Buying A House: C or D?

pittsburgh maybe

buffalo

i don't know anything about milwaukee but it is a rust belt city right?

this is pretty sweet http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/1506-Wayne-Ave-Lakewood-OH-44107/33489730_zpid/

this one too http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/3818-Montevista-Rd-Cleveland-Heights-OH-44121/33654224_zpid/

Define "city." I'll sell you my house for $100K. 2400 sq ft, 3/2, 200 sq ft detached shop/office, new exterior paint, new roof. But you have to live in Buttnugget, Mississippi.

My parents live in St. Louis. It is a fine city - arts-filled, uncrowded, green, decent on transport, and with vastly cheaper housing than the coastal money-vacuums many of us call home.

yea definitely. one of my best friends lived in st louis for a long time, visted him a couple of times, i thought it was awesome

housing stock was neat, so much brick and stone

sad about all this, a healthy clips-dubs second round would've been neat

woops wrong thread sorry

lol was seriously trying to figure out whether griffin & paul were somehow tied to real estate prices somewhere for a sec

I always thought Denver seemed like a nice city -- not quite as cheap as Cleveland but cheap compared to coastal cities, with detached houses walking distance from nice commercial streets. Especially good if you are into outdoor sports.

lol xp

No ass tubs, but plenty of potential for the motivated buyer:

https://www.crye-leike.com/1422-s-summit/in-zip-code-72202-mgrp-2-tid-littlerock-mlsnum-16005323-ln-76-p-8-sm-1

― pplains, Tuesday, April 26, 2016 10:09 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

wow that is amazing

I live in SF and these Cleveland houses are blowing my mind. What other cities have houses remotely this cheap? Open to anywhere in the US (would love to leave the country but the wife won't go for that right now).

― SA, Wednesday, April 27, 2016 1:26 PM (53 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

honestly i could be wrong but probably most small- to mid-size american cities that are not on the coast are relatively cheap? louisville, kansas city, columbus, okc, tulsa, albuquerque, minneapolis, des moines, etc

pplains that is also a v beautiful street, lots of neat houses in that neighborhood

I wouldn't have thought of Denver as being cheap. I love skiing. So expensive though. I'm open! Probably not open to Buttnugget though, sorry. Minneapolis? I figured that place would be expensive.

Yeah Detroit is supposedly "over" already, hahaha(!?). Pittsburgh too. San Antonio is the new "cheap and in the near future cool place to move to" apparently but I don't want to go there. Cleveland, St. Louis, Milwaukee -- those places seem interesting. My wife thinks that anywhere that's cheap must mean it's too dangerous to live and/or the schools/city funding is too shitty.

My mom's 2BR/1.5 bath house (w/attic and basement yet to be developed) in a nice neighbourhood in an inner Minneapolis suburb with excellent schools is worth $300K. The Twin Cities aren't cheap.

ah ok i'm really not familiar with them

denver is cheaper than LA, NYC, or SF obv but it is not really that cheap iirc

About two years ago I paid 160k for a 2000 sq foot house with 4 BR/3 baths, pretty much fully updated, located in an established suburb about ten minutes from uptown Charlotte. Charlotte has a reputation for being boring bankertown, but there are a zillion breweries, the National Whitewater Center, a largely (imo) underrated arts scene, manageable cost of living, and of course tons of jobs. Schools are decent, taxes are low, the city itself is fairly progressive, and crime is not great, but not terrible either. Anyway, I like it here and I think the real estate is generally undervalued, particularly outside of the trendy neighborhoods.

XP Looks like it's the Cleve or nothin'.

I am reliably informed that the heart of rock and roll is still beating there.

Of all the places where I have friends, Minneapolis / St. Paul seems like the real sweet spot in terms of a city I'd want to live in combined with affordable housing. I'd never want to live anywhere in the Southeast or Texas though which limits my options.

I live a ways south of Spokane and I'm kind of waiting to see if it takes off in any way as people get priced out of Seattle and Portland; it's gotten a lot more "stuff" in the last ten years - restaurants, breweries, more visible music and arts scene, more bands passing through, etc. - but it's still vastly cheaper than the coastal cities with way more of crusty/methy underdog city feeling. And it's got mountains, woods, water, all that kind of stuff super close. Not Rainier or Hood or the ocean, but still.

Anecdotally I know a number of art school grads who have moved there recently because they couldn't comprehend paying three or four times as much to rent places in Seattle and feel they could more directly involve themselves in the future of the place.

If I lived a nice growing city in Washington with mountains and stuff I probably wouldn't have a ton of fire under me to move to Minneapolis, but I have enjoyed owning a home here for the year-ish I've done so. Renting here sucks a little right now from what friends tell me, but if you're looking to own it might be worth checking into

crusty/methy underdog

this shit is overwhelming huh

i don't understand any of it

our agent connected us to one of the in-house loan officers, my wife and i got terrible vibes from her, she was consistently awful, unclear, and confusing in all her answers both in person and in writing, i don't really want to work with her

i don't even really know what a loan officer does either

also apparently we won't be able to close on a loan until i've been working at my new job for a few weeks and can provide paystubs? i would've thought the offer letter w/ salary would've sufficed but i don't really know anything about this process and this person is super unhelpful. don't people relocate for a new job and buy a house before they officially start working?

Sellers like to be comfortable that you will be a good fit for the job and not get fired/quit in disgust in a few weeks. I wouldn't want to commit to buying a house in a new area with a new job.

