|
A bad agent sucks, a great one is nice but pretty rare. The difference between a decent one and a good one is pretty small so if you're at least at that level you're fine.
|
#
?
Mar 26, 2024 01:52
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 16, 2024 00:25 |
|
|
And since their interests are not entirely aligned with your own get a real eastate attorney even if your state doesn't require it. This is how you check up on your contractor(s).
|
|
#
?
Mar 26, 2024 02:06
|
|
|
Motronic posted:And since their interests are not entirely aligned with your own get a real eastate attorney even if your state doesn't require it. This is how you check up on your contractor(s). This is an additional expense, yes, but one worth its weight in gold for a comparative pittance compared to the average purchase price of a home.
|
|
#
?
Mar 26, 2024 02:53
|
|
|
I'm in a weird spot where I'm not really set on buying a home at all -- my intent is to watch the market for months or years, and I'll happily keep renting forever if a miracle doesn't appear on the condo market. But I started occasionally seeing places that are closer to meeting my criteria than I expected, so I figured I should get things arranged enough that I'm ready to take advantage if that miracle does happen. (This isn't me saying "no I won't ever need a real estate attorney", just that the timing and circumstances are weird for me.)
|
|
#
?
Mar 26, 2024 03:03
|
|
|
TooMuchAbstraction posted:In my old neighborhood, someone bought a house for $900k in mid-2023, did a bunch of work on it (I could not speak to the quality, but they did re-do pretty much the entire interior and exterior), and put it back on the market in January 2024 for $1.5 million. It spent two weeks on the market, didn't sell, now it's back on for $1.4 million. The tile in the master bath is well done for a flip. doingitwrong posted:My beloved landlord of 8 years stopped by last week to let us know that he and his wife are selling the house for medical reasons. So my spouse and I are scrambling to get up to speed and think through the rent vs buying decision for our next steps. We don't want to keep this place (the top three things we liked about it were the landlord, the rent, and the location and two are going away — the house as a whole has too many things that don't really work for us at market prices). So I think I'm about to spend a lot of time in this thread. My wife and I looked for a long time - about 15 months - before we found a house and by the end we had a spreadsheet that we used to rank houses based on our priorities. On a 0-3 scale, we rated: Location Fits Our Stuff Nature/Garden Parking Accommodations Expansion Potential Condition We looked at 12 but only made offers on 2 before getting a house that scored a 12.5 out of a range of 8-15.5. It’s a little subjective, and a number were evaluated after they had sold, but it helped us compare places and keep talking about value. If we do it again I’ll add price/value as a category and raise the scale from 0-5.
|
|
#
?
Mar 26, 2024 03:43
|
|
|
doingitwrong posted:My beloved landlord of 8 years stopped by last week to let us know that he and his wife are selling the house for medical reasons. So my spouse and I are scrambling to get up to speed and think through the rent vs buying decision for our next steps. We don't want to keep this place (the top three things we liked about it were the landlord, the rent, and the location and two are going away — the house as a whole has too many things that don't really work for us at market prices). So I think I'm about to spend a lot of time in this thread. My partner and I have found ourselves in a similar situation to this. My landlord let us know that she'll be selling the house we've lived in for the past 3 years once our lease is up in July. We've been benefitting from pretty cheap rent, so I figured the music had to stop eventually, but it was a very unwelcome surprise. Our landlord didn't know exactly what she'd be listing it for, but the range she gave was potentially something we could afford. Am I wrong to believe that it might be an advantage to buy a place we're currently living in? This house is by no means perfect, and we've had a front row seat to all of the small-to-medium-sized issues that our landlord has papered over or just ignored over the past three years. Is it good to have that info, or would an inspection generally catch anything we would have noticed anyway? Baronash fucked around with this message at 04:32 on Mar 26, 2024 |
|
#
?
Mar 26, 2024 04:06
|
|
|
In general it's a terrible idea to buy a rental due to the deferred maintenance problems you alluded to You're also likely to pay over market, as there's substantial benefit to staying in the house, vs any other potential buyer There was some thoughtful discussion on buying your rental 18+ months ago it should pop up
|
|
#
?
Mar 26, 2024 04:20
|
|
|
Hadlock posted:In general it's a terrible idea to buy a rental due to the deferred maintenance problems you alluded to This is doing to depend on a LOT. I wouldn’t blanket call buying a rental a terrible idea, but you are going to have to go in eyes wide open and have a good inspection. Edit: a ton of normal houses also have massive maintenance debt. We sold my wife’s grandmothers place a few years back and I don’t think she had done super basic poo poo like have the gutters cleaned or hvac serviced in like a decade. Much less actual needed repairs.
|
|
#
?
