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Drunk Tomato posted:We're going from two incomes to one, at least for a few years. With one income, we'll be able to do alright, but we wont be saving much at all. Any extreme raise in our rent price would thus hurt a lot. I would not recommend you buy right before you have a kid, because that is a dramatic change in your life and it might change what you want/need in a home considerably. Especially when combined with your wife stopping her work and changing your income. I would suggest you sit on that pile of cash and keep adding to it as you are able, and wait until after you have your kid and you see how that changes your life. For some people it is not a huge difference and for others it's a tectonic shift, and you don't want to be stuck in a condo that doesn't fit your needs - especially if you might also be short on income or have the market crash around you.
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Jun 10, 2016 14:58
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Leperflesh posted:Theoretically, on what possible basis could he claim his father in law's assets? Even if his father in law were declared mentally incompetent and committed to a mental hospital, the man's assets would obviously be controlled - for his benefit, legally - by an immediate family member, and we already know there's at least a couple of daughters. What if he sues his father in law, and the judge orders them to all live together in the house until the mortgage is paid? Will it be the falls hit new sitcom?
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Oct 11, 2016 20:12
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There are a surprising number of Bostoners who don't post in the city thread. Come join us being surly and complaining about the T!
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Oct 14, 2016 14:36
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On the bright side, you may have the talent for a fallback career in gravedigging. (or graverobbing)
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Oct 14, 2016 16:18
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When you are in that situation, can you ask to review the HOA docs to work out what is going on? When is the appropriate/allowed time to do that? I would never buy without knowing what they were doing, but I expect you have to have an offer in or accepted first.
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Jan 16, 2017 15:46
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Someone I know bought a house, and when they were doing what was going to be a simple renovation of a bathroom they discovered a huge pooling of mercury in the walls/floor and had to evacuate their house and pay for professional removal and remediation. The end cost of the whole debacle was something like $50,000 because it turns out that having to have professional removal of a bunch of mercury is very expensive. Bonus: His insurance wouldn't pay for it, because the evidence was that the spill wasn't from the policy period, but left over from a previous renovation that someone had hosed up badly and not fixed at the time. So just keep in mind that you can buy a perfectly fine seeming house, have it pass all the normal inspections without a hitch, and then pull open a wall and discover tens of thousands of dollars worth of damages to deal with. Or, you know, just live with a bunch of mercury sliding around and hope it never vaporizes to kill you.
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Jan 24, 2017 20:48
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Best guess is that it was from the original hot-water heating system when the house was built - these were gravity fed systems that had a mercury seal as part of them because people in the 1900s didn't give a poo poo about heavy metal poisoning. I belive it's actually all contained in the system and not actually a problem, but apparently when someone decided to take out the old system and replace it, they didn't know what they were doing and dumped all the mercury in the attic, where it came down the wall and ended up under the bathroom tiling. To be clear, it ended up being several cups worth of liquid mercury - it wasn't like some insane alchemists bathing pool, but a ton of mercury by residential cleanup standards.
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Jan 24, 2017 21:03
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I imagine that most places want to have two years of work history, not employment with the same place. There are tons of people who make great money and just switch jobs every couple years (tech and biotech is huge for this) and it would be crazy if they weren't willing to give a guy making six figures at google a mortgage just because he's traded up jobs every year or so. On the other hand if you have been unemployed for two years and just got a job, that makes more sense.
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Jan 29, 2017 17:38
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I feel like you should try to find an inspector that all the realtors hate on general principle, but I am not sure how you would actually locate that person.
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Feb 15, 2017 15:23
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Yea that whole sentence sounds really off to me, it makes it seem like the builder, lender, and your agent are all actually patting each other on the back here. It sounds like the agent brought this place to you and then recommended the lender? It's possible you're not getting screwed more than anyone else buying a house, but that all seems ripe for collusion.
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Apr 10, 2017 14:26
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Yea, I am pretty sure that the leasehold/freehold situation basically derives from more feudal arrangements of ownership, where largely only nobility owned actual land, and so everyone else was essentially building their homes on land that was owned by whatever local noble, who retained the ownership of the actual land. Obviously that changed, but the practice of separating the ownership of land and structures already established and perpetuated. There is also the fact that most leaseholds were very long, usually decades or more, so they were difficult to change and would exist concurrently with any new developments for many years, making them very resilient to change. The UK actually leased Hong Kong from China on a 99-year lease, an arrangement that survived two changes of government.
