Buying A House: C or D?

Unless I were to live 25-30 miles outside of the city, this is the kind of situation my homebuying budget leaves me with.

There's some HGTV show that I end up watching at the gym that takes place in Atlanta, and it's amazing how many people seem excited to live in shiny places way out in the burbs with an hour commute each way.

Ugh, how do I make my dad stop being a complete killjoy during this process?

Say, "Dad, stop being a complete killjoy during this process!"

er, it's a house. it's definitely a place to live first, an investment second. he wants it to be one way, but it's the other way.

it's amazing how many people seem excited to live in shiny places way out in the burbs with an hour commute each way.

That's the kind of people my parents are. They love planned suburban developments. They've never bought a McMansion, but most houses we/they have ever lived in are more house than they actually need. They like strip malls and chain restaurants and everything that goes with living in a burb.

I, on the other hand, despise everything that goes with living in a burb to the core of my being.

Don't get me wrong. I love my dad, but he's an old white man who's never lived in a culturally/economically diverse neighborhood as long as he's been alive and he's probably scared shitless on my behalf of imagined dangers where, at least in the neighborhood I'm moving to, have no basis in reality.

Here's my advice: a house is a place where you live. Make the inside yours, make the outside yours, live with all your shit in boxes in one room of the house. It doesn't matter as long as you're happy and it works for your needs.

I mean, don't be a dick and leave the outside totally fucked up because you want to be on good terms with neighbors. So if you have a yard, mow it before it goes to seed, if it snows where you live, clean off the sidewalk. Don't have too many cars on cement blocks in your front yard. But you're not under any obligation to landscape or garden or wtf ever just because you could.

People who only do things to their homes after carefully amortizing its contribution to the resale value are savages.

Right? I mean, I am actually looking forward to keeping a yard looking nice. This is the ultimate payoff for my selective neatness ocd. There's probably a lot to be said for always making sure your next house can be nicer than your current house, but the size of this mortgage and payment is so much less than what I'm even paying in rent right now that I'm willing to gamble a little bit on whether or not I can make all my money back if I move out of the house in five years.

I agreed with iatee on the house-is-not-an-investment in some places, but Atlanta freakin' Georgia where you can probably get 1500-SF for $150K is not one of those places. I am convinced that homes closer to the core of a city will appreciate in value far faster than what will be the outer-city shell neighborhoods of 2039.

Factor in the savings of not paying rent, adding equity to your portfolio, being able to get credit to pay for any future Fevers' education, the peace and mind that not only comes from keeping a home neat and clean, but being empowered to do whatever the fuck you want to do with it - I think you're the smart guy here.

It's funny - I've privately questioned basically every single person I know who owns a house that doesn't look like mine since I became a property owner. Why would he want to live on a big hill like that? It's ugly where they closed in the carport. They've got three kids and one bathroom? It's great, and I enjoy it. The grass is greener on your side when you own your home.

Unless you mow it to the bone like I do, then it's just dirt.

Haha!

a house is always going to be, by a certain definition, an investment - you're going to own an asset worth a lot of money that might go up or down in value.

it's more that you don't want to have the 2000s era mindset that there's always gonna be inevitable rapid appreciation - it's not a machine that spits out money, it's a machine for living in that requires a lot of upkeep.

I would also take the 'buy something close to the atlanta core over the exurbs' bet, but who knows, nothing is sure, maybe solar powered google cars or w/e will let southerners live even further from the core, and everyone losing their jobs will make inner city crime go to 1970s levels.

The previous owners of our new place were way into yard work - the guy gave me a half hour rundown of the sprinkler system, what the lawn service does did every month, how to treat the grass, and so on and the whole time I was thinking how sad he'd be to learn that lawn care is not at all my hobby and at best I'll mow it during the wet spring and let it go dormant when the dry summer kicks in.

I did mow yesterday for the first time, and only to not be a dick and leave the outside totally fucked up because I want to be on good terms with neighbors.

Yard work is the worst. I'd have to buy a house with zero yard.

I like a nice-looking yard, but I don't want to maintain a botanical garden or anything. I just plan to keep everything that's already there cut back for minimal maintenance.

One good thing about yardwork is you get to see the results every time you go outside -- lots of positive reinforcement

If there are two things my divorced parents have in common, it's weather and the damn yard.

Dad wonders why I haven't planted Bermuda or Zoysia like the other neighbors. Mom thinks I should plant bushes all along the back fence.

I'm very much into Keep It Simple. I envy people in New Mexico who can dump some rocks in their yard and receive accolades in return.

But I'll mow before it gets over six inches. It's easy to do when it's short and if I let it go long, the bugs and varmints start making a home back there.

As far as the monetary investment is concerned, I think iatee and I are roughly on the same block. In my state, most of the busts from five years ago came from new construction - developers thinking their field of dreams was going to pay off in the millions. It takes time, it takes work and it does take a little knowledge of where the best place in your area is to live, not to buy.

I've got a buddy who bought a house for roughly the same price as we bought ours. He's way out on the new west side of town, living on this looped road with identical brick houses side-by-side with one another. Last time I went to visit, there were at least half a dozen For Sale signs in the yards. No selling advantage whatsoever - if one house is the same as the other, price is the only a buyer really needs to be choosy about.

