|
Lockback posted:Pay close attention to the ceilings. If some ceilings are recently painted despite the rooms not being recently painted they are covering water stains. That sounds like there’s a story there
|
#
?
May 3, 2024 07:50
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 6, 2024 17:47 |
|
|
welp we have bought a second house, now we have to renovate it and move in and then sell our old one I've had four different people now look at the apparent foundation issues (cracks in the brickwork and moisture in the crawlspace). One company recommended 30 feet of drain tile, a sump pump, and four helical piers, for about 15k (this was our initial estimate during the due diligence period, and we got credit at closing). One guy (the termite guy who did the cl-100) recommended lining the entire perimeter of the crawlspace with drain tile. One company recommended encapsulation, a dehumidifier, no sump pump or drain tile, and a total of sixteen helical piers (mostly in the place the other guy recommended piers, but just four times as many piers), for like 35 grand total. One company (a local handyman I trust, but not a foundation expert) thinks the issues are mostly settling, one nasty tree root from a neighbor's tree coming in under the garage (I think he's right about that one) and water coming in off the roof due to bad gutters; he recommends better gutters and cosmetic repairs to the brick veneer only. Time to call in a structural engineer I suppose. 
Hieronymous Alloy fucked around with this message at 12:44 on May 3, 2024 |
|
#
?
May 3, 2024 11:56
|
|
|
I was told to check under sinks and while looking at one house I opened the cabinet in the first bathroom and surprise there was a water leak and mold. My realtor dryly noted he would inform the seller's agent to have it addressed before it got worse. Last I heard they ended up replacing the entire vanity.
|
|
#
?
May 3, 2024 13:43
|
|
|
Rotten posted:That sounds like there’s a story there There's a lot of stories there. It's exceptionally common. People hide damage all the time or, at best, "live with it" after the source of the leak has been fixed then repair/paint when they are selling. It's the same old story as cars. Lots of people allow things to fall into maintenance debt, get tired of living in/driving that old POS, then fix everything before selling or take a bath on selling it. If you keep up with maintenance you don't have to live in or drive a POS.
|
|
#
?
May 3, 2024 13:50
|
|
|
Motronic posted:There's a lot of stories there. It's exceptionally common. People hide damage all the time or, at best, "live with it" after the source of the leak has been fixed then repair/paint when they are selling. Yeah, when we look at homes we always look for recently touched stuff because that's where the known problems are. Also pro tip: If you go to tour a staged house and there's a rug on the ground, lift that poo poo up. There's a 100% chance of damage on the floor under it.
|
|
#
?
May 3, 2024 14:14
|
|
|
Same with paintings or shower curtains. Pull back everything. The latter story: we either didn’t look or it didn’t register that it seems like Gary let his kids do the tile work in the hall shower; literally looks like the kids colored it in with marker. I’ll post a picture later. Fortunately it will also be used for our kids, so I don’t care about the aesthetics, and our own en-suite bathroom is great. But it was certainly a “wait, did we just not see that?” moment when we closed and the curtain had been removed.
|
|
#
?
May 3, 2024 14:32
|
|
|
Motronic posted:It's the same old story as cars. Lots of people allow things to fall into maintenance debt, get tired of living in/driving that old POS, then fix everything before selling or take a bath on selling it. If you keep up with maintenance you don't have to live in or drive a POS. Fun fact: this goes for your own body, too! 
|
|
#
?
May 3, 2024 14:34
|
|
|
My real estate agent had a habit of walking around the places we looked at barefoot. You can "feel" problems with floors!
|
|
#
?
May 3, 2024 14:46
|
|
|
Uthor posted:My real estate agent had a habit of walking around the places we looked at barefoot. You can "feel" problems with floors! almost certainly a fetish
|
|
#
?
May 3, 2024 14:58
|
|
|
KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:almost certainly a fetish Sure, but it also got her to convince me to get a deep check of the foundation after she felt some moisture on the basement carpet. Foundation is fine. Turns out water is coming down the stairs from the outside and I need to deal with that. 
|
|
#
?
May 3, 2024 15:07
|
|
|
At least it’s not the foundation.
|
|
#
?
May 3, 2024 15:08
|
|
|
Uthor posted:Sure, but it also got her to convince me to get a deep check of the foundation after she felt some moisture on the basement carpet. drat, the foot check yielded real results
|
|
#
?
May 3, 2024 15:52
|
|
|
Uthor posted:My real estate agent had a habit of walking around the places we looked at barefoot. You can "feel" problems with floors! This one actually isn't all that bad, if you're looking at old homes it's a good way to tell if a floor has been finished too many times. I dunno if I'd do that first tour but if you were coming back for a 2nd or 3rd look its honestly not a bad idea.
|
|
#
?
May 3, 2024 16:06
|
|
|
Lockback posted:This one actually isn't all that bad, if you're looking at old homes it's a good way to tell if a floor has been finished too many times. I dunno if I'd do that first tour but if you were coming back for a 2nd or 3rd look its honestly not a bad idea. It can also tell you a lot about whether the floors were put in right, and potentially some other poo poo if it's two stories. You really don't want to feel any bounce in your flooring, and a lot of flippers use LVP to hide defects in the floors underneath.
|
|
#
?
