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For those of you who have bought older houses, how did you handle the plumbing during the home buying process? I suspect that a house we're interested in has pipes older than 1975, with lead in their the solder or the pipe itself. It does have some copper pipes (unknown what percent). I haven't paid for a lead water concentration test yet, or had the house inspected yet. The safety of the water is a pretty big question mark. Anyone else deal with this? What'd you do? Or would you do?
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Feb 19, 2018 20:39
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Elephanthead posted:I think since utilities get paid a guaranteed return on investment most routinely replace old lines with new lines continuously. That is what my gas company does. If you consider the number of miles of pipe managed by a large utility, this is practically inevitable at some scale
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Nov 1, 2018 01:25
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Is better.com the current goon favorite for online mortgage / home loan quotes? Better than lendingtree.com, I guess? What else is out there? Still seems hard to beat a good major (or local) credit union. edit: welp, better.com is "not yet in your state" pmchem fucked around with this message at 04:59 on May 25, 2019 |
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May 25, 2019 04:53
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Inspection chat. I searched and read back a bit, but this thread is 640+ pages. We're making an offer this week and will need to get inspection(s) lined up shortly. House is a WWII era detached single family home, two story, with grass to mow. Generally seemed to be in good condition during our viewing. Obviously I'm going to have a general home inspector come out. But, I'm not sure how many people I should be hiring to inspect various things, or if I should just get the general home inspector and let him recommend further inspections. What other inspections above and beyond inspector #1 do you all recommend, or wish you had done? Extra $$ to have a plumber come out and do sewer scope? Structural engineer to inspect foundation given its age, even if the house has no signs of cracks or problems? Should a mold inspection and testing (precautionary; but humid climate) require a separate person? Specialty person required for termite inspection, or general inspector does that well enough? Specialty person for roof inspection or trust the general home inspection for roof? Specialty person for electric and plumbing (some re-wiring has been done in this house over the years, and at least one pipe in the basement showed signs of corrosion)? Or let the home inspector recommend any of these things as needed? pmchem fucked around with this message at 15:14 on May 27, 2019 |
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May 27, 2019 15:11
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Is it normal to have to authorize $$$ for an appraisal fee in order to lock in a loan rate and get the official loan estimate document? This is what a local credit union is asking of us. They're reputable and their rate is very good. I actually want to use it to get another (larger) credit union to rate match. But then it sounds like I'd have to eat the original credit union's appraisal fee? It is seemingly super easy to get rates from loan officers at any institution, but getting that official document to send to someone else to rate match is like pulling teeth. I want these people to compete.
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Jun 1, 2019 00:06
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GoGoGadgetChris posted:My townhome condo was built in 2006. I paid $240k for it in 2011 and it's in contract for $380k. Strongly recommend! I did pay about $24,000 in HOA dues over those 8 years Read that as $240,000 in HOA fees, didn’t skip a beat
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Jun 5, 2019 02:01
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martyrdumb posted:Mortgage processor here -- I see low appraisals every week. The listing agent/buyers may simply have overshot the value of their home. You can't get another appraiser/appraisal without going to another lender. Try looking for additional comps and submitting them for reconsideration of value. But if there are none better, or the value doesn't get bumped up with the submitted comps, then the value is the value. In that case, offer down to the appraisal price and let the sellers choose to either come down to your number or walk away. Economic Sinkhole posted:pantsofwar, you are in a very strong negotiating position. If you offer to change the sale price to the appraised value and they decline, they will have to take their chances with a new appraisal down the road with a new buyer. It will be advantageous to them to accept your new, lower offer (devil they know vs the one they don't). If you're worried about them you could try to throw them a bone with a longer closing, later move out, remove your request for $1k in repairs, or whatever. Be especially wary of the agents' recommendations here- their #1 priority is to close this deal and they don't really care how. I'm under contract for a house and based on preliminary feedback from our agent's conversation with the appraiser, we expect the appraisal to come in a bit low (say, 5%). It's a weird geographic area without many comps to the property. We've been looking in this market for a year and a half and think our number is generally pretty good; perhaps a couple percent high because we really value the property's specific location, features, and charm. The contract has an appraisal contingency that, much like the two posts I've quoted above, will let us walk if the sellers do not match the appraised price. But, in the contract and the two posts above, there isn't any discussion of compromising and buyer/seller meeting in the middle between original contract price and appraised value. Why is no mention of this possibility made in contracts (like the explicit wording in ours) or some seemingly well informed posts? Am I missing something? I see it mentioned sometimes. We're trying to figure out how to proceed when the appraisal inevitably comes in low. I have basically searched this entire thread for appraisal discussion and particularly enjoyed the multi-page saga about someone agonizing over $15k on a $1M+ dream home. pmchem fucked around with this message at 16:40 on Jun 15, 2019 |
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Jun 15, 2019 16:36
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EAT FASTER!!!!!! posted:On the other hand, that same clause does not REQUIRE you to do so. The posts above yours mentioned specifically that the sellers were unwilling to compromise on their price (IIRC because they had other offers). yeah, that's a good point, I may have been interpreting things too strictly.
