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Inner Light posted:And a Loan Estimate from what I understand is typically what you do once under contract on a property. i.e. that is the proper time to rate/cost shop. Yeah I think technically you don't need to be under contract to get a loan estimate, but realistically there are zero lenders who are willing to give one out. I think you can twist their arm and force them, but they're not going to be too happy about it. It's binding and they don't want to do the work if you don't have a house under contract. But to your point, pre-contract you want to have a list of potential lenders plus a pre-approval from one of them, and then once you're under is when you fill out applications and start them fighting for your business. DaveSauce fucked around with this message at 02:11 on Feb 18, 2021 |
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Feb 18, 2021 01:31
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DaveSauce posted:Yeah I think technically you don't need to be under contract to get a loan estimate, but realistically there are zero lenders who are willing to give one out. I think you can twist their arm and force them, but they're not going to be too happy about it. It's binding and they don't want to do the work if you don't have a house under contract. Yeah, I had to fight to get mine while I was shopping - but once I had it they were happy to pin rates for me. Also, if you can get just a single lender to generate one you'll be able to use that as a simple tool with other lenders and cut through all of the bullshit immediately. "Here's what I have from lender x. Can you beat it? Yes/no? Which lines?"
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Feb 18, 2021 09:29
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Offer accepted  Not entirely sure how I feel about it, hope we don't regret buying in now. Looking at comps it's not the most egregious price for the current market, but "current" doing a lot of heavy lifting in that sentence. We like the house well enough and can afford it either way, so I suppose that will have to be enough.
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Feb 18, 2021 20:10
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Straight White Shark posted:Offer accepted Once you live in the house, you stop caring about its value as much. They give you a place to live even if the value goes down, and they don't pay you any dividend if the value goes up.
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Feb 18, 2021 20:45
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GoGoGadgetChris posted:Once you live in the house, you stop caring about its value as much. They give you a place to live even if the value goes down, and they don't pay you any dividend if the value goes up. This is the proper way to think, but some people never get over this and are constantly talking about the value of their house, doing projects they don't even like because of "resale value" despite no concrete plans to sell, etc. I feel like it's a very prevalent mentality among boomers.
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Feb 18, 2021 20:47
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I'm pretty happy actually that my home goes up stupid amount each year for reasons occasionally (redistricting benefitting me, moratorium on building certain areas of the county up for 5 years) and no reason (stonks/house prices only go up!). In less than two years the average estimate of my home without improvements is 7% higher than when we bought. A neighbors house just sold for 9% more than we bought our house for despite being much smaller and unrenovated. It's a good time to buy for value.
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Feb 18, 2021 20:48
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GoGoGadgetChris posted:Once you live in the house, you stop caring about its value as much. They give you a place to live even if the value goes down, and they don't pay you any dividend if the value goes up. I know, it's more about wishing that I had more money left in my pocket. Still, there's no guarantee that the market would cool down appreciably anytime soon if we wait, and it's not like there's anything we'd rather spend the money on right now.
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Feb 18, 2021 21:06
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Yeah I always hope the value of our house flatlines (or goes down) so the city doesn’t get any ideas about reassessing the neighborhood any time soon. All the remodeling/restoration we are doing/going to do is for us and only us, trends be damned, not some as of yet unidentified buyer from the distant future. I’ve never understood the mentality of sacrificing your own tastes and desires in the name of “resale value”, maybe because my family has stayed in the same houses for multiple generations and the mantra from my boomer dad has always been about home ownership being a means to have complete control over your space so you can perfectly tailor it to your wants and needs and slow burn wealth generation via equity, not an investment vehicle or commodity (at least not when it’s your primary residence). My dad is kind of a weird boomer though.
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Feb 18, 2021 21:06
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alnilam posted:This is the proper way to think, but some people never get over this and are constantly talking about the value of their house, doing projects they don't even like because of "resale value" despite no concrete plans to sell, etc. I feel like it's a very prevalent mentality among boomers. About the most thought I give to "reseale value" has been around my (covid delayed) plans for a larger barn. If I'm doing the work it TOTALLY adds value to have an in-law suite above it, and costs almost nothing to accommodate during the build. The rest can be finished by me as I have the time and certainly before any sort of sale would take place. But not unless and until a sale or my own needs for it, as an apartment would raise the tax value a lot more than an open upstairs workroom, which is what I would be to begin with. Past that? Yeah, this place is for me, not some theoretical family later.
