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Tricky Ed posted:The best thing to do is to ask for a lower price, since that lets you be in charge of the fixes (even if they ultimately cost more). Banks sometimes will play ball with this and sometimes they won't -- it depends on if they want a dollar figure and are willing to wait or if they want the asset gone now. I bought a house with septic problems that were identified before the sale. I had a contractor estimate the repair costs and the seller put that amount of money in escrow which we drew out of to pay the contractors for the repair. The small amount leftover was returned to the seller upon my written release that the work has been completed in full. I don't know if a bank would do that, but it's some sort of middle ground that seems to work in some cases.
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Sep 29, 2016 19:02
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SiGmA_X posted:You can change to a dual zone when you replace the air handler in most houses, right? Providing your ducting complies? I realize this is something you'd not want to do for a few decades - till required or efficiency improvements make it smarter to upgrade. They air handler has little to do with dual zone. You're putting automatic dampers on vents and multiple thermostats handled by a controller. That controller feeds the air handler the same input a single thermostat would - so it doesn't even know it's dual/triple/whatever zone. None of this matters if you have the typical "insufficient return air capacity" problems that most shoddily assembled ductwork has. And that's where the real money/difficulty comes in (hope you don't mind losing closet space and/or having box soffits everywhere!)
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Oct 6, 2016 23:41
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Elephanthead posted:Me personally an individual room zoned radiant flooring system for heat is the bomb. Radiant heat is indeed the bomb. And cheaper to run not only due to efficiency (you're heating a larger thermal mass so opening/closing doors doesn't tend to lost your entire heat load - which is particularly great in a workshop with garage doors) but also because you just feel warmer having a warm floor. I find myself setting the thermostat much lower in my office (with radiant) than in the house (with baseboard hot water).
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Oct 7, 2016 15:23
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Elem7 posted:So that begs the question, what's the cost difference between a typical forced air system and radiant flooring for an entire 2500 square foot house? Very very dependent on the house and what kind of radiant you want. Hydronic is the most popular/cost effective long term. If you have a finished home with an unfinished basement it could be quite inexpensive to handle the first floor. Second floor - not so much. Now if all of this was under construction still the costs change wildly. Basically what is comes down to is you need to lay a lot of pipe to make this work, and the floor surface will dictate how well it works. Carpet....not so good. Wood floors - sure. Tile - awesome. Then you get into the part about what heats the water that goes through these pipes. It could be as simple as an electric water heater with a circulator pump (not very efficient) to something exotic like a solar water heater with a tankless gas backup. And it's relatively easy to change later as compared to the tubing install. Alereon posted:If you're building a new house I'd think it would make more sense to just put in better insulation than a fancy heating system. As with everything, this is a cost/benefit calculation. But two comments: better insulation vs. "fancy heating system" isn't mutually exclusive and radiant is hardly "fancy." For some context, here's about $60 worth of oxygen barrier PEX and zip ties that I installed on the remesh before pouring the concrete floor. Took a couple hours, was cheap and drat near impossible to do later. It runs on an $80 taco circulator pump with a craigslist-sourced $200 tankelss water heater with a home built control system (basic thermostat, 24vac transformer, 24vac to 120v contactor). Because this is not a constantly conditioned space and I live where it freezes the "loop" was filled with an antifreeze mix so it can be safely left off during freezing temperatures.  This stuff doesn't have to be hard or expensive.
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Oct 9, 2016 15:55
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Elem7 posted:So what do you do to cool that space in the summer? Can't imagine radiant floor works very well for cooling, so is it forced air for heat and cooling or radiant for heat and mini-split for cooling? The latter with 2 systems is I imagine more expensive. I have a forced air gas furnace/AC unit as well. Which is great for a space like that - radiant takes quite a while to come up to temperature while the forced air doesn't. What you don't see in the picture is the other bay as well as a separate office (on it's own radiant and forced air zone). I've used the AC in the garage portion once or maybe twice I think - screw cooling an entire garage, that's what a shop fan is for. I'm already filthy when I'm working out there, sweaty is fine as well. More expensive initially? Absolutely. Glad every time I use the radiant because it's so drat comfortable + lower energy utilization overall? Yes.
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Oct 9, 2016 20:20
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RICHUNCLEPENNYBAGS posted:Another question: is there some way I can figure out the tax implications of buying a house/paying a mortgage? Playing around with the various rent or buy calculators suggests there might be a lot of upside here but I don't have any idea how to start figuring out how much. The broad strokes are: subtract mortgage interest from your taxable income.