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Jun 15, 2019 16:45
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Was this already linked? I hope you all enjoy the future of competing for market value in houses against corporations that never die, only make all-cash bids, and can undercut you in any type of closing or repair costs. http://fortune.com/longform/single-family-home-ai-algorithms/ They'll own the majority of single family housing in the USA within 50 years if laws are not changed.
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Jun 26, 2019 00:16
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B-Nasty posted:I guess I just don't see this as that scary. He/They are just using a computer to help find properties faster that match what most (smart) RE investors already do: if you can buy a place where it rents with positive cash-flow from day one, that's a good investment. It seems like something that, assuming supply isn't limited by restrictive zoning laws, will balance out as rents drop as the supply increases. Scale is the entire point of this and scale is how companies like that are going to affect, in the future if not now already, the home-buying experience of everyone in this thread. Enough hedge fund and venture money is sitting around without a clear opportunity in bonds, stocks or commodities that they thought: "hey, let's just buy up all the single-family housing that we can and make money that way." And they're doing it, and it's never been done at this scale before, and they're aggressively scaling up in a nonlinear fashion. "It's not like people are homeless" is a remarkable view, but I'll let it sit there since this isn't a political thread. I do find your faith in supply-and-demand lowering rents (and therefore this business model) quite amazing given what informal cartels can do in limited markets. And housing isn't exactly a luxury people can just avoid buying. pmchem fucked around with this message at 02:53 on Jun 26, 2019 |
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Jun 26, 2019 02:50
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editing in quote since this thread moved fast:Jealous Cow posted:Something like this is already happening in Austin. There are a few local companies that snap up unrenovated homes at 50% over their 2010 value rather than the 100%+ increase even mildly updated homes go for. They do quick flipper renovations and sell them for what private sellers are asking. I view flipping as entirely different and less scary to the individual home-buying process (and hence this thread) than the multi-decade corporate ownership and rental of millions / tens of millions of single-family homes. Flipping has always existed in some form.
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Jun 26, 2019 02:55
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I generally agree with your take, including the 'too big to fail' point, but note that his arbitrage is very different from something like a currency arbitrage because he has a competitive advantage against a middle-class home buyer, even if they had the same information: his renovation/repair costs are way lower due to scale (as mentioned in the article). Therefore he can always make a better offer.
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Jun 26, 2019 03:03
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It's like, wow, imagine if some home construction company had near infinite capital and they just decided to only build rental single family homes. And imagine this happened 50 years ago and everyone living in post-Eisenhower-highway suburbs was renting instead of owning. Just try to imagine that reality and break your brain. Now imagine competing against that company when bidding on a home you're trying to buy.
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Jun 26, 2019 03:06
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B-Nasty posted:It's just a non-issue. Even the article itself states it: "Institutional investors own only about 2% of America’s 15 million single-family rental homes." You miss the point of my posts and ignore other parts of the article. I repeatedly discussed the future problems this business model presents, on a multi-decade time horizon. I was not discussing current day issues. As the article states in no less than 3 spots, the CEO of that company wants "to get to 1 million homes in the next 15 years or so." That's just one company, and that's less than 20 years. Imagine several companies doing this, and what things look like in 50+ years. Very quickly, you have corporations possibly owning more than half of all single family homes in the USA, and serving as our new corporate landlords. Home buyers will be bidding against them. B-Nasty posted:Involving the government in the housing market typically leads to disastrous, unintended consequences. Well, that's certainly a galaxy-brain level opinion to hold in the wake of the consequences of lax oversight and regulation that led to the financial crisis, Wall Street mortgage-backed-security related bailouts, and Great Recession.
