Buying A House: C or D?

Bought my first house for $68K and sold it seven years later for $100K.

But obviously I'm a real estate genius, your miles may vary.

I will say it's a whole lot easier buying a little house and selling it big than it is to invest in a home over 2000-SF and expect the same return in the same amount of time.

Well we met a couple of buyers' agents and we definitely liked one more than the other so I guess we have a buyers' agent?

68K to 100K in seven years is around 6% per year -- a solid investment but hardly amazing, sry.

saw this house this weekend http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/1449-Cohassett-Ave-Lakewood-OH-44107/33502498_zpid/, photos aren't great but wow it was pretty stunning, in great shape too. new windows, new central air (with radiator heat, not v common combination), updated kitchen. one of many beautiful homes on a gorgeous tree-lined street. we would've made an offer instantly but there were some complications w/ the school boundaries. we have a special needs kid and have been doing research on the town's schools and we were told by a reliable source to strongly avoid the school for this area, otherwise it would've been it!

i ended up finding a rental, it will be much easier to look once we live there

We bid more than we should have on a house and our offer was accepted. Stressful decision as to whether to go with it or walk out and return to the also-stressful state of continuing to look.

Can you afford it? Is it likely to appreciate in value?

saw a house today that formally checked all our boxes of things we have decided we want, and was at the very top of our price range, and spouse and i both felt "somehow we don't want to spend this much for this house, nothing about it really excites us"

on the one hand, feels like the right decision, on the other hand, i worry we're so picky we'll never buy a place

The stressful state of being stuck with payments you can't afford is a lot worse than the temporary stressful state of continuing to look for a house. People back out all the time, no harm in it. xp

xp i worry that too, though if it takes a year of looking, that's fine. we want to be excited about the place we're buying

and I'm definitely an advocate of not spending the top of your price range, because most people (myself included) tend to be overly optimistic about what will be affordable. What I thought was the top of our range would have been a mistake for us.

seandalai, is it a lot more? how much would it affect your monthly payment?

Here's a good story about not buying a house at the very top of your budget.

I lost my job 7 months after I bought my house. The job I eventually got pays a little over half of what I used to make. I still live in the house, though.

Yeah I think we can afford it but we probably offered more than it's worth and we're confident we could find something nicer if we stuck out there a bit longer. The stress is all of our making, we could just declare victory and take what we have.

take whatever you think you *could* pay and divide by three

I think 1/3 of take-home pay spent on total housing expenses (mortgage plus taxes plus insurance plus presumed maintenance costs) is a good rule of thumb to shoot for

In London or Cambridge unfortunately that would be wildly optimistic for most.

Getting a good survey done is essential if you're on the fence about affordability.

moving forward with various foreclosure-like possibilities, short sale, deed transfer back to loaning bank, etc. on the one hand blah & lol @ us for buying a house in an isolated usa college town, but on the other hand, we're not making any money on this sale in any case & we just want to be done with it.

i've posted this house a few times but it has dropped to 2/3 of its original listing price from last year, it is only $200k!!! it's not the neighborhood we're looking in but it is a rad neighborhood, one of you just please move to cleveland and buy it!!! http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/1842-Cadwell-Ave-Cleveland-Heights-OH-44118/33656241_zpid/

Maybe if I get a 100% remote job. Do they have good internet in Cleveland

haha yea the fiber optic connection at my sisters place was amazing

Fuck, Cleveland really is about to happen isn't it

Well, SOMEthing is about to happen in Cleveland

a cavs championship?

lol I briefly dated someone who lived in DC for a while then moved back to Iowa but somehow kept her DC area salary but was able to work 100% remotely

I was kind of in awe. I don't know if I could stand doing 100% remote but I could find a coworking place or something for that kind of cash

god dammit I wanted to find the house we wanted AFTER we put our condo on the market
now I get to go on a week-long trip across the fucking date line and we're going to be getting into a bidding war when we can't technically afford the down payment (yet)
fuuuuuuuck thiiiiiisssss

I honestly want to know what the catch is with these Cleveland houses.

I'm used to decent houses costing $150-$200K, but they're decent - they don't look like these awesome houses with the hardwood floors, double stairs, little crooked nooks and big ol' front porches.

Don't ask questions just go gentrify 'em

OK here's today's entry in "I don't understand this messed up process at all."

We look at a place. Our agent says "there's already an offer on this place, they're deciding about it tomorrow."

Could it be that the other offer is actually also handled by our agent?

