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moana posted:I broke mine up into a money market account with Vanguard and an ING CD back when the rates were still pretty good for CDs. Not sure what they're at now. You just want to stay away from anything risky. One of the pages linked in the first post suggests just going to your local bank to get preapproval... is that a good idea, or should I shop around on the internet? smackfu fucked around with this message at 23:09 on Jun 1, 2009 |
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Jun 1, 2009 22:59
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| # ¿ May 2, 2024 04:04 |
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Nothing like going to put an offer in on a cheap bank-owned house (that needed a lot of work) and finding out there was a previous buyer with a home inspection report that found rot in the main beams (which were like solid-wood 4"x16"x30' and exposed). The bank dicked around the prior prospective buyer from May to August without approving the repairs, at which point they walked away and it was back on the market. We weren't interested in getting involved in that mess.
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Aug 27, 2014 19:03
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My wife refinanced her condo a couple of years ago, before we married. I was adding it into Quicken and ran into something weird: the monthly payment we make, and that's on the GFE I dug out of our files, doesn't match what online payment calculators say it should be. It's off by $0.07 per month. Is there something I'm missing that goes into the calculation besides initial loan amount, term, and interest rate? Obviously not a big deal, but I really expect it to be correct to the penny.
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Dec 30, 2015 21:42
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Watching the Vancouver version of Love It or List it and this lovely suburban colonial is going for $2 million. Canadian dollar, sure, but that is ridiculous. I don't know how people deal with a market like that.
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Jan 5, 2016 13:45
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Someone listed a really nice mid-century house in our area, put it up as coming soon, listed an open house, and then put it for sale and accepted an offer before the open house. All within 3-4 days. This market is stupid. I’ve also started seeing a “accepting backup offers” status on Zillow which is just a bit silly.
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Mar 9, 2021 14:21
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Another “weird thing” I have started to see on Zillow is McMansions priced at literally double what they should be worth. For instance: https://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-detail/95-Knoll-Ridge-Ct_Middletown_CT_06457_M44719-64411 Is this just people swinging for a home run? This is not the fancy fancy part of Connecticut. Around here a million dollars gets you a nice house on waterfront or 20+ acres generally.
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Mar 10, 2021 00:01
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The Zestimate is of course exactly $1,173,807 on a $1.2 million listing.
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Mar 10, 2021 00:06
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B-Nasty posted:It's typical enough that my last home inspector lifted all the area rugs to check for hidden damage. Pictures on walls is another good way to hide damage. Drywall fixes aren't as big of a deal, but if a painting is hiding a massive ugly spot in a wall, repainting all the area back to a wall demarcation (because g/l matching an old paint) can be. Also, a lot of times the seller was already “hiding” the damage from themselves when they were living there because they didn’t want to pay thousands to fix the floor when they could put a rug over it.
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Mar 14, 2021 15:43
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Throatwarbler posted:I've toyed with this idea too but I feel like interior designers are something that only the idle rich can afford, not people who work for a living like me. How much does it cost to hire one? I kinda assume that they would buy a full room of fancy furniture which would be thousands.
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Mar 16, 2021 12:56
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Inner Light posted:Those vents are real weird. At first I thought they were a high velocity system, but I'm not sure. Could be just a central fan and that's it? Our weird house growing up had vents to the attic in all the upstairs bedrooms, and a whole house fan and that was the cooling system. Not bad for 1981 New Jersey — that fan could pull the basement door shut — but I’m sure it would be puzzling nowadays. Also the vents had to be blocked with foam inserts in the winter to stop drafts.
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Mar 30, 2021 03:04
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Inner Light posted:I think I tried starting this derail ages ago to see how people thought of charging a GIRLFRIEND rent, it was a fun derail. Wildly different opinions on that one. At the end of the day, if your name isn’t on the title and you break up, you are probably going to be screwed.
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Mar 31, 2021 12:51
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Kefit posted:One phrase I've seen a lot on condo listings is "seller will pay special assessment on closing." Is this as much of a red flag as I think it is? To me it means that a poorly run HOA levied a giant unreasonable special assessment against the owner, and now they have no choice but to sell. Is this probably what's going on in these cases? Our condo had a large special assessment, around $25k. (New roofs, siding, windows, and decks, so not unreasonable and we voted on it.) Because it was so high, you were able to pay it off over time with a $200 per month addition to the condo fee. This de facto loan is NOT transferable though... you are expected to pay it off on sale. Maybe something like this?
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Apr 2, 2021 12:57
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The photos in this listing are breaking my brain a bit. I think they took flipper gray to a whole new level. https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/...source=txtshare 
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May 2, 2021 22:24
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Given that, painting is definitely something worth doing before you move in.
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May 3, 2021 19:34
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When we visited San Diego we stayed in the cutest little bungalow as an AirBnB and it was kind of sad it was under the flight path and had planes pretty frequently. After looking it up, it was in Golden Hill. Edit: doesn’t have a price history or Zestimate, that’s odd: https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/2738-C-St-San-Diego-CA-92102/2116157354_zpid smackfu fucked around with this message at 15:15 on May 10, 2021 |
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May 10, 2021 15:11
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The facts that the Zestimate and list price are so close is the worst. When a property is listed is the one time Zillow has the most accurate data about the property. Maybe they get too much flak for having a low Zestimate and it’s not worth it?
