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I'm in VA and the taxes on the car is prorated downward for those with cheaper cars below $25k in value. My total registration cost is like $50 less than it was in CA. Property taxes might be a tad high but it pales compared to the exorbitant costs of renting over owning in this market.
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Jan 31, 2012 22:41
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Splizwarf posted:About that; pros and cons of buying/building a house in Stafford/Spotsylvania/Fredericksburg counties (VA) over the next year?
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Jan 31, 2012 23:43
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Trying to resist parental pressure to buy can be tough, but if he ever uses a line like "40 years ago I bought a house and it's turned out great!" you should point out it's not 40 years ago for starters and that buying a place and selling you take on a lot of risks with the place having problems that aren't your responsibility as a renter, tie yourself down at a career stage when you have zero stability (making moving harder has been a major, major factor in my own career), and the only way you'd come out ahead financially is if prices were to go up to match what you pay out in closing costs as a seller 2 years from now. And home prices are basically determined now more by demand and if the area's stagnant you're betting on things getting better. The tax deductions for a lower priced house are few as well. My parents keep telling me I should just buy a place for tax deductions given my high tax rates but I say that's like going out and buying a new car because I'd get a 27% discount so long as I keep the car. If you have to, you can say you heard of a guy that lost $110k+ over 3 years of owning a place at 23 after being pressured by family to buy because "it's a great long-term investment" and you're spooked as hell. Oh yeah, it gets fun to marry someone with their own property and you have to merge houses when neither of you expected to have someone else move in when buying.
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Feb 4, 2012 07:22
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When you're buying anything with an HOA, you should scrutinize the HOA more than your place itself because over the long term (more than 5 years) the costs of the HOA dues can easily outstrip your mortgage and property taxes. I've never heard of HOA dues going down in a year among any HOA newer than 20 years. It's basically impossible to control costs of HOA dues and they're not deductible on your taxes unless you rent the place out, so your costs can quickly approach those $900 / mo places. I'm really not sure what kind of community would have $300 / mo for dues but have studio apartments available for under $100k either.
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Feb 6, 2012 17:24
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Untagged posted:Northern Virginia Housing and Rental Market However, my general point about HOAs still stands - there's just not enough regulation on them to keep them from becoming the worst of any possible human organization and in 10+ years, the HOA dues will eclipse the rent you're charging, mark my words.
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Feb 8, 2012 06:35
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Hahaha, the whole time we were talking about NoVA some of us thought you were talking about Northern Virginia (United States), not Nova Scotia. I didn't know people referred to Nova Scotia as just Nova though, my bad.
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Feb 9, 2012 05:58
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Those making a good amount of money now may not always do so. Who knows what could happen to some well-paying professions now in the next 10 years?
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Feb 11, 2012 18:32
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Pron on VHS posted:Hey guys, I am thinking about buying a condo in northern Virginia (Fairfax) and wanted to run it by this thread since I'm 26 and have never purchased a house or applied for a large loan before.
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Feb 14, 2012 00:33
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I've known of two cases where an employer would pay for the total costs of relocation including closing costs on your current home and your new home (with restrictions on how expensive it could be and all). * Federal jobs with certain budgets (probably gonna be defense or energy or FBI, let's face it) * Healthcare, particularly for higher-paid healthcare professionals like PAs and doctors LloydDobler posted:Even if everything went perfect and you saved a tiny bit of money over renting, is it worth the risk?
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Mar 21, 2012 21:45
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squidtarts posted:I'm another one of those crazy NoVA renters trying to decide if it's worth it to buy a house. Husband and I have been in our apartment here for 4 years, rent increases about 6-8% every year so that we're paying $1550/mo. for a two bedroom now. He has a stable job where he's gotten a promotion, I'm currently unemployed but we live just fine of his income. I'm also disabled and looking for a federal government job, so we are likely to stay in this area for quite some time. The DC area is notable as one of the few parts of the US where it's somewhat reasonable to buy a house (mostly because of government spending barely having a downward effect on job prospects here unlike 99.95% of the rest of the country) but do be careful outside the beltway because that's where almost all the price declines have been in the past few years. Wife and I will be pulling a considerable amount above median income even for Fairfax county and we're still nowhere near ready to commit to the area mostly because her job prospects are oddly enough nowhere near as good as yours (she's white and not disabled or a veteran, etc.).
