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We just accepted an offer on my girlfriend's condo. It was on the market for 24 hours and the offer is over asking price. We're simultaneously overjoyed and panicked about it not appraising. The last couple of days have been a real roller coaster. Do never sell.
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May 24, 2013 18:36
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We had our buyer back out with 2 weeks to go until close because his job is relocating him ( ). The title company apparently requires signatures from us and him to release the ernest money to us even though our sales contract states that it should go to us in this case. Does anyone have experience with a situation like this? If he doesn't sign, what are my options? Sue? We have rented an apartment and signed a lease already, so we have incurred real costs based on this sales contract.
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Jun 19, 2013 16:49
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life is killing me posted:Unless he knew he MIGHT be relocated before entering a contract on a house, this is kind of a double-edged sword. On one hand, your house has essentially been off the market for a good bit of time while you've been under contract, and you have lost potential buyers as a result. On the other hand, if he didn't even have a smidgeon of an idea that this would happen to him, I wouldn't really say it's his fault. He may or may not sign; if he doesn't, that's a whole other can of worms. If he does, great. We're in Oregon. There are no stipulations for relocating before closing in the contract. The only contingencies were inspection (long past), Condo/Townhouse HOA review (overlapped with the inspection period), and financing (he could use this one, I think). We were waiting for the appraisal report to come through to his lender (appraisal happened 7 days ago). We were scheduled to close on 7/5. As far as I can tell, the sale agreement only stipulates that he had to apply for a loan within 3 days of our acceptance of his offer, which he did. Following that, the financing contingency just says that "Buyer and Property to qualify for the loan from Lender; Lender's appraisal shall not be less than the Purchase Price". You're right, it's probably not his fault that he is relocating. On the other hand, it's not ours either, and we are the party that has suffered the loss of potential buyers and money, since we had to make living arrangements based on the sale agreement.
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Jun 20, 2013 01:13
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Jonny 290 posted:Any guides on first-time sellers? I am far from an expert, but I can tell you how we got started selling my girlfriend's condo. Step 1 was cleaning and fixing, as you are doing. We also removed a lot of stuff to a storage unit to make the place feel much more open and airy. Little things like cleaning all the windows inside and out helps a lot. We wanted people to walk in and say "Oh, this is really clean." Step 2 was internet research. Use Redfin if you can- they have a really great tool to help you value your house by searching for comparable sales. Otherwise try Zillow to get an idea of what you should be asking. Step 3 was getting a seller's agent. Our agent did more in depth research on the MLS and walked us through the process. With her help we settled on a price and picked the important days (listing, open house). Step 4 was keeping the place perfectly clean and allowing people to view the condo all the time. This part sucked because we are not the type of person that always puts dishes in the dishwasher immediately and vacuums every day. Step 5: profit! Or not... see my last post in this thread about our buyer pulling out right at the end. We're still fighting for the earnest money on that one. In the mean time, we sold the place to another guy, so go us!
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Jul 1, 2013 18:06
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If anyone was curious on my girlfriend's condo and earnest money situation (quick recap: the buyer walked and was trying to claim the earnest money), we found out late last night that all of the earnest money is being released to us. We are picking up the check from the title company today, and it should cover the extra mortgage payment and HOA dues we have to pay while we wait for our current sale to close. I'm very glad to be done dealing with this guy's incompetent realtor as well. According to our realtor, every document he sent her was filled out incorrectly, missing signatures, etc. Apparently he has had the signed earnest money release for days and only just remembered to actually send it to us last night.
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Jul 3, 2013 17:07
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We are making an offer on a house that sits on a private (not city or county owned) street. There's no HOA and there are only 4 houses on the street. Does anyone have any experience with private streets like this? It seems to be in good shape now but it is up to the homeowners, apparently, to maintain the street. My guess is that since there's nobody collecting any dues or anything, that this street will basically never see any maintenance.
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Jul 10, 2013 17:14
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Anyone have any tips for negotiating repairs with a seller? We're about to request $14,000+ in repairs and I don't want them to shut down at the list. The seller has ignored most of the major systems in the house and now they all need work or replacement. We're already prioritized the list and are willing to let the little stuff like missing window screens go in favor of the big stuff like replacing the furnace and repairing the separated sewer pipe. So far, our planned strategy is to provide the seller with all inspection reports along with our requests. That way the defects become material facts that they would need to disclose to any other buyer, should we walk.
