Buying A House: C or D?

basically deciding whether we should buy a house that we otherwise like a lot with a plan to ditch the vinyl and re-side with wood (or hardieplank) or just pursue a wood-sided house and ignore the ugly vinyl ones

http://www.hsh.com/images/slideshow/city_salary_static.png

(from http://www.hsh.com/finance/mortgage/salary-home-buying-25-cities.html#how-did-we-come-up-with-these-salaries)

crazy.

There's no way the NYC number is correct. It says it's based on a median home price of $395,400. That pretty much only buys you a studio apt in most parts of town, plus they're not factoring in co-ops, which have high monthly common charges.

it's for the metro area and only covers the principal, interest, taxes and insurance payments

Lol sf

San Francisco is probably gonna be worse off than Angola any day now

i can play along in this thread i guess. i hate this entire process but i do actually want a house. we're checking out this weird contemporary a-frame tomorrow:

https://www.redfin.com/MA/Westborough/36-Upton-Rd-01581/home/16634004

Beautiful house.

But that aside, what do you think the heating bill looks like?

My dad's got an A-frame, and the windows – over a 20-year time span, mind you – has given him a few headaches.

Does that A-frame have any numbers on the wall? You gotta have 'em all!

3 acres! rad

that place is awesome

not sure if you'd want to do anything to that gorgeous fireplace but if you are concerned about heating you could put in a wood burning insert and have an additional heat source

3 acres would give you an endless supply of firewood too

it's pretty lol that we're even considering something with that much land. not really our scene or forte but i guess i could learn.

where else are you looking

basically towns of metro west/495 belt that are more than bedroom communities and have some basic services close by.

it's a pretty short list.

Does it have a bar?

Not sure if it was mentioned for first-time buyers, but having a house with a big lawn = $ for lawn service or immediate $ put down to purchase lawn-mowing equipment. We had set some money aside for hiring some short-term lawn maintenance while we got the house in order but we had no idea it would be so expensive. Cut to having to buy a mower on a budget and it taking 2+ hours every 2 weeks for it to look semi-respectible.

interesting--what kinds of quotes did you get for lawn care service?

yikes look at this addition

https://ssl.cdn-redfin.com/photo/159/bigphoto/622/3843622_0.jpg

so bad

they should do that again and have a little roof above the roof above the roof

we heard you like houses

http://i.imgur.com/bhjrcxK.jpg

so long as that addition houses one of those US vs Canada bubble table hockey games, it was a good move imo

anybody know how many softeners/filters/etc I will need to purchase for this tankless water heater I am inheriting?

water quality is v bad out here, btw. Not uncommon to have water brown with sediment on occasion.

http://i.imgur.com/EDxM5GB.jpg

That's the Pontiac Aztek of additions.

Or there's Pittsburgh, kinda like Cleveland except with better hockey?

http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/1210-Tyndall-St-Pittsburgh-PA-15204/11479126_zpid/

I'm staying in an airbnb house in Seattle right now which prompted me to look up what houses in this neighborhood go for; they're all 1/3 to 1/4 the size of that Pittsburgh place at 5 to 6 times the price.

This place a block away from me is 2/3 the square footage and 15 times as expensive:
http://www.zillow.com/homes/for_sale/Seattle-WA/54831713_zpid/

tbf, the Pittsburgh house needs a lot of work.

Does it? Looks very livable in its current state.

It is a little apples to oranges but you could put 1.1 million in upgrades into the Pittsburgh place and still be a million ahead

Scrolling through those Pittsburgh photos, definitely something between the lines -- enough where I wasn't all flabbergasted going "What's the catch?" Figure there's at least a ghost underneath that pink carpet upstairs.

Still. $149,900 is crazy.

Declining neighborhood, few amenities, bad school.

interesting--what kinds of quotes did you get for lawn care service?

― call all destroyer, Sunday, 11 September 2016 03:46 (one week ago) Permalink

I think we were paying $65 a week for a pretty bare-bones service, but that was only because he gave us the rate as the previous owner. We wanted to use a different service because they turned out to be pretty flaky after a few weeks but we couldn't find anything remotely cheaper. I think we stopped after 1.5 months or so after we decided we'd essentially pay for a decent mower and trimmer after 8-10 weeks or so.

http://triblive.com/news/allegheny/7694180-74/sheraden-residents-community

we are starting to get a little discouraged, inventory is just so low right now, it's like the same type of shitty listing comes up and it's never anything that we want. that's not really fair i guess, they aren't shitty listings, but i feel like if we were looking for a much smaller house at a lower price point then we would have tons of options, or if we had a much higher price point in mind there would be some things too. in the mid-range there just aren't many available.

i looked at redfin analytics and peak inventory this year (july) for the zip code we're looking in is about the same as the lowest point 2012-2015. so weird.

ok well there we go

the buyer closed on our place today and our offer got accepted on our new place tonight
on to contract and lender bullshit and god knows what
BLECCCH.

well at least I get to paint everything whatever color I want, I guess? and no more condo meetings! wheee. now I just have to worry about forcing ourselves to save up for things like roof repairs and shit.

CONGRATUMATATIONS ON YOUER MARTGAGELEBRATION

Uergh, the house we're (meant to be) buying needs a whole new roof, and the vendor is refusing to budge. So we're almost certainly going to walk away.

the buyer closed on our place today and our offer got accepted on our new place tonight

sweet timing though.

congrats tomboto, where did you end up buying?

nooo nick. Roof problems are the worst.

columbia heights by the petworth metro

back porch looks out over an abandoned building that's hopefully going to get a good RFP response and be restored soon

Um...

http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/24-Brentwood-Dr-Avon-CT-06001/59011376_zpid/