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Apr 2, 2012 04:38
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$130k wouldn't be unreasonable of a personal income for me to swing for a $2.5k / month rent with the wife paying for nothing (comparable to taxes of being single being my point). Texas doesn't have state income tax and that can make it a bit easier as well. However, Austin being in Texas and having lower salaries overall comparably, $130k in Texas would be like $230k / yr here in northern Virginia... but northern Virginia has a crapton of $200k+ earning households while I'd guess that in Austin you'd be likely to have someone in the oil / energy business. If you're not blinking at $2500+ / mo to pay for a place by yourself and only yourself and can pay for a $400k+ place with cash you're hardly in the realm of "normal" income or means anymore. Go ahead and blow whatever you want on luxuries at that point, you hardly qualify for any tax deductions aimed at the middle class anymore anyway (you wouldn't be able to contribute to a Roth IRA, for example). Much of the thread has made it an explicit point that your primary house is almost certainly a poor investment vehicle compared to anything else you could do with that money.
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Apr 6, 2012 15:12
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I think stuff like broken appliances falls under stuff that you're basically out of luck on because the state just doesn't want to deal with People's Court issues more or less rather than personal safety and well-being issues. Had a very similar problem with my landlord for the past year and that's the only way to get them to do anything without getting a full-blown lawsuit over $600 washer & dryers (that I think did the opposite of what they were supposed to do). I think the HVAC in my place basically didn't work (I'd put my hands over the vents and I'd get room-temp air blowing in regardless of season) and I just Lived With It. When I moved out I had to get the stupid air ducts cleaned because I had two cats. Never had to do it before until now. The guy told me the HVAC had mold in it and the coil is basically fried, so I don't think the place will pass inspection and be an even bigger pain in the rear end because the landlord put the place up for sale the day after I moved out. Sucks that I had to pay double rent of $1k wasted for a place I won't be even living in but that's small fries compared to the pains of having to replace an old HVAC and ducts older than myself. The real sick part is dealing with security deposits and the first couple months of rent at the same time. I wound up writing about $7k worth of checks within 5 days of each other and they slammed together on my checking account I normally keep under $10k and made me awful nervous some other random bullshit $2k check I wrote would be drafted. Now I'm waiting on $3k in security deposit to come back and I might have to sue my old landlord for it but may not even get that because he just might declare bankruptcy. I'll add a corollary to the mantra of this thread: DO NEVER RENT FROM BROKEASS MOTHERFUCKERS. With so many distressed properties around still, this can be harder than it sounds like, but I found a great landlord that's had the house paid off for a long time and has been a landlord for 10+ years already. ===== This is for Virginia law but may be applicable for other states in some respects. Virginia tends to side with landlords more as opposed to, say, Massachusetts. But HVACs not working is something that landlords are legally obligated to remedy under state law and you can hit them where it hurts without actually suing them. http://www.vdacs.virginia.gov/consumers/f-landlord.shtml quote:Q: My landlord refuses to repair anything. What can I do to get things repaired? http://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/consumer/tenant/tenant_landlord_faqs.htm#question12 quote:We have no heat or hot water. The landlord hasn't fixed the problem even after many phone messages. What can I do? For general condition of a place including many facilities, Virginia sides with the landlord mostly: http://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/consumer/tenant/tenant_landlord_faqs.htm#question13 quote:I rented an older apartment because the landlord said it would be all fixed up and very nice to live in. There is no new paint or carpets, the air conditioner is noisy, there is no microwave, and the tile is very old. How can I make the landlord improve these things?
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Apr 6, 2012 20:14
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Silvah posted:What are everyone's thoughts on buying a house from my parents and leasing it back to them for a few years until I'm ready to move in?