Mar 26, 2024 04:26
|
|
|
Yeah, I'm not sure I agree it's a major difference, especially if you are the one who has been renting all these years. I do agree that you're more likely to get a top market price though. Also moving sucks but it's a one time thing. Be careful you aren't saddling yourself for years/decades because you don't want to spend a couple weeks moving.
|
|
#
?
Mar 26, 2024 04:55
|
|
|
Still get an inspector even if you buy a house you've been renting. They will notice things you didn't and at least keep your eyes open to things to be aware of.
|
|
#
?
Mar 26, 2024 06:00
|
|
|
Keep in mind you’ll also probably skip some of the “move in” sort of jobs that might count towards maintenance. For example repainting rooms or replacing bathroom fixtures or other little things you might like to do if you’re coming to a house fresh and have the opportunity while it’s empty.
|
|
#
?
Mar 26, 2024 08:58
|
|
|
extravadanza posted:Still get an inspector even if you buy a house you've been renting. They will notice things you didn't and at least keep your eyes open to things to be aware of. Yeah, for sure.
|
|
#
?
Mar 26, 2024 12:49
|
|
|
It's also highly likely that the landlord will quote you a price in line with what move-in-ready houses are selling for in the market, ignoring that even houses with "as-in" in the listing usually have a substantial amount of work done to them to clear up the most egregious issues prior to listing and intending to pocket the commission they are saving by avoiding using an agent. It might be in your best interest to do some research into sales in the area to sus out what truly as-is properties go for and make the first move by telling them roughly what you would be willing to pay for it, before they start doing research and get anchored on an insane price.
|
|
#
?
Mar 26, 2024 13:34
|
|
|
I am hoping to someday buy the 115y/o building we are renting in, but it might not be a typical situation. We live over our landlords, and they are retired folks who seem to be willing to spend money to address problems properly in their home. Building has all new electric, redone facade, modern hot water furnace and water heater. They do a lot of annual inspection type maintenance, someone comes out to do the sewer clean out yearly etc. Any actual problems that have cropped up over the last few years of renting have been addressed immediately by just calling a professional. Our kitchen is vintage as hell too so hopefully we have a shot at actually affording it…
|
|
#
?
Mar 26, 2024 15:02
|
|
|
That's kinda what my cousin's situation was. They've been living there for close to a decade. The owner lived next door, did lots of maintenance. Eventually sold it to my cousin, who made sure to go through the proper process of inspections and the like. They're still friends, so it must have worked out well. Definitely wouldn't recommend it in general, just it can sometimes work out.
|
|
#
?
Mar 26, 2024 15:25
|
|
|
We made an offer on the house we were renting, and I think we offered too low. Lots of advice here about making sure you don't overpay, while on the other hand if you want the house don't stress over making sure you pay the minimum possible.
|
|
#
?
Mar 26, 2024 18:50
|
|
|
Epitope posted:We made an offer on the house we were renting, and I think we offered too low. Lots of advice here about making sure you don't overpay, while on the other hand if you want the house don't stress over making sure you pay the minimum possible. I'm curious, was it for sale or did you ship them an unsolicited offer If I had a tenant offer to buy the house it'd have to be drat high, if the tenant is offering to buy it, it means you won't have trouble getting future renters and it's an excellent rental property, probably I was renting uh, a little over a year ago and sent the owner an unsolicited offer for about 25% over market and he still tuned it down. My wife and I agonized over 20, 22 or 25% House is now worth just shy of $50k under what I offered in March '22 Hadlock fucked around with this message at 06:09 on Mar 27, 2024 |
|
#
?
Mar 27, 2024 06:05
|
|
|
When we signed the lease he said something about how he might sell at some point, so no not out of the blue. The tenant after us ended up buying it.
|
|
#
?
Mar 27, 2024 13:10
|
|
|
Hadlock posted:If I had a tenant offer to buy the house it'd have to be drat high, if the tenant is offering to buy it, it means you won't have trouble getting future renters and it's an excellent rental property, probably I have definitely thought a lot about how to approach the owners of my rental (mentioned above) regarding the possibility of purchasing. The main issue is that they are older and retired and currently appear to have no desire to move anywhere, so it’s more of a future prospect. Their health could decline any time, or they could live here fine another decade or more. I’ve thought about mentioning next time our lease renewal comes up that we are thinking about our long term housing stability and buying something (we live in a fairly popular neighborhood so I can only imagine prices continuing to rise), but then asking if they are interested in trying to negotiate some sort of rent to own or option to purchase deal. Most simple would be we just negotiate securing the right of first refusal to buy the property. More complicated (especially without a specific date for the owners to leave) would be anything beyond that, but maybe with a lawyer we could negotiate a recurring yearly option to purchase or continue renting at their choice, with agreed initial purchase and rental prices based on the current market that would both increase by an indexed percentage (some form of CPI) each year. I imagine such an option could either be purchased for a specific cost, or we could do the traditional rent to own thing of putting money in escrow each month and then if we ever choose not to buy or keep renting, they’d get that money. My hope is that a well-negotiated deal could benefit the landlords with the security of a good tenant for the rest of their time in the building, and benefit us by locking down something that has a chance of being affordable in the future. I am curious to hear what owner/landlords here think. If you were older/retired what would compel you to consider such a negotiation?
|
|
#
?
