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pointlesspart posted:Well, everybody's freaking out but I gave this a low chance of being viable and, after viewing it, it is nonviable. The floor plan will not be easily subdividable and I don't need 3000+ square feet of personal space. You act like I already bought the place, instead of just doing a first pass look. No one's freaking out, they're just pointing out the many pitfalls with that kind of property. Which is what you invited us to do.
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Feb 25, 2024 00:28
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Cyrano4747 posted:The reason? Because plumbers in the 60s, when our house was built, thought it was good and awesome to bury copper pipe in cement. So here's a question for folks. What's the *best* age of house to buy, if you don't buy something newly built? Around here all the best houses seem to have built between the 1950s and the 1980s. Older than that and they're literally falling apart, newer than that they're all spec houses and going to fall apart at any minute as all the plastic ages.
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Feb 25, 2024 00:50
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:So here's a question for folks. It's less about finding the optimal age to buy and more about knowing the pitfalls and defects that each era is prone to. My two cents is that I prefer older houses because the issues are better quantifiable and there's a certain survivorship bias - the real lovely ones were torn down decades ago. Meanwhile with a new build you've got a lot more unknowns, like are we going to find out in ten years that the specific membrane used in your vapor barrier is class-action-grade poo poo (but the company went out of business five years ago) and now your walls are rotting on the inside. And even more prosaic poo poo like did they put the roof on right, or did the project manager throwing up this subdivision cut some insane corners that we're not going to find out about for a few years? On the other hand, if you're building new and know what you're looking at (or can hire someone who does) that gives you a lot more room to inspect poo poo as it's going up and make sure it's being built right. But that's a whole thing in and of itself, and at that point you're acting as your own general manager, which is a job in and of itself. Upsides and downsides, the key is to know walking in what the potential downsides are.
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Feb 25, 2024 00:57
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:So here's a question for folks. There isn't one. Houses between 1950-1980 probably won't have the insulation and sealing newer houses will but will probably have been built with more attention to fit and finish, though probably not as much as pre-war houses. I feel like the best is an older home that's been modernized and intelligently updated with attention to energy efficiency but that's hard to find and you have to take a lot on faith unless you want to to rip open walls.
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Feb 25, 2024 00:58
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First modern-ish building codes show up in 50s-60s so anything older is highly variable in local methods of construction. It took a few years for codes to iterate over some growing pains but 70s on are close enough to our modern understanding of best practices that you can take down and rebuilt most things. Asbestos being used in everything up to the 70-80s should be enough of the deterrent for most people though.
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Feb 25, 2024 01:13
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Lockback posted:Some school advice too (which, don't take this as gospel but just a guy who has kids 9 and 13 in an urban area): I used to think this way... I believe at one point I said "it's just fingerpainting at that age isn't it?" to my wife. But I've come around to the belief that each year builds on the next. Starting with good early education, that is more than just glorified lovely babysitting, sets the stage for all the later years. Sure you can make it up with good teachers and better environments later on, but that will be harder.
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Feb 25, 2024 05:59
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I totally agree but those early years home environment matters way more. It's not glorified babysitting but even poorly rated schools have teachers who care and are doing a good job. In the early years success correlates way more with which kids have parents who are more involved (or able to be more involved) vs what school they go to. Of course each individual situation is different.
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Feb 25, 2024 07:20
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Lockback posted:I totally agree but those early years home environment matters way more. It's not glorified babysitting but even poorly rated schools have teachers who care and are doing a good job. In the early years success correlates way more with which kids have parents who are more involved (or able to be more involved) vs what school they go to. The bolded part is a really, really huge assumption if we're talking actual bad schools. If your definition of bad is merely middle of the road kind of mediocre that's a different story.
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Feb 25, 2024 16:43
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Parental involvement is definitely a huge predictor, but it's a huge predictor in that you're making sure your kids aren't in bad environments and they are supported.
