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It's summer, which is the peak season, and interest rates seem to have stabilized. And with unemployment remaining low, demand is still there. So I'm not surprised to see sales prices creeping back up again. We are still in a serious nationwide housing shortage in the cities, exacerbated by a stop in new housing starts during the pandemic.
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Jul 13, 2023 21:39
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Pilfered Pallbearers posted:Speaking of, are home prices flying up again? Its summer, people with families are looking to move now so they don't have to deal with changing schools mid-year. The economy is still also doing pretty well, so the people who earn enough to be shopping houses in desirable-to-live areas still have money to do that. Anecdotally at least I also haven't seen any new build worth writing home about around me, but I'm too lazy to look up actual numbers on new housing this quarter.
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Jul 13, 2023 21:48
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There's definitely pressure "down" a bit here. People are bidding in sane increments not $25k-100k like peak pandemic. And some seemingly find houses are lingering on the market for a month+. The the house around the corner from us that they remodeled and slapped on the market for $500k more than it's worth, even with the ADU they added and modernization they did to the main house. Which is coming up on 6 months on the market.
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Jul 13, 2023 22:04
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H110Hawk posted:The the house around the corner from us that they remodeled and slapped on the market for $500k more than it's worth, even with the ADU they added and modernization they did to the main house. Which is coming up on 6 months on the market. There's a place by me that someone tried to flip for too much money. Been on the market for a year at this point. Guess people don't want to overpay to live on a busy road next to a gas station when cheaper places are available. 
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Jul 14, 2023 00:52
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I bought last June and still check Redfin. Is Zillow better? I get serious buyers remorse all the time but the truth of the matter is I’m stuck here for another 3 years at least because this current house hosed up my emergency fund. I could sell and buy in the same area but I’d be moving into the new house with a small amount of savings and just lol if that new house won’t have problems.
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Jul 14, 2023 02:12
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IMO redfin is better, but there are huge swathes of the country that are only covered by zillow and not redfin.
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Jul 14, 2023 04:58
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Leperflesh posted:IMO redfin is better, but there are huge swathes of the country that are only covered by zillow and not redfin. In my experience redfin tend to be a bit more aggressive with pricing. Just across the board higher values. edit: to be clear, in my area Zillow feels more accurate as far as the pricing goes, but Redfin's algorithm might be the more accurate view if you're in a higher over-all value area.
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Jul 14, 2023 13:40
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I stopped browsing Redfin and Zillow the moment I went under contract last August. I haven't experienced any significant buyer's remorse, so I think I had the right idea. It helps that this house has genuinely been a good experience for many reasons. It also helps that I bought over my budget, and then got a big pay raise that made this house comfortably affordable. Redfin currently shows my home at 10% above what I bought it for a year ago, but I was able to buy it for about 10% under peak pandemic pricing due to a combination of luck and timing. I still don't have the heart to look at other local listings to see what the rest of my market has done over the past year.
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Jul 14, 2023 20:49
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gently caress we submitted a bullshit "counter" offer of whatever our original offer was going to be but we "held back" some. We're countering ourselves. 
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Jul 14, 2023 21:19
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I use Redfin because opening a couple Zillow tabs makes my laptop sound like a jet engine and Redfin doesn't. I've come to like the interface better too.
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Jul 14, 2023 21:42
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gently caress we're under contract. 
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Jul 15, 2023 01:10
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Leperflesh posted:IMO redfin is better, but there are huge swathes of the country that are only covered by zillow and not redfin. I've noticed there are sometimes homes listed only on Rent.com. Occasionally, some cities have private MPLS listing that sometimes show more or are just easier to navigate but personally I prefer Redfin.
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Jul 15, 2023 03:28
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We just bid 45k over ask for a place and promptly got beaten in counter by another 25 and it looks like they waived contingencies. It'd sting a lot less if they'd have messaged us/our realtor to let us know instead of just updating the redfin listing.