Mar 27, 2024 17:39
|
|
|
I've accepted an offer on my old house. In two and a half weeks, I'll be free.
|
|
#
?
Mar 27, 2024 17:51
|
|
|
Man_of_Teflon posted:I have definitely thought a lot about how to approach the owners of my rental (mentioned above) regarding the possibility of purchasing. The main issue is that they are older and retired and currently appear to have no desire to move anywhere, so it’s more of a future prospect. Their health could decline any time, or they could live here fine another decade or more. Rent to own is a terrible idea. You really don't need to be cute about this. If you want to buy it, ask if they're interested in selling. If they are, get a number and see if it's one you're comfortable paying. Get some inspections done and use that to inform how much you think the house is worth. Keep in mind that since it's already an established rental the easiest path forward for them is going to be selling to another landlord who will pay cash for it as is. That said, sometimes people just want the easy sale to be done with it. In gradschool I paid rent to a buddy's parents. They had some money and basically bought a house for him a few towns over from the university so that he could save the pittance he got paid and spend it on things like "food" and "research costs" rather than the eye watering local rent. Nice little 2br/2ba that was part of a duplex in an area with a bunch of condos. He got a housemate (me, eventually me and my wife) to help defray the cost of the mortgage/property taxes/HOA. He finished a year ahead of me and had to move for work, and at that point my wife had a real job so we just assumed the full cost of the place, basically paying their mortgage for them. It was still cheaper than local rent. After I finished my degree we stayed in the area for about another year and they offered to sell it to us. They had no interest in being landlords and just wanted to be done with hassle of cashing our checks to pay their HOA/mortgage/etc. We turned them down because we were planning on leaving the area. Even if we had been staying, I don't know that we would have bought there. It as was an OK place to be a grad student ,but I wouldn't want to stay there past that. We were also painfully aware of some of the issues that the house had, and worse some of the issues that the other unit in the duplex had which we were 100% sure were not being addressed. So it happens, but even then you really need to examine it carefully.
|
|
#
?
Mar 27, 2024 19:00
|
|
|
"Hey, we're starting to think of buying, we were wondering your thoughts on if you'd ever consider selling this place?" and go from there. If they say no, leave it. If they say "You know we were thinking that" then start down the path. No need to start getting ahead of yourself on schemes and agreements. If you don't have enough for a down payment for whatever the market price would be for that size/area then you can't afford it, don't try to come up with a scheme.
|
|
#
?
Mar 27, 2024 19:22
|
|
|
You can also figure out ballpark what the house is worth just by looking on zillow and trying to find similar places in your neighborhood of about the same size and about the same features in roughly the same condition. Even if you can't nail it down exactly you'll have at least a rough idea of if the house is in a 200k neighborhood, a 500k neighborhood, or a 1M neighborhood. Once you know that, OK, this place is probably worth something like 250-350k you can have a grip on if a down payment is even theoretically possible for you.
|
|
#
?
Mar 27, 2024 19:42
|
|
|
Seller, a developer, has offered to install a French drain system rather than provide closing cost credit towards the cost of one. Pretty skeptical about this idea. For one, this virtually guarantees that they are going to do the job cheaper than the amount of credit we requested, which wasn’t even the full price we were quoted by a structural and drainage contractor. Second, we’ll have no control over who does the work and what type of warranty they will provide (or it will be a massive pain in the rear end game of telephone to do so). I’m asking for a full proposal including a warranty beyond “we’ll do the drain”. Since they are a developer, is it possible that they both do the job right and come out ahead financially? Seems unlikely.
|
|
#
?
Mar 27, 2024 19:47
|
|
|
Don’t let anyone but yourself make decisions about maintenance.
|
|
#
?