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Feb 25, 2024 17:20
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Kids start making actual friendships around 3-7 (depending on how you define "friendship") so moving to a different school becomes increasingly disruptive to them once they hit kindergarten. As for house construction date I would say late 50s to mid 60's all the way to about the very early 90s is fine as long as it was wired with grounds. That gets you plumbing/electrical which is pretty compatible with modern stuff while avoiding (for the most part) plaster, framing made from sponge-dense wood, and boneheaded open layouts.
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Feb 25, 2024 18:16
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We've been looking at houses recently and it seems like the only houses available are totally clapped out with decades of ignored maintenance and lowest-bidders-friend level work. We looked at a house listed for over $400K yesterday that had 2 broken windows with holes in them, obvious mold issues, and enough foundation issues that some sheets of drywall had 1/8" gaps between them. 400K is a good amount in our area. I bought my house for 120K 6 years ago for reference and it's a nice house, so I'm surprised that we can't find anything that doesn't need multiple tens of thousands of dollars of work after buying. My theory is that everyone that's invested anything in their house is keeping it because they can't afford to move anywhere else, and if they can move, they're turning their nice prior houses into rentals to capitalize on their low mortgage rate. So only the most abused and terrible houses get listed for suckers to buy. E: I should have taken pictures for the crappy construction thread 
SpartanIvy fucked around with this message at 19:33 on Feb 26, 2024 |
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Feb 26, 2024 19:29
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hobbez posted:Is it acceptable to leave exposed drywall screws in my sold house? I don’t have matching paint, so don’t really see what else can be done about them did you say this is a sold house? it's sold, don't do anything if it's not actually sold, i think what your somewhat mangled post is saying is you had a shelf in the bathroom, you removed the shelf, and behind the shelf there's a drywall screw that hasn't been mudded or painted over I think you should totally ignore this unless the buyer complains and if they do complain you should chuckle merrily at the naeivite of a new home buyer who thinks a single exposed drywall screw is a big deal in the realm of home repairs lol, and then go buy the smallest tub of spackle and a little paint sampler pot at home depot and do the half-assed repair the buyer deserves for making a deal out of this piddly poo poo
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Feb 26, 2024 19:38
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SpartanIvy posted:
If it's anything like my area, after a couple weeks of refreshing zillow, which I have decided is as toxic as any other social media site, my guess is: -- anything built before 1990 was originally built well, but now is in a bad school zone and has been "remodeled" by lowest-bidder flippers. Hello grey laminate flooring -- anything built after 1990 is in a good school zone but it's a spec house made of 95% plastic and a maximum of one nail per square foot -- exceptions include a parallelogram house built in the 1970s out of, apparently, leftover battleship dazzle camouflage, and exactly one 3000+ Sq ft genuine Victorian or Art Deco house that exists to taunt you with your lack of financial success (your more successful relative will buy this) -- any house in good condition at a sane price has already been purchased by real estate rental conglomerates, the same ones constantly texting you "cash now offers" for your current home. If you sell to them they may rent it back to you! Hieronymous Alloy fucked around with this message at 22:25 on Feb 26, 2024 |
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Feb 26, 2024 22:19
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Shifty Pony posted:Kids start making actual friendships around 3-7 (depending on how you define "friendship") so moving to a different school becomes increasingly disruptive to them once they hit kindergarten. Yeah, my dad moved the entire family when I was in my second year of high school and it completely zeroed out my friend base/social growth for years. I'd say it actually was even more difficult for me in college to reestablish any semblance of normal. I tried to talk to him about it recently and it was a "What? You were fine. You got into college right?" kind of conversation. Anyways, I've told my spouse that when little adnams get to around the same time I'd rather drive 2 hours both ways in traffic than to make that kind of massive shift if possible. Hieronymous Alloy posted:If it's anything like my area, after a couple weeks of refreshing zillow, which I have decided is as toxic as any other social media site, my guess is: I never thought about it as a social media site but after reviewing how I feel after I look at homes I'll never afford on there, that's about 100% right.
