is only running ceiling lights and a whole house fan in the attic but no one has confirmed that. The selling agent actually told me there is no knob and tube, despite it being clearly flagged in the disclosures. This market moves so fast you get like 3 days to figure everything out. Feels like I’d be better off blissfully ignorant until poo poo truly hits the fan.
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Feb 6, 2024 22:48
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Mush Mushi posted:The homeowners have done several renovations. It’s possible that it is only running ceiling lights and a whole house fan in the attic but no one has confirmed that. The selling agent actually told me there is no knob and tube, despite it being clearly flagged in the disclosures. This market moves so fast you get like 3 days to figure everything out. Feels like I’d be better off blissfully ignorant until poo poo truly hits the fan. That's more of a red flag. If they actually got permits and inspections that would indicate no K&T anywhere else but getting conflicting info is a problem. Basically, I wouldn't consider just attic to be a big problem and one that can probably be solved for under $1000 but if its anywhere else in the house that becomes a thing. And blissfully unaware isn't great here because if there is a fire it's pretty easy to trace it to knob and tube and I am fairly certain your insurance will happily give you nothing in return.
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Feb 6, 2024 22:51
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Realistically, if there's active K&T in the attic, then there's active K&T in the walls too. The attic is the easy place to run new wires, you'd run romex up there if you had the option. And if some prior owner paid to rewire the house, they'd do the walls and the attic, not just the walls. But yeah, my understanding is that K&T is just fine so long as you don't touch it. Whether the insurance company agrees is a different matter, of course.
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Feb 6, 2024 23:30
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That’s where all of this starts to smell funny to me because you can’t be forced to tear your walls apart to prove that there is no knob and tube in there. Insurance company should just say the house is old gently caress off if that’s what they mean. I guess this is what contingencies are for if it comes down to it.
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Feb 6, 2024 23:43
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Mush Mushi posted:That’s where all of this starts to smell funny to me because you can’t be forced to tear your walls apart to prove that there is no knob and tube in there. Insurance company should just say the house is old gently caress off if that’s what they mean. i’ve got a buddy who was under contract to buy a place and walked after initial pest inspection showed termite history and owners refused to open up a particular wall. it was a good call by him.
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Feb 7, 2024 00:08
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Lockback posted:Knob and Tube isn't, like, asbestos... Not necessarily, but it can be. (I would be careful with old wire that looked like it was wrapped in cloth and/or had degraded sheathing.)
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Feb 7, 2024 02:35
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Shifty Pony posted:I would have thought that in a high COL area like the Bay Area $500 is barely over the call-out fee for a decent electrician. Can't imagine you would get meaningful work done. Minimum charge for my electrician to downtown SF was $159 as of last fall
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Feb 7, 2024 03:37
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Mush Mushi posted:The selling agent actually told me there is no knob and tube, despite it being clearly flagged in the disclosures. One of those two is gonna be considered the official record, and the other might lose a popularity contest against Used Car Salespeople. I expect you can guess which is which.
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Feb 7, 2024 07:53
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