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Jun 26, 2019 14:46
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Let's say a place is listed as 3,000 sqft on zillow and for the above grade square feet on MLS. But 500 of that is a built-in unfinished, unheated garage and only 2500 is actual living space. How are you bidding on that house? As 3,000 sqft or 2,500? How will an appraiser treat it for comps?
pmchem fucked around with this message at 01:07 on Nov 26, 2019 |
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Nov 26, 2019 00:55
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rt4 posted:It should only have climate-controlled square footage listed hmm, how about if the garage is heated but unfinished? Then it's listed and appraised as 3,000? I honestly don't know if it's heated, as I post this.
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Nov 26, 2019 01:08
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What’s that mortgage offer form this thread loves that banks are required to give you before you lock in with them, and what are the magic words to get it? Some banks seem to not want to proceed until you lock-in and pony up for an appraisal.
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Dec 5, 2019 02:14
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What's the thread consensus on online lenders such as Rocket Mortgage or Better.com or online brokers like Lending Tree? Any of them consistently good on rates and service? I've only ever dealt with local credit unions or big national CUs/banks that we have accounts with already.
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Dec 8, 2019 23:00
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Save up a larger percent for downpayment. Even if you don’t put it all down it gets you a better rate, less PMI, and safety buffer for repairs.
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Dec 16, 2019 01:01
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If buying, and a list of various minor items turns up during inspection, say $4,000 total to have contractors fix, would you prefer to have the sellers fix before closing (and provide proof contractor performed repairs, not DIY), or would you prefer to adjust price on contract and contract repairs yourself? You’d get to inspect repairs before settlement. And why do you prefer your choice?
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Jan 5, 2020 21:05
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Motronic posted:NO. if it’s convenient for him and he doesn’t hate the sellers, why not? sounds like they’re offering to pay 4 weeks of expenses for a 2 week stay. concerned they’re hiding something, I guess? edit: I’m assuming a detailed lease would be signed pmchem fucked around with this message at 03:28 on Jan 20, 2020 |
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Jan 20, 2020 03:25
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To those of you who have bought a house and moved recently: Any regrets about things you didn't do before you fully moved in? I've found these generic checklists for moving and I'm kinda wondering what they're missing: https://www.moving.com/move-planner/ https://www.moving.com/tips/checklist-for-moving-into-new-house/ https://www.mymove.com/moving/guides/tips-moving-first-house/
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Jun 6, 2020 16:10
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Ruggan posted:Locked rate today on our refinance. Who’s the lender for that rate and was it VA?
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Jun 8, 2020 23:29
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FateFree posted:Refinance question. I've been in my home 10 months, have a loan for 600k at 3.625%, monthly payment is 2800. I can refinance for 3% with 3k closing costs baked in for 2600 a month OR I can buy down the rate to 2.5% for 15k + 3k, baked in, with a payment of 2500 a month. Break even period is 6 years. what online calculator do people prefer for this? zillow basically yes, 'yes do that immediately': https://www.zillow.com/mortgage/cal...cashOut%22:0%7D however they estimate a different new payment than your $2500. does your 2500 include property taxes/etc in escrow? or was one of my ballpark #s off?
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Jul 7, 2020 13:22
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FateFree posted:Also for the post above this is just mortgage, no taxes or insurance. Also the actual loan is like 615k I just rounded to 600 so that might explain the gap. Also the new loan amount figure is wrong it would be the same amount, not minus 30k ok, I was assuming the rounded-600 was your original amount and then took off ~10 months of payments for the amount to refi, which was wrong as you said (for multiple reasons). but you get the idea.
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Jul 7, 2020 13:47
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i'm sorry but is that crumbling, hosed up wall the foundation of the house?
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Jul 8, 2020 18:10
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you mentioned a termite inspection but nothing related to them -- were there also termites?