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Apr 11, 2012 03:45
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daggerdragon posted:How... do you scratch a toilet?
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Apr 17, 2012 02:26
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The only reason I would buy a place with an HOA (again) and think it's any slightly bit sane of a financial decision would be if I felt the money I spent was worth it over renting a comparable place in the same market and I really, really didn't want to think of moving or didn't mind setting down some serious roots (for a long-lasting career, for example - possibly not even for a marriage given the wonderful odds of those working out). Maybe if you're in a horribly dense area where you could literally be a millionaire but have no way to buy a place without a co-op agreement or HOA it might make sense, but at a certain point I'd try to just go up one market segment or so in what I'm renting instead of buying in the range I'm currently renting. Also, if you're going to buy a condo, make it a highrise or something that's got some decent noise proofing between neighbors above, below you, and around you. That does have some semblance of value from your usual rental apartment at least.
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May 1, 2012 04:11
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Ozmiander posted:BoA now says our short sale was handed off to "Quality Assurance". WTF does that even mean? Then again, lots of processes have probably changed in the 20 months since my short sale.
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May 10, 2012 15:18
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Baronjutter posted:I'm embarrassed to say one of my primary reasons for wanting to buy is that my hobby is model trains so I want a 2 or 1/den condo that I can use the smaller room to be a train/hobby room. My wife is the best and is actually letting me do this. Kids are not coming. Me and my trains are kid enough. Velochis posted:-We have cats, so it's tough to find a place worth living that allows pets.
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Jun 20, 2012 16:25
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SlightlyMadman posted:Like I said, I was an idiot; I was 23 and it was the height of the real-estate boom. I was basically operating with the idea that I should be grateful my offer was accepted in a seller's market and not do anything to jeopardize it. I'm glad it's so obvious to everyone now that it's not even worth mentioning, but the question was asked about trusting your agent's inspector so I shared my experience.
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Jul 19, 2012 16:28
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They're stuck in the position many are in and the only thing that could make sense for them from a policy perspective would be to subsidize a principal reduction for them because even these newfangled refinance programs are for those that want to stay in their home, not for those wanting to leave.RurouNNy posted:We can afford our mortgage payments, so I don't think a short sale is going to be an option. As a comedy option, you could get a government job and they'll pay for the differences when you relocate.
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Sep 18, 2012 21:37
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I Love You! posted:so many bad Realtors. There really needs to be so much more accountability and peer/client review systems in place for the entire profession.
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Oct 29, 2012 04:18
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The other interesting thing is that real estate losses on your primary income are not deductible unless you treat the property as commercial / rental, and even then you cannot deduct more than somewhere around I think $100k (basis adjusted) unless you count as a real estate professional. So basically every other tax treatment of properties encourages property prices to go up monotonically thus artificially creating a price floor. 1031 exchange helps cement this part in as well, although most assets that are applicable under 1031 have not appreciated anywhere like housing has (do we pay 20 times as much for beef as we did in 1980?) If I lost a crap-ton of money in stock, I can carry over the losses for years to come offsetting my gains. If I was in Detroit in 1990 and left recently losing everything, I couldn't get a deduction for anything - I may even have a tax bill due to how 1031 exchanges can recapture the depreciation while I lived there! This is a fundamental reason why you do not treat your primary house as an "investment" - it is not characterized as an investment by the US IRS, plain and simple. While there are some upsides financially, the downsides are not protected like you would be if you put money in the stock market or even your 401k. Real estate: be rich or gently caress off
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Sep 11, 2013 17:25
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That sort of advice was used during the recession frequently to get buyers on the fence to "think things over" more. In fact, my agent recommended it given how tough of a market I was in to try to sell back in 2010 and get people to buy a short sale partly because demand was just so bad despite all the pros of the place in general. Now, when I bought said same place, I had to come in with an offer within two days of it coming to market because people would literally be walking in and signing on the spot. I wound up beating out a couple by one hour that was coming in with the same down as me and heard there were three others following in the evening hoping I'd back out or something in the event of triggering a contingency. So basically real estate markets are super sensitive to their competitiveness around the world and any advice doled out without taking into account said market isn't advice.
