Buying A House: C or D?

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!

My bf has spent the last like 6 months in the process of house-hunting, offering, and buying. Finally closed last week. It went like this:

Friday: Closing & keys
Sat: Moved out of old place
Sun: Furniture delivered to new place
Sun PM: Called me to complain that he bought a too-small house and his furniture doesn't fit in any of the rooms.

....

Now, I'm the kind of person who measures the rooms in advance and makes a diagram and possibly uses a computer program to place each piece of furniture and has a blueprint before the movers get there. Even allowