Buying A House: C or D?

That size? $139-$199k probably.

― Johnny Fever, Monday, 23 June 2014 17:23 (Yesterday) Permalink

So it's a half price house. Again, I'd be suspicious. Inspector is a good idea. Buying a 75K house and putting 30-40K work in to get a house worth $150K is awesome. Buying a $75K house and finding out it has foundation problems, or termites, or some kind of major code issues, is not.

The floors look promising throughout--oak downstairs AND upstairs, just need a refinish. And almost all original windows seem intact, although if they don't have storms that place is going to be a bitch to heat, with all those panes. But lovely. The kitchen is hideous and the popcorn ceiling is probably dropped from its original height, so you should get some additional height by tearing it down.

That's not siding, btw--those are shingles

Yeah, up top. The bottom half is more recent siding (but still looks like it probably wasn't cared for very well). If this is an undertaking I plan to go through with, I'd do it as true to the day it was built as possible. Looking at it on Friday if it's still on the market.

One thing I'm really curious about is the staircase, which doesn't appear in any of the photos. If it's some big grand eyepopping thing with a beautiful handrail, I may be helpless against its charms.

I'm definitely not buying anything without an inspection, and I'd probably enter into a contract with a contingency that if it doesn't pass an inspection I'd be free to walk. Bringing out an inspector is $200-300, though, so I don't plan to do it on any property I'm just mildly amused with.

Judging by the style of the rest it's probably a fairly simple square Craftsman newel post with square railings and a simple handrail. You have to love the squareness if you get into a workmanlike Craftsman.

Right. I'm mainly just hoping it's not beat to hell or, heaven forbid, been replaced with something unacceptable for the style of the house.

The asking price for this place is high, about twice as much as it should be in this market. I'm hoping they find so much $$$ worth of work needed that it kills any deal. Update: Oh I see they dropped the price by a quarter mil, that might help. Still though.

xp It doesn't look like a single thing has been mis-done in the house except the 1950s kitchen and the weird boxing in of the back porch so you're probably in the clear.

So would you say that if you're considering buying, you get an independent inspection soon in the process, or close to the final decision? Because there's an inspector coming to my building tonight and we thought it was just the owner doing it for the record, but apparently he's coming WITH "the buyer" so now I'm basically incredibly anxious. I think the condition of the building STINKS so maybe a bad inspection will KO it...????

If I were buying a property to use as an investment, I'd want to know what I was in for before even entering into a contract. You can tell up front that way whether or not its chances of profitability are working in your favor. Since the owner has already come way down on the asking price, though, he's looking to deal. If it's not this buyer, it will be another one.

i said it a few days ago, and having just bought a house in Toronto, i'll say it again. cannot believe how cheap a house in the U.S. is right now... seriously :|

What I'm hoping is that if it needs $250,000 worth of work (one estimate from a contractor friend) that a prospective buyer will demand that much off the asking price and the owner will refuse to deal until the market improves.

cannot believe how cheap a house in the U.S. is right now... seriously :|

Atlanta isn't Chicago or New York or *gulp* San Francisco. It's a large city, but there are large pockets of it where affording housing can be acquired.

I'd bet that in more rural areas, Canada and the U.S. a right in line with each other.

true. not too far out from the city, prices drop off pretty fast. the next closest city, Hamilton, I could have bought two houses with cash to spare for what I paid here.

xp *affordable housing

Just got off the phone with my mortgage person. I make just slightly too much to qualify for the meaningful down payment assistance programs (by too much, I mean like $500/year over the limit..oof!), so the hopes of some entity just handing me $20k for down payment and closing are dead. I still qualify for other things, but the scope is way smaller. Hey, $5k at closing is $5k more than I'd have otherwise.

But it also rules out things like that cottage house where I know I'd immediately have to throw money back into it. I won't have the money to throw unless I get a FHA 203k renovation loan, and the sale price of that house doesn't leave me any ceiling for a renovation component in the loan.

Basically I have to shop for move-in ready or cheap fixer uppers which leave a lot of ceiling in a loan amount.

Shamelessly eavesdropping on the inspector telling all of them that the courtyard drain between the buildings probably needs to be excavated and replumbed/new concrete poured to prevent a build-up of standing water. "It may not be a small matter...."

THAT'S IT THAT'S IT I KNOW YOU CAN DO THIS

This is weird, they're talking about wanting to take out walls and move rooms around, which means they're total idiots, because this is all original plaster and coved ceilings and deeply milled woodwork.

And they think the linen cabinet is a converted...dumbwaiter? Meaning they don't understand that this was never a one-family brownstone.