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Apr 20, 2017 14:40
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Leperflesh posted:It's true that housing is also speculative, but the houses that are bought for speculative purposes are almost always occupied - that is, they are either occupied by the speculators (in which case, it's completely included in the argument I made) or they're rented. I don't think this is as definite an assumption as you make it sound. There are lots of reasons to not rent out a property - selling it can be more complicated if there is a current tenant and lease in place, for instance, and renting an apartment requires that you take over the duties of a landlord, which can be tedious and time consuming, and can also expose you to any number of additional hassles. Putting a unit out to rent makes sense if you are paying a mortgage, but many speculators and corporate owners aren't doing that, they're simply buying with cash in hand. The additional trouble of renting out those units isn't necessarily worth it compared to just mothballing them to resell or whatever is wanted down the line. It is also true that at the upper end of big-city markets, you get many people who buy an apartment but don't rent it, because they want it to be available to them when they happen to want it - even if that is only a matter of days or weeks a year. When you are wealthy enough, the loss from not renting your condo isn't troubling. That isn't going to be a widespread phenomena (globally speaking) but it does seem to create a pocket at the top of cities like NY or LA, SF, where there are apartments and condos being bought and effectively not used, preventing the addition of units from having the expected effect down market.
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May 16, 2017 18:33
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Tricky Ed posted:tl;dr: Don't buy a fixer-upper at the upper end of your spending ability. Your renovation budget could easily double and you need to be able to handle that. Well, at least the roof was ok? 
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Jul 13, 2017 21:14
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Zero VGS posted:I paid like 70k over list price so they ought to be in a nice mood about it.
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Jul 30, 2017 19:46
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My initial reaction is that you should probably try living on your own for a while before you buy a house. Have you actually lived on your own for a significant amount of time? Preferably outside of dorms. If not, then you would probably benefit from renting for a while because it will allow you to experiment with different locations and housing and work out what you actually like and want to live in. If you say that $2k is all you have for a down payment, that isn't enough to be buying a house. Some people love the 20% rule, but even throwing that out you need to be in a situation where your down payment isn't the total of your savings so that you can cover things like inspections, closing, moving, and any sudden expenses of home ownership. Your expenses are so low right now that you probably don't worry much about spending. Honestly I would recommend at this point that you backburner the idea of buying, or even moving out, and start by heading over to the newbie finance thread and getting yourself a budget. One thing you can do is start budgeting your rent based on what you might pay before you actually move out, so that you can see what that actually feels like as a spending pattern. While you are working out your budget you can be packing that money away for funding security deposits, moving expenses, etc. so that you are in a better position to actually start renting.
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Aug 9, 2017 14:52
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scrubs season six posted:Any advice? I am assuming that the email they sent was with a link to access the documents? I would guess that most competent users would assume that (seeing as they have no context at all) it is some sort of phishing attempt to draw them into a malware site and not click/actually download anything. I certainly wouldn't. As far as I know, credit monitoring isn't actually any better than manually checking your credit yourself, it just takes that burden off your plate in terms of time/effort. I have it offered through multiple fronts and it has never seemed any more detailed/responsive than just checking credit information yourself. It would be better if it actually offered some sort of identity-theft protection, if it does? If you are concerned, something you can do is request a credit freeze, which will prevent anyone from doing anything with your information while the freeze is active. This also means that you will have to unfreeze it before you can get any new credit (cards, loans, etc.) but you've just bought a house so you're probably ok on that front? I think this is probably a good idea seeing as you have a known breach and it's mostly a question of what the person that got that link does.
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Aug 31, 2017 15:12
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I am really confused at the combination of 'I am terrified about any sign of asbestos anywhere' and 'Sure I guess I will skip proper abatement and let this uncertified contractor knock it out'.
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Feb 12, 2018 18:18
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Check to see if your city or state offers home-buying classes. They do those here and they not only go over the whole process and provide a lot of guidance and information, they let you know what sort of programs are available and if there is anything in particular for first-time buyers, etc, that you might not have heard about.
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Apr 10, 2018 17:31
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Sort of on this topic, I got a good rate and estimate from a lender online (Commonwealth Mortgage) but I am hesitate that it might be better to pay more to a local lender - my credit union gave us a pretty competitive estimate and I might be able to haggle, but I don't know if they'll actually be any better at getting everything done on time than this other company. I kind of feel like I am going to end up hounding whoever we pick, so I might as well spend as little as possible on it.
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May 19, 2018 02:59
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The difference isn't enormous, but it doesn't sound like it's worth much of a premium at all anyway to get it through the CU. I am assuming they'll just sell it on immediately, hopefully whoever gets it won't be a tremendous pain (they will).
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May 21, 2018 15:13
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My college dorm didn't require you to preauthorize an aquarium. Just the fact that clause exists would make me back the gently caress up from that development immediately. Like can you imagine a world where you get a notice from your HOA demanding you let them inspect your home because your neighbor saw a bag of gravel in your garage and is concerned you may have an illicit aquarium? I am strongly predisposed against HOAs in general, but that seems like a real red flag.