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Oct 10, 2016 02:52
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Pipistrelle posted:Yeah I don't understand this. I just put in my two weeks at my current job because I will be starting at another firm making $10k/yr more than I do now. I can't get a mortgage because I'm trying to grow in my career? Not all mortgage companies are the same. I'm currently looking for a refi, and most are saying "two years of continuous work history" and really don't specify that it has to be at the same employer or position. I wouldn't doubt that they will average your last 2 years of income rather than just counting your current higher earnings if you're recently into a new job, but it doesn't seem like this is any sort of hinderance to getting a proper-sized mortgage (i.e. as long as you aren't buying too much house with too little down).
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Jan 29, 2017 17:22
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totalnewbie posted:I saw a house pop up on Redfin on Friday for 215k that was pretty good. Remodeled in 2013, really nice looking interior, wood floors, good location, etc. 1000 sq ft but it's kind of an expensive area. Across the street from a park, no less. Doesn't have a garage but, oh well. If I were actually serious about buying a house, I'd have called the realtor first thing Monday. Why would you need to finish inspections? Why would you even pay for an inspection unless you have an accepted offer? That's what an inspection contingency in the contract is for.
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Mar 13, 2017 18:45
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lol internet. posted:Anyone have experience with a tankless water heater? Depends on how much pipe is between the heater and that faucet. If it didn't take this long with a traditional water heater there is probably problem with the tankless. Sometimes they don't turn on properly and need more water going through them before they start. Another popular installation-related problem is the "cold water sandwich" where you get hot water, then cold, then hot again.
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Apr 10, 2017 14:44
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On Terra Firma posted:There is very little outside of a brand new roof or a totally renovated kitchen/bathroom that will add value you'll see when you sell the home compared to what you put into it. Most of the time it's not even worth going through the trouble of fixing everything up unless there's something obviously wrong with the property. I agree with this but will also add: curb appeal. If you have a lovely cracked up driveway, overgrown yard, etc it's going to make it a lot harder to sell because of basic human emotions. Make the first impression good.
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Apr 11, 2017 00:42
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Sab0921 posted:Then what is the point of a tankless water heater? In my opinion? Supplement for high volume systems (you have a massive waterflow shower, etc) and/or pair it with a sotrage tank and recirc system. They also make for great hydronic heating systems. As your only DHW source they are pretty lovely to live with in most cases.
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Apr 11, 2017 01:54
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Sab0921 posted:Home insurance time. Do you really need purchase price coverage? This is supposed to insure your property for replacement value, which is surely less than what you paid for land+home. If you have some exceptionally valuable contents those are usually put on a rider (camera equipment, art, etc).
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Apr 11, 2017 15:31
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Sab0921 posted:Not purchase price, but replacement value. Not sure how to accurately determine that. I do know that the improvements number from the county appraisal will be too low. I have to say this sounds off enough that either or both you are talking to the wrong people or they aren't explaining it well enough. You are not in a unique situation at all.
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Apr 12, 2017 03:12
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QuarkJets posted:Appraisals usually come back fine unless the house has glaring issues or you simply offered way, way too much. They're not really the "true" value of the house What is a more accurate piece of data on price than literally what someone is willing to pay for something?
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May 1, 2017 14:44
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Mikey Purp posted:Also, I am very new to home ownership in general and have never sold a house, but if I were going to sell I think I'd probably go and get an independent appraisal to help me price it accurately in the first place. Isn't that pretty common practice? Sometimes, but not always. Sometimes thing sell for what they sell for. You set your price slightly high and then see what kind of offers you get. Appraisals are super easy in cookie-cutter neighborhoods with recent sales of other houses. Things get pretty dicey to downright laughable when appraisers try to calculate home values in older areas with wildly varying house types, sizes, property sizes and very few home sales like where I live now. Some place just down the road appraised at like $50k less than the 4 or 5 offers they got and the person buying called in another appraiser who was basically like "look, I would have appraised it the same way based on the available comps, but when you look at the fact that houses around here rarely go up for sale and the fact that people obviously want to live here it sure does make sense that it's worth x+$50k." Fortunately their bank accepted that and gave them the loan.
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May 1, 2017 20:45
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QuarkJets posted:That sure does inspire confidence in the current pricing trend Totally not emptyquoting here. If you know some real estate agents well enough you get to learn this game, and it's ridiculous in many ways. But the pricing part is possibly the most.