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Jul 16, 2023 19:36
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So, here's some schadenfreude for you all: After a fair amount of preparation and extensive discussions to make sure we're on the same page, against the advice of this forum, I've put in an offer to buy a place with two friends. I know what you're thinking, but the friends aren't actually the source of schadenfreude, here. The house is very nice, 4 bedroom/3 bath, just south of the southward-moving gentrification line in Seattle (a couple of miles north and the price would have gone up by 20-30%), and a fifteen-minute walk from light rail. Has a 250 sq. ft. shed in the back yard with electricity run to it and a window A/C unit (could be converted into a small ADU if we run plumbing to it). The bedrooms are big, it's got a living room, a family room, a small office/reading nook, the kitchen is incredible with a huge island (4.5' x 8' or so) with bar seating, two ovens separate from the range, the range has a pot filler above it, new refrigerator & dishwasher, and a ton of cabinet/drawer space. Good-sized unfinished basement for storage. The whole place is large enough for us not to be getting in each others' way. This place has been on the market for about three months, price has dropped (from $940k to $820k), had a new roof in 2016, renovated kitchen, bedroom, two bathrooms, and electrical in 2021, and new carpets in 2023. Downsides are no sidewalks for about three blocks (it's on a dead end street), the house is old (1909), and I think the schools are lovely, but none of us are ever having kids, so whatever. Current owners want a three-week rentback, but Washington State just enacted some extra protections on that, so we're thinking it's fine. So, when we went to look at the place for the second time (with our agent), the seller's agent sent us over a preliminary title report, and an inspection they had done a few months ago. Title has a couple of liens on it from the renovations, but they're from a company that does renovations and then collects payment from the sale of the house, so that's not a big deal; escrow should be able to handle it. There's a quitclaim from the parents who owned the place to their adult daughter from March, but I didn't think that was super unusual, figuring it was like an estate management thing, probably getting dumped into a trust. Inspection says that the HVAC could use a servicing, the roof has some moss that needs to be cleaned off, a couple of the drainpipes need to be directed away from the house, and that there's a little bit of siding rot that's fixable; overall, for a house of that age, seems very good. We put in our offer with standard contingencies (financing, title, and inspection). We definitely wanted to have our own inspector look at it, but after some relatively minor stuff on the counter (they wanted to cut down a couple of timelines, and we had put that they should leave a security system that they apparently had leased in the place, and they didn't want to pay for that), they accepted. We wired our earnest money, and scheduled our inspection, which we did on Thursday. The inspection report from the sellers inspector was 55 pages long; the inspection report from our inspector is 129 pages long. We were there with the guy, he spent over four hours looking at the place. Beyond just needing service, the A/C is at end-of-life, and the furnace is well past end-of-life (32 years old), plus has a bunch of rust and water damage. There is some mold in the attic (not a huge amount, but enough that it needs to be remediated), a spot on the foundation that needs to be patched up, a bunch of the electrical is non-standard (neutral and ground going into the same busbar, hot cables not being indicated properly, missing screws in a lot of the panels, and a few outlets that should be GFCI that aren't) a bit of rot on the roof, a spot in the basement that needs to be reinforced due to some rot on one of the beams, a spot where rodents can get in pretty easily under the deck (oh, yeah, it has a decent deck, too). A few other things, nothing catastrophic, but when it all gets added together, makes for a healthy amount of repairs that need to be done. So, the inspection isn't nearly as good as it looked, but still seems... workable? We can ask them to fix a bunch of stuff, and maybe lower the price if they don't want to do it so we can use that money to cover repairs. Then the full title report comes back. It has an item on it that didn't appear on the preliminary report: apparently, the owners of the house owe a few hundred thousand in taxes, penalties, and fees to the state, which the state has filed suit to recover. It turns out they defaulted on a payment plan for taxes owed right around when they filed their quit claim with their daughter. This, when combined with the mechanics liens from the renovations and the remaining mortgage exceeds the value of the house. On top of that, the complaint from the state asks the court to void the quit claim as being a fraudulent conveyance. Which... yeah. We may be mutual with someone who doesn't actually own the house. The sellers' agent assures us that this isn't a problem, but I'm not 100% sure she's aware of the full extent of this; she had been very responsive up until we asked about this, and all of a sudden got quiet for more than a day (I'm thinking she may also be taken for a ride by these people), but she says that the escrow person has dealt with similar situations before, that the state will just settle for whatever is left after the home is purchased. That sure as poo poo doesn't sound like the Department of Revenue to me, but at this point, it feels like if a sale is possible, we're basically their only shot (I doubt anyone else is gonna pay for an inspection after seeing the lawsuit on the title). I'm gonna call the Department of Revenue tomorrow, see if I can get anywhere with the office of the attorney on the case, and we're going to talk to the escrow company, too, make sure they're aware of the full extent of what's going on. We're ready to write this place off, it just sucks; it was in our price range, big, a couple blocks away from some of our friends, near light rail, not a terrible commute, etc. Take this as your "there's a reason you do title and inspection contingencies" lesson of the day. EDIT: Also, if by some miracle this does somehow wind up going through, I'm thinking we'll withdraw the rentback, because I'm not sure these people will be able to find a place in three weeks. Ham Equity fucked around with this message at 20:31 on Jul 16, 2023 |
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Jul 16, 2023 20:20
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Before you do anything else, hire a lawyer
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Jul 16, 2023 20:28
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QuarkJets posted:Before you do anything else, hire a lawyer Yeah, I want to talk to the DoR before that, but that is already on our agenda. I've talked to a friend I have who works as a public lawyer doing tax stuff, already asked him for a referral.
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Jul 16, 2023 20:29
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Ham Equity posted:EDIT: Also, if by some miracle this does somehow wind up going through, I'm thinking we'll withdraw the rentback, because I'm not sure these people will be able to find a place in three weeks. Yeah with the new facts that came to light you should for sure not offer them a rent back, it's already a dicey concept but now you know for a fact that these people haven't been paying their other financial obligations and I wouldn't be surprised at all if they made things difficult for you. But like you said, this is probably where you should walk away, but you should let a lawyer help you decide whether that's the right choice (I think it probably is)
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Jul 16, 2023 20:34
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QuarkJets posted:Yeah with the new facts that came to light you should for sure not offer them a rent back, it's already a dicey concept but now you know for a fact that these people haven't been paying their other financial obligations and I wouldn't be surprised at all if they made things difficult for you. But like you said, this is probably where you should walk away, but you should let a lawyer help you decide whether that's the right choice (I think it probably is) The only reason I'm not just writing it off is that I feel like we may have them over a bit of a barrel if it is possible to close on it. It's been on the market for awhile, they haven't had any competitive offers, I'm thinking we can get them to agree to a lowered price. I'm not gonna expend a ton of energy investigating it, but I think it's worth at least talking to the DoR, Escrow company, and a lawyer to see if it's at all viable.
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Jul 16, 2023 20:45
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I would expect the state tax lien would take priority over just about every other lien, which means those other ones won't get paid off.
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Jul 16, 2023 20:53
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Shifty Pony posted:I would expect the state tax lien would take priority over just about every other lien, which means those other ones won't get paid off. I am unsure how to appropriately express the magnitude of the level of skepticism I'm meeting this with. If I were to assign a number to it, I think the number of digits might exceed the character limit.
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Jul 16, 2023 20:59
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Ham Equity posted:The only reason I'm not just writing it off is that I feel like we may have them over a bit of a barrel if it is possible to close on it. It's been on the market for awhile, they haven't had any competitive offers, I'm thinking we can get them to agree to a lowered price. I'm not gonna expend a ton of energy investigating it, but I think it's worth at least talking to the DoR, Escrow company, and a lawyer to see if it's at all viable. When you have someone over a barrel you take, not give. Clear title, broom swept, unoccupied with immediate occupancy by you or you do not close. Period. Also your lawyer, which you should already have, should be drawing up a contract between the three of you. Odd numbers of occupants are perfect assuming even shares - two of you can always vote the third off the island. No deadlocked votes.
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Jul 16, 2023 21:01
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H110Hawk posted:When you have someone over a barrel you take, not give. Clear title, broom swept, unoccupied with immediate occupancy by you or you do not close. Period. We have a lawyer, it is a real property agreement, and it's unanimous consent, no voting anyone off the island. If we break up, it's either two people buy the third out, or sell the place and split the proceeds. I don't feel comfortable having an agreement where two people can kick the other out of their home that they own just because they decide to gang up.
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Jul 16, 2023 21:05
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Ham Equity posted:The sellers' agent assures us that the escrow agent says this isn't the case. Keep in mind that ALL of these people are in the business of completing deals. If they straight up lie to you, you buy the house, and then the state or some other entity takes your house from you. They do not give two fucks because they got your money and will probably face minimal, if any, consequences. Get a lawyer of your choice that you pay for out your own pockets so that you can be assured they have your interests at heart. Not the sellers, not your agents, not your friends, but yours.
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Jul 16, 2023 21:08
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Ham Equity posted:The sellers' agent assures us that the escrow agent says this isn't the case. I'm not an attorney in WA but it sure looks like tax liens are first in line to literally everything except for deferred property taxes: quote:Priority of tax lien.
