Buying A House: C or D?

I've looked at duplexes (the Texas version of a rentable unit in the basement - live in one half, rent the other) and I'm not sure how anyone deals with tenants living next door (or downstairs) all the time. Being a door knock away from anyone with a complaint sounds like potential torture.

xpost to Hurting:

I live in a "desirable" DC neighborhood, and if we did a super-nice basement apartment, the monthly rent would cover our mortgage with ease.

Basement apartments are a thing here (and in NYC as well?).

Nevertheless, it remains a mostly unfinished space where the cats shit.

But when money falls from the sky: SPA

Oh but good point in that best resale would be "finish it with an in-law suite and a playroom for the kids and or/gym space for DC yuppies and/or MAN CAVE" and none of that is ever gonna happen under our ownership.

Is this an appropriate space to talk about man caves? Because I have some opinions.

Preach!

I saw a family house with an awesome man cave the other day - stacks of records, drumkit, nice big desk, nice sofa and big TV. All for one man.

Man cave dwellers: you don't like your spouse, you don't like your kids, you watch too much TV. You like TV better than your family.

Like, you can't even be bothered to watch TV with your spouse and kids.

Also, you like puffy black leather sofas, which are ugly.

Also your wife does not like you very much because she let you have a man cave in the hopes that it will mean she sees less of you.

Anyone here ever built on their property? We were wondering about building a two car garage structure with a small studio above it in our yard. Also then a place to stay if we are ever doing serious work on the house itself.

> I saw a family house with an awesome man cave the other day - stacks of records, drumkit, nice big desk, nice sofa and big TV. All for one man.

― Kornblud (admrl), Tuesday, April 1, 2014 7:48 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Someone I know built an addition with all that and more (swapping some pro keyboards for drums): 60" TV, kitchen, full bathroom, acoustically insulated from rest of house, separate landline phone number, its own heating & air conditioning, direct access to/from garage without having to walk through rest of house. Several times I've been with his wife who thought he was out of town when he was actually home.

Building on your property often a good idea if legal boundries don't get in the way - know the extents of your plot of land, and how far back from the borders you're required to build on it.

Yes, that's kind of what we are thinking. I edit film and video and am trying to build a studio space, but this would also be guest house for family and visitors, etc. Would tear down a garage and build on the same spot.

xp I just don't generally like the idea of doing things based on "resale" value when you first move in to place (except that you don't want to do anything completely crazy that would kill resale). I mean, you don't really know how long you're going to stay or what the market is going to be like when you leave -- maybe there's high demand for basement rentals now and maybe there won't be in ten years. If you want the apartment now, for your own benefit, to defray the mortgage, that's different.

Nah man I just want a steam shower and a sauna! And a place for the cat boxes. This is really all I desire in a basement. Well, laundry machines, too.

Something I never thought I would want but now kinda want: a mud room. Or just somewhere at the back door where one can actually sit down to take off shoes and hang up a coat.

Yeah we were just talking about how we want to put some kind of shoe-off bench in our foyer, it's a thing I never really thought about before kids.

It's a thing I never really thought about before I had trouble standing on one foot while taking the shoe off the other foot.

It somehow is a thing, and I've been considering paying too much for this solution:
http://www.westelm.com/products/mrk-universal-expert-shoe-bench-h595/

http://rk.weimgs.com/weimgs/rk/images/wcm/products/201405/0180/img5o.jpg

Adam, I was thinking about enclosing a carport, but the city requires that if you take away covered parking for two cars, then you must construct new covered parking for two cars.

Your city may be less car centric.

I would kill for a goddamn mud room. And a front porch. Our house is awesome minus those 2 things basically.

Several times I've been with his wife who thought he was out of town when he was actually home.

!

Adam, I was thinking about enclosing a carport, but the city requires that if you take away covered parking for two cars, then you must construct new covered parking for two cars.

― Spencer Chow

Could you enclose the carport in such a way as to convince the city that the space was still going to be used to store cars? (such as a big "garage door" that is ony used to bring in furniture / open the space to the outdoors)

Should probably start a Man Cave picture thread, but it would make me too angry.

xp yea i feel like a front porch is something that i'll be wanting the most when we look for a house in the next couple years

a backyard too

adam's new studio

http://www.womansday.com/cm/womansday/images/5G/01-The-Greatest-Show-on-Earth-1.jpg

OK after doing my taxes 3 years into homeownership, I'm having trouble believing my realtor & loan agent who convinced me that the tax benefits of this were substantial. Bottom line is if the US government cancelled any one of the 3 deductions (mortgage interest, mortgage insurance, property tax) this house would go from being barely affordable to time to move.

Also fuck prop 13

Did you use turbotax or some such software?

fwiw there's no way they're going to cancel the property tax deduction and probably not the other two either. If they do cancel the mortgage interest deduction it will probably be on larger mortgages, or at least start out that way.

quincie, I feel that way about golf and man caves

GOLF is another excellent example of spousal/familiar avoidance, yes!

Could you enclose the carport in such a way as to convince the city that the space was still going to be used to store cars?

Yes, that's the other option. Make it an enclosed garage with a working door and space for two cars. Once the inspector signs off, then the wall next to the door could be dry-walled and then removed if/when it's time to sell.

That said, the cost of doing this is surprisingly high, and the new garage isn't counted as a bedroom so there's no real increase in home value. The plan is to save up a bit and turn it into a bedroom and then add-on a garage or carport. Adding another bedroom to the house would be a big deal for eventual resale.

I'd kill for a mudroom, one of my top priorities when we look for a new place. I hate walking directly into my living room.

I also looked in to having a garage built before we bought a place that has one and was shocked at how expensive it would be.

Way upthread, I did use tax software. I have about 4 deductions I can claim- the 3 house related ones and the student loan interest.

