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Lockback posted:You probably don't strictly need a real estate attorney, but depending on their cost and the situation it may make sense. I would suggest a good inspection though. That would help tremendously to get everything on even ground especially if you want to keep this person as a friend. I would say there is some risk the friendship will crumble though, there will be things wrong with the house that the person may or may not have known about and may or may not have thought to disclose. That's kinda unavoidable. Have a friend who "traded" houses with a friend (they wanted a bigger house, the other person needed a smaller house), I obviously was not involved, but they mentioned that the house they were buying was valued less than their friend thought it would be. They went through with it, but also keep in mind that what they think it's worth might not be in line with the actual value.
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Feb 13, 2024 00:13
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Septic and wells aren't the end of the world, you need to factor in the costs but both can run for decades with very little maintenance.Motronic posted:Yes, absolutely. I was using the definition of "small house". You can have a perfefctly workable 2 bnedroom with less than 1000 sq ft. I used to live in one. I suspect your going to move the goalposts or "no true scotsman" this but in Saint Paul itself: https://www.trulia.com/home/1611-W-Race-St-Saint-Paul-MN-55102-2056525403 https://www.trulia.com/home/137-Sims-Ave-Saint-Paul-MN-55117-2141303 Both are easy to hookup to everything and zoned residential. You'd probably be limited to what you can build but you can definitely build. Here's a 1/4 acre on a lovely looking pond. Sewer, water, NG. You're well under an hour from the twin cities in a really good school district. They let you build whatever mcmansion you want up there. https://www.trulia.com/home/16165-Empress-Ave-N-Hugo-MN-55038-338455992 Similar here, but no lovely pond https://www.trulia.com/home/11318-Sunset-Ave-Circle-Pines-MN-55014-2061845197 A little further out 2/3 of an acre, again utilities available. In fairness this one might be a zoning headache based on the pictures. You're actual buildable space might be pretty small. https://www.trulia.com/home/Kenneth-Ln-Monticello-MN-55362-2057896493 There's more too but that's like a 10 minute search around where I live If you want to go out to 2 hours away from the cities you can probably get like 40 acres for around 100k.
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Feb 13, 2024 00:19
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Lockback posted:I suspect your going to move the goalposts or "no true scotsman" this but in Saint Paul itself: Youtube small farm dreamers don't want to live between an apartment complex and a highway on ramp. But good job, I'll admit I didn't consider "subdivided midwest city lots" when I was talking about land to build a house on. As to the rest: Motronic posted:Because unless it's a failed developer/bnankruptcy auction selling off the last few lots in a subdevelopment........I bet they're gonna be missing one or more of those things I mentioned. Sorry about all that rent I owe you for living in your head, aparently.
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Feb 13, 2024 00:38
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Shitload of empty lots (like, 100,000 of them) in the city of Detroit where residents can also purchase nearby vacant lots for $250. I'd bet water/sewer/electric are already at the sites just capped off. Honestly Detroit would probably be a great place for op's family to buy property and start their urban farm, there are a ton of resources available right now for people who are actively trying to revitalize the city in this way: https://seas.umich.edu/stewards/spring-2023/meet-future-transforming-vacant-land-detroit
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Feb 13, 2024 00:52
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Motronic posted:Get a real estate attorney. Do not talk to a realtor. Do not even mention this to a realtor. yes I knew this at least, my parents sold my childhood home via private sale w a real estate attorney and they said it was pretty smooth. I was more asking for any pitfalls or cautionary tales to look out for
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Feb 13, 2024 01:32
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PokeJoe posted:yes I knew this at least, my parents sold my childhood home via private sale w a real estate attorney and they said it was pretty smooth. I was more asking for any pitfalls or cautionary tales to look out for As your the buyer it'll be reasonably smooth. I had way more opportunities to make life hard for the seller then they had on me as compared to a "typical" sale, tbh. But yeah, inspection is important, final walkthrough is important, because the seller is your friend don't do a "Yeah you can keep living there for a couple weeks after closing" thing. Mostly the same advice you'd get buying a house the "normal" way. One thing to note, if there is any "extra" stuff that's required (ex: a septic inspection) make sure you're on top of that because that can gum things up at closing. An attorney or just a decent closing agent will be able to provide that to you, but it might be more than you're used to.