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Jul 16, 2023 21:11
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Ham Equity posted:We have a lawyer, it is a real property agreement, and it's unanimous consent, no voting anyone off the island. If we break up, it's either two people buy the third out, or sell the place and split the proceeds. As long as there is no way to deadlock on repairing the roof, and you as an individual can force the partition sale. Anyways, contract at close is to satisfy all liens and I would "hold back" a ton of proceeds until you receive lien releases from everything. Maybe have them buy a bond (cheap) to guarantee it's free and clear. Again, you have them over a barrel here and they're known to take on bad debt.
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Jul 16, 2023 21:19
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Tax liens are first position everywhere. Imagine that, the people that write the laws put their paycheck first.
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Jul 16, 2023 22:07
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Ham Equity posted:The sellers' agent assures us that the escrow agent says this isn't the case. Yeah, of course they say this. This is how their client ends up unloading a construction lien onto the suckers who bought the house.
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Jul 16, 2023 22:33
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To be clear, I do not in any way believe the sellers' agent. I am fully aware of the incentives at play, and my very strong impression is that taxes get first claim on everything (thought I appreciate the citation, shifty pony). Honestly, the escrow agency is a bit out of the way, and while I didn't think anything of it initially, now I'm suspicious that they chose that place because they knew someone there who could smooth this out when it came up. I'm pretty much suspicious of everyone even kinda-sorta on their side of things, now, from the sellers to the inspector to the agent to the title agency to the escrow. Technically escrow and title aren't on "their side," but they were both selected by the sellers, so that paints them with some suspicion, now. I'm really hoping to be able to talk to someone at the Department of Revenue.
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Jul 16, 2023 22:39
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Ham Equity posted:I'm pretty much suspicious of everyone even kinda-sorta on their side of things, now, from the sellers to the inspector to the agent to the title agency to the escrow. This is your brain telling you to walk. Maybe this house is a loving unicorn that you'll never see again in your area and it's worth putting up with this poo poo and paying for a lawyer to cover your rear end, but everything you've written in the last few pages - from the sketchy quitclaim to the various liens to the bucket of needed repairs to the 3 month rentback to other poo poo I'm probably forgetting - equals out to this not being worth the headache. If it was just one of those? Maybe hold their feet to the fire, get a good deal. But gently caress me, this is getting to be a litany of woe. Again, don't know your area that well, maybe this is a once in the lifetime opportunity to own a home. Just don't talk yourself into THINKING it is and end up with a dog of a property as a result.
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Jul 16, 2023 23:02
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Totally possible for people to just be incompetent, too. That's pretty common But if you're feeling like there's a malicious conspiracy to saddle you with a bunch of bullshit then all the more reason to just walk away
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Jul 16, 2023 23:08
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Cyrano4747 posted:This is your brain telling you to walk. I like old construction, I prefer it to new construction in that the house has been lived in, anything catastrophically wrong with the construction has been dealt with already, and it's survived a handful of pretty bad earthquakes. I feel like that means I'm going to need to be willing to deal with some "needed repairs" no matter what, and I honestly don't think the inspection report would have looked quite so bad if it weren't for them giving us an inspection report that we're comparing it to, now. The area is very competitive, but I think we'll find something good in our price range, eventually. We're above the "knife fight in a phone booth" range that is the sub-$700k starter homes, and in a range where most buyers are looking for new construction. This place was very good for the price, but not, like, suspiciously good. The area is generally considered a sketchy, though compared to where I live now it's fine. You're not wrong, and we've already discussed starting to look at more places next weekend. The thing is, this place might be a unicorn, and it's not all that much effort to figure that out at this point; we've already paid for the inspection, we've got the pre-approval on the loan, reached out to some mold abatement and electrical companies, all before we knew about this; if we came in at this point in the process ignoring all the work we already put in, and the question was "should we do this little bit of work for a potential serious good deal," I think the answer is a "yes," even if we're relatively sure we'll be walking away in the end. QuarkJets posted:Totally possible for people to just be incompetent, too. That's pretty common I appreciate everyone telling me to get the gently caress out. Good to know my initial feelings are shared. Ham Equity fucked around with this message at 00:01 on Jul 17, 2023 |
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Jul 16, 2023 23:58
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That does all scream get the gently caress out to me, but if it’s worth it… Remember that the inspection you were given by the sellers highlighted a lot of problem spots that your inspection found, however your inspection found each issue highlighted was significantly worse. You have to assume here that with your limited inspection did not catch everything. I know it was 4 hours, but there’s stuff you just can’t do as an inspector of a buyer, plus being a generalist and not a specialist. There’s a real high chance there’s something absolutely gut wrenching here. Additionally, they knew exactly what their debts were. The fact that they lowered the listing price almost 15% after only 3 months, and lowered it to where they’d still owe money after the sale, means there’s a good chance something is seriously wrong. This isn’t even touching all the other red flags
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Jul 17, 2023 03:08
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I need thread content so I say go for it.