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Feb 26, 2024 22:26
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:What's the *best* age of house to buy, if you don't buy something newly built? I can provide a weird anecdote. We bought a church built in 1960. The build itself is about as high quality as it can be: Full masonary walls with brick exterior, Cherry / Oak ceiling, Spancrete floors. The electrical was all updated to modern commercial code (mostly) as well. The structure itself is *excellent*, but... • The basement is full of Asbestos tiling. The plan is to just put something over it. Getting rid of it professionally would be about $30k. • The plumbing is all cursed. Copper in Concrete everywhere. Decisions were made that were extremely stupid and it's a money pit timebomb. • The roof was old and in our case, it was done by volunteers and we had to redo for our insurance to give it a pass to the tune of about $30k. • The basement is mostly level. Mostly. There are places where I can feel an uneven pour with my foot. My major take aways here are mostly around Plumping and Asbestos, and pay attention to the roof. I would make sure I at least understand what I'm signing up for with plumbing - go into that with eyes wide open. We specifically had to sign documents acknowledging we knew Asbestos was present, so that wasn't a mystery at all. This was in MN, so it might be state to state.
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Feb 26, 2024 22:41
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adnam posted:I never thought about it as a social media site but after reviewing how I feel after I look at homes I'll never afford on there, that's about 100% right. What was house shopping/browsing like in the Craigslist era (the golden age of the internet)?
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Feb 27, 2024 01:37
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Epitope posted:What was house shopping/browsing like in the Craigslist era (the golden age of the internet)? Emails from your agent with links to their lovely MLS feed that they bought from a third party. Before that it was PDFs in the email. Before they they were handing you paper.
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Feb 27, 2024 02:00
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Craigslist was wild west for houses too, you couldn't trust poo poo. You'd have houses listed in the wrong school district, wrong bathrooms/bedroom count, etc. There were some FSBO deals out there but there were lots of scams and bait & switches. I actually found my seasonal cabin on Craigslist in 2013 (late in the golden age). It was pretty basic and cost as much as a midline luxury car so it wasn't unreasonable that it was being sold through those channels, but I had to comb through lots of junk to find it.
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Feb 27, 2024 02:58
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When I started looking for houses in the '80s, one legend was that if you could find a house built in the Great Depression in a middle-class (at time of building) neighborhood, it was likely to be solidly built, because laborers were desperate for work and builders could pick and choose. I have no idea if this is a legend, and in any case those houses are (gulp) forty years older now.
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Feb 27, 2024 03:44
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Motronic posted:Before they were handing you paper. I feel like realtors may have earned their 5% when they drove over to your house to hand you a stack of paper every couple days.
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Feb 27, 2024 04:28
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adnam posted:Yeah, my dad moved the entire family when I was in my second year of high school and it completely zeroed out my friend base/social growth for years. I'd say it actually was even more difficult for me in college to reestablish any semblance of normal. I tried to talk to him about it recently and it was a "What? You were fine. You got into college right?" kind of conversation. Anyways, I've told my spouse that when little adnams get to around the same time I'd rather drive 2 hours both ways in traffic than to make that kind of massive shift if possible. Moving in elementary or middle school is basically fine. We moved when I was seven. Kids are resilient, and they’ll have a long time to make new friends. Going into high school is a big social shift anyway. We moved again when I was 16, though, and I can confirm that moving in the middle of high school sucks rear end. The last few years of high school can be pretty socially scattered even without a move just because everyone’s doing different things, and then the move makes you feel so isolated. I lost track of everyone I knew with at my old school, and I felt like there wasn’t any point in making friends at the new school because we’d all be going our separate ways in two years. Throw in teenage awkwardness and all the natural resentment about the move and whew.
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Feb 27, 2024 11:02
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I moved schools twice in elementary school but it mostly worked out because a lot of those people ended up at the same middle school I moved states right before the start of high school, that was fine. It probably helped that or high school had 9/10 and 11/12 on separate campuses, so everyone kind of got a soft reset when two or more high schools combined in the sr high school. I guess in 12 years of public schools I went to six different campuses Strong agree that moving during high school would have been pretty traumatic socially
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Feb 27, 2024 13:44
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Epitope posted:What was house shopping/browsing like in the Craigslist era (the golden age of the internet)? The last time I bought a house, in 2011, I remember it basically felt like I was paying to rent MLS access, filtered through a dude who kept saying "my bad, I forgot that" about details of the offer(s). Is the thread consensus that real estate agents are a giant waste of time now in the age of zillow?