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Jul 19, 2013 16:57
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We are renting back to our sellers (seriously what is up with this? Just move the weekend before closing.) for four days at $75/day, payable in full up front. Our house is about $250K.
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Jul 25, 2013 01:11
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We just got our appraisal back on the house we're buying and it came in right at the sale price. So hooray! But I found some pretty big errors on it, potentially in our favor. The appraiser didn't seem to notice the air conditioner and knocked $2K off because it doesn't have one (it does). He also didn't count the lowest level (tri-level house) as livable square footage since it's below grade. Only it isn't below grade in any sense. You can walk right out the sliding glass door and into the flat back yard. He docked us like $11k for that since there's a half bath down there too. What a joke this process is. If he had got these things right, I bet a dollar that the house still would have come back right at the sale price, but now I'm trying to get those errors fixed and the value added on top of the original appraisal.
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Aug 6, 2013 20:23
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That's just it though, the lot is flat and level where the house is sited, with the only slope being the driveway, which slopes down away from the house. You enter the house by walking up 7 steps to the front door, then to get down stairs to the "basement", you go down 7 steps. Further, the deck off the main level in back of the house has 7 steps down from it to the patio, where the sliding door to the "basement" is. I just went through the pictures I took during the inspection and first course of siding is continuous all the way around the house. I looked closely at the amount of cement foundation visible and if there is any difference from one corner to the other, it is a matter of inches. Edit: I talked this all over with our mortgage lady and it doesn't really matter. The LTV is calculated not from the appraised value but from the sale price. Even if we wanted to dispute the report, the underwriter may just refuse to file the dispute since the appraised value came back "high enough". So I guess we'll do nothing. I'm just annoyed that we paid $450 for this report and the guy didn't even note that the house has an air conditioner. Economic Sinkhole fucked around with this message at 22:17 on Aug 6, 2013 |
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Aug 6, 2013 20:57
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Despite the listing agent's best efforts, we are closing on our house purchase today. Without getting into the whole thing, the listing agent has been an incompetent obstruction from the first day. Is there anywhere we can file a complaint or write a review of a realtor that would actually matter? I feel sorry for his clients since I don't think they understand enough of what is going on to know how their realtor has screwed them over by not communicating in a timely way, putting bad information on their initial listing, and most recently, lying to us.
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Aug 15, 2013 00:02
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Dik Hz posted:Why would you buy the single most expensive thing you're ever going to buy from someone that you know is lying to you? If they're lying about poo poo you can verify, what else are they lying about? Because he lied during closing, after we signed papers already. He claimed we agreed to pay for a repair that was done without our knowledge or consent, and made that claim after we signed. We and the title company both told him "tough poo poo, we're not paying" and it's been sorted out. It's still a lie though. Edit: his latest trick is that he's withholding the keys. Our agent got the key from the lockbox and we have since changed the locks, but he has the mailbox keys still (the house closed escrow 2 days ago). Dude's a capital-A rear end in a top hat. Economic Sinkhole fucked around with this message at 16:55 on Aug 16, 2013 |
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Aug 16, 2013 16:51
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Mary loving Poppins posted:I've seen my first house in person today after only looking online for the past year (because I didn't have the money until now). This is the best house I've seen online in that whole year and it turns out that it's just as nice in person. To my untrained eye, everything looked fantastic and I really want to put in an offer. My realtor said that basically everything looked brand new. (It appears the house was bought for dirt cheap this summer and fixed up.) Before you offer, ask your realtor to pull up the previous listing and look at it. Hopefully it'll have pictures so you can look at specific repairs done between the last sale and the current listing. Look up the model numbers of the appliances. Are they quality units or are they the cheapest ones from Sears that came in stainless steel? If you know anyone who is a contractor or used to work on houses or is at all handy even, ask them to come to the inspection with you so they can check it out. It is relatively easy to do the finish work like new paint, new laminate floors and new appliances. Many house flippers buy trash heap houses and slap up a coat of paint and cheap flooring and try to cash out, while leaving the rotted subfloors, leaking roof and broken furnace for the next schmuck