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Feb 13, 2024 02:15
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Sirotan posted:Shitload of empty lots (like, 100,000 of them) in the city of Detroit where residents can also purchase nearby vacant lots for $250. I'd bet water/sewer/electric are already at the sites just capped off. Still, you'd have to be incredibly careful. You have to (1) already be a resident for those $250 lots, (2) they don't guarantee water at all and turn-on / water supply is usually $10,000+ per Detroit Land Bank website, and (3) if it's still using lead pipes, you have to replace them as part of the deal. On top of that, (4) a lot of the houses have to be renovated and lived in within 6 months per the contract, with (5) "bulldoze and make your own idea" not considered a valid renovation. I haven't seen much of this lately (maybe they got rid of it?) but the listings also used to have you on the hook for old taxes and fines associated with some of the properties. All that and the grand reward is that a few hundred grand later, you live in the nicest house in a blighted Detroit neighborhood, praying that the rest of the area around you cleans up too. Which, if there are 100,000 properties in the program, isn't too likely. YMMV, lawyer up, etc etc. It's not some quick and easy thing though.
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Feb 13, 2024 03:20
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Sundae posted:Still, you'd have to be incredibly careful. You have to (1) already be a resident for those $250 lots, (2) they don't guarantee water at all and turn-on / water supply is usually $10,000+ per Detroit Land Bank website, and (3) if it's still using lead pipes, you have to replace them as part of the deal. On top of that, (4) a lot of the houses have to be renovated and lived in within 6 months per the contract, with (5) "bulldoze and make your own idea" not considered a valid renovation. I haven't seen much of this lately (maybe they got rid of it?) but the listings also used to have you on the hook for old taxes and fines associated with some of the properties. I'm talking about the vacant lots, not the abandoned properties. There are tens of thousands of them available. Yes the $250 lots have a lot of hoops to jump through but it's not impossible. It's 2024 and saying Detroit is a shithole has not been couth for at least a decade now, here's a spot in Corktown for $17k that looks incredible: https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/926-W-Willis-St-Detroit-MI-48201/2055698128_zpid/ My 2min Zillow browse found lots going for anywhere from $750 to $100k. Obviously this can be nitpicked to death but, vacant buildable lots in places people want to live with utilities available: they do exist, and not just in the middle of nowhere.
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Feb 13, 2024 03:43
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Lockback posted:As your the buyer it'll be reasonably smooth. I had way more opportunities to make life hard for the seller then they had on me as compared to a "typical" sale, tbh. But yeah, inspection is important, final walkthrough is important, because the seller is your friend don't do a "Yeah you can keep living there for a couple weeks after closing" thing. Mostly the same advice you'd get buying a house the "normal" way. yeah I'm hoping that both of us can pay/receive a reasonable price and not waste money on realty commissions. I've never purchased a home before though so I'm pretty green to the experience. my buddy got engaged and has already bought a home w his fiance, they're in the process of moving in. the home "for sale" is the townhouse he owned as a single person that they lived in before getting engaged so I'm not worried about a rent back type situation. there was no sales contingency at the new home as far as I am aware so it's a 2nd home of his at this point but he isn't certain he's gonna sell it. his townhome just happens to meet most of my needs and he doesnt really want to keep it so I'm hopeful he sells it to me instead of putting it on the open market. but it's his house so idk, just looking for tips at this point 
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Feb 13, 2024 03:48
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Lockback posted:Septic and wells aren't the end of the world, you need to factor in the costs but both can run for decades with very little maintenance. lol one of my neighbors down the road had their well dry out last year. Although I imagine this usually doesn’t happen very often
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Feb 13, 2024 03:50
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PokeJoe posted:yeah I'm hoping that both of us can pay/receive a reasonable price and not waste money on realty commissions. I've never purchased a home before though so I'm pretty green to the experience. On face that might be a good situation, but just be careful, pull out of a deal if it doesn't feel right, and do your homework. I'd also maybe suggest if you have a trusted family member or something that can kinda run shotgun with you it might be a good idea. First time buyers can sometimes get rose colored glasses and having a private sale can make it REALLY easy to end up in a situation you don't really want to be in. This board kinda craps on realtors a lot but I know mine gave me some really good advice that I still hold true and a friend of mine basically had a realtor tell him "Don't buy this house, it's stupid" a while back and it was REALLY good advice. Not that realtors are always looking out for you but sometimes just having someone else to talk through a thing and gut check a little can be important. Rotten posted:lol one of my neighbors down the road had their well dry out last year. Yeah, that kinda sucks, like everything every locale has super specific stuff. Re-drilling a well isn't the end of the world, you can also have problems with your city water or sewer hookup too and if it's on your property that can cost as much as a well drilling. Anything can break.