May 3, 2024 16:23
|
|
|
Update on house purchased yesterday: Today at lunch my mother in law found a baby copperhead in the back yard Just one! So far!
|
|
#
?
May 3, 2024 18:22
|
|
|
Venomous snakes is one of the more metal post close discoveries \m/Nybble posted:Same with paintings or shower curtains. Pull back everything. The line between aesthetics and functional defects is irritatingly hard to see Here's one I'm going to ""live with""  I cracked the glass installing a lock. It's only aesthetic, but maybe a buyer would/will care Epitope fucked around with this message at 22:26 on May 3, 2024 |
|
#
?
May 3, 2024 22:01
|
|
|
Got an offer accepted! Now to see what horrors the inspection finds and construct the mortgage lender Loan Estimate thunderdome!
|
|
#
?
May 4, 2024 21:15
|
|
|
Rabidbunnylover posted:Got an offer accepted! 
|
|
#
?
May 5, 2024 02:29
|
|
|
I’m moving to the Raleigh area this summer, and discovered the concept of “due diligence” deposits. The stupidness of this process got even stupider.
|
|
#
?
May 5, 2024 14:36
|
|
|
Tnuctip posted:I’m moving to the Raleigh area this summer, and discovered the concept of “due diligence” deposits. The stupidness of this process got even stupider. Ha! We got a description of those a while back in here because nobody out of NC had any idea WTF they were talking about. If it worked as it was likely intended I could see it being a reasonable thing, but of course it doesn't seem like it does.
|
|
#
?
May 5, 2024 15:26
|
|
|
Yeah we bought our house in the Raleigh area in May of 2022 so our due diligence was just insanely high. Pricing hasn't come down really but "you have 35 seconds to put an offer on this house... Better put an insane amount of due diligence too!" Isn't as intense as it was earlier. Made it near impossible to ever back out of any offer
|
|
#
?
May 5, 2024 15:33
|
|
|
Is that just another name for Earnest Money?
|
|
#
?
May 5, 2024 15:49
|
|
|
From some brief searching, seems like the main difference is that due diligence isn't refundable if you decide not to buy?
|
|
#
?
May 5, 2024 15:50
|
|
|
Rotten posted:That sounds like there’s a story there This is the big thing that's gotten us fed up with our landlord, prompting me to read, and now post, in this very thread! Every time there was a storm the ceiling would stain, and he would send someone over to...just paint over it. Whatever, dude, it's your building. So now we're looking to move, and to buy. And I have a question about whether some prospective financial engineering is even viable: My parents' house is held in trust to facilitate inheritance stuff, and they've pointed out to me that my legal relationship to the trust gives me access to a HELOC secured by the home. So I think that in theory I could tap that for enough money to (combined with our other cash sources) make an all-cash offer, and then mortgage the new house to pay off the HELOC. Obviously this is only mathematically sensible if the ability to make a cash offer saves me enough in overall costs (purchase price - refi costs) + sanity, which I don't know yet, but is the structure of this facially reasonable? (Obviously I'm going to talk to actual adults about the details of it, and this is also contingent on my family being ok with it, but given that my parents suggested it I'm not super concerned about that part.)
|
|
#
?
May 5, 2024 16:02
|
|
|
Depends on your market. In the twin cities market I would be very skeptical that that dance would be worthwhile, but in markets where every house has 6 offers it may be worth it. Getting the HELOC may be hard (I have no idea how that works out of a trust, does every party need to signoff?) and if you need to use the HELOC as a down payment then I would imagine most banks will sniff that out and not give you a loan, but the way you describe it there's no risk on the banks so i see no hurdle on its face? Again, whether this is the right move depends mostly on the market. I've heard of people doing this with their own house when downsizing, so it's not crazy.
|
|
#
?
May 5, 2024 16:11
|
|
|
Lockback posted:Is that just another name for Earnest Money? My recolection of the description is that it's more like paying to take the house off the market - paying for a "letter of engagement" essentially. And it's not refundable. So no, not like earnest money.
|
|
#
?
May 5, 2024 16:18
|
|
|
raminasi posted:This is the big thing that's gotten us fed up with our landlord, prompting me to read, and now post, in this very thread! Every time there was a storm the ceiling would stain, and he would send someone over to...just paint over it. Whatever, dude, it's your building. It can work, certainly. The other thing this lets you do, besides the cash offer, is buy a new house before selling the old one, which means you don't have to make a purchase contingent on selling the old house, or sell the old house and then live out of a hotel until you find a new place, etc. But yeah, when you're talking about moving that kind of money around, you should check in with an expert first.
|
|
#
?
May 5, 2024 16:23
|
|
|
Motronic posted:My recolection of the description is that it's more like paying to take the house off the market - paying for a "letter of engagement" essentially. And it's not refundable. So no, not like earnest money. Yes, this is it. The only way you get the money back is if the seller backs out. Also It's common to have due diligence and earnest money in the same offer. NC is poo poo.
|
|
#
?