At least in my neighborhood, the sizes, ages and lots vary widely. One house might be cheaper than the other, but hey, you're missing out on that huge fucking yard to plant your bushes. I'm very comfortable in my investment, and honestly, it'll still be worth it for me 25 years from now if we sell the house and only break even.

every time you go outside

therein lies the rub

I don't mind messing around doing home improvements and screwing with stuff. Even if I fuck it up, the house has been there since 1915. If no one has managed to accidentally destroy it yet, I doubt I'll be the one to do so.

I hear ya on that, mine is from 1920

congrats JF!

If I buy a house, I'm going to till up the St. Augustine or Bermuda and put down ground cover that has a legitimate place in Texas without being watered 3x week for the 210-day summer.

My lawn right now looks to be basic fescue, which grows faster than I'd like it to. Fortunately, there's not much of it. I imagine mowing both front and back could be done in about 20 minutes.

My side yard is mostly this little motherfucker:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glechoma_hederacea

I like yard stuff because I like to sit outside and grill and drink and such and let the dog roam around in the back. Also if I build a fence or patio and it's slightly crooked it's no big deal as opposed to fucking up a backsplash or something inside and hating myself every time I see it.

If I buy a house, I'm going to till up the St. Augustine or Bermuda and put down ground cover that has a legitimate place in Texas without being watered 3x week for the 210-day summer.

― Kiarostami bag (milo z), Wednesday, July 9, 2014 1:15 PM (2 hours ago)

You might need to completely dig the yard out past the topsoil. I thoroughly tilled up my back yard the year I wanted to get heavily into vegetable gardening. That wore me out, so the next year I left the back alone except for a couple of strips and raised beds. By the 2nd summer past the tilling, you couldn't tell I'd ever done anything to the yard -- I think the aeration just helped the grass thicken up.

I've posted this image before:

http://i.imgur.com/oWglb6Q.png

• My neighbor's on the left.
• My yard's on the right.
• My parents are ashamed.

original listing $239k
offered $220k
counteroffer $236k

no dice

:|

tell yourself it's for the environment xp

not worth it if more time and resources only gets you what's on the left tbh

And believe it or not, that guy's a professional landscaper.

Sailor, you should counter-offer $216k. And then buy a boat.

original listing $239k
offered $220k
counteroffer $236k

Based on recent sales in the area, was your offer solid? Because that seller seems unwilling to really play ball.

they're probably underwater

Hadn't thought of that, but it's a definite possibility.

Definitely buy a boat then.

A+

seller listed the house at $289k(?!?!) last year and dropped the price a couple times last summer. The house is only 1500sq ft on a very small lot (which we liked; manageable size); similar houses nearby are all larger, newer & on larger lots, usually in the $190k-$215k range. The seller has done some nice improvements & it's in great, move-in ready condition -- just seems like they feel entitled to get a certain price out of it? Seller's realtor says they upgrading to a larger seaside house down the road so I dunno what the deal is

My yard's on the right.

Can't speak for where you live, but local officials in California are urging homeowners to let their grass go brown due to the severe drought conditions we've been experiencing for months. So for me, my brown lawn is a badge of honor. :)

Sorry, that really sucks for you, but if they're okay letting the house sit around for, what's now, in excess of a year while they wait for a few precious thousand dollars, then fuck 'em.

xp obvs

I just don't get the planted grass, especially when they're first stuck out there like throw rugs and you feel like you could hide a spare key under the lawn or some other Bugs Bunny scenario where he lifts up the whole yard.

We are not in a drought. In fact, it's flooding again in the eastern agri part of the state. The other day in the rain, the kids and I drove past our neighbors' place where the sprinklers were busy adding fuel to the fire.

From this house, I might see poorer folks walking down the street on the way to the bus

jesus heck America

Idly browsing houses in the Fens on Rightmove at the moment. Ridiculously, the cost of a mortgage on a place like this:

http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-31029903.html

plus renovation costs, plus £600 a month in train fares would still work out cheaper than a one-bed flat in most parts of London i'd be interested in. Heck of a commute to London but Cambridge is only half an hour away.

Loving the exterior of that one, but there's a lot of updating to be done on the inside.

There is, but that appeals to me i think. I would like the chance to completely renovate somewhere to my own specification. There's a chance i've been reading too many interior design books recently, though.

no such thing as too many

Looks good! Except I have an aversion to front doors opening into living room.
Renovating is very rewarding but be prepared for most of your budget to go into "boring" stuff like re-plumbing, re-plastering, repairing windows, flooring etc before you get to the fun stuff.
If you don't need/want to move walls around that's a bonus - no floor plan on rightmove :(
Currently launching into doing our "new" place (been here 18 months) and did extensive renovations in the last place. We did save for 5 years before doing the last one.

also you could move in and live in it without needing to renovate asap

Don't front doors lead into like 98% of all living rooms?

Some places have a formal foyer (probably more than 2%, even).

Hallways, we have them. But that looks like it used to be a shopfront?

Ah, I hear ya. Like this:

http://photos3.crye-leike.com/photos/littlerock/4/1/CARMLS10375341b.jpg

so: we told the sellers' broker that we were not interesting in their counteroffer and said we were looking elsewhere

within a week the seller came back with a MUCH better counter, slightly higher than we would have liked but within our budget, firm price

we went for it

p&s agreement signed, getting the deposit together

inspections next week?

shit what is happening