Buying A House: C or D?

It's a lot easier to have a loud rock band rehearse in a basement (two or three sides of the room being already soundproofed by, you know, dirt).

Garages, in contrast, are sonically very leaky venues (leakage both out and in).

(just now realizing how much being a drummer influences my homebuying decisions)

homebuying decisions based on personal needs and interests are far better than the people who buy for property value and "resellability" imo

Word.

Speaking just for me and my situation (the situations of others may differ), the lot is worth like 10 times what the house is worth. Had we not bought our house, it would have been an all-cash sale to a builder/developer who intended to tear down the creaky old house and build a new one. That was 10 years ago, so it's even truer now. If we should sell, it would likely be the same sort of deal. So there's really no incentive to make changes based on potential resale (or refrain from making changes that we want to).

Hence the bondage dungeon

so you wear bondage gear for drum practice, huh

i've never lived in a house w/ a nice basement or a neighborhood in which houses have nice basements so i've never really viewed them as anything more than a place for a furnace/boiler, hot water tank, and a washer & dryer

whenever i see a finished basement it still does not look appealing

tracer otm

that said a spare bathroom in the basement is nice

ok i am FREAKED the fuck out right now that we are actually going to buy a house soon

i wish the market wasn't so crazy, the way it is right now is that you pretty much have to decide that day if you want the house, no second or third visits really

good luck to you and yours, marcos

thanks puffin

the way it is right now is that you pretty much have to decide that day if you want the house, no second or third visits really

I'd only looked around with my agent for four weeks before coming across the house I bought. I drove over to look at it myself on a Saturday, toured it with my agent the following Monday, called her told her to make an offer Monday afternoon, and had the offer accepted on a Tuesday morning.

If you find the house you like and can make it work financially, ain't no good reason to freak out. For real.

only... for four weeks?

Well, in that time, we only went out about once a week. I looked at maybe 8 houses before I found the one I bought (and I found it myself online).

yea we are planning on making trips to cleveland once a week over the next few weeks until we find the right house

helps that we can look online to decide whether or not it's worth it to drive out there on a given weekend

that's fair

I looked at... a lot of houses, but in a short timeframe

Between Marcos sharing all these Cleveland house links and the woman I heard on public radio this afternoon talking about Cleveland (in the greater scope of the GOP convention, she was brought into speak on Cleveland itself) I kinda just want to pick up and move there.

I can't.

But I want to.

I love these Cleveland houses, and for prices I thought didn't exist in the East.

I know there's an obvious zinger, but I do keep asking What's the catch? on some of these.

tbf i think there are going to be devastating riots at the RNC

i am seriously worried

I love having stairs. I love watching my son ride down the banister each morning. Hey, I do even love looking down over the balcony at my kids as they argue in front of Minecraft, not knowing I'm watching them.

I say this because around here, two-story buildings are uncommon. And forget about having a basement.

yea stairs are great, after living in apartments for 10 years it will be nice to have them, put the kids to bed and hang out downstairs. and some of these houses have a main living room staircase and another from the kitchen, it is kind of neat

not sure about arkansas, but there are definitely parts to the southeast where a basement would be a fundamentally bad idea

That's why we don't have 'em.

At least we can bury our dead in the ground, unlike those goofuses south of us.

you've got the worst of both worlds: no basements, moderate number of tornados

which, after some research, it turns out florida has the most tornadoes per state. what a hellhole.

I wonder if they're counting waterspouts, because I don't remember Florida being super tornado-prone when I lived there.

You are right, though. It is a hellhole.

