Buying A House: C or D?

it will suck but then it will be awesome :)

yea, it will definitely suck but at least you've done it before

My parents are selling their house and are buying a condo in the town where my sister lives.

I’ve lived in 13 places including four 2000+ mile cross country moves in the last 20 years and have bought three and sold two houses since 2007, so it’s both endearing and exasperating to hear my mom totally FREAK THE FUCK OUT. They’ve lived in the same place since 1976 and have no idea how the whole process works and the logistics of closing dates and moving and all. Like now do you understand why I was so stressed out when doing this? It’s a terrible thing to deal with.

and good luck btw hope the offer works out! was it accepted?

is there a home remodel/renovation/diy projects thread? I'm on a multiple front diy reno project and would love some advice/commiseration

xp it's going in tnite so probably won't know anything until tmmrw

nothing signed yet but looks like it's a yes

Grats man that's big

now i've gotta sell my house but i think it'll sell there's already interest

congrats!

congrats! offer getting accepted is huge!

is there a home remodel/renovation/diy projects thread? I'm on a multiple front diy reno project and would love some advice/commiseration

― Scam jam, thank you ma’am (Sparkle Motion), Tuesday, March 6, 2018 7:55 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i think they are a couple but not really active. post it here imo

t’s both endearing and exasperating to hear my mom totally FREAK THE FUCK OUT.

My parents are selling both their home (bought in 1981 for like $35,000) and my grandmother's former home down the street. Since Gramma died, Mom's turned the second home into a glorified art studio.

So when the Zillow pictures showed up the first time, and all I saw were these painted mardi gras masks scattered amongst cardboard boxes, I felt like I needed to say something.

excellent

Flippin' SWEET

https://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-detail/450-W-Grixdale_Highland-Park_MI_48203_M37779-89409?cid=soc_shares_core_ldp_fb#photo16

Saw that yesterday. Everything thing in the house is part of the sale, including the 2 cars.

wow

what ends up happening w/ places like that? =

very few of them end up keeping the decorations just like... that.. if that's what you mean

yea i was thinking about the gnome house from a while back itt, or that artist's house w/ flesh-colored walls ... they aren't priced cheaply enough for investors to want to come in and clean everything out

I'd double-check what they actually sold at, sometimes the listing price for a home someone really loves can be... enthusiastic

• Not a lot of punch parties there.

• Macrame ceiling.

• I've got 50 more photos to go?

• Feng shui of sleeping in corners

• Minecraft stairs

• OMG Elvis stage

• CARS

https://i.imgur.com/Zp155BJ.jpg

But would you really want to buy a house from Richard Milhous Nixon? That's the biggest question.

on the house front:

had someone out to check my water line yesterday and it qualifies for replacement under my water line insurance policy (yay!)

couple reps from a roof/siding company came out to give me an estimate on replacing those things, which I should find out in a few days

cool! what kind of siding are you gonna go with?

same company did insulated vinyl on a house around the corner, but I'm strongly in favor of fiber cement (hardieplank). that's what my garage is, and I can't get over the idea of vinyl being bad. I think it's fine now, but past experiences have biased me

got a guy here rn ripping out some truly awful carpet. laying down a fancy tile floor instead!

nice!

I can't get over the idea of vinyl being bad. I think it's fine now, but past experiences have biased me

ha otm

i love wood siding but hardieplank seems really cool, you have the look of wood without the vulnerability

we're done with big projects right now. exterior painting and finishing the attic sucked up all of our money so we wont do much for a while. next big thing will be redoing the front porch floor and supports, prob in 2-3 years. i have some small projects i want to do - paint a couple hallways/bathrooms, paint our front, rear, and side doors

the exterior of my house looks sooooo baaaad right now. like I had a whole new garage built and driveway poured a couple years ago and put it off again, but the more visible front the street part has flaking paint. the back of the house, the siding is practically falling off.

also rectifying the situation where whatever geniuses messed with the roof in the past just kept adding layers of shingles. I swear there's a fourth layer (!) under half the roof that crumbles if you touch it

haha wow. when we lived in boston the folks across the street remodeled their entire house, when doing the roof they removed so many layers of shingles that the house actually lifted slightly once the weight was removed! crazy

our siding sucks too. we did some patchwork carpentry repairs, which helped. scraping and painting helped too. but a lot of that wood is just old and rotted.

We're getting our place painted this summer, which fucking blows in terms of money spent to the amount of enjoyment I'll get out of it but the paint is kind of messed up and weird in lot of places so it has to be done. We're also kind of limited because the place is made out of concrete block (meaning weirder to paint) and has an addition with vinyl siding (which can't be painted) - meaning we have to paint it the same color or else the vinyl part is going to look totally different and kind of stupid.

what color is the vinyl?

Kind of an off-white heading towards tan, so much earth-tonier that I'd like it to be.

my parents are nuts about home projects and I’ve been able to hold them off for the last couple years because, while I appreciate the generosity, I like having my own space

I think they have a lot of pent-up energy and are going to offer something soon and I’m going to “cave” though. Hoping that it involves kitchen remodeling.

Joygoat, my parents’ house is a mix of brick and vinyl siding and two years ago they had it coated with this stuff called Rhino Shield that looks like paint but is sprayed on and works on just about any surface. I was very sceptical but it turned out great. Has a 25 year guarantee. No idea how the cost compares to painting but might be worth looking into if you don’t like the color of your vinyl.

has anyone cancelled PMI early based on principal and original value (i.e. no refinance)? have initiated this process but will need to get a BPO and am feeling quite vulnerable, even with HPA in place.

Do they have an assessor do a walkthrough? That seems like an unnecessary expense but it'd be a good fallback

you mean with the BPO? yes, they want someone to confirm that the value hasn't dropped for any unforeseen reason. Which is an annoying additional ~$100 expense (it is more for full appraisal, though). I think it should be safely assessed at what we paid, but I also don't know what their incentive is to be quick and fair about it. I'm more worried that it will drag on for awhile, given that I'm hoping to beat a CD rate on return from the extra payment.

I suppose I'm wondering if there's a trick, such as responding with a certified letter that includes specific language, that helps move things along. I don't really do any banking with the owner of the mortgage, so maybe I can include light language about being interested in other services based on how quickly we can get this through? I'm not trying to be threatening or dishonest with them. I didn't fully realize until now that I have so little leverage in this moment (outside of what's in the HPA).

so, my grand roof and siding plan is underway

the contractor is currently tearing off the existing roof and thus far has discovered three layers of shingles on top of wood shake. kind of wondering if that's the original roof? will find out

whoa! i bet it is

there is a cool dutch colonial house down the street from me and the cheap vinyl siding is peeling off and you can see the beautiful fish scale wood shingles underneath

That's reminding me of the first house I bought. In the basement apartment we tore up the carpet. Underneath was linoleum, then another layer of linoleum, it was like 4 layers before we got to concrete.

I have a coworker who grew up in an old farmhouse, which his parents tore down partway through his childhood. His bedroom was in a half-story and he'd occasionally bump his head on the slanted part of the wall and wondered why it was so *soft*

they checked it out before tearing the house down. it turns out there was about a half inch of layered wallpaper stuck to the wall

any uk ppl on this thread? doing a bit of soul-searching re deciding whether to move from 90% perfect house/location in great part of a city, with everything on my doorstep, to 99% perfect house in tiny nice-enough village, still a short drive to the city. mainly for kids' schools, outdoor space and safety from city nonsense. wondering how isolated I'd feel.

nb with young kids I barely actually use everything that's currently on my doorstep... But it's nice to know I could. made worse by pressure to move now before the eldest starts school!