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Oct 11, 2013 19:38
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If you think you have anything in your life figured out at 23 that could warrant buying a house for any reason other than "I have a bunch of money and want to buy rental property because I need to diversify my 7 figures plus in assets" you are probably going to get burned buying a place so young in so many ways. I bought a place for $320k at 23 and it's among the biggest regrets in my life. The biggest thing to take into account when you're young is just the basic amount of time you're spending looking after and taking care of your place. Do you want to spend an inordinate amount of your 20s sitting at Home Depot? Do you think that people that worked really freakin' hard in their 20s and made themselves billionaires by 30 bought houses (hint: almost none have)? After I bought my place, I took count of the hours spent on dealing with the place (and it's a stupid condo) to add further insult to the stupidities of buying at the top of a boom. Even if my place held its value I would have regretted buying it just for the amount of time wasted that didn't actually get me closer to any goal that mattered to me in life. The opportunity costs of owning a house before your life is ready is no different than having children or getting married before your life situation is accommodating to it. Do NOT listen to people's advice on real estate that have only gone through boom years unless they're actually professional real estate magnates pretty much (read: almost everyone over the age of 40). Back when most of these people bought their places, you could in relative terms to our incomes today, get houses for about $175k on average in major cities. That's pretty much impossible now except for foreclosures and short sales, and even then they're nowhere near as affordable as in the early 80s and up to the mid 90s. I consider buying houses to be an optional life choice almost equivalent in impact as having children. Yes, most people don't even think about whether they want children - the know it. But both houses and children are stupidly expensive today when wages are on an accelerated trend downward and costs of living anywhere that's got access to good jobs is going up even faster. But always be careful with advice from those that didn't even think much about the decisions to buy a house and have children "just because" more or less because this isn't 30 years ago.
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Oct 25, 2013 16:14
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Yeah, even out to South Riding and Loudoun County I see signs for "new, affordable homes starting from $500k." And from what I can tell by casual conversations I overhear, almost everyone over 40 with children that works inside the Beltway doesn't actually live there and commute in from that far. This leads to the average commute time in the DC area creeping above 1 hour. In the little area where I am (Vienna, Oakton), the median house price sold was for $800k - over 40% were cash-only transactions. That's still like 8 miles outside the beltway, and prices get even crazier once you cross over. So basically in the DC area, unless you're a 1%er or babyboomer with mid-7 figures in assets, you're not buying a house probably. And unlike California, Virginia is a recourse state, so if prices crash, people are on the hook for the difference.
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Nov 4, 2013 23:07
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GanjamonII posted:We also found that the lender is BoA and this was originally a countrywide loan. I'm not familiar with the details but our agent thinks that BoA will try to process it quickly due to the whole BoA is liable for countrywide fraud thing. Has anyone here had any experience with this particular situation? I don't want to have to wait 3 months to find out this isn't going to happen when there is other houses we can buy during that time. I think the short sale process itself for me once we found a buyer willing to go through with it all was about 4 weeks long... then BofA balked because their appraiser was stupid and claimed that the fair market value was actually 250k when there were literally zero comps available due to a litany of factors. So the buyer backed out and BofA lost more and more money in an attempt to not lose a whole $20k in the end (loan had PMI, so they were going to get some cash out of it - they were trying to make it precisely $0 lost on the books I believe given the back & forth I had with them). The next buyer took about 6 weeks from offer to close I believe - BofA learned their lesson. This was in 2010 when the full gravity of the Countrywide problems weren't recognized. For anyone looking at short sales, if things aren't looking favorable for you and the bank is starting to throw their weight around, walk and go to the next one. It is typically within your right to do so as a provision of short sales that you don't get when buying most non-distressed properties. One of the downsides of looking for distressed property deals on houses is the wait for the right value one, but I think it can be rewarding if you go into it with the right mindset.