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Feb 13, 2024 04:14
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Feb 13, 2024 07:09
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Rotten posted:lol one of my neighbors down the road had their well dry out last year. You want a modern well, and modern septic. Ask me how I know.
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Feb 13, 2024 08:36
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My previous house had a decommissioned well. The whole neighborhood ran out of well water in droughts a few years prior to getting the house. So I think around 2010 or so. They had wound up getting municipal water. As the story goes, the nearby golf course was supposed to drill to a much deeper depth, but just drilled to the one all the residences were using, and slurped it all up. It's convenient to say, but I wonder if such a thing really could have been proven. Also, everybody's water did kind of come back some years later. Running out of a water would be a big deal like that even if municipal water. The previous home owners were tapping into the pool for water. The decreased water level got rid of some pressure that was keeping the pool intact, and it cracked. Also, I think the supply before had a ton of mineral content, but it might as well be a brackish mineral mix now. The people that kept their wells tended to just use it for some irrigation, which I thought wasn't necessarily good either (the plants didn't need it the limestone layer right under the ground).
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Feb 13, 2024 09:05
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Umbreon posted:Do you guys know of any good resources for learning about buying land and then building a house on it? A family member of mine is looking to do it and I suspect there's lots of stuff they aren't taking into account, but I don't know enough about the process to say so.
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Feb 13, 2024 13:37
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Rotten posted:lol one of my neighbors down the road had their well dry out last year. Happens a lot in some areas. Basically water rights are a mess and in some places agriculture can drill infinitely, and are sucking the local aquifer dry. It’s a real problem with some communities basically losing their wells because some alfalfa farm is over-using the ground water.
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Feb 13, 2024 14:42
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Arsenic Lupin posted:The town I live near (not in) made national news two years ago for completely running out of water. Hand-dug wells, major drought, you do the math. Well, since you're offering it, tell us how you know.
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Feb 13, 2024 15:00
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Rotten posted:lol one of my neighbors down the road had their well dry out last year. It's very local, but it does happen. Usually the people with older/shallower wells will have problems first. Wells can sometimes be drilled deeper in-place (depends on the formation they are in and how well the casing was put in) and fracking is absolutely a thing that works pretty great in some places.
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Feb 13, 2024 15:14
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zaurg posted:Wild timing, but we had a vote this past week and the current board of directors was changed so we have a new president and some new folks on the board. From what I understand, this is the first new president in 10+ years, so apparently a lot of people were thinking along the same lines. Since I've been here, we've had an annual owners vote whether to "fund reserves 100%" or "partially fund". "Partially fund" has always won, because people didn't want the monthly HOA dues doubling. This past vote was the first time I voted to fund 100% because drat, if they would have started doing that 10-20 years ago and we wouldn't be in this predicament. why is partially funding even an option?
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Feb 13, 2024 22:57
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Hoa boards are functionally a lesson in how commons collapse.
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Feb 13, 2024 23:12
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NyetscapeNavigator posted:why is partially funding even an option? It's probably an option introduced by Boomers that let them continue funding things they can enjoy in the HOA (Landscaping, shared amenities, etc) without funding the things that will allow the place to stay nice in the future when they're dead and it's not their problem (the roof, water pipes, sewer pipes, etc.)