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Jul 17, 2023 04:01
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Ham Equity posted:It's a three-week rentback, not a three-month rentback. Three-month would have been a "not only no, but hell no" from the beginning. We learned from our previous rentback panic that it's not 100% a classic landlord/tenant agreement and you as the new homeowner that: 1. Has very specific intent to move on there. 2. Just handed over a fuckton of money so they can't just suddenly declare hardship. That does mean that even with just one day of rentback that these folks won't try to gently caress with you and force you into a situation. You can have a real estate lawyer draft an addendum that X amount stays in escrow until they move out. ...then you get to pay the bill to the company that flipped the house for them in a way you didn't even like. Fun times. poo poo, this even sounds kind of like the situation I was in hahaha. They had some place fix up most of the house and payments were about to start. We offered 25k under asking. They came back with asking and a huge rentback. We got stricken with five kinds of anxiety and chose to walk. A few days later, they wondered if the original offer was still on the table. Two weeks later, the listing was pulled.
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Jul 17, 2023 04:07
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Ham Equity posted:
I love my old house dearly. The is no such thing as the catastrophes already having been dealt with. Old houses, like old people (I am one) continue to deteriorate. You can develop foundation issues, or plumbing issues, or insect issues, at any moment. I bought my own home with an awareness of its defects, but there turned out to be a major plumbing problem that the inspector couldn't have noticed. I've had to do a hell of a lot more work (with more to come) on our 1931 house in two years than in two 1960s houses and a 1980s house combined, over 25 years. It is absolutely worth it to me. There is no point at which an old house is reliably fixed; there are always surprises.
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Jul 17, 2023 04:34
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Ham Equity posted:It's a three-week rentback, not a three-month rentback. Three-month would have been a "not only no, but hell no" from the beginning. Is there a difference in this case? These people have no money and will continue to have no money 1 day, 3 weeks, and 3 months after closing. Can you even withhold money in escrow in this case? It's not like it's going into their pockets afterwards. Seriously, just run.
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Jul 17, 2023 05:05
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Oh man, after over two years of browsing Zillow, several months of looking in person, and a couple of absurdly over asking offers being rejected, we just got an accepted offer on a house and we didn't even have to bid above asking or waive any contingencies. House was built in the late 50s, and the 90+ year old woman who's lived there since it was built is the one selling it. We walked in expecting to be pretty meh about the house at best but the pictures didn't do it justice. The decor and appliances are all pretty dated but meticulously maintained. It's like stepping into a time capsule. The terrible pictures really worked to our benefit because the owner, who couldn't help herself but talk to us, told us we were the first people to look at the house after it had been on the market a week, which is unheard of in this market. we put in an offer as soon as we got home to make sure we would be the only ones that looked at it. So now comes the fun part, trying not to celebrate too much since there's still inspections to be done, lawyers to hire, mortgages to obtain, etc., etc. but it does feel good to finally have a win. Here's hoping it all doesn't fall through. Celebrate with me, weep for me.
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Jul 17, 2023 17:18
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Gravity Cant Apple posted:Oh man, after over two years of browsing Zillow, several months of looking in person, and a couple of absurdly over asking offers being rejected, we just got an accepted offer on a house and we didn't even have to bid above asking or waive any contingencies. Congratudolences! We're also doing what appears to be a first or second owner home. Dated by well maintained etc. Who knows what horrors we will find upon inspection, have a GBS (like the subforum, it's generally bullshit) inspector, roofer, and sewer scoper coming out this week. Just sent the deposit wire and I will say - Fidelity's workflow is grade A. Person patiently did it all over the phone, no ability to do it online, she did an extra verification even though I came up verified by the computer before actually sending it, read back everything to me clearly, confirmed before she hit the final "go" button, I got a text and email telling me I did a wire. All great.
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Jul 17, 2023 17:48
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Just got an email from the title team, and they "don't see any red flags on the buyers' side." *taps the thread title*
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Jul 17, 2023 17:50
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Gravity Cant Apple posted:Celebrate with me, weep for me. May your next month be free of any major landlines and you get the house you deserve. Ham Equity posted:Just got an email from the title team, and they "don't see any red flags on the buyers' side." ... the buyer's side? Your side? But... uh... plus the... huh.
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Jul 17, 2023 18:58
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