who owns the place. When you schedule your inspection, I would ask the inspector to be especially nitpicky about looking for concealed issues. If the HVAC system is not brand new, have it inspected. It cost us $74 to have an HVAC inspector come out and he found problems that ended up with our seller replacing the whole furnace at a cost of over $3k to them. Also have a sewer scope done. Ours was $125 and it found a major blockage that cost our seller $2200 to fix (replace sewer line under the driveway). If you have any questions at all, have a specialized inspector check it out. It is very cheap insurance. You can hire a roofing inspector (not a roofing company) to check out the roof. An engineer can examine the structure. Electricians will inspect the electrical. Your general inspector will give you an overview but should say in his report that he is not qualified to do in-depth inspections on HVAC, plumbing, pests, etc. It is not always necessary to have all these separate inspections done, but if anything seems questionable, have it looked at. A coworker just bought a house for north of $375k and found out that water pours into his garage through the block wall when it rains, and here in Oregon, it rains sometimes. He thought the wall looked odd when he viewed it but never followed up on the hunch. Turns out that fresh paint on one wall in the garage was to cover up the staining from the water leaks. His estimate to seal the wall and install a weeping tile system in the yard to divert the water was in the area of $12k (remove pavers, dig down 8', seal wall, install tile and drains).
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Oct 18, 2013 16:57
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Nocheez posted:Seriously. My house payment is only $770 right now but when the roof/carpet/anything needs replaced it comes out of my pocket. Do you have 10% of the house value ready to go when poo poo starts breaking? Because I can warn you, poo poo will break. And it never breaks at a convenient time. What cost you 10% of your house's value to fix?
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Nov 18, 2013 23:43
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slap me silly posted:New roof. Must be a hell of a roof. Estimates on a new roof for my place are 6-12k, or 2%-4.5% of our house's value. I don't mean to say that a repair fund isn't a good idea, but 10% seems pretty high to me. ETA: SiGmA_X posted:Roof, sewer, random plumbing breaking and requiring wall replacements... poo poo happens, house repair funds are required. Imo it means one should have about 30% in hand when they buy a house. Which for me means about 70-90k which means renting for a while. Roofing costs must be drastically different around the country if a new one costs you that much. We had our sanitary sewer line repaired under the driveway (dig up concrete, replace a pipe, repour section of concrete) and it cost about $2k. Insurance would cover a burst pipe and resulting damage (minus the deductible). Last edit: Not trying to argue here, and if you want to save 10-30% for repairs, that's great. But I think those numbers represent the high and extreme ends of what a given repair could cost a person, given a $250k house value. Economic Sinkhole fucked around with this message at 01:17 on Nov 19, 2013 |
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Nov 19, 2013 01:05
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FCKGW posted:Am I the only one who enjoys their lawn? I feel like Hank Hill every time I read this thread. Why would anybody do drugs when they could just mow a lawn? I actually enjoy my yard and get immense satisfaction out of the work I do in it. The "no yardwork" perk of living in a condo or apartment always makes me laugh. I mean, I get that lots of people don't like doing it, but you can hire a maintenance company to do it for you, and you get to pick what they do and how often and and how much to spend on it in a single-family house. I lived with my girlfriend in her condo for a while before we bought our house and couldn't believe that anyone would willingly buy in to that place. The board was a joke, the maintenance was sub-par at best, and dues were high and ever-increasing. I think the worst part about buying in to a condo though is that even if you somehow determine that a given condo board is "one of the good ones", it can all change right after you move in and there might not be anything you can do about it. Right after my girlfriend bought into her condo complex, the board got itself involved in litigation that lasted over 5 years, effectively trapping her there. As soon as it ended there was basically a fire sale.
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Mar 4, 2014 17:33
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I like turtles posted:I'm in the tri-cities area of Washington state. I've found an excellent place I'm very interested in, and made an offer, got a counter back today. They're very attached to their washer and dryer for some reason, but whatever. If your current living situation allows it, I'd go for the rent back agreement. Close as soon as you can not only to get your rate but to prevent any shenanigans on their end while they wait for their house to be built or whatever. Push for a high rent from them and pocket the cash. I'd also word it so that they have to commit to a specific number of days to rent from you and rent is payable in full up front. At the very least, make sure you have an upper limit on how many days you'll rent, Check with your insurer about additional coverage during the rental period to protect yourself.