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Feb 27, 2024 14:23
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:
Entirely depends on your area and how good your agent is. There are a lot of poo poo agents out there, but an agent who knows what they're doing and is knowledgeable about your local area can be a big help.
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Feb 27, 2024 14:26
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Cyrano4747 posted:Entirely depends on your area and how good your agent is. There are a lot of poo poo agents out there, but an agent who knows what they're doing and is knowledgeable about your local area can be a big help. In addition, some listings may show up with the agent before it's officially listed on Zillow, etc. Our house had a couple of private showings prior to listing because it showed up on some agents' MLS site before appearing on the others. There were a couple of houses I looked at that were like that as well.
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Feb 27, 2024 14:40
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adnam posted:Yeah, my dad moved the entire family when I was in my second year of high school and it completely zeroed out my friend base/social growth for years. I'd say it actually was even more difficult for me in college to reestablish any semblance of normal. I tried to talk to him about it recently and it was a "What? You were fine. You got into college right?" kind of conversation. Anyways, I've told my spouse that when little adnams get to around the same time I'd rather drive 2 hours both ways in traffic than to make that kind of massive shift if possible. I moved from Florida to freaking Ontario, Canada at the end of 8th grade. So I started high school in a completely different country with completely different weather, ever get made fun of because you've never seen snow before? lol ya that was a fun first year of high school....
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Feb 27, 2024 14:45
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adnam posted:Yeah, my dad moved the entire family when I was in my second year of high school and it completely zeroed out my friend base/social growth for years. I'd say it actually was even more difficult for me in college to reestablish any semblance of normal. I tried to talk to him about it recently and it was a "What? You were fine. You got into college right?" kind of conversation. Anyways, I've told my spouse that when little adnams get to around the same time I'd rather drive 2 hours both ways in traffic than to make that kind of massive shift if possible. We moved to a new state after my sophomore year in high school and it worked out great for me. I learned how to do a total reset for my social life and I made lots of new friends that I still hang out with decades after graduation.
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Feb 27, 2024 16:50
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when I was 13 we moved to England, it was supposed to be for 2 years but got extended to 3, so then I moved back to the states when I was 16. It was an amazing, life-altering experience to live in another country with different perspectives and a weird mutant form of my native tongue with sneaky words that had different meanings, but it was also traumatic especially during puberty to be thrust into a different environment with none of my friends around. I did maintain one friendship and we picked it back up when I got back home, but the whole time I was in the UK despite making friends this pall of "well I'll be leaving in 2 (then 3) years and we'll likely never see each other again" kind of hung over everything. That wasn't great. All that said, things are a little different now. Tweens and teens can stay in touch much more easily using social media now than we could when I was a kid and you had to make a forbidden Long Distance Phone Call across time zones to someone who might not even be home if you wanted to talk to someone, you didn't actually see their face, and the parentally-approved method was sitting down with a pen and paper and writing a letter lol. Kids are resilient, I survived and I made friends despite my hang-ups about leaving, a couple of which I still have sort of going today. That doesn't mean it doesn't have a lasting emotional impact and I think it's an important consideration for parents considering a move.
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Feb 27, 2024 17:12
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One other factor to consider is what you need from the school system. Out teacher, nurse, etc are all great with helping manage my son's diabetes. If we had to change schools, that's a huge unknown that could massively impact quality of life or safety. One of the other families I met via daycare has an older son who needs more care and a much more detailed 504, including covering being transported to a specialty school. They basically can't leave the district until they're done with school because redoing all of that would be very painful. On the flipside, you could discover partway through the school years you have needs the school can't accommodate, and then you're paying for a private school or moving anyway. Good times.
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Feb 27, 2024 17:50
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I wonder if other countries outside of North America have these kinds of problems with housing.