That's nuts. Preserve, don't pervert!

I think out of all the floors the owners are talking about wanting to live on this one, but they'd gut it first, in their imaginations. This is very ;_______; since we were hoping for a buyer who would keep us as tenants.

booo!

xxxxp - You don't have to replace those shingles with aluminum siding, you could go with Hardi-Board (cement board, I don't know if Hardi is the only game in town, that's all we ever used) - it's fragile and more difficult to install than traditional siding but it will last forever and can't rot/etc. It won't look like shingles but it will look (from a distance) like wood. They might even have a shingle pattern, tbh.

http://www.trulia.com/property/3144533170-608-Orange-St-Arlington-TX-76012

I drive past this every so often but I think they're nuts. It's a large lot but there's no fence, no driveway, no garage and the house needs to be completely redone from the ground up. Pour all that time and effort into it, in that neighborhood, and it might be worth $120k at the end.

I'm perfectly comfortable with a fixer-upper, but everything I find is $75-85k and needs a bunch of work, but the work wouldn't justify its cost down the road at that price. I need to put it out of my mind for a couple more years and just start saving money to pay more for a house in Fort Worth, I think.

The most time I've ever spent in Dallas/FW is a couple hours in the airport, so I have no idea about the cities themselves. Are they any old neighborhoods or is everything post WWII? I just ask because a lot of the comparable houses on that Trulia link look like 50s-60s ranchers—possibly my least favorite of all types of domicile.

Well that's interesting. I don't think that was a repeat visitor and a real hired inspector. I think that was someone new who hasn't been here before and their friend who "knows something" about buildings. I'd expect an actual inspector to check the wiring, run some water, notice that there are water stains on the kitchen ceiling from past leaks--those kinds of things seem important?

This was more like a house tour, and some of the snippets I caught suggest it was their first time here. So many it's not as serious as I feared.

Hooray...for now!

The apartment I got kicked out of in March because the property was sold for muy expensive condos is still standing, though they've harvested every saleable item in it and now it's just a hollow shell (which makes me sad). I wish they'd just hurry up and knock it down so I don't feel the need to drive by it, walk up into my old unit, and just sit there being emo.

Sorry for working out my ish on this thread tonight, but for various reasons we basically CAN'T move, or at least all options will be much, much worse than what we have right now. It's really important to my life functioning that this building doesn't sell/we don't get evicted.

There are older neighborhoods in a Arlington but the houses don't come up that often, the vast majority are '60s ranch houses (and lousy ones at that). That's what makes it hard to shop here and probably why people ask too much for the Craftsman/bungalow/etc. type I like when they do appear.

Fort Worth has a lot of those houses but they're either rapidly gentrifying or in neighborhoods that are legitimately terrible and will be after I'm dead.

I'd rather, if my situation became a two-income partnership, spend twice as much to buy a similar house in FW to what I could theoretically afford now but I doubt I'll ever be able to buy in FW solo.

50s-60s ranchers—possibly my least favorite of all types of domicile

Hilariously my new place is a 1963 ranch house and I'm super stoked about it.

I grew up where almost everyone I know lived in 2 story wood houses built during the late 1800s mining boom - like this one, or this one, or this, all of which are within a few blocks of my parents house.

Ranch houses in general are still really exotic and space-age to me and having all your shit on the same level feels ridiculously extravagant compared to having to climb up dangerously pitched narrow staircases to get to the one bathroom in the house.

In the southeast, at least, most ranch homes are red brick with a black roof and the subdivisions filled with them go on for miles and miles. They are the symbol of midcentury sprawl and it feels overwhelming and endless. They're so anonymous and devoid of any personality that when I finally moved to a city with whole neighborhoods full of early 20th century craftsman and bungalow homes it's what I'd been wanting for as long as I can remember.

I could totally see how if they're not something that's prevalent in your area that they could be desirable. Every place I've lived, though, they're plentiful.

Yeah I totally get that - I love old craftsman houses a lot, and I live in a 1940 bungalow right now which I also really dig. And there are a lot of boring generic ranch houses but I love 50s or 60s ones with lots of veneered wood and formica and frank lloyd wrightish touches.

My sprawl angst is more for the 90s style houses with the double garage as the main focus of the front and a giant foyer and such.

Yeah, those are awful. My parents just built the biggest house they've ever owned now that it's just the two of them and it's exactly what you just described. If that's what they've always wanted, hey...good for them. My mom just called me tonight and said they spent all day cleaning it and they said to each other "why did we need this much house?"