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Feb 18, 2021 21:07
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Plus I think the closest you get to a breakeven on ANY renovation is budget vinyl windows or an economy bathroom/kitchen overhaul on a truly dilapidated setup. And that's like 70c on the dollar
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Feb 18, 2021 21:09
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As I'm going through the process it's easier to stomach buying a place if it's a place I actually want to live in and not bought just because of FOMO.
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Feb 18, 2021 21:11
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GoGoGadgetChris posted:Plus I think the closest you get to a breakeven on ANY renovation is budget vinyl windows or an economy bathroom/kitchen overhaul on a truly dilapidated setup. And that's like 70c on the dollar Depends on the market, but unless something is completely unserviceable renos don't increase value - they sell the house faster.
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Feb 18, 2021 21:19
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Speaking of FOMO, did y’all catch the WSJ article from last week about several idiots who rushed to buy houses during the pandemic to escape their apartments and then regretted it and lost money? https://www.wsj.com/articles/these-people-rushed-to-buy-homes-during-covid-now-they-regret-it-11613062856 https://apple.news/A8eh7idjkSSOFqouQ5pf0dA Apple link because maybe it’s less paywalled than WSJ itself. My favorites are: -Woman buys house despite discovering black mold during inspection, remediates black mold, but then she realizes that she hates the house for unspecified reasons and sells it after a couple months. -City family buys house with yard, discovers wasps in yard, puts house back on market instead of calling an exterminator. I have no sympathy for any of the buyers in the article.
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Feb 18, 2021 21:26
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Why is that even an article lol edit: quote:Ms. Holloway said she helped a family move this summer after discovering that the Hamptons house they had just bought had an infestation of wasps nests in the backyard. The family didn’t find the wasps until after closing because they had waived the inspection in the midst of a bidding war, said Ms. Holloway, who wasn’t representing them at the time. Deciding the property was unsafe for their young children, they immediately put the Westhampton Beach home on the market. Ms. Holloway and a colleague helped them find another house to buy. Jesus Christ slave to my cravings fucked around with this message at 21:44 on Feb 18, 2021 |
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Feb 18, 2021 21:42
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This is the Wall Street Journal we're talking about here lol
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Feb 18, 2021 21:52
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alnilam posted:This is the proper way to think, but some people never get over this and are constantly talking about the value of their house, doing projects they don't even like because of "resale value" despite no concrete plans to sell, etc. I feel like it's a very prevalent mentality among boomers. My boomer parents did this, poorly. During the housing crisis their mortgage went underwater (obviously) They then decided they were going to do a bunch of intense renovations (mostly cosmetic, but not entirely and not really needed yet) to try and push the value of the house up and it ended up bankrupting them.
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Feb 18, 2021 21:57
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GoGoGadgetChris posted:Plus I think the closest you get to a breakeven on ANY renovation is budget vinyl windows or an economy bathroom/kitchen overhaul on a truly dilapidated setup. And that's like 70c on the dollar I definitely have made more than that on my renovation. But also a large part in that was being able to do a lot of project manager work and also buying a short sale.
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Feb 18, 2021 22:19
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Queen Victorian posted:-City family buys house with yard, discovers wasps in yard, puts house back on market instead of calling an exterminator. Understandable that WASPs weren’t interested in exterminators.
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Feb 18, 2021 22:22
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I'm buying a house in France and the seller's agent is either lying about the floor area of the house or has miscalculated it by like 15%. Like he sent an old version of the floorplan (the only differences are some internal walls moved) and you can add up the numbers and they come to 116sqm instead of 135. We asked about the difference and he listed some of the room areas and said he had taken measurements and could send us the data - we pressed him on this and asked him to confirm the "surface habitable" and he said we could measure it ourselves, and repeated the 135 number but in a really evasive manner, without saying it was "surface habitable". I think he's double counting some stuff and including a bunch of <1.8m space. We spoke to some people and apperently this is fairly normal. It's not even as though the number matters, it's the house itself that matters, but it just seems like a really dumb and sketchy thing to do. It isn't as though we weren't going to notice! e: other fun things about buying here are that some agents won't tell you the address until you meet them for a viewing, and will just omit mentioning that it's by a major road/doesn't have planning permission/etc until you're physically there. They never have up to date floor plans. Only nice thing is that mortgages are cheap and you don't need to have taken out a bunch of credit cards to pump your rating. distortion park fucked around with this message at 22:36 on Feb 18, 2021 |
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Feb 18, 2021 22:32
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One guy got really mad because we'd found one of their other houses on street view and didn't want to go see it (it was next door to a lorry depot)
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Feb 18, 2021 22:38
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pointsofdata posted:(it was next door to a lorry depot) ( consults European to American dictionary) Oh yes... I too dislike the noise associated with... Bus stations and or long-haul truck stops
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Feb 18, 2021 22:43
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PCjr sidecar posted:Understandable that WASPs weren’t interested in exterminators. The WASPs are coming from inside the house
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Feb 18, 2021 23:04
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My wife got a new job that is going to necessitate a move. The few options available on the MLS system that would work for us are all under contract and pretty close to the cost of building new in the first place. We have been looking at some lots that are on the water that we really like and thinking about building new, and given that we simply cant find anything on the market that will work for us we are leaning in that direction. I am a bit scared of tackling that however. We have bought and sold houses before, but I have never done new construction and I feel like there is a lot that could go wrong. We've looked at a lot of plans and like this one https://www.architecturaldesigns.com/house-plans/enjoy-the-view-67709mg, though we'll make some changes to the basement to get rid of the hobby room for unfinished workshop/storage space and add a 5th bedroom on the right side. The lot slopes front to back and the builder thinks a walkout basement plan will work nicely. I've talked to some banks about the construction loan process, and we have enough cash on hand for the 5% down, closing costs and deposit for bidding and getting solid numbers. It sounds like after that you just have to wait until you're closer to completion to lock in an interest rate. Our plan would be to sell our house as we get a more solid date with the plan of closing a few weeks after completion, and put that money towards the permanent loan for something in the range of 20-30% down. So...on paper that looks fine I guess. I have worries, such as what if we get underway and the housing market suddenly cools down and we have issues selling. Or something goes wrong on the build. Or..I don't know. I'm just a cautious worrier type by nature and this feels like an intrinsically risky process, not to mention expensive. In the past I've been able to talk my wife into living in houses at the very low end of our budget, but she wants something nicer now. So for those who have been through the new home construction process before, what is it like? Was it smooth? What should I be looking out for? How do you shop for lenders when you're just looking at the construction loan rate initially and you don't lock a final rate till much later?
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Feb 18, 2021 23:05
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Putting in an offer on a 100 year old 2BR/1BA condo. The 2BR is dubious because the 2nd bedroom is 9x11 and does not have a closet. Regardless, it's in a great area and is priced well, though it is over $300K. Mistake? Who knows. Inner Light fucked around with this message at 23:34 on Feb 18, 2021 |
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Feb 18, 2021 23:19
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pointsofdata posted:We spoke to some people and apperently this is fairly normal. It's not even as though the number matters, it's the house itself that matters, but it just seems like a really dumb and sketchy thing to do. It isn't as though we weren't going to notice! I'm not sure about Europe, but in the US nobody wants to talk specific numbers about anything, ever. I think our house is about 100 sq ft (10 sq m) larger than the tax documents but the square footage never ends up on the sale document beyond "no guarantees of any kind"
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Feb 18, 2021 23:38
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Our house had two wasp nests when we bought it. Turns out if you don't mess with the wasps or show fear, the wasps will leave you alone and move out when they're done rearing their young. It's an easy, free way to deal with them.
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Feb 18, 2021 23:46
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Ranidas posted:we have enough cash on hand for the 5% down, closing costs and deposit for bidding and getting solid numbers. You don't have enough cash to build. You're going to need at a minimum 20% of the total cost of the home build in cash as a slush fund to make up for how slowly tranches of the construction loan are released after you've got the construction loan and lot mortgage pinned down. Either that or it will take 18 months to complete.
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Feb 18, 2021 23:55
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Motronic posted:You don't have enough cash to build. Ya, maybe your builder is financing it for you, but 5% will not cover it otherwise. You could sell your house, move into rental housing, and then use the proceeds to properly finance the construction - but that might pin your personal risk meter in the red. Hadlock posted:I'm not sure about Europe, but in the US nobody wants to talk specific numbers about anything, ever. I think our house is about 100 sq ft (10 sq m) larger than the tax documents but the square footage never ends up on the sale document beyond "no guarantees of any kind" It always devolves into a debate about measurement technique. Whenever I'm doing any kind of square foot calculation to figure out what something is going to cost I never tell the other side of the transaction (client, architect, etc.) that I'm doing a square foot calculation because half the time it ends up in an argument about how to measure square footage.
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Feb 19, 2021 00:15
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My house is listed as 2022 square feet when it's really 2215 square feet, due to the way records were done a long time ago. You can bet that when I sell the house I'm going to show the square footage as 2215, with updated records to prove it.