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Mar 31, 2014 19:03
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bartkusa posted:It could be done, but few people use advanced search filters. I think it's a combination of not-good-enough UI, and people being afraid of missing their dream house because they ticked a checkbox. Also realtors are loving idiots when they list on MLS. The agent selling the house we bought forgot to note that it has central AC, a pretty big feature in our price range in the Portland area. I wouldn't trust the MLS listing very far beyond price, approximate square footage, bed and bathroom count.
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Apr 4, 2014 23:16
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a shameful boehner posted:How do I know what's worth haggling over following the inspection? I know the real answer is "whatever you don't want to fix yourself" - and I'm okay with doing some basic home repairs - but ultimately I don't want to risk the seller walking away because the next buyer won't quibble. What to ask for in your repair addendum is pretty subjective, depending on the overall condition of the property, the price (ie, is it already priced to take repairs into account?), your comfort level with doing things yourself, the attitude of the seller, etc. Without knowing any of that besides what you've posted, my opinion is to ask for the springs on the doors, the valve replacement and to get a plumber out to inspect the plumbing. You would need to pay for the plumbing inspection and it would need to happen during your inspection period. The plumber could more accurately assess the need to retrofit dielectric unions and any existing damage. My reasoning is that the springs and valve are simple things that the seller should have no problem fixing. The plumbing is a potential major issue though, and having that inspected now is in your best interest. Depending on the plumber's report, you would want to ask for his recommended repairs as well. The thing to remember is that (at least in my state) if your inspector uncovers a defect, like faulty plumbing, and you make the seller aware of this defect, they will legally have to disclose the defect to any future buyers. That keeps it in your seller's best interest to work with you on resolving repairs, rather than just walking away and trying to sell to someone else.
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May 14, 2014 18:23
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|Ziggy| posted:The first page kind of glosses over "get approved for reals." I was preapproved by 1 lender, went looking at houses, and have an offer out right now. I was speaking with another lender that looks much better, but they basically said that I wouldn't qualify putting 10% down or even 20%, that I'd need 25% down. It must be based on annual income which I make ~18.5% of estimated home value (home value estimate is above what I offered to pay or would pay but what I asked for in loan). A lender requires a fee for a mortgage application? Ridiculous. Tell them to get lost. We applied at 4 different lenders and paid nothing until we picked a lender to go with, and even then, it was a deposit on our closing costs, not a fee.
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Jun 11, 2014 16:30
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pragan4 posted:During our inspection period some issues came up and rather than requesting the sellers to fix the issues we got estimates and requested that amount as a credit at closing. For some reason our realtor didn't write that the credit was for repairs, and instead wrote "Seller to credit Buyer $6,000 towards closing costs, prepaid expenses, and inspections in lieu of any repairs." I think it depends on your state laws. Check with your loan officer and find out your options. In Oregon, closing cost credits can only be used for closing costs and you would hypothetically forfeit any leftovers. I don't think you can put 100% of the blame on your realtor. Didn't you have to sign that particular addendum?