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Nov 9, 2013 20:45
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One thing to keep in mind is that if interest rates went up, it would put downward pressure on house prices, which is a Bad Thing according to most of the baby boomer economists more or less. Regardless, the past few years and another year or two from now we'll still probably have interest rates hardly different from today. A percent or two difference on a mortgage shouldn't drive anyone to buy earlier than they're financially ready, and I'm sure we'll maybe go up another percent or two, tops, in the next 18 months. Although for the lifetime of a loan the interest paid tends to dwarf the principal and so the mortgage rate matters significantly, I'd still rather just have a cheaper house in the end with lower maintenance costs over a more expensive one. adorai posted:Keep in mind that a short sale has a serious advantage over a straight foreclosure -- the seller is trying to preserve as much of their credit as they can, and part of that is maintaining the property until it sells. They will do a much better job of making sure the basement doesn't flood, that any leaks in the roof are addressed, etc.. than a bank agent watching a vacant home will.
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Nov 10, 2013 17:50
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Non-recourse states mean that the bank cannot sue you for the residual balance when you have a short sale / foreclosure. This works for everyone rich and poor (typically better for the poor since they foreclose much more often). Also, let's not forget that the .1% have lawyers and can probably draft up a loan that puts them at the advantage.
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Nov 11, 2013 02:56
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Renting today in North America basically only works profitably at small-scale if you get a pretty drat good steal of a house (and I mean as great value including minimal upkeep) and you have a steady stream of renters while they basically pay off the house for you. The conversation belongs more in the rental / landlord thread though.Jealous Cow posted:What do you think is a better approach: Ranma posted:poo poo, I'd rather buy a 100 year old house that has been taken care of then an 8 year old house built during the boom by some shady rear end construction company looking to cut costs anywhere they can.
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Jan 15, 2014 15:05
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FrozenVent posted:Condo.txt There do exist some HOAs that are perfectly solvent and run by decent managers, but they are a small minority in the US at present, especially among the communities that had anything to do with the last housing boom. The condo I bought in '07 for $320k that sold for $170k in '10 is still only about $170k now it turns out and the dues have gone up from $340 / mo to $390 even after the resolution of the massive lawsuit that got the HOA only some of the money spent on lawyers. The case precedent against Equity Residential in Chicago Q1 2010 affected dozens and dozens of HOAs around the US with a lot more that didn't survive the legal costs to take it to the court. Almost none of these condos will appreciate to even match inflation because monthly cost increases will suppress natural market appreciation. Most of the residences in the area appreciated about 30% at least in the same time period, for comparison. Maybe in another 10 years or so will these condos be possibly worth buying and expecting to match even normal SFH real estate price curves, and by then we'll probably have another recession or two. Orange_Lazarus posted:Dumb Question: For someone that hasn't negotiated a short sale with their bank what happens when (if) they sell their house for less than the amount owed on the property? All of that depends upon the jurisdiction and/or HOA allowing transfer of the title to the new owner. Some HOAs will withhold the certificate / place a lien to sell a property for things such as unpaid dues and is the nuclear option besides a lawsuit that they have against a resident. Given that at least 75% of HOAs have a lawsuit going, there's an ICBM in flight at all times in the land of HOAs. Depending upon the state, the lender will either file a 1099-C that's cancellation of debt, which means that the seller will owe the difference in taxes because the 1099-C (like every other 1099) is treated as regular income. In a recourse state, the bank will likely file a court action / lawsuit for the difference (probably a warrant in debt). Short sales are most popular in non-recourse states for this reason while outright bankruptcies are more popular in recourse states to get out of a potentially massive 1099C (not to mention usually a foreclosure / short sale is preceded by a financial catastrophe). Lenders in recourse states can probably both collect on PMI payout as well as any proceed from suing the former owner.