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Feb 19, 2021 00:22
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Ranidas posted:My wife got a new job that is going to necessitate a move. The few options available on the MLS system that would work for us are all under contract and pretty close to the cost of building new in the first place. We have been looking at some lots that are on the water that we really like and thinking about building new, and given that we simply cant find anything on the market that will work for us we are leaning in that direction. I am a bit scared of tackling that however. We have bought and sold houses before, but I have never done new construction and I feel like there is a lot that could go wrong. I have not personally built a house, but when I was growing up my parents rebuilt the family home and built a new weekend house in a remote area. Also my dad sometimes builds other houses for friends and clients. It is difficult and expensive and stressful and poo poo will go wrong. Hopefully not major marriage/friendship-ruining poo poo, but some poo poo will definitely go wrong. As for the stock architectural plan you have chosen, I am going to have to be brutally honest meanie and say that I hate it. Here are some reasons why, in no particular order: - From the street it looks like a huge garage with attached living quarters. - Cavernous recessed entrance feels unwelcoming. Inside, the hall closet creates that little nook and makes the foyer off-center. - It is a fat house. This means it is deep and squarish and leaves a lot of interior space with no windows. - Kitchen is deep in the middle of the house several feet away from a window which is shaded by a porch. Also has a big curved peninsula that you can only get behind from one side (I suppose you can tweak this at the expense of some counter space). - A lot of the main floor seems to be taken up by thoroughfares, which makes it not particularly usable and is wasted square footage. For example, the usable area in your 22x16 great room is more like 16x13 because it’s disrupted by pathways from the foyer, to the kitchen, deck door, and bedroom 2. - No clear delineation between public/private areas. Bedroom 2 is directly off the great room and you have to walk through the kitchen to get to the master suite, which is on the opposite side of the house. This doesn’t matter to some people but it bothers the crap out of me personally - I much prefer layouts where you have your foyer/living/dining/kitchen in one zone and your bedrooms and whatnot grouped together in another. - Master bath has no windows and also a walk-in closet in it (which I have never understood - I want to keep my clothes AWAY from dampness) - The bedrooms that are not the master are tiny. - Weird-shaped rec room that feels like wasted space. Also has a bit of a thoroughfare problem. Basically, IF you indeed decide to build, strongly consider hiring an architect and provide the architect with a list of needs, not stock plans you have your heart set on. Seems like a huge extra expense, but from what I understand, starting with a stock plan and trying to make it less bad/stock-like (and also work with the lot) is not fun and can add back costs you’d saved by not hiring an architect. But let’s not put the cart before the horse.
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Feb 19, 2021 00:37
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Inner Light posted:Putting in an offer on a 100 year old 2BR/1BA condo. The 2BR is dubious because the 2nd bedroom is 9x11 and does not have a closet. Regardless, it's in a great area and is priced well, though it is over $300K. My second “bedroom” is also very small (but has a closet), but I don’t care because we were only shopping for a one bedroom anyway. It’s nice to have as an office and also a bed in there to host after COVID. Good luck!
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Feb 19, 2021 01:12
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Toe Rag posted:My second “bedroom” is also very small (but has a closet), but I don’t care because we were only shopping for a one bedroom anyway. It’s nice to have as an office and also a bed in there to host after COVID. Good luck! Thanks. Also, I didn't mention it is directly across the street (like, not to the side a bit but dead center) from a major Chicago Fire Department fire station. I got a battalion chief and 2 engines leaving with lights and sirens while I had my showing. It's not silent, but I don't think it will bother me much. Buyers on the other hand? I think it's priced in, but hopefully I don't get hosed on the resale years later. Queen Victorian just want to say I love reading your posts, you write well and clearly you adore thinking about this stuff. Inner Light fucked around with this message at 02:29 on Feb 19, 2021 |
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Feb 19, 2021 02:26
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Hadlock posted:I'm not sure about Europe, but in the US nobody wants to talk specific numbers about anything, ever. I think our house is about 100 sq ft (10 sq m) larger than the tax documents but the square footage never ends up on the sale document beyond "no guarantees of any kind" Our guy will happily talk numbers, but only in the most evasive manner possible. He'll never answer a direct question, it's very frustrating. It makes me uncertain about the pricing, even at the advertised size it was high for the neighbourhood, but justifiable given the immediate setting. With the correct sizing it becomes higher than any per sq m price in the official transaction data for this part of town, which makes me nervous. Maybe all the others were similarly inflated though?