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May 10, 2021 18:38
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quote:Selling for well below town appraisal, and with some updating and sweat equity, this property will make an absolutely stunning dream home Those are not thing you read in a good house listing. Usually a house that needs “sweat equity” is 150k though.
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May 10, 2021 21:20
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Haha, a house came up on Zillow with an undisclosed address and an open house today. Edit: also check out this basement described as “half finished”: 
smackfu fucked around with this message at 13:55 on May 23, 2021 |
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May 23, 2021 13:50
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We have the best of both worlds in our basement: drywall ceiling that a plumber cut big holes in to fix the drain pipes and that we haven’t fixed in the last year or so. 
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May 23, 2021 21:21
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The best is when they include plans in the listing that have four bedrooms labeled but it’s only a three bedroom. Usually something like a basement bedroom.
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May 24, 2021 00:04
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That Wikipedia article can’t be real.
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May 24, 2021 17:01
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Why not wait for the showings? Clearly there is demand.
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May 24, 2021 17:23
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As mentioned earlier, that seems like a piece of real estate agent advice that is very self serving. They’d rather you take the first offer and they get 5-10% less commission right now, rather than deal with your house for a month or two while you hold out for a better offer. Edit: what he said
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May 24, 2021 18:15
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Not that I’m going to do it, but how does it work if you borrow against your 401K for a house purchase? Does the mortgage company treat that like cash or like a secondary loan, which they generally dislike?
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May 26, 2021 13:04
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What do people think about Victorians that are being used as professional offices and converting back to SFH? They seem less disturbed then the ones that were carved up into apartments. (Of course “undisturbed” means two stairways, a small kitchen, tons of bedrooms and two small bathrooms.)
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Jun 4, 2021 13:13
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We did an open house of this terrible thing: https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/163-Shore-Rd-Clinton-CT-06413/57843835_zpid I don’t know which is worse, the eighties decor, the terrible dark stained glass or the bidet and shower in the master bedroom (no, not master bathroom.) It’s listed as built in 1980 but some of the details seem very wrong for that year like the fireplace and the main floor bathroom.
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Feb 7, 2022 14:08
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Oh god, we didn’t go up to that top balcony, I don’t even understand what is holding all that up. Is the spiral staircase the only structure? Is it hung off the roof somehow??? Ahh
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Feb 7, 2022 21:40
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SpartanIvy posted:This map is helpful, but it is far from perfect. I'm in a train-heavy city and it only shows commuter rails as sources of noise. The multiple and giant freight train yards do not even register on it. I don’t even know where the data would come from for this.
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Jun 27, 2022 13:56
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So that 30 day Transpacific cruise is a relocation cruise that is at sea for 22 of the days. I guess they are moving the ship from Alaska to Australia for the winter season. So they are happy just to have anyone onboard.
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Feb 18, 2023 16:47
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Xyven posted:Our seller's attorney just replied with an email saying "I think we have a problem" when we asked them to legalize a bathroom the previous owner added without notifying the city. They said they can't schedule a call until next week, so I'm wondering what horror we've uncovered. I would honestly imagine legalizing a bathroom that wasn’t done with permits would basically not be worth it to the seller and they should just find a buyer who doesn’t care. Like I would think the process would be: 1) hire a licensed plumber to review it 2) 99% of the time they say “it’s not up to code and has to be completely redone”
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Apr 6, 2023 13:00
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QuarkJets posted:If the fence was built on your neighbor's property then it's at least partly your problem; did you happen to get a survey performed, and did you see whether the fence was on your side of the property line? This seems like an interesting one because I would argue you didn’t buy the fence on your neighbors property and you also didn’t build it so really what’s your involvement at all.
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Apr 9, 2023 13:56
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The car sales people are increasing the term length to lower the payments, which I don’t think anyone in the US does with houses.
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Apr 11, 2023 12:46
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We aren’t actively house shopping but we had a “let us know if you are ever interested in selling” lead come through from a friend’s neighbor for their lake house. We took a tour and are interested but there’s no selling agent or listing or firm asking price, just a mention of the Zestimate from the owner. Anyone here ever been in this situation? I guess it’s basically for-sale-by-owner which are generally bad but we could also get a good deal and not have to compete with anyone?
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Apr 6, 2024 19:35
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Thanks, super helpful!
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Apr 6, 2024 22:22
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Heh, the flooring stood out to me too. Also wonder if the kitchen entry was always open all the way to the ceiling.
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Apr 7, 2024 01:26
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If you were moving into a new house, and you didn’t need to move in on the closing date, what stuff would you fix before moving in? Floors and painting seem like the obvious, am I missing anything?
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Apr 27, 2024 21:05
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Oh, painting the garage floor (or coating it) is a good one, we have never been able to do that in our current place.
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Apr 28, 2024 00:55
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| # ¿ May 2, 2024 04:04 |
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I was playing with a mortgage calculator and I’m just floored by the difference in payment between a 3% and 7% mortgage. Like for a $450K mortgage, it’s a $1900 payment vs $3000. Stupid compound interest.
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Apr 29, 2024 12:42
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