JBR just posted this one on fb, an atomic ranch in LA's San Fernando Valley. Very pricey compared to what's been discussed here lately, but reasonable for LA.

http://www.redfin.com/CA/Van-Nuys/6929-Louise-Ave-91406/home/4552224

Saw that. If I had 600k to blow, I'd have bought it yesterday.

Ooh, there's an open house both days this weekend!

That house on W. Ontario turned out to be more than I could possibly get my head around. The photos are flattering to it, but that thing needs a lot of work. Hurting 2 was right...it's a property for an investor to turn around and sell for $200k a year from now, but there's no way I could live there at the same time all the work was going on. ;_;

Also looked at this one today: http://www.trulia.com/property/1055100745-1012-Burns-Dr-SW-Atlanta-GA-30310

Unlike the one on W. Ontario, this is one I actually could live in while making it nicer. It's a case of being one of the lower end houses on a nice street, so the upside is definitely there. Couple of weird things, though...the water heater is actually outside in a little screened-in porch area that's really only big enough for itself and one person to stand out there with it. Also, it has a washer hook-up, but nothing for a dryer (?!). At $55k, though, and being generally liveable in its present state, it's definitely a contender.

that is a cute place! the last two places i lived, the water heater was outside. this seems weird to me - in nz they're inside and they have to be insulated (energy-saving). i guess it's different in california bc it never gets cold.

55k is insanely cheap - that isn't even a down payment for a house like that here.

what's the neighborhood like?

yeah that seems OK, just wrap some insulation around it. an electrician could probably wire in a 220 volt outlet for a dryer in half a day, assuming there's room in the panel box (I would check).

It could be "liveable" in its "current state" and also have a beyond-hope problem. I would still consider an inspection. Whenever something is way, way below market, there's a reason.

We underpaid (I think) because we bought a place from crazy owners who kept the place filthy and cluttered, but being in a co-op apartment building, we knew it was unlikely for their to be any big ticket problems -- anything roof/structure related is the building not the apartment. And still, it was just like 10% lower than the market, not 50%.

what's the neighborhood like?

The burglar bars on the windows are a holdover from another time. The neighborhood has really turned around—plenty of renovated houses and it's old people, young people, white people, black people (at least in that little cluster of streets). I'd feel comfortable getting out to walk my dog at night if I had a dog, for sure.

an electrician could probably wire in a 220 volt outlet for a dryer in half a day, assuming there's room in the panel box (I would check).

Good idea. If I look at it again, I'll make sure to do that.

I would still consider an inspection.

Any home I put in an offer on will be inspected, and I'll make sure it's written into the contract that I can walk if the results aren't satisfactory.

right on

The history shown in that Trulia listing is interesting ... the house has been sold five times since 2006 at a range of prices. Fulton County tax assessors' office might have a little more information, you could check their web site and do a search on that address.

Looks like there's no air conditioning? Not ideal in Hotlanta.

My experience has been you have to look at a lot of properties before it all comes together. The more places you check out, the closer you are getting to finding the one you'll buy. This one is definitely intriguing!

(how come all the sneaky popups on that web page work but none of the pictures of the house are showing?)

Looks like there's no air conditioning? Not ideal in Hotlanta.

It's not documented, but there actually is central air in that house on Burns. At least there's a unit outside, vents in the ceilings and a climate control thermostat set up for both a/c and heat. Since the power wasn't turned on, there, I couldn't check it out.

Love those super-low Craftsman cased openings, they make me feel like a giant.

http://www.trulia.com/property/3160163140-3925-Pershing-Ave-Fort-Worth-TX-76107

$88k in that neighborhood, "good bones" - I assume the interior must be a war zone.

"Good bones" is something you talk about with your agent after you've seen a house you can cross off your list. In a listing itself? Run away!

I expanded my search area a little bit and branched out into East Point, which is south of SW Atlanta but still north of the airport. I never thought about looking there before because East Point has (or had) a little bit of a reputation. Some parts of it might actually live up to that reputation, but the areas I drove through today seem totally nice and, most importantly, are being revitalized (I won't say gentrified, because I didn't see cupcake shops and organic markets). But it's obvious that the people who live in the neighborhoods I drove through take pride in their homes and their community, so I'm feeling really good about this house:

http://www.trulia.com/property/3144645821-3031-Park-St-East-Point-GA-30344

Damn, that's gorgeous.

A couple other possibilites:

http://www.trulia.com/property/3135366559-3123-Church-St-East-Point-GA-30344
http://www.trulia.com/property/1030765092-1757-Hamilton-Ave-East-Point-GA-30344