If you don't have a good feeling about the loan officer, get a new one now. The mortgage paperwork and approval process was the biggest pain of both of my home purchases, and you really want someone you can trust to get things done on that end and be able to explain things to you. Even more important for you since you have the wrench of a new job thrown in the works. It's pretty typical for a history of paystubs to be required. Is the new job in the same field as your old one? If not expect even more delays. In my limited experience I found working with a local broker much easier than with a national bank.

Also, depending on how well you know and trust your agent, it's often recommended that you not use his or her referrals for loan officers, inspectors, attorneys (not sure if you use them in Ohio for real estate purchases), etc. Ideally those people will be working solely in your interest, but if they have an agent sending work their way they may feel pressure to move deals alongs even when they shouldn't so as to not jeopardize their relationship with the agent. If you have an excellent agent that you trust they can be a good source of recommendations, but you have to make that call. Don't feel pressure to use people you don't want to.

You're right, it can be overwhelming. I felt silly buying it, but I must admit that "Home Buying for Dummies" helped a lot for my first purchase.

thanks nick & er, i appreciate it. yea we are early enough in the process too (haven't even started the pre-approval process) that i think it is best to find a different loan officer

A buyers agent really helped me get through all this closing/mortgage/financing stuff. Recommended a lawyer, inspector, a mortgage company. Closing was one of the most stressful things I have ever gone through. I had an accepted offer and the money and the deal almost fell through because they required so much paperwork and certified stuff in a short time frame. Pay stubs are only the beginning.

On the other hand, one of my loan officer was not really on their game/inspire confidence/was unclear. I was lucky they were not the only person I was dealing with at the mortgage company.

I grew up in an eastside suburb of Cleveland (and spent a good portion of my formative years hanging out on Coventry) so I'm enjoying watching your home search.

Yow. I don't remember even a single thing about my loan officer. I'm sure there must have been one.

Before we started looking, we had done a prequalification with a normal bank person at our normal bank. She did some fiddling with a computer and up came a bunch of different offers from a bunch of different lenders - different term lengths, different insurance requirements, different interest rates, and differences in structure. All mostly came out the same in terms of payments, which was not surprising. It is a competitive market.

Maybe I'm wrong as regards your situation, but I sorta figured that every bank in the country is drawing from the same databases, so it scarcely matters where you go. I figured it was about the same as what happens when you finance a car - computer fiddling, multiple lenders, slightly different structures, but it more or less comes down to showing you a monthly payment that doesn't scare you.

I start from the assumption that they want you to stick around and sign something, not run screaming out the door. So they will (or should) work to make it palatable to you.

If they're acting like you should be prostrated and obsequious and beg to be permitted to give them money, then that is a problem on their end. They're paid on commission so they should be trying to make the deal work, not trying to make you feel unworthy of it.

The sinking feeling that maybe you blew it / are blowing it because you haven't bought a house, when you don't really want to own a house and you like your landlord and the place you rent, C or D?

xps very cool! my grandparents lived in mayfield heights, i spent a lot of time there

eephus that is a dud feeling, no shame in renting, in a lot of scenarios it seems way preferable to owning

I'd get that feeling a lot less if the rental legislation and market here weren't set to "boil forever and stir vigorously every month"

I really like being a tenant and don't need to provide for post retirement but I would like to have a place of my own to be able to put my mark on it. Which is just about a weak enough force to leave me happy as things stand.

if we decided to stay in boston, i think we would rent our current place forever, we love it, we pay a great rent for a large place and have an amazing landlord

Yeah we're in the same boat renting a much bigger place than we would otherwise afford from good friends. Tho we turn a blind eye to the odd maintenance issue and I get to deal with sewerage backups. It's a full life

anyway i want to see this place http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/12717-Arliss-Dr-Lakewood-OH-44107/33495422_zpid/
this place too, i would rip up that carpeting obv http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/1203-Lakeland-Ave-Lakewood-OH-44107/33490466_zpid/

only bummer about a lot of these lakewood homes is that eat-in kitchens can be hard to find

so much stuff to deal with when you own a house. maintenance, catastrophes, neighbors and their weird choices, landscaping.

I finally stopped being lazy and bought a weed trimmer. If you want an excuse to buy a sweet-ass weed trimmer, owning a house is a good reason. Or being a professional lawn maintenance person.

Not wanting to deal with vegetation of any kind is enough of a reason for me to never want to own a detached home.

Our loan officer was like awful at communication but marvelous at being able to wrangle stuff around to make it work. I had a job starting in the fall with a signed contract but the bank didn't want to factor that in at all. We also had a renter for our old house lined up, with a signed lease that covered our existing mortgage payments but that didn't factor in either. But somehow he was able to get us a SECOND mortgage based on my wife's job while I was technically unemployed, in 2014 after the lending got a lot stricter. I have no idea how he was able to do this.

But man was he awful to talk to and shitty at explaining things.

The sinking feeling that maybe you blew it / are blowing it because you haven't bought a house, when you don't really want to own a house and you like your landlord and the place you rent, C or D?

I can't complain bcz I own a flat, but I bought a flat instead of a house and since then house prices here have almost doubled while flat prices went up by like 10%, and sometimes I wonder if I priced myself out of ever owning a house

I really like my flat and like living here, and the only house I saw in my price range was tiny and needed a lot of work and was far from the shops and just didn't feel like it could be home, but damn, that house is now way out of my price league. trying to remind myself that it doesn't matter if I didn't play things right from the investment point of view bcz from the "having a nice 6 years" point of view I did just fine

Really undervalued POV imo but I suppose you don't sell many supplements in the Sunday times based on the burgeoning "you're probably ok, actually" demographics

we definitely need more publications selling affirmations

This is a trophy property with unsurpassed beauty and potential

(in case you were wondering what the fuck that is)