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Feb 14, 2024 01:40
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SpartanIvy posted:It's probably an option introduced by Boomers that let them continue funding things they can enjoy in the HOA (Landscaping, shared amenities, etc) without funding the things that will allow the place to stay nice in the future when they're dead and it's not their problem (the roof, water pipes, sewer pipes, etc.) It's not just boomers. I've got a coworker in his late 30s who was bragging last year about voting against paying for all sorts of poo poo because he doesn't plan to be living there in five years.
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Feb 14, 2024 01:51
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A lot of people can't actually afford the place they live, and kicking cans down the road is incredibly common in every single realm of financial decision-making. It's the least surprising result possible.
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Feb 14, 2024 01:58
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Umbreon posted:Well, since you're offering it, tell us how you know. Conversation starts here in the homeowners thread.
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Feb 14, 2024 02:18
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Well thankfully deferred or outright ignored maintenance is something that only condo owners have to deal with
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Feb 14, 2024 02:52
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QuarkJets posted:Well thankfully deferred or outright ignored maintenance is something that only condo owners have to deal with Yes, homeowners do it too, and yes a gently caress load of deferred/ignored maintenance is something you generally have to get on ASAP after buying. Especially if it's recently been a rental or if the last people to live in it were elderly folks. But what you don't have is cheap assholes actively preventing you from doing the stuff you need to, and want to, take care of right now. There's no vote to decide if you're going to spend the money to replace your EOL roof or if you'll just kick the can until it turns into a crisis and a bunch of water damage. You either do, or you don't - your choice and your choice alone.
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Feb 14, 2024 02:59
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Cyrano4747 posted:Yes, homeowners do it too, and yes a gently caress load of deferred/ignored maintenance is something you generally have to get on ASAP after buying. Especially if it's recently been a rental or if the last people to live in it were elderly folks. *laughs heartily in poverty* Okay so maybe not actually poverty but close enough. Maybe. Kinda. Whatever, didn't have new roof money heh. Don't underestimate a clever idiot who works in maintenance and is armed with $30 worth of flashing plates, roof goop, a pocketful of screws, and some black paint! . . . . I mean, was it done "correctly"? lmao. Did it leak? gently caress no! Was I able to put off spending New Roof Money for a decade+? Sure was! IMPORTANT HEARTFELT NOTE: Kids, don't do things this way. Not only is it Not Right, you'll also have anxiety every time it rains. It's not worth it. Do what the thread says and save up enough money before buying a home so that you can do things The Right Way. I could have easily kept it going approximately forever, but decided it was high time to have the roof replaced in a professional fashion when I sold the place.
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Feb 14, 2024 05:06
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Leperflesh posted:A lot of people can't actually afford the place they live, and kicking cans down the road is incredibly common in every single realm of financial decision-making. It's the least surprising result possible. Cyrano4747 posted:Yes, homeowners do it too, and yes a gently caress load of deferred/ignored maintenance is something you generally have to get on ASAP after buying. Especially if it's recently been a rental or if the last people to live in it were elderly folks. <Taps evergreen thread title>
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Feb 14, 2024 14:54
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Motronic posted:<Taps evergreen thread title> <Thread title maintenance has been deferred. A rotten piece breaks off when tapped.>
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Feb 14, 2024 15:46
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Sirotan posted:I'm talking about the vacant lots, not the abandoned properties. There are tens of thousands of them available. Yes the $250 lots have a lot of hoops to jump through but it's not impossible. It's 2024 and saying Detroit is a shithole has not been couth for at least a decade now, here's a spot in Corktown for $17k that looks incredible: https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/926-W-Willis-St-Detroit-MI-48201/2055698128_zpid/ My 2min Zillow browse found lots going for anywhere from $750 to $100k. Have to be pretty careful about your urban farming dreams due to soil contamination. I think some of the existing ones had to haul soil away and replace it, and plant non-edible crops for several seasons to get contaminant levels to acceptability. Dirt that was previously used for other things is not great at growing food crops. But yeah, Detroit's probably one of the best places in the country to do it.