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May 2, 2017 02:13
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HEY NONG MAN posted:My friend just tried buying a house by offering the asking price of $700k and was passed over for an offer of $785k with a 2-day inspection window. Bay area or Seattle?
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May 2, 2017 20:53
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Rip Testes posted:horrifying issues with my house I don't really have it in me to discuss right now Not without knowing what kind of problem you are seeing. The answer completely depends on that - surely you realize that you don't hire a roofer to inspect a foundation or a handyman to install central AC.
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May 4, 2017 14:53
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oliveoil posted:Let's say I want to buy a fourplex with a good amount of positive cash flow somewhere. How the hell do I even start with something like that, as a newbie to buying homes? https://www.biggerpockets.com/ seems to have a lot of good info. As RE investing isn't my thing (but I am starting to look into it) I can't vouch for the site's accuracy. I found the site because it seems to be the pretty standard response on a lot of investing forums as a good starting place.
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Jun 4, 2017 17:00
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totalnewbie posted:I know I don't want it to be pulled too many times, but this seems alright. Go to everyone you are considering and have them all hard pull inside of a month and the bureaus treat it as one pull......they get that you are shopping for the same type of loan product when it's a bunch of mortgage lenders, so it doesn't hammer your score.
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Jun 20, 2017 23:55
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Dessert Rose posted:I am replacing the roof on this house (was never replaced from the initial roof it had ~30 years ago when built). The estimate gave me rates for 30, 40 and 50 year roofs. 30 year is like 6k, 50 is 8.5. We plan on staying here for a minimum of 10 years. That's the sad part: it should, but I've never seen it happen. Go with your gut as you are almost certainly right.
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Jul 22, 2017 02:24
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Zero VGS posted:My offer on a 2-family was accepted and I was due to close on Aug 31st, but now a few days in the sellers want to extend the closing by 7 days to have more time to clean the first floor after the renters leave on the 31st. Close the deal on time, offer a short term rent-back to the seller at market rate.
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Jul 28, 2017 16:41
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Sundae posted:I live in the bay area. The secret to not buying a house in these insane markets is to think about all the places in the world you could straight up retire with the amount of money you'd have to put down to get even a lovely, "well, it'll do" sort of house in this state. I've told so many people at my company some version of this. Sometimes you see a lightbulb go off in their heads, other times they are so stuck into "here and now" and/or have insufficient life experience to understand that this is not permanent (for gently caress sake, you are 25-30 years old - this is not how the rest of your life is gonna be, not how you will want it to be). One of the success tories of this was my employee who 2 months later asked me if he could move home halfway across the country to start a family and work remotely because that's where he could afford a house AND a family. I said gently caress yes and he's been "back home" for about a month now. He's happier and more productive. I don't expect this to change.
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Jul 30, 2017 19:41
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Leperflesh posted:It's possibly a huge risk on his part. If he loses his job, can he land another that pays as well, and lets him work remotely? Absolutely not, and his raises are from here forward going to be "scale" for where he lives. We discussed this, all the way along me telling him he needs a CPA and fee only financial advisor. He's gotten both, but dude was pre IPO and hasn't touched anything of his options and RSUs.....he's doing this on salary. I told him it's time to cash out a nest egg. He was doing fine "at home" 4 years ago before he took the job here (stole him from a vendor) and they would love to have him back. But now he has a bunch of increased savings (which is enough on its own) as well as a bunch of way-pre-IPO-strike-price-options, which certainly makes this less risky......if his CPA/FA convinces him to sell some or all of them.
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Jul 30, 2017 22:14
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H110Hawk posted:This is simply smart regardless. He currently has all of his eggs in a single basket. Time for some diversification so a single change in fate doesn't remove both his stock and salary value. Yes, yes, yes, yes. This is what I've been trying to council him on. "Would you buy this stock if you didn't already own it." "No." "Then sell it." This is almost always the answer for vested options, RSU, etc unless you happen to be a wealthy serial entrepreneur and this particular grant doesn't comprise 95% of your "portfolio."