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Feb 19, 2021 08:11
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Queen Victorian posted:- From the street it looks like a huge garage with attached living quarters. Totally agree with the rest of the post, but this would be the biggest deal breaker for me. Them all being the same door as well makes it extra weird.
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Feb 19, 2021 08:25
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Motronic posted:You don't have enough cash to build. The 5% figure came from our credit union, they said anything additional you bring at the end when you convert to permanent financing. If we needed to have additional cash on hand during the build we could, though this is the first I've heard of that being necessary. When we talked to the builder the timeline they gave us was for building off the construction loan. We plan on talking to some people who have used the same builder and same credit unions we're talking to, so we'll find out how the process went for them. Queen Victorian posted:I have not personally built a house, but when I was growing up my parents rebuilt the family home and built a new weekend house in a remote area. Also my dad sometimes builds other houses for friends and clients. Thank you for the feedback. From reading through this thread I don't think we will necessarily see eye to eye on a design, but you bring up some good points and some we'd already planned to address. If you look at the client photos, the build they have there addresses some of those issues and I think it looks good. The main focus is having living area/dining/master all facing the back for the view. We looked at a lot of plans and this seemed to have the best balance of features we were looking for vs. size/cost to build. As for the garages, I don't see a good way around having the garages at the front of the house. If you have a city lot with an alley you can do the garage at the back, but this is a 100' wide lot with the road one side and water on the other. That limits options for where your garages go, and I don't see that design as being out of the ordinary. If you look at all the houses along this street they all have the garage in front like that, and so does pretty much any other modern build that doesn't have alley access or a huge lot to move the garage off to the side. pointsofdata posted:Totally agree with the rest of the post, but this would be the biggest deal breaker for me. Them all being the same door as well makes it extra weird. Not sure I understand this critique. You think the garage doors should be different styles?
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Feb 19, 2021 15:18
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Ranidas posted:The 5% figure came from our credit union, they said anything additional you bring at the end when you convert to permanent financing. If we needed to have additional cash on hand during the build we could, though this is the first I've heard of that being necessary. Who is "the builder"? Why is there only one that you've spoken to/considered? Is this their land? Is it a development? Or is this actually a custom home on land you own or intend to purchase first? Those are wildly different scenarios, and your post indicated to me this was a "custom home" (lol at picking plans from online when building an actual custom home) on land you own or will purchase, not as part of a development or planned neighborhood.
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Feb 19, 2021 15:24
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Ranidas posted:As for the garages, I don't see a good way around having the garages at the front of the house. If you have a city lot with an alley you can do the garage at the back, but this is a 100' wide lot with the road one side and water on the other. That limits options for where your garages go, and I don't see that design as being out of the ordinary. If you look at all the houses along this street they all have the garage in front like that, and so does pretty much any other modern build that doesn't have alley access or a huge lot to move the garage off to the side. I do own a building with three garage doors facing the street, so I'm certainly not someone to throw stones here. It can be considered poor form to bulk the front of a residential building with a bunch of garage doors. Not only are there three of them, making the house look like an industrial estate, but they all face the road and are more prominent than the human-scaled front entrance. They are a barrier of inactivity, a berlin wall between the outside world and home life. This kind of massing indicates that the most important thing about the facade is how cars interact with it, not how humans interact with it. It makes the home an island, segregating those who live in the home from the wider neighborhood. That said, there are a ton of houses like that so it will be in good company, especially is the neighborhood is built like that already. Most older homes place the garage behind the home accessed by an driveway along the side of the home. Another solution would just be to have fewer garage doors, and work on how they tie visually with the front entrance. Honestly though, 'fixing' the garage massing issue will require a total redesign and really doesn't seem to be a priority for you, so it probably isn't worth spending time on.
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Feb 19, 2021 15:38
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I feel like if I were designing a house from the ground up I would put garages on at least 3 sides, for insulation, and then somehow add enough windows and skylights to them so that I can still get natural light inside the house.
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Feb 19, 2021 15:50
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Tezer posted:I do own a building with three garage doors facing the street, so I'm certainly not someone to throw stones here.  Garage doors are an aesthetic and practical choice. No need to analyze it further than that. Making sweeping statements about it (most older homes...) is unwarranted. Also, separating the house from the neighborhood is feature, not a bug, to many people.
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Feb 19, 2021 15:51
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We looked at some older homes with the driveway leading around back to the garage, and while it's aesthetically pleasing we have weather here.
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Feb 19, 2021 15:55
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