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Jun 12, 2014 00:30
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Vinny the Shark posted:My lease expires at my apartment this coming October. I'm ready to leave renting behind and start owning. I live very close to work and there's a really nice condo available that's within walking distance of my current apartment. The price is very reasonable, and I could easily make a 20% down payment and cover any closing costs. There's also a house available for the same price ($85,000 if you must know) within half a mile of my current apartment as well, but this place so far doesn't look as attractive as the condo, but I could still see myself living there. So distance is not a concern- both would be very close to where I work. Consider all the angles of condo ownership. I lived in my girlfriend's condo for a year and a half before she could sell it and we bought a house. To me, a condo seemed like all the worst things about owning a house combined with all the worst things about living in an apartment, with an extra layer of bullshit spread thick on top in the form of the HOA. Every situation is different and a lot of people are very happy with their condos, but I could not wait to get the hell out of there. Living is a condo is a lot like living in an apartment. Parking, shared amenities, landscaping, etc. Also you're right on top of your rear end in a top hat neighbors and their lovely barking dogs, their disgusting smoking, loud-rear end TVs, car door slamming parties, etc. Unlike an apartment though, you can't just move when your lease is up. Also you can't complain to the manager but you can complain to the HOA. If you're lucky, your board will be full of empathetic, responsive folks who take their positions seriously. Chances are though, the board is made up of petty, useless, and uncaring folks who have nothing better going on in their lives than the HOA. Ours was made up of apathetic do-nothings. They spent a year (a whole year!) putting together a list of owners and phone numbers in a 36 unit complex. So complaints about rules violations never went anywhere. Your idiot board is in charge of finances. Inspect the most recent reserve study and run screaming if they don't have one. Many boards either won't or can't increase dues to keep up reserves, so the owners get hit with huge special assessments when the complex needs new siding, pavement, pool equipment, roofs. Another crappy thing is even if the board appears to be in good shape now, all that can go to poo poo when the sitting members keel over and die and new members replace them. That is, if you can even get a quorum to elect a new member in the first place. In apartment living, I put up with all the bullshit, minus the HOA stuff, because I had the perks of being a renter. My water heater broke and I called maintenance. My stinky loud neighbors wouldn't shut up so I just moved. In a condo, you're stuck with what you get. Our board got involved in a lawsuit, suing the developer for underfunding the HOA. It spent something like 6 years in the court system, during which time nobody could sell, since banks don't want to lend on condos with pending litigation. My point here is that so much stuff is beyond your control in a condo living situation that just isn't a factor with a house. I don't mean to convince you not to buy a condo, just consider the details. If the idea of buying an apartment is OK with you, go for it. No yard to keep up, probably no major maintenance expenses, you get a pool or whatever to use. But in a house, you can hire someone to cut the grass, save monthly for major expenses (no association fees!) and swim at the Y.
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Jun 30, 2014 18:11
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Elephanthead posted:That guy is a whiner that doesn't know what the definition of illegal is. The important thing is that his network cabling is all up to date.
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Jul 10, 2014 16:51
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jerkstore77 posted:I have a lot of equity in my condo right now that would allow us to finally upgrade to a single family home. The problem is, any offer we make would end up being conditional on the sale of the condo, and an offer like that simply isn't competitive enough in the market the way it is right now. Ideally, we want to sell and close first on my condo, then find a temporary living situation while we look and buy a home. We were in a similar situation. We ended up finding an apartment that had a 1 year lease but offered a buyout to end it early. So we rented until we found our house and then terminated the lease with the buyout. Probably not the absolute cheapest way to do it but we didn't want to be rushed when making our purchase decision. The only thing I'd do differently is not choosing an apartment on the 2nd floor (  stairs).shortspecialbus posted:The most annoying thing so far has been trying to figure out how to convert a 1 1/2" deadbolt hole to a 2 1/8" one that can't quite be in the same spot so I can't just put the 1 1/2" hole saw inside the 2 1/8" one as a guide. I'm gonna have to either fashion a plug or clamp wood over/under. Need to do that on two doors Stack your hole saws so the smaller one guides the larger one like this: 
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Jul 14, 2014 21:07
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How handy are you? That house likely needs a complete renovation, top to bottom. Built in 1910, it could have all kinds of fun electrical and plumbing issues. Chances are very high that it has some major faults somewhere since that as has the magic words "Property sold in 'as-is' condition." In my area at least, properties are sold with seller disclosures, where the seller lists everything they know that is wrong with the house. If they fail to disclose a problem and it can be proven that they knowingly did not disclose, the seller can be sued. But when its an "as-is" transaction, there is no disclosure. Usually, that means that there are huge problems (structural, foundation, etc.) and they know it. So sure, get preapproved. Talk to your bank about types of mortgages and their requirements for houses they will lend on. For instance, will they lend on as-is properties? You can also talk to a realtor at this point but it is going to be a crapshoot as to whether or not you get a good one. See if someone you know can recommend a realtor who will be honest with you about the houses you see and their condition. Do you know anyone who is a contractor, engineer or experienced DIYer who could tour a few houses with you?