I'll admit I was less than informed about how the various tax breaks worked and the numbers my loan officer worked up did not play out as I expected when determining how much house I could afford. I was painted a much rosier picture than what transpired in reality.

I do believe we will deal, but homeownership has come at the cost of nearly everything else- no new car (badly needed), no vacations, and no room in the budget for much in the way of improvements.

I can only hope that from an equity standpoint this will ultimately prove to be a good decision. Considering the changes in our local market since buying 3 years ago, it seems that this has already occurred to a certain extent...but I don't see any opportunity to capitalize on that without incurring further debt via a home equity loan/refi.

Anyway I would put it in the category of C and D at the same time. Thanks for listening to me vent.

Anyone have experience of how to deal with a selling agent? We looked at a place we liked and have been using our own agent but had to meet with a selling agent for this property. She showed us around and kept mentioning other buyers, etc. etc. We just kind of played it cool, but this is the second time she has sold this property and it is probably kind of a cash cow for her. It is priced about 10% higher than it sold for about 5-6 years ago, and all the new owners have done is put a small bathroom (without hot water!) in a small exterior structure. We'll never pay what they are asking and won't enter a bidding war, but we thought about maybe making a bid that isn't a final bid but also isn't insulting...or we wait it out and see if the price comes down. What's a good tactic here? I kind of feel like they are going to wait until they get a higher than value price for it, and we won't pay that, so I'm sort of resigned to not getting it.

I think making an offer (of what *you* think the house is worth to *you*) is a better tactic than waiting to see if the price comes down. Active vs. passive, move things along, etc. Maybe there are and maybe there aren't other buyers. Offer price is just one part of the offer--it may be important for the seller to close withing a short time frame, for example, or see a large earnest money deposit, or proof of your financing, or eliminating contingencies (inspection, finance, etc). Your agent should be able to help you put together a reasonable offer combining all of those factors and present it in its best light to the selling agent.

And if he/she can't do that, fire your agent and get another one :)

So - with house I just mentioned, selling agent says that the sellers have turned down previous offers that don't meet their (honestly, too high) valuation of the house because they were offended that "people don't get how special it is" and that we would need to write a personal letter with our offer (which will still not be close to their asking price as it IS too high) saying how much we love it, etc etc. Normal? Weird? Real estate trickery?

i don't have any experience buying or selling a house but that strikes me as kind of shitty.

I've heard of that before, an agent for one of the houses we looked at years ago asked for something very similar from us. We didn't end up doing it though, because we decided that we didn't like the house well enough to put up with the seller's increasingly annoying requests.

we wrote one of those letters (well an email) and really tried to be genuine about it, and the seller sent a counter offer within 20 minutes, so it felt really unnecessary. the sellers in your case sound, frankly, annoying and overly precious.

no one told us to write btw. i think we just read that it was something that people do.

I agree, but am wondering if the sellers really are precious or if it is some trick by the realtor to get us to think the price should be higher. We like the house a lot and it is kinda special, so I don't mind jumping through a few hoops and doing a little show, but I'm still not paying more money!

Haha, meanwhile my wife is totally doing a private-eye job on the sellers and digging up all kinds of online info on them so we can "craft" this letter accordingly. This is more LA-style business, I guess.

Realtors at the ordinary level make their money in volume more than in price increases, so unless it's a pretty expensive house they probably have more interest in moving the house quickly than in bumping your offer. Doing something like that would turn off a lot of buyers and make the house take longer to sell. So I don't think it's realtor trickery, although it might be seller trickery.

Anyone have experience of how to deal with a selling agent? We looked at a place we liked and have been using our own agent but had to meet with a selling agent for this property. She showed us around and kept mentioning other buyers, etc. etc. We just kind of played it cool, but this is the second time she has sold this property and it is probably kind of a cash cow for her. It is priced about 10% higher than it sold for about 5-6 years ago, and all the new owners have done is put a small bathroom (without hot water!) in a small exterior structure. We'll never pay what they are asking and won't enter a bidding war, but we thought about maybe making a bid that isn't a final bid but also isn't insulting...or we wait it out and see if the price comes down. What's a good tactic here? I kind of feel like they are going to wait until they get a higher than value price for it, and we won't pay that, so I'm sort of resigned to not getting it.

― Kornblud (admrl), Sunday, April 6, 2014 11:36 AM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

10% in 5-6 years is not neccessarily outrageous when you consider that the housing market crashed around 6-7 years ago, so prices were very low at that time. Plus figure inflation alone should bump the price 1-2% a year.

As far as dealing with the seller's agent, I don't believe in playing games. If you really like the house, it's better to be honest so the agent doesn't think you're a waste of time. I don't know whether this is actually advisable or not, but when I wanted to make a significantly lower bid than the asking price (and was open to negotiation) I just asked the seller's agent orally -- "I was thinking about offering x. I don't want to insult the seller -- do you think they would at least entertain that?" And the agent said "to be honest I don't think they'll sell for that, but I don't think they'll be insulted either." So we started there and wound up halfway between our offer and the asking price. In our case I knew that the home had been on the market a long time and they had just dropped the asking price after insufficient interest, so I knew I had room to negotiate. If this is brand new to market and has 50 people coming in every day, you might be wasting your time.

Thanks - no it does not have 50 people coming in every day. I think the owners are just not in a hurry to sell and are hoping to get an above-market rate on the house, but it's kind of a tough sell for certain people as there is not a lot of room for a family and some odd bathroom configurations, etc. We might be their best hope of selling any time soon, but maybe not.

honestly just offer what you want to offer. and you can still send a nice note saying how much you like it.

OK scott!

Also - we have only been looking 2-3 weeks but have probably seen around 20 houses. I think we will also keep looking as stuff is bound to go on the market as spring rolls in.