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May 31, 2018 14:34
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To be fair, if he said 'Hey I just talked to this guy called Hoodwinker who I have literally never met but he seems to be on the up and up', some skepticism is not really a surprise. On the other hand, you should be able to ditch whoever brought it up and just show her the math that in two years you'll have no equity, especially when you account for the costs of selling, and instead you could save for two years and be in a much better position to buy a place you're actually going to stay in. Then if she says 'HEY NONG MAN's math doesn't account for our love', well, you have a problem.
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Jun 4, 2018 14:51
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Dik Hz posted:Also, keep in mind that the inspector and realtor both have an incentive in you buying the house.
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Jun 5, 2018 15:20
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My appraiser appears to have simply rubber-stamped our offer; they even appraised at exactly our initial offer, not even the reduced price we negotiated to after the inspection. So I'm not really sure it was of any particular value. I'm not saying they're all like that, I assume they provide some value in places, but it doesn't seem like much here.
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Jun 29, 2018 20:03
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Hauki posted:Congratulations. Now get ready to spend the rest of your money fixing dumb poo poo you didn’t notice or anticipate. Make sure to visit the crappy construction thread for ideas on how to halfass this so any future owner will hate you.
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Jul 10, 2018 02:17
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This is less homebuying advice and more life advice: It sounds like you are currently unhappy and stressed out about your living situation. That's understandable, but you should recognize that it doesn't put you into a good situation for making important decisions, especially ones with huge and long-term effects. It sounds like you are pretty wound up, and that is going to make you grab for any opportunity to get out, even ones that leave you in a precarious position (like handling two mortgages). You are also possibly seeing this new place and attaching more emotional energy to it that it deserves, because it's appearing as an immediate lifeline to your problems. You should sell your current house. Don't worry about doing any more DIY work or remodeling, unless you are in a situation where you literally have opened walls or something left gaping. If your kitchen is functional but old and dated, that's fine. Some people will be happy to take a dated kitchen because they can only afford the lower price point; other people will prefer the chance to fix up a place to their own needs rather than buy something newly finished but perhaps not ideal. Get a realtor, do the minimum to make it able to sell, and do that and get out of there. Move into an apartment in a place where you aren't feeling trapped and scared, and give yourself time to recover before you make a decision about buying another house. You will make a much better decision than you would now. I understand that you really want this new house, but recognize that you're in a skewed perspective and houses aren't soulmates; there are plenty out there you can be completely happy with, so if you lose this one it's not a big deal. Better that you let it go by than jump on it half-cocked and end up losing it in a year because you were floating two mortgages on a very slim budget and had an accident/got laid off/had your roof fall off.
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Jul 11, 2018 15:24
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I'm not sure this is really the thread for the discussion, but who knows where is. Bad with money? Kids are definitely BWM. Anyway, the news-bite versions of the reports are predictably bad, but if you look at the actual report itself it acknowledges a lot of the limitations of its model and also discusses the alternatives that could be used for making estimates and the problems that arise that led them to not use those methods. For Housing, the report bases the amount on extra housing costs associated with an additional bedroom in a home. It's certainly not perfect (because it doesn't account for the fact that children may share a room either with their siblings or parents) but their argument is that the method is actually more conservative than alternatives because it doesn't factor in additional housing expenses that a family may incur that are the result of children that isn't just a bedroom - such as paying for a premium for a home with child-centered advantages like schools, parks, etc., and additional spending in a house that would be child-centered but not a bedroom - play-rooms, family rooms, additional furnishings in common rooms. It's certainly possible to have a child and not pay anything additional for housing, but the purpose of the report isn't to recommend what you should be doing, it's to try and estimate the actual spending patterns of people relating to their children, so the fact you can Harry Potter a kid under the stairs and not incur any costs doesn't matter unless that reflects the average behavior of families in the country. Having said that, in terms of approaching your personal spending, Housing spending is probably the easiest one to restrain and control because you can simply not buy/rent a new house and rearrange your life to make your current arrangement work as well as possible - whatever that may be. Our child spending is much less flexible, because you can't really just keep buying the same amount of food and split it among more people (well you can, but its not good) or just not spend money on childcare and hope your kid won't die during an 8-hour shift unattended. The transportation spending is done simply by looking at the expenses of 'family related' transportation (ie, not employment related or commuting) and allocating that among the family as 50/50 between parents and children and then broken down per-capita-child (so with three kids, each kid is allocated 16% of your family-related transportation spending). They acknowledge that isn't great but is their best attempt to determine the expense, because it's a very difficult thing to pin down. And again, the report is attempting to be descriptive, not prescriptive, so while can certainly whittle away child-related transport costs, the reality is that a bunch of people do drive their kids around to school, activities, friend's houses, etc., especially when they live somewhere that doesn't have any sort of functional transit. So you can say '15% is a stupid amount of money to spend on kid's transport', but you may want to consider whether that reflects a problem in the study methodology, or whether it's more likely the average household is just dumb about spending their money and it's describing that. 