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Feb 28, 2014 23:28
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My old place was the worst scenario - high dues, few amenities, special assessments anyway, and most owners didn't live in the country so little progress was made. It was worse in overall quality of life than just renting an apartment because there's no way to evict owners from their own property. If you're going to get a condo, I'd go with a high rise with tons of concrete between floors and hopefully between each unit.
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Mar 2, 2014 15:52
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As a former condo owner in Bellevue, WA, I can understand the benefits over renting an apartment, but I believe the circumstances where it works in one's favor ahead of an apartment are in the minority especially compared to other options like housing co-ops, townhouses, rowhouses, and many detached SFHs. If you think of your HOA as something as binding and serious as marriage, you're on the right track given that "divorcing" your HOA can easily bankrupt you in the wrong circumstances and that a really good one is like buying a set of apartments with some good folks that aren't trying to scam each other and are also responsible too. I'm going to defend condos a bit though because I roll as devil's advocate a lot.
If you look at the above pros though, these sorts of options mostly apply if you're the type to pay for lots of "life conveniences" (read: like spending money on decorations and consumption frequently). This is fine for fairly wealthy, childless people that value comforts and prefer paying to make problems go away over long-term financial stability and efficiency of capital like we tend to value in BFC being skewed toward the reality that most people are not able to afford such luxuries in attitude. I was in that situation myself though and still would rather have the money I lost out on than the secondary BS and inconveniences I went through merely by owning the sucker as a non-owner occupied unit. So basically, I think condos may be a good option if you're looking at a 2nd or 3rd home given that you're fairly established and you go into it with the intent that it's pretty much a luxury. This is related to why people get suckered into timeshares though and that's probably the bottom of the heap of the so-called real estate ladder if you ask me. My wife's from North Carolina and she's completely amazed at the idea of people making decent money owning condos because it's what poor people would buy there given even houses were like $100k (she had bought a house with her previous guy for ~$100k). Now, after having lived in big cities where educated people with good jobs regularly make $200k+ / yr, she's starting to get it, but it's still a mindfuck for her how anyone with millions would still buy a condo. Elephanthead posted:So if a HOA is capable of forcing a sheriff sale (a big if) are they willing to bid the mortgage owed plus their fees? It seems they would lose money going down this road. Keep your condo underwater with equity loans and never pay your fees. Orange_Lazarus posted:Is there some fundamental difference between a condo and a townhouse?
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Mar 3, 2014 17:43
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I think the HOA chat is another variation on DO NEVER BUY especially if you're in an area where condos are about the only thing close to affordable for you. But the funny thing there is that if you can even dream of buying property in those areas, you can probably safely ignore a lot of the warnings in this thread anyway because you're probably wealthy enough to just throw money at problems without making huge sacrifices. But this is a "if you don't know if it applies to you, it almost certainly doesn't" scenario.
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Mar 6, 2014 03:11
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One of my inlaws is the owner of a residential construction business and really likes prefab houses but notes some custom houses can't be made that way and requires builders to be onsite when it's made from start to finish (he custom-built his own house). Mass manufacturing of prefab homes hasn't really happened so the pricing of most prefab houses approaches custom jobs to begin with. Every indicator I've seen in my own research makes me think builders assume that you're somewhat wealthy and that you want a custom house as a priority over cost considerations. I'd entertain buying the cheapest house in an expensive suburb like Atherton and dropping a prefab house in to determine if it negatively affects property values and use that as an indicator. The only problem I see with that is that when improvements and such are calculated by a lot of counties, if the home isn't constructed onsite, your property becomes classified differently and with a value penalty similar to a mobile home (this is what I remember reading at least 3 years ago and I hope it's changed).
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Mar 19, 2014 20:37
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LogisticEarth posted:Tell me about it. Prices around me are stupid. I have no idea who is paying these prices. My wife and I have a household income of around a $100k. I figure we can comfortably afford up to $230k without getting into house-poor territory. I routinely see places go for $300k, $400k, or $500k around me. I just can't fathom that there are THAT many rich folks buying these homes.