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Jul 13, 2020 20:05
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lollybo posted:It's called a termite inspection but also looks for moisture, fungus issues. well, don't mess with either water or termite issues. fix it right, the first time. lol @ just a fan. as for negotiation, that's between you and the sellers and the market. maybe your agent, too, if he'll give up a % to close the deal. but yeah, this could blow things up if you all are 3k apart and nobody will budge.
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Jul 13, 2020 20:15
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Popete posted:I'm trying to figure out if refinancing makes sense. I bought about 1 year ago with a 30 year fixed loan at %4.0 and I'm looking to apply for a new 30 year fixed at %3.25 and it's saying lender fees will come out to around $1800. But I will be saving over $100 per month. Is there some other fees I'm forgetting or will I really be coming out ahead after less than 2 years? try this and let us know what it says? https://www.zillow.com/mortgage-calculator/refinance-calculator/
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Jul 13, 2020 20:26
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hope you got pictures, and get a specialist in that basement immediately to figure out what's what and how much it will cost to fix roof has to be fixed too, by a real contractor (get the receipts and warranty of the work), but the basement freaks me out because the finished walls/floors may be hiding a lot of damage
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Jul 14, 2020 13:23
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Zero VGS posted:I mean yeah, Home Depot is fuckin' packed lately. yes, this. plus contractors are booked. I had a roofer tell me he wouldn't even come out to do an estimate unless it was a whole roof replacement because they're way busier than normal and just can't be bothered.
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Jul 17, 2020 02:12
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as for house price discussion, it's 100% to do with historic lows in treasury bond yields and how that affects mortgage rates being piled on top of a previously hot market prices will only pull back if white collar workers start becoming unemployed en masse and begin defaulting on their pricey homes, which, is generally not the case ... yet
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Jul 17, 2020 02:17
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nice discussion of mortgage-backed security coupons and mortgage rates here: http://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/mortgage_rates/blog/949814.aspx tl;dr -- a 30-year mortgage rate of 2.25% is conceivable in the next year, but it is more likely that 2.5-2.75% will be the low in the months ahead
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Jul 21, 2020 12:48
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Gabriel S. posted:How many folks "leap frog" their way to buying property? My parents did this their entire life, through ~5 properties.
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Jul 26, 2020 22:02
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ihatepants posted:Thank you, guess it's time to start looking around. I'm actually not sure. I don't see it as part of my current statements or my closing documents. I do see in the closing documents that we paid an upfront MIP of $5,775.00. skip to like page 60 or 70 of this and enjoy https://www.bogleheads.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=289559
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Jul 30, 2020 00:41
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ihatepants posted:Thank you for this! I called a couple of local mortgage brokers and then LenderFi which was listed frequently on the website you mentioned. I'm impressed that you contacted lenderfi and got locked in so quickly after my post! Good luck with your lower payments and refi closing.
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Jul 30, 2020 20:28
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We did a rent back for 5 months after purchasing this year. This very thread warned me against it. Nevertheless, it went fine. Not one problem with the house, anything breaking, or former-owners-become-tenants trashing anything. They even moved out on time in the middle of a pandemic. In this case, they were a professional (upper level) DoD couple so there was some reason to expect good behavior. I think rent backs are very much situational.
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Aug 1, 2020 21:02
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Jerk McJerkface posted:Yeah but this dude is closing on a condo without a laywer. right, I wasn't responding to that point. just a general comment about rent backs.
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Aug 1, 2020 21:56
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isn't he required by law to provide a loan estimate if you give him certain info? https://www.consumerfinance.gov/ask-cfpb/what-information-do-i-have-to-provide-a-lender-in-order-to-receive-a-loan-estimate-en-1987/
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Aug 10, 2020 15:22
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Has anyone here refi'd or gotten a LE from Intercontinental Capital Group @ https://intercontinentalcapital.com/ They're quoting me 2.375% 30-year fixed over the phone today with $1800 origination fee, so about half a point. Based on a hard credit pull and some basic info. Much better than other lenders today. But no official LE just yet (I'd need to upload them some docs). Haven't seen them discussed much, so I'm trying to make sure they're not some scam company. They do have good reviews on Zillow: https://www.zillow.com/lender-profile/InterContinentalCG/ , is that enough for some confidence?
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Aug 12, 2020 19:19
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