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Jul 14, 2014 22:28
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Citizen Tayne posted:You say "built in 1910" as though that's weird or unusual. They're ALL that old around here, and have all been continuously occupied and upgraded for the century that they've existed. Every house there has been upgraded since it was built? That's amazing that you have that kind of insight. Around here it's hard to know if a house has been updated until you inspect it. Here, old houses sometimes have remenents of their original construction. But I really don't know the Pitsburgh market as well as you do, so I defer to your superior judgement.
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Jul 16, 2014 05:02
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Warranty chat: our warranty company kept assigning contractors who didn't have valid contractors' licenses or whose licenses had been revoked by the state. We got so fed up with the run-around that we just hired someone ourselves. We chose not to renew our warranty once the initial year was up.
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Sep 29, 2014 23:13
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moana posted:DIY! Just make sure you get that black spray stuff from home depot to cover up the cuts on the tree. No don't http://puyallup.wsu.edu/~linda%20chalker-scott/horticultural%20myths_files/Myths/Wound%20sealer.pdf Just look up some videos on YouTube about pruning trees and the 3 cut method. Just be safe and work from the ground only. If you have to use a ladder, you should probably bite the bullet and hire someone.
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Oct 14, 2014 16:45
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kitten posted:Finally closing today (mine got delayed two weeks to fit in with the theme of the thread). Somebody said before that home depot honors Lowe's coupons, anyone know if that's still true? They will honor those moving coupons but the discount maxes out at $50, not $500 like it says on the Lowe's coupon. We tried to buy about $3k of flooring, tools and things when we found that out.
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Oct 16, 2014 17:17
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I would have a sewer scope done on a house built last week. We had our HVAC systems inspected and ended up needing to replace the furnace due to a defect that was discovered (leaking manifold). We had the roof inspected by a roofing company and that was a joke- they told us everything would be OK once they did ~$400 in repairs, yet I found a leak during the first heavy rain after we moved in.
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Oct 28, 2014 20:18
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QuarkJets posted:Our inspector didn't recommend any additional inspections. Since there were several trees in the back yard, I actually asked about a video pipe inspection, but he said that I probably shouldn't bother since the house was less than 20 years old, hooked up to county sewer at the time of construction, and the trees are on the opposite side of the house from where the sewer line would come in. I probably won't bother with it, since he was so certain that it was unnecessary You should do what you feel is right. Our house is 23 years old and a sewer scope saved us $2500. Roots were growing into the lateral line where ours meets the county pipes. When it was built, they didn't use the right adhesive (or none at all). The blockage was located 6' under the driveway and repairs involved demo of one quarter of the concrete driveway, excavation, fixing the pipe, then backfilling and pouring a new section of concrete. The inspection cost us $125 to perform. If we had not done it, the blockage would have backed up sewage into our laundry room and family room, causing us to have to replace the brand new carpet, drywall, furniture, etc. And pay for emergency plumbing repairs. I think that age has no bearing on whether a buyer should have a scope performed. It is your chance to take a look as something vitally important that you otherwise can't see, and have any issues addressed by the seller. It isn't just root intrusion you're looking for. If the pipes were never built correctly to begin with, you'd never otherwise know until a turd floats past your ankles in your basement.
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Oct 29, 2014 16:52
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We had the sellers buy us a warranty and it was a joke. Coverage included roof leaks and trying to make a claim on that was impossible. The warranty company kept assigning contractors that didn't call us or come to the house. Some contractors they assigned didn't even have CCB licenses. We finally gave up after several weeks of no-call/no-shows and paid to fix it ourselves. If someone wants to buy you a warranty then great, but I don't think that they're worth the money and I doubt that there are "good ones" vs. "bad ones". If you're pissed at the seller then just go with the most expensive one you can find.