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Jul 30, 2017 23:57
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H110Hawk posted:It hurts my head to think about this guy. He could pay down/off his mortgage, or have a long term nest egg to really let him take the next big risk, etc. Keep 10-25% of it if you insist. I'm leaving my current place in a week and won't be exercising more options because I'm already too "heavy" into this company with my very cheap options from years ago. It hurts my head too. But he's a good guy and not fluent on these matters, which is why I'm trying to steer him towards someone who is not his bass that can tell hm the same thing. He's been a guy working for an employer his whole life. He ended up at this startup because we pursued him and paid him more salary. Dude honestly doesn't' grock what he has now, or how ephemeral it may be unless he acts. He won a lottery he didn't willfully enter, and I want to make sure it pays out for him. I hate basic personnel management. When I can do something like this (forget even the money part, just being able to make someone work from half a county away to improve their life) management becomes worthwhile for just a brief second. I feel like my job is to do that and be a poo poo umbrella for my people to upper management. This means I will never get anywhere in management of a large company. I'm okay with that. Motronic fucked around with this message at 01:54 on Jul 31, 2017 |
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Jul 31, 2017 01:50
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LogisticEarth posted:Also, most of the costs of a house are actually in the land, services, and other infrastructure. You see all this stuff about tiny houses and poo poo that "only cost $20,000". Except the lot costs $100,000, the septic system or sewer hookup costs $30,000, the water well/water service costs $10,000, etc etc. I wish more people understood this. These tiny house people are the worst and all have this master plan of somehow mooching these services or just outright don't even know that and approval for septic takes months, well drilling is a totally variable cost depending on how far they have to go to get an appropriate refresh, there is nowhere to put the pressure tank and associated equipment for the well in your homebuilt RV, and that perfect rural lot you found for $5,000 doesn't have power, may not be able to be serviced with power, and if it does it will cost $5,000-25,000 to do it. It also likely doesn't have a legal easement for this power or even your own access to the property.
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Aug 3, 2017 20:48
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Do you live somewhere that $400 rent is in the realm of possibilities? Also, you probably want to come up with an actual budget. There's more to living on your own, even when renting, than what you are likely spending now (like potentially utilities, certainly food, renters insurance, etc). I don't see how you're in position to be even thinking about buying a house. I'm not even sure you're in a position to be thinking about SAVING to buy a house with those numbers.
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Aug 9, 2017 14:33
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Yep. I've watched houses around here sit on the market for literally YEARS while the creeped the price down to "appraisable". I don't understand it, but maybe it's a "I wouldn't mind moving so much but don't have to, let's throw a high price on here and see if anyone bites." I just looked at a disappointing box of 80s sadness 2 weekends ago. It was like $75 k above everything else in the neighborhood. It was.....underwhelming at that price. Later found out from the people that I know in that neighborhood "oh yeah....that guy is nuts." This was not only or sometimes at all in relation to the home sale/pricing.
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Sep 19, 2017 04:14
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Vinny the Shark posted:And yet the price has not budged one cent since going up 381 days ago (according to zillow). What's with these sellers? I know it's their right to charge whatever they want, but sometimes I wonder just how people can be so stubborn I believe this is covered in what I said before: "I don't really need to move so I'll wait for an over market price" or "I own this thing outright, don't live here and don't need the money so I'll wait for my price."
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Sep 20, 2017 00:45
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fknlo posted:My house closed today Hope it goes well, but that's a pretty poo poo way to do it. I've been on both sides of escrow for septic (it's always septic.....it always fails) which had the MAXIMUM the seller would have to pay, and any overage was returned to them. Of course, you maximize in these situations as a buyer and I was able to use drat near every last dime putting in the best drat septic system possible - extra storage box and all in case the leach field got screwed up.
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Oct 4, 2017 06:01
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Yeah, pretty much no inspector checks anything other than static pressure. I know it shouldn't be that way, but inspectors are largely poo poo. Except that one Canadian dude apparently.
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Oct 4, 2017 07:00
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I'm looking to do never buy a bigger house and just got back from looking at something that by the listing should have been perfect. It also looked to be priced $100-150k too low for the amount of land it was on. Now I know why. 4 acres, it was the original farm house for the area (1850) and a nice single family home development was built around it. The house was beautiful. The detached extra deep 3-bay garage was built like 7 years ago. It's not configured exactly how I'd want it for a shop, but it was totally workable. 2 bedroom apartment with a full kitchen above it was a super nice bonus. About 200 square feet of the property was flat. The rest was either a hill, a swale, a creek or a swamp. The worst part being the retention basin for the development being the back acre of the property, and some not-specified arrangement with one of the neighbors to keep their bees on the property (which could be really cool, and I'd be totally down with if it was someone I already knew and had a proper liability release). So so many red flags with property issues, not even counting the mosquito breeding ground. It's a drat shame, because the house was perfect other than a hastily added basement egress that ends up in a "bowl" in the landscaping with no visible drains. Being at the top of our price range I'm not even considering it because I'd need to put way too much money into the property to make it nice, even if I'm not on the hook for maintaining the storm sewer drainage for the neighborhood.