***may this house still be available when we drive in next weekend*** http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/1429-Wagar-Ave-Lakewood-OH-44107/33497900_zpid/

it doesn't have as many updates as the houses in that neighborhood that go really fast but any idiot has to be able to see that this house is incredible

I hope so!

bummer that house is pending already :(

anyway we're still driving in this weekend, lots of cool houses are popping up and we found a lender to work with. we ended up just going through our bank and we're pretty happy w/ the person we're working with. we have the preapproval letter so hopefully we'll find something soon.

also we knew we had good credit but it was cool to get a score and realize we have like really really excellent credit

Do you have a buyers' agent, marcos?

we do yea

ended up not going w/ my good friend who is an agent, it just seemed simpler for a number of reasons

I am now leaning towards buying our house from the landlord because everybody says it's nuts trying to buy in our neighborhood, anything appealing goes very fast. On the other hand, if we were moving here and starting from scratch, we would probably look at things somewhat more expensive than what I think we'd need to buy this place (I mean, based on Zillow -- are those estimates somewhat reliable? -- our place is the cheapest 3br on the block.)

So I guess: buying a house that's cheaper than you could afford C or D?

zillow estimates can be off i've heard but aren't bad as a general guideline

buying a house that's cheaper than you could afford C or D?

classic right? we could probably afford $75k more than what most of the houses we're looking at cost and that is great imo. if we can get what we want for a lower price i'd rather have that!

Well I guess I mean the house we're living in now is what we want in some ways (highly satisfied with the location, no major maintenance hassles in 5 years) but it would be nice to have a guest room, better/nicer kitchen, room for a table that would allow having dinner guests, etc.), which would cost us more, and which we could afford if we were willing to deal with the pain of moving.

I guess one approach, since the sale is not imminent, is "check every day for a year to see if a dreamy house within three blocks of us goes up for sale and if so make an offer." But would I already have to have a realtor or something in order to do that?

Marcos - good grief, man! Stop posting those links. Driving me insane.

yea that one was really crazy, seemed especially cheap, i would not be surprised if whoever is buying it just rips up the carpet, puts in a little cosmetic work, and updates the kitchen and sells it for $300k

buying a house that's cheaper than you could afford C or D?

Not an expert, but in general buying the cheapest house on the block is a good look. Much smarter than buying the most expensive house on the block.

But it sounds like you really shouldn't be in a rush to buy. Don't believe the hype about houses getting snatched up so fast there's no point in looking. They say that about all hot neighborhoods, but it's not always true. Good houses that might be right for you but not others can sit on the market for quite a while.

You don't have a realtor? They're super easy to get and easy to work with and they cost you nothing (just remember, as helpful as they are, they are ultimately agents of the seller, not the buyer). Get in touch with the realtor you see on the most signs in the neighborhood and have him or her take you around to a bunch of houses one afternoon. They'll be happy to do it. At first they'll take you to whatever houses they're most eager to see move, but eventually they'll get a sense of what you're looking for and will show you more relevant picks. And they'll be able to keep you in the loop whenever something up your alley opens up.

You need to see a lot of houses before you buy one to get a sense of the market. And you also need to get your hopes crushed a few times. You'll find one that looks amazing on paper, but when you get there is a total disappointment. That can happen a lot, but it's important to experience; it'll help you know when you find the right one.

eephus, if the sale isn't imminent, there's nothing wrong with sitting back and like you said, check the list every day.

Cool thing about Realtors or agents is that unlike attorneys, it doesn't cost anything to have one "on retainer". I would bet one would be more than happy to accept your "when I see one we like, we'll call" card.

Only thing that would slow you down on immediately making an offer would be A.) not having enough saved for the dowry or whatever it is and B.) already having a mortgage.

posted w/o reading, but Evan OTM.

you also need to get your hopes crushed a few times.

yea i need to be prepared for this, 2 out of the 3 houses we want to look at this weekend are already pending

houses gone before we can even get to town

there will probably be multiple offer situations

Only thing that would slow you down on immediately making an offer would be A.) not having enough saved for the dowry or whatever it is and B.) already having a mortgage.

Right, so neither applies for us, because we've been renting this cheap house for five years, and an even cheaper apartment before that, so we have no mortgage and plenty saved for the down payment. (But of course our friends all have equity in houses by now so I feel like my sense of having a lot of money saved is sort of illusory.)