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Feb 27, 2024 18:43
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Pollyanna posted:I wonder if other countries outside of North America have these kinds of problems with housing. Google the New Zealand and Australian housing markets and weep. They're even more hosed up.
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Feb 27, 2024 18:46
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rjmccall posted:Moving in elementary or middle school is basically fine. We moved when I was seven. Kids are resilient, and they’ll have a long time to make new friends. Going into high school is a big social shift anyway. Hadlock posted:I moved schools twice in elementary school but it mostly worked out because a lot of those people ended up at the same middle school Yeah, it sucks during high school but was not a big deal in elementary school. I moved after (military family), K, 1, 2, 3, 4, 9th, and 10th grades. The only two that really impacted me were the 9th and 10th grade moves, because most people have established their local social circles / cliques by then and have no intention of letting a new person into them. In retrospect it didn't actually matter since after graduation I never saw anyone from my high school again, but to a teenager living it at the time, it was a social trainwreck.
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Feb 27, 2024 18:53
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I disagree. In the small town I lived in, friendships were pretty much made in kindergarten, and a kid who showed up in second grade was out in the cold. In bigger towns with kids constantly coming and going, it would be different.
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Feb 27, 2024 19:03
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Children will make plenty of friends working the mines.
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Feb 27, 2024 19:05
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Going from a private school to a public school sucked because none of my friends came with me. I spent three years of middle school with no friends and it was awful. Then in high school the three kids I hung out with the most were from Germany, Italy, and Japan and of course they went back to their home countries after freshmen year. For some actual thread content I’m closing on a new build tomorrow. I’m sure I’ll quickly find areas that they cut corners or screwed up on but I’ll save that for the homeowners thread. Like when we did the walkthrough last week the shower drain was leaking into the crawl space
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Feb 27, 2024 19:31
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Duck and Cover posted:Children will make plenty of friends working the mines. I keep telling my wife that Minecraft is just the new thing and in reality, all kids secretly long for working in the mines. Thankfully the red states are relaxing child labor laws and I can prove my theory to her /s Epitope posted:What was house shopping/browsing like in the Craigslist era (the golden age of the internet)? I have no idea. I spent the majority of my working life poor and/or in graduate school and bought my first house slightly pre-COVID. However, using Craigslist to find rentals was terrible. I had a google spreadsheet and would just scrape and monitor availabilities, and I guess it worked? But it was a giant headache back then for rentals but also the only way outside of word-of-mouth to find an apartment.
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Feb 27, 2024 19:40
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Arsenic Lupin posted:I disagree. In the small town I lived in, friendships were pretty much made in kindergarten, and a kid who showed up in second grade was out in the cold. In bigger towns with kids constantly coming and going, it would be different.  My move in fifth grade was me moving from GA to the middle of nowhere in western KS, in a town so small they played in a dedicated 8-man football league because most schools couldn't field 11 kids. It went fine for the most part.e: Though of course, we're talking ten billion years ago as far as the modern world + internet + smartphones + social media is concerned. I have no idea how that life-change would go nowadays.
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Feb 27, 2024 19:40
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adnam posted:, using Craigslist to find rentals was terrible. I had a google spreadsheet and would just scrape and monitor availabilities, and I guess it worked? But it was a giant headache back then for rentals but also the only way outside of word-of-mouth to find an apartment. This was awesome! Market data instantly and freely available. They "fixed" that now, you have to keep refreshing their special app to see their algorithm curated list.
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Feb 27, 2024 22:58
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Just a quick vent. I wrote and deleted a long rear end post because this gets to the heart of it: the excitement I have for every potential home is replaced with fear that I’ve made a horrible mistake the moment I submit an offer. This process is really not for me.
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Feb 28, 2024 00:52
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Mush Mushi posted:Just a quick vent. I wrote and deleted a long rear end post because this gets to the heart of it: the excitement I have for every potential home is replaced with fear that I’ve made a horrible mistake the moment I submit an offer. This process is really not for me. A realtor once told me that studies have indicated that moving / house shopping is on par with death of a family member in terms of overall stress.
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Feb 28, 2024 01:08
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