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Oct 15, 2017 21:59
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LogisticEarth posted:Around me (PA) So you know exactly what I'm dealing with here. LogisticEarth posted:That said, owning a basin isn't the worst thing in the world. Often you can just let it go and it will work A-ok, it even better than if it's mowed grass. Yeah, it is. You have a 48" concrete pipe with a screen over it terminating on your property. This can get clogged up and you have a bunch of unhappy people wanting to come on your property and/or wanting you to fix it. Someone can gently caress up their grading and overwhelm the basin and now it's your problem. All for an acre of land you literally can't do a drat thing with other than mow the lawn or not. It's clearly a liability in every possible way, as there is no possible up side. The property it's on doesn't even drain into it. It provides 100% negative vale. Motronic fucked around with this message at 01:54 on Oct 16, 2017 |
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Oct 16, 2017 01:50
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LogisticEarth posted:although if someone messes up their grading and radically changes the way water flows into the system, they're not off the hook. Legally correct. Not the situation I want myself fighting, which will take both years and cubic dollars shoveled into the legal system. LogisticEarth posted:Out of curiosity, where in PA? If you're not going to pursue the property could you post a Zillow link or something? Part of my job deals with stormwater management, and now you've piqued my interest. A 48" pipe is a huge loving pipe. I'm guessing this is an older development. It is an older development. I'm in eastern PA north of philly. The listing pictures definitely don't show a drat thing about the property other than the few feet around the house that is okay: https://www.zillow.com/homes/for_sa...933_rect/15_zm/ GIS the hell out of it.
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Oct 16, 2017 02:38
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LogisticEarth posted:EDIT: The more I read SA the more I'm convinced that at least 25% of the posters are in eastern PA. There are dozens of us. DOZENS! The Rev posted:Well how about that, I'm a Bucks native myself (4 months into my first home in lower bucks), have an Aunt in Doylestown. Drive would have been a bit too much for me or I would have considered the area more, nice area. It's a very nice area, and my search area is very, very small due to not only school district but specific elementary/middle schools right now. I could certainly find an 1800s farm house for cheaper very close by, but that might not be quite close enough and might be in a municipality that I find undesirable (many of them around here are overflowing with full time nutters/part time politicians on the board/council). This is our "we'll buy the right one if we find it" type house, but I'm looking at much cheaper development houses for the next 5-10 years to satisfy the immediate need for more space. There is a lot directly across the street from me (6 acres) that MIGHT end up available and I'm considering that as well. But I really want my drat farm house, even though they are a pain in the rear end.
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Oct 16, 2017 03:15
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totalnewbie posted:Anyone have any words of wisdom to share about the cost/logistics of adding on to a house? Namely, how much might I expect it to cost to take a 1100 sq ft ranch -> 1600 ft ranch, for example, and how long would construction typically take? Is it possible to still live in the house while construction is happening? Let's say "live" is a loose term, but assuming there's some parts of the house not being torn up, could I still stay in it? There are massive variations in cost and time based on both the area and the house. Some rances you can just pop a second floor on. Some have layouts that would allow for more rooms. Some have layouts that would require losing 1/3 of a couple of rooms to make a hallway to get to new ones and/or move all of their windows. The best place to start is with an architect who does remodels. It will cost you several hundred bucks, but it's amazing what ideas good ones can come with after looking at your house. From there you can start figuring out costs and timelines.
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Oct 16, 2017 21:04
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howdoesishotweb posted:Does an appraiser know the offer price beforehand? Our appraisal came in at exactly our final bid which was fine by us but seemed odd. Normally, because they are always in cahoots with the buyers agent.
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Oct 18, 2017 00:44
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Let's be honest here: the best indication of what something is worth is what someone who is actively trying to buy it is willing to pad for said item, not comparing a bunch of similar items that were recently sold in similar locations. I get that's not 100%, but seriously it seems like the most important input into "what is this house worth" is THE CURRENT OFFER FROM A POTENTIAL BUYER OF THAT HOUSE.
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Oct 18, 2017 01:41
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Steampunk Hitler posted:Eastern PA, best PA. Agreed. Unfortunately Doylestown is also really expensive for the kind of house/property I want. But I'm gonna stay here anyway because I've got 2 kids in school and can. I may just f off to Pennsyltucky when they're out of the house.
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Oct 22, 2017 17:31
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