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Jul 11, 2018 17:59
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marsisol posted:gently caress aappraisers. We're 20 days from closing and our lender's appraiser just appraised the house we're buying 30k below asking. We sent them a list of more applicable comps and he wouldn't budge on his price. Meanwhile, another appraiser from a different lender had it spot on at 370k. The interest rates are much better for the lender with the 30k below asking. Now what? It's a fairly hot market, so this is going to be expensive, isn't it? Have you negotiated between the lenders? Take your offer with the lower rate to the one with the good appraisal and see if they'll budge.
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Jul 28, 2018 16:18
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In my market, 'as-is' means that the seller isn't going to fix anything and doesn't make any representations about the state of the property - you often see it in the case where the resident/owner has passed and the house is being sold by the kids/inheritors. They haven't lived there, or not for 20 years, and don't have any idea if the upstairs toilet backs up or if the basement floods or anything. They still let you do an inspection if you want, it just means that they're not interested in making any repairs and can't tell you anything about the property other than what you see. I would definitely walk from anywhere that flat out said they weren't allowing inspections. Sometimes people here waive their inspection contingency because it makes an offer more certain and possibly appealing to a seller, but they're still allowed to have one - they just don't get an out on their contract if it comes back full of problems. For someone to have a flat no inspection, I would assume they know there is something horribly wrong that would tank any sale and want to avoid it coming to light.
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Aug 7, 2018 19:03
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If you are in a hot market, you might want to sell your house first and then rent back (if they'll do that) or live in a short stay/your car/etc. until you purchase and close. That way you don't have to contingency your offer. We actually did this sort of the other way around, where our sellers requested a longer closing period so they could buy their new place without having to worry about selling. Fortunately we were able to do that, and it allowed us to beat other offers.
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Aug 12, 2018 02:27
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We did 10% down, mostly for the same reason - we wanted more cash on hand, especially because houses can require pricey work on short notice. We're going to pay down that balance as soon as possible.
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Aug 12, 2018 14:09
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You guys its crazy to keep your down payment invested like that, you never know when stocks might tumble. That's why I decided to keep my down payment savings in other property. As soon as my offer is accepted, I'll just need to sell some of the 34 distressed properties I own in the rust belt to produce the earnest money!
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Aug 16, 2018 20:10
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The only bank that I have worked with that made wires and transfers relatively simple was HSBC, otherwise they all seem to be a hot mess. We got a bank check for our purchasing instead of wiring stuff.
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Aug 17, 2018 19:15
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We were unfortunate enough to discover some knob and tube that hadn't been properly removed.  After the initial panic, it's not the end of the world. If it has been left in place and not spliced into or covered in insulation, it's ok. But you want to get it taken care of as soon as you can, and definitely ask for the reduction. If they have any idea what they are doing that ask should not be a surprise, because its a huge headache for insurance at the least. Keep in mind that if it's pervasive it means cracking open everything to pull it all out and replace it, so it can be quite a job. A good electrician can work in zones or rooms so at least you're whole place isn't a disaster all at once.You should probably get someone out to quote the work, too.
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Sep 4, 2018 04:46
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Are you in bear country? Filling your land with berries might not be wise.
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Sep 5, 2018 21:45
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Our house is on a 6000sqft plot (I think that's ~0.10 acres?) and these posts make me so glad that I am not responsible for more land. Don't get me wrong, I love the woods, but I'd really rather visit them and leave the caretaking to park rangers or arborists or whoever gets employed to do that stuff for public preserves.
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Sep 6, 2018 16:14
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silvergoose posted:Yeah I'm not even happy about my big lawn, can I just turn it into dirt and rocks please Should have bought in the south, then you could sweep your yard to dirt and it would just be a family tradition.
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Sep 6, 2018 20:56
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On the plus side, now they are pretty much going to blame anything that happens in their lives on you, so you can feel free to go hog wild on reporting them for any stupid bullshit they have been doing that you might have given a pass on. Also, you should probably set up some sort of security system to be on the safe side.
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Sep 14, 2018 16:40
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I guess I am a huge luddite, because I literally just kept a notebook where I would write down stuff about the houses we visited; I feel like this worked because it was very similar to Koivunen's view - we went into a house and either it was a clear up or down. Also our market is stiff enough that it's not like you get weeks tow look through places and compare them, if you didn't like a place enough to put in an offer the next day, someone else is going to snap it up within the week, so it was a lot less 'which of these places is ideal for us' and much more 'is this a place we want, y/n'. Keeping track of stuff was still useful for getting a sense of comparisons and working out where we were being less reasonable/rational about a place though.
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Sep 18, 2018 14:47
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kw0134 posted:I'm not sure who's supposed to fall for this. Well, you know that they were dumb enough to buy a house, so they probably get a pretty good response rate. 
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Sep 21, 2018 14:53
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