Mar 27, 2024 19:51
|
|
|
Mush Mushi posted:Seller, a developer, has offered to install a French drain system rather than provide closing cost credit towards the cost of one. Pretty skeptical about this idea. For one, this virtually guarantees that they are going to do the job cheaper than the amount of credit we requested, which wasn’t even the full price we were quoted by a structural and drainage contractor. Second, we’ll have no control over who does the work and what type of warranty they will provide (or it will be a massive pain in the rear end game of telephone to do so). I’m asking for a full proposal including a warranty beyond “we’ll do the drain”. Since they are a developer, is it possible that they both do the job right and come out ahead financially? Seems unlikely. "No no, let me do the extra work on this asset I'm selling you." --Nobody, ever. They're going to do a poo poo job at best.
|
|
#
?
Mar 27, 2024 20:44
|
|
|
Yeah, hard no on that. They're going to do the cheapest job they can with the lowest skilled labor they can source and the crappiest materials they can find. Keep in mind that they give zero fucks if the system clogs and fails in four years. Even money that whatever company they get to do it - if they don't just do it themselves - will go out of business (and reform 60 seconds later) or find some other way to duck any warranty.
|
|
#
?
Mar 27, 2024 20:49
|
|
|
"You want a $20k credit on the sale for installing a drain? Hell, I can do that for $5k (because I don't give a poo poo), why would I give up all that money?"
|
|
#
?
Mar 27, 2024 20:57
|
|
|
French drain installed by two day labor dudes with used construction materials, back filled with gravel from the medical waste dump No warranty of any kind. The broken needles are free! 
Hadlock fucked around with this message at 21:29 on Mar 27, 2024 |
|
#
?
Mar 27, 2024 21:26
|
|
|
They could also just say no to the credit. Is a dubious French drain better than nothing? At least I get a trench and some river rocks.
|
|
#
?
Mar 27, 2024 21:34
|
|
|
it's a negotiation, saying no is harsher than saying let us do it, you can counter by saying "we get the full credit or we walk" or you can discount your estimate by some amount instead if you want
|
|
#
?
Mar 27, 2024 21:37
|
|
|
You might not even get the rock. The previous owner of my place simply piled the dirt back on top of the French drain pipe, the same clay-heavy dirt that was responsible for the slow drainage in the first place.
|
|
#
?
Mar 27, 2024 21:38
|
|
|
Shifty Pony posted:You might not even get the rock. The previous owner of my place simply piled the dirt back on top of the French drain pipe, the same clay-heavy dirt that was responsible for the slow drainage in the first place. That's the typical way to do it quick and cheap. It saves a TON of labor - you're not moving and disposing of old material, you don't have to buy and move stone in. I would absolutely count on it being done that way in this situation. And it will work. Perhaps for an entire season if they buy the nice pipe with the sock that has the foam peanuts in it (but they won't because you ahve to excavate more for that).
|
|
#
?
Mar 27, 2024 21:41
|
|
|
Okay I got their proposal and they actually wrote down just how they intended to screw me so back to closing credits it is. I’ve probably watched 8 hours of drainage YouTube at this point since I’m seeing this problem at almost every house.
|
|
#
?
Mar 27, 2024 23:11
|
|
|
I'm curious what their plan was. Were they not going to install the drain where it is needed?
|
|
#
?
Mar 27, 2024 23:25
|
|
|
It’s actually lacking in so many details it’s hard to tell what the actual project would be. They’re calling it a French drain but the only materials specifically mentioned are corrugated pipe and a grate channel drain. No clue if the channel drain would be integrated into the french drain pipe (bad) or if they’re adding that as extra surface drainage outside of the trench (weird). Also no clue if the pipe is perforated, whether they will use gravel and landscaping fabric or just bury the pipe, how deep it will be, how the water will get to the street, etc. etc.
|
|
#
?
Mar 28, 2024 02:43
|
|
|
I like the idea of just burying an uncorrugated plastic tube in the yard and calling that a french drain
|
|
#
?
Mar 28, 2024 07:59
|
|
|
call it a "freedom drain"
|
|
#
?
Mar 28, 2024 18:58
|
|
|
Mush Mushi posted:Okay I got their proposal and they actually wrote down just how they intended to screw me so back to closing credits it is. I’ve probably watched 8 hours of drainage YouTube at this point since I’m seeing this problem at almost every house. I've actually done a French drain in my yard. It sucks, but you can do it yourself. Make sure you call dig safe so they can come out and mark the lines incorrectly. That way you can dig through your lovely sewer line like I did. Then you can dig up the whole back yard and replace the whole thing because it's made of some flimsy pipe material from the 1960s.
|
|
#
?
Mar 28, 2024 19:28
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 16, 2024 00:25 |
|
|
Leperflesh posted:call it a "freedom drain" *runs out to buy 5 for the house he does not own* USA USA USA.
|
|
#
?
Mar 28, 2024 19:28
|
|