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Apr 8, 2014 23:32
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Trabant posted:Just curious: is that a serious thing or just a piece of advice with respect to crappy HOAs or building mgmt? We're looking at both condos and single-family homes with no real preference so far. If you are in a high price urban area like SF, London, or NYC, I would recommend probably becoming a millionaire a time or two over before considering buying anything there. I say this partly because to be able to have the stability of income and such to be able to afford even buying in such a high price place, you'd probably have to have succeeded quite well in your field to make settling in the area a sensible decision you wouldn't regret several times over. I don't really recommend settling in a high price area as a life choice if the best job you can get after years or decades of struggling is a middle manager at a random restaurant while you're still juggling 3-4 part time jobs, there's hardly anything trending upward for you, nothing to do with your abilities or anything probably even. Because this situation is becoming so common homebuying rates wouldn't happen for young adults even if they were making similar in proportion to what their parents' generation did (granted, a lot of them would be children of Gen Xers, yeesh). Caveat: I'm the guy that wrote the HOA warnings in the OP of the thread. Sockser posted:What is even the point of buying a condo/buying an apartment? Like what advantages are there to that rather than renting an apartment? Almost none of these criteria apply for people that are looking for information in this thread. But for some intangibles asides from the usual concerns with a house (location, price, and amenities), you can normally change out a lot of stuff in a condo still while you probably can't with an apartment. Anything WITHIN the walls tends to be of little concern to an HOA - it's just the question of what's shared that drives people insane. Some HOAs are pretty stable and have solid management, and they will likely be vetting YOU a lot because they understand the risks of shithead owners poisoning an HOA by that point. My recommendation if you do want to buy a condo is to make sure the place was actually constructed to be condos and that the walls and floors are thick enough to be actually soundproof to some degree. High rises by design have to have floors that thick, but the worst culprits of cheaply profiting from real estate are apartment conversions that are about 2-4 stories high.
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May 5, 2014 13:49
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canyoneer posted:For sale by owner, aka FSBO.
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May 5, 2014 19:02
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Cranbe posted:Holy poo poo. Do you own a 8,000sqft house in Alaska or something? Are you sure you don't have a marijuana grow operation in your basement?
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May 18, 2014 23:03
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It didn't make much sense at the time given we did alright at about $150 / mo the previous year and we did nothing different and my landlord was a friend that lived there for a while and he was really surprised and wanted to get out thermal cameras to figure out if there's a leak. It wasn't particularly cold that year and was maybe just a little below freezing. I had baseboard heating so it certainly wasn't a heatpump either. I think the rate we had at the time was being adjusted funny and it had gone up to nearly 12 c / kWh. But I'm in Virginia now and my rate of 5.2 c/kWh is even lower than when I was in Washington state and that's supposed to be one of the lowest in the country.
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May 19, 2014 18:13
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That's a lot more expensive than getting even a top escort or hooker (at $2000 / hr from what I can guess), and you can certainly pay a hooker to just talk to 100% legally to be honest.
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May 21, 2014 02:51
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| # ¿ Apr 26, 2024 01:13 |
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Condos make sense for people that aren't looking for the things most homebuyers tend to want (privacy, control of dwelling, lower long term costs). Otherwise, you're more or less forced into the situation just due to sheer lack of housing supply that can work for your living standards. I'd rather spend the pain and frustration that'd go into dealing with an HOA into something more productive or enjoyable than to buy a place with an HOA out of the bullshit excuse of playing for convenience, so to speak. Only if you get supremely lucky with a condo is the experience positive while most detached SFH owners aren't typically stressed out and such over the mere management of their place. The crazy thing about vacation condos is that you may be better off buying a timeshare for the same place instead. A lot of what (showy) rich people's habits are to throw away money as an indicator of how plentiful it is for them. You have almost no reason to be reading about whether it's ok to buy vacation condos if you're rich enough for dumping money into buying one alongside your two other houses. skipdogg posted:I couldn't have said this better if I wanted to. This should be stickied at the top of the thread and referenced anyone even thinks about buying a condo.
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Jul 1, 2014 13:46
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