I can see two possibilities, both of which sound terrible:

a) our agent isn't allowed to handle offers from two different clients on the same house; in that case, it seems like we're going to be shut out from houses we might want just because another of his clients is already interested?

b) our agent IS allowed to handle offers from two different clients on the same house; in that case, isn't it in his interest for us to bid against each other and send the price up? How can he possibly be effectively representing both of us trying to buy the same house?

Could it be that the other offer is actually also handled by our agent?

This is possible, but unlikely. Any ethical agent would refer you to another agent in their firm and not be the puppetmaster of a bid-off between clients. The information he/she was likely given about a pending offer was from the seller's agent.

So you're saying if we're interested in a house and so is one of our agent's other clients, he would do a handoff of one of us to someone else in the firm? So I might get to bid on the house, but not necessarily through the agent I already know and trust?

Getting the house valued today. May be the beginning of that whole moving process again.

Hey Tomboto, do u mind saying where are you moving? (Sorry if I missed it)

Nick didn't you just move?! (I remember it was around the time we did)
I dread the thought of moving again

November 2012, so just coming up 4 years. We thought this house would be 7-10 years, and it still might - we're debating whether to move, or whether to extend by freeing up value through remortgaging. Em would like a bigger, more accessible garden for Nora, and neither of us feel like we ever quite fell in love with this house. It's nice and it ticks all the right boxes, but it was a pragmatic choice, and after Bob died here it almost feels a bit tainted. Fantasising about 1930s semis with level gardens and maybe even a garage.

So you're saying if we're interested in a house and so is one of our agent's other clients, he would do a handoff of one of us to someone else in the firm? So I might get to bid on the house, but not necessarily through the agent I already know and trust?

I really, really, really don't know anything for sure. I've never even considered it before, because the part of Atlanta I bought in had houses sitting on the market for weeks or months before being bought and afaik I was the first and only person to make an offer on mine.

What I gather from the agent side of things, though, is that there are all kinds of ethical procedures they have to follow to make sure you're represented fairly to avoid having their pants sued off by you in the future.

Planning to move to Shaw. So basically a half dozen blocks east and south from where we are.

Cool. Good luck.

re: agent with two buyers for the same house -- different agencies have different policies (and may differ from state to state as well). You should check the representation contract you signed to see if it's addressed there; if not just ask your agent what his office policy is when the situation arises. Some will rep both buyers, some will pass buyer #2 to the broker or another agent in the office. Whatever the policy I'd be uncomfortable with an agent who didn't at least disclose the situation.

I honestly want to know what the catch is with these Cleveland houses.

I'm used to decent houses costing $150-$200K, but they're decent - they don't look like these awesome houses with the hardwood floors, double stairs, little crooked nooks and big ol' front porches.

― pplains, Thursday, June 9, 2016 9:07 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

cleveland had a steady decline from the middle of the 20th century until very very recently, it suffered tremendously from disinvestment, white flight, crime, environmental problems, there are still large parts of the city that are decaying. the last census STILL showed population decline, though it has slowed down a lot. the city was also hit really hard by the foreclosure crisis.

that particular house in cleveland heights also has enormous taxes, like $9k a year or something, and that zip code also borders some of the roughest parts of cleveland, even though the surrounding blocks are gorgeous

Also Cleveland Heights schools don't have a great reputation.

Living in a suburb outside of NYC in a much smaller house than the one in Cleveland Heights, I would be thrilled to be only paying $9k/year in taxes!

You should be grateful to be paying high taxes imo, they're good

House valued at what I thought and not what Em thought (which is about 10% difference - I'm the optimist). Em's going to want to move.

you planning on staying in the same city?
sorry to be nosy. We did a ton of renovation and haven't really even finished, so feel like our 7-10 years is yet to start! value has risen loads and we could live cheaper elsewhere, which is tempting.

Almost certainly, although our perfect house is in Torquay at way under budget (would be at very top in Exeter). We'll consider towns and villages on the outskirts.

It's gonna be a stressful few months. Found a house we really like. Em basically going feral.

http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-42517287.html

argh

It looks lush. Maybe we just take £10k out of the mortgage and do the kitchen amazingly.

But it'll never have a big garden.

nice! Your kitchen is perfectly fine btw!
We have finally taken down the 'squatter-chic' curtains we had draped over a bar in the living room for the past 18 months and put up a lovely blind. We still need tons of furniture. And another blind.

i was just in exeter recently, v pleasant little burg

That's a nice house! My dad's side of the family seems to be re-convening around Devon/Dorset and sometimes I'm tempted to head that way myself...

They've just decided to build a 9-storey building right opposite our flats in an otherwise fairly low-rise part of town. It probably won't be that bad but sort of wondering if I should be trying to move ASAP before it knocks the value of my flat down (if it hasn't already).