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Jan 30, 2015 23:33
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Rushing to find a house is the worst possible way to buy. You will feel pressured to buy something, anything, by whatever your drop-dead date is. Conventional wisdom is that you should plan to spend 5-7 years in your house before selling in order to break even on transaction costs. Do you want to rush in to a decision that involves a quarter of a million of your dollars and 7 years of your life? Consider just switching to a month-to-month lease once your current lease is up and start looking at houses today. Plan on doing the month-to-month thing but look earnestly. If you find something, great. If not, it's cool because you have a lease that you can leave at any time. With that kind of plan you can take your time to make this very large decision. Technically, your timeline could work. You can probably find a lender that will close in 30 days. There's all kinds of reasons that your closing date can be pushed out though (see the thread title).
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Feb 10, 2015 00:04
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LabyaMynora posted:DO NEVER BUY. Indeed. I will note, though, at least in my state, that a seller's counter offer is a contract to sell, meaning that they can't counter multiple offers. If your seller really did get multiple offers, they could only accept or counter one of those offers. I'm not saying that that really happened in your case but that is why sellers do the "best and final" thing.
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Feb 17, 2015 17:38
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You could also end up like this guy's neighbor: http://www.reddit.com/r/legaladvice/comments/2o3g9g/neighbors_stupidly_caused_themselves_to_be/ Update here: http://www.reddit.com/r/legaladvice/comments/2ooy1x/update_my_neighbors_caused_themselves_to_be/
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Apr 21, 2015 23:09
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Nessa posted:Just the 6 so far. That's not to say we won't see more, but there are pretty slim pickings in our area. We don't drive, so walkability is important for us, and being close to amenities is especially important because of our long, cold winters. When being outside is physically painful, you don't want to walk 20 minutes to get to your bus or train. This is also why if we're going to buy a house this year, we're going to want to move by the end of summer or early fall at the latest, or wait until next spring. I think what he was getting at is that it is hard to know what your criteria even are before you start to see and consider several houses. I know that when my fiancee and I started looking our expectations were very different from how they were at the end of our search. We've lived in our house for 18 months now and I already have a whole different set of priorities I'd consider if we could move again. If you found a great house then good for you. But many people experience this shift of priorities during their first house hunt. The other thing to keep in mind is that a "perfect house" does not exist, and the fact that you found a good one right away means that you won't have any trouble finding a good one later, too. So: what if someone snaps that one up right away? Then you'll buy another house. The number one pitfall in house hunting is getting emotionally involved. HGTV shows make this worse. You need to stay detached from each house: they all have problems, they all cost a lot and they all represent a huge risk on your part. Falling in love with ~*ThE OnE*~ makes you more likely to overlook the leaking pipes, shifting foundation and missing roof shingles because you "got that homey feeling" when you walked in. Keep your emotions out of it and you can view the houses with their flaws, negotiate properly and make logical decisions. Your realtor may push you, asking emotional questions like "How does this one feel? Can you see yourself living here?" Just tune them out; you can let your emotions out once the papers are signed.
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Apr 25, 2015 00:56
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DrBouvenstein posted:Cool, thanks. I've called around to a few places already that have their certifications on their website and have things like voted best in county, etc... Yes, be there. They will show you all the things in person. I used the inspection as a chance to see the house again and learn where the main water shutoff was. I also used the time to take a thousand pictures that were extremely helpful in planning our renovations and where to put furniture. I asked the inspector lots of questions.
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Jul 10, 2015 16:32
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Why wouldn't you replace the locks? It's cheap and easy. Maybe the previous owner gave out keys to everyone in the neighborhood. Who knows?
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Jul 16, 2015 18:40
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QuarkJets posted:The alternative is rekeying Do whatever is cheapest or easiest. Every lock under like, $100 is a piece of crap so don't worry about the quality of what you have vs. what you can buy at Home Depot. I replaced our locks outright because I thought that it would be easier. It was easy.
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Jul 16, 2015 18:50
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minivanmegafun posted:Home security systems: worth it or not? My State Farm agent brought it up while quoting out a policy, I for some reason didn't think to ask what the discount is. They won't stop or catch a criminal that broke in and set off the alarm but signs in the yard can discourage burglars. When we moved in I looked in to it and decided to just ask the in-laws to order us a couple of signs to stick in our yard. No break-ins so far. I installed them right next to this rock that keeps tigers away. If my homeowner's insurance gave me a reasonable discount, though, I would look in to installing a real system.
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Jul 24, 2015 01:03
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