May 5, 2024 16:32
|
|
|
When we were looking at a million houses I eventually ended bringing these as canaries in the coal mine for "I can't open up the walls but if I can find horrors out in the open that's a good proxy" for less than $100 -Receptacle tester to see what percentage of the outlets were wired correctly -Ball bearing to see how wildly it would roll around on sections of floor and in what direction -Laser tape measure as a check for whether you could actually fit a normal bed in a bonus room.
|
|
#
?
May 5, 2024 17:12
|
|
|
The ball bearing test is good but not effective on some types of carpet; don't be afraid to bring a 4-foot level to an open house imo
|
|
#
?
May 5, 2024 18:08
|
|
|
Due diligence is a NC custom/scam We got presented with this as well
|
|
#
?
May 5, 2024 18:17
|
|
|
If I ever win the powerball (unlikely, I don't play it  ), I'm going to use it to media-bomb some minor state with enough ads to create my own fake real estate custom. It'll be like, "Yeah, in South Dakota we've always included indentured farm labor in a purchase offer." That or "Want to increase your chances of success? Offer unlimited zero-cost rentbacks to the current owners!" And if it's a really hot market, consider getting a competitive edge by mailing in unsolicited mortgage checks on the property as proof of seriousness!
|
|
#
?
May 5, 2024 18:26
|
|
|
If its not in the sales contract, its customary to scrape the paint off the walls before you close. Why would someone expect to get someone else's paint for free?
|
|
#
?
May 5, 2024 18:33
|
|
|
I assume it’s at least exclusive, like you only pay it when your offer is accepted. Is there a customary number/percentage?
|
|
#
?
May 5, 2024 20:06
|
|
|
rjmccall posted:I assume it’s at least exclusive, like you only pay it when your offer is accepted. Is there a customary number/percentage? Yes it's part of your offer so you only pay when it's accepted. Pre-pandemic I always heard $2000-10000 ( but this was right before pandemic... No idea about a longer history). During pandemic it was easily in the multi tens of thousands. Just absurd
|
|
#
?
May 5, 2024 21:47
|
|
|
Texas has an option fee which is nonrefundable in exchange for 7 days of inspection time (can back out for any reason). But it's usually like $500 at the high end these days. Not sure if it blew up during the boom or folks went to no contingency
|
|
#
?
May 5, 2024 22:32
|
|
|
Rabidbunnylover posted:Texas has an option fee which is nonrefundable in exchange for 7 days of inspection time (can back out for any reason). But it's usually like $500 at the high end these days. Not sure if it blew up during the boom or folks went to no contingency Bought in July and it was still $500. I feel like most people around here in Austin just went no inspection during the height of the craze
|
|
#
?
May 5, 2024 22:46
|
|
|
Lockback posted:If its not in the sales contract, its customary to scrape the paint off the walls before you close. Why would someone expect to get someone else's paint for free? Get a competitive edge over the other potential buyers by offering to scrape/reconstitute/paint the new owner's place with their old paint over the holidays! quote:I assume it’s at least exclusive, like you only pay it when your offer is accepted. Is there a customary number/percentage? Yeah, it's when your offer is accepted. The thing is that "traditionally" it was some low % comparable to earnest money or even lower (1%, 0.5%, stuff like that, more or less a rounding error compared to the price). But then, during the bubble years and as investment ownership increased, suddenly people were dropping $20K non-refundable for the right to inspect a $150-300K property, or even higher in presumably limited, cases worthy of rage-click news articles. I remember seeing $50K and $100K numbers in NC news back in like 2020ish. There were also some weird-rear end cases where they were waiving inspection AND still offering DD money. Sundae fucked around with this message at 01:00 on May 6, 2024 |
|
#
?
May 6, 2024 00:56
|
|
|
Got a job offer in Chicago, leaving Nashville TN, and I need some help. The tentative plan is to get to Chicago sometime in Late July. Most likely, we're going to AirBNB or rent in some way when we initially get tthere, but I'm hoping with within 3 months to find a home to purchase. We'll be selling our current house, which is our second house.... so I'm not especially scared of the process, since I've been through it before. The tricky part is finding something that will work for budget. I think it's possible in our range, but it's so hard to deal with while we're not up there. I could go into the dollars and desires if wanted, but its probably a little early for that. I don't even know what our current house is going to sell for (though our realtor is going to be coming out here this week) How do we find a real estate agent in Chicago? I could use an ally in my battle here, because all we can do is look at the listings right now and guess at what is realistic.
|
|
#
?
May 6, 2024 01:06
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 6, 2024 17:47 |
|
|
If at all possible rent for a period of time to get your bearings, especially in a place like Chicago. It's a big, very varied place and you kinda need to understand traffic patterns to know what a commute looks like. Renting for a while, exploring the area is probably the best bet.
|
|
#
?
May 6, 2024 01:59
|
|