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Feb 14, 2024 18:15
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It’s also deeply labor intensive as seventy years of happy homeowner projects mean all sorts of miscellaneous wire and concrete and debris fucks with any sort of mechanized farming.
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Feb 14, 2024 18:45
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Got my first offer in this week. No contingencies and 80k above asking. I was second place to an all cash offer, so that sucks, but I feel like the next one will be way less stressful now that I’ve gone through the process. I’m looking at another house and both Redfin and Zillow estimate it’s worth about 50k less than their estimate for the last place even though it’s in the same neighborhood with similar square footage and number of rooms. I don’t rely on those numbers for anything, but any insight as to why that is? Edit: I forgot about garage size. Those are different. Mush Mushi fucked around with this message at 04:36 on Feb 16, 2024 |
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Feb 16, 2024 04:16
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The websites' estimates rely on a bunch of factors, some of which may be input by the owner. You can fill out a little questionnaire to tell them about special features (poo poo like hardwood floors, granite countertops, etc). It's possible that one of the two houses did that and the other didn't. There's also stuff like corner lot vs. non, access to views, how old the roof is, etc. that can affect the house value without being reflected in its "core stats".
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Feb 16, 2024 04:39
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zillow swings a lot on the value of houses in my small development because only one or two sell a year, and if it's been 5+ months since the last one, it's looking at houses within a mile or so that are mostly in quite different neighborhoods. Or something. The algorithm is not exactly transparent. The houses in my development were built in '57-'58 on about five different floorplans, some with and some without garages, some with and some without attics (those without have high ceilings but zero insulation, those with have low ceilings but at least the attic space is likely to have some blown-in insulation), some with larger or smaller yards, and - critically - about ten back up onto a lake. The algo doesn't seem to be aware at all that "your backyard is a lakeshore" significantly affects home value. So when one of those houses sells for +$50k more than mine is worth, suddenly my house value pops up a bit. The primary purpose of the zestimate and redfin's value estimate is to get homeowners and potential home buyers to use their website more. It is not an actual tool for finding out how much a house is worth. That requires an appraisal.
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Feb 16, 2024 19:25
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Leperflesh posted:zillow swings a lot on the value of houses in my small development because only one or two sell a year, and if it's been 5+ months since the last one, it's looking at houses within a mile or so that are mostly in quite different neighborhoods. Or something. The algorithm is not exactly transparent. The houses in my development were built in '57-'58 on about five different floorplans, some with and some without garages, some with and some without attics (those without have high ceilings but zero insulation, those with have low ceilings but at least the attic space is likely to have some blown-in insulation), some with larger or smaller yards, and - critically - about ten back up onto a lake. The algo doesn't seem to be aware at all that "your backyard is a lakeshore" significantly affects home value. So when one of those houses sells for +$50k more than mine is worth, suddenly my house value pops up a bit. A few weeks ago I got some spam from Redfin with a subject that was basically "HOLY poo poo A HOUSE NEAR YOU SOLD FOR $900k!" The value was high enough that I clicked through to take a look because it was really outlandish for where I live. Tl;dr my place is in a slowly gentrifying part of the city where there are still a bunch of working class families and a fuckload of rentals. The house they were excited to tell me about was 20 miles away, in RichDudeVille, and literally adjacent to a golf course. If anything I suspect it must have a serious problem because that's less than most property in that area is worth. LOL.
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Feb 16, 2024 19:36
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Leperflesh posted:zillow swings a lot on the value of houses in my small development because only one or two sell a year, and if it's been 5+ months since the last one, it's looking at houses within a mile or so that are mostly in quite different neighborhoods. Or something. The algorithm is not exactly transparent. The houses in my development were built in '57-'58 on about five different floorplans, some with and some without garages, some with and some without attics (those without have high ceilings but zero insulation, those with have low ceilings but at least the attic space is likely to have some blown-in insulation), some with larger or smaller yards, and - critically - about ten back up onto a lake. The algo doesn't seem to be aware at all that "your backyard is a lakeshore" significantly affects home value. So when one of those houses sells for +$50k more than mine is worth, suddenly my house value pops up a bit. Your intent is good here, but even appraisals can be wonky especially if you're in a sparsely populated area. The last one I did was REALLY stretching "comparables" to the point of uselessness. I think appraisals are way better than websites but also realize there is no concrete "value" and at the end of the day the value is whatever someone is willing to pay for it.
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Feb 16, 2024 19:41
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Well yeah, the only actual test of the (essentially) auction value of a unique object is to auction it. Which is why appraisals should usually come back as the value of the winning bid on a house. Appraisals can spot wild discrepancies that suggest a bid is way off, by looking at genuinely comparable houses, momentum in prices in the local market, etc. but those should be the exception and not the rule. But if you want to figure out how much your home is worth without putting it up for sale, an appraisal from a human should typically be better than whatever the website algorithms are spitting out.
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Feb 16, 2024 19:46
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I have no idea how the algorithm works but in general there's an average price per square foot for the neighborhood, and modifiers for stuff like more than 4 bedrooms, less than 3 bedrooms, more than 2 full bathrooms, 3 car garage, no garage, A/C etc Algorithm isn't going to take into account view(s) or ingress of natural light, finished attic/basement/garage, unusually large/small 2 car garage, proximity to noisy neighbors/businesses/main roads etc I can't see my neighbors houses from three sides of my property because we're on a 15' hill (and all the extra natural light that floods into the house as a result) but that will never show up in the Zillow algorithm Our old condo in downtown bigcity, the building was on an entire city block and had units that faced the street and got loads of natural light, and also half the units that faced the dark drab courtyard with a noisy dog park, perpetually shrouded in shadow and gloom. The brightly lit outside units were typically owner occupied and traded for 30% above the courtyard units. The inside corner courtyard units traded another 15% lower and struggled to rent near market rate. We looked at one house in NC and declined to put an offer on it because it was in the old part of town and sat less than 8' from neighboring homes (2+ stories) on three sides and was unbelievably dark and clostrophobic as a result. It sat on the market for like 6 months until they dropped the price to closer to market value In our current ca neighborhood you'll see houses listing for what we paid for ours, recently remodeled with new kitchen flooring carpets fence etc, landscaping, but their house still has the original parquet wood flooring* original everything 1970s interior and a couple clumps of grass on a bare dirt backyard, and eventually sell for 20% less because there's $150,000+ worth of upgrades to bring it up to date plus all the planning and vision needed to accomplish those things. Plus their neighbors have those giant Italian cypress trees that wall in their "view" like they're living in a green hedge box or something *I guess this is the name of the wood flooring where the wood is laid in 1" wide strips in alternating patterns to make it look like wood tile? Not sure. It's very tragically 1960s/early 70s tho Hadlock fucked around with this message at 20:35 on Feb 16, 2024 |
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Feb 16, 2024 20:32
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Hadlock posted:*I guess this is the name of the wood flooring where the wood is laid in 1" wide strips in alternating patterns to make it look like wood tile? Not sure. It's very tragically 1960s/early 70s tho That is parquet and it's 1940s-50s and very desirable to folks who like MCM, actually, if its in good condition (it often isnt) but flippers tend to rip it out anyway because repairing the two missing bits and getting them to match the rest is too hard sometimes herringbone is also called parquet but I think that's not exactly right e. like everything else, parquet could be done well or poorly, too, and there's fancier stuff and plainer stuff this is brand new, very nice, very fancy  this is old, very fancy, murder someone if they rip it out  this is old, plain, and in just OK to poor condition due to shrinkage gaps movement or whatever and probably way more expensive to repair than to just tear out  e. google says parquet flooring goes all the way back to the 16th century so I'm gonna say the MCM part is probably a revival of interest in it since I've mostly seen it here in california in houses from the 40s-50s Leperflesh fucked around with this message at 23:22 on Feb 16, 2024 |
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Feb 16, 2024 23:16
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 I just imagine even trying to repair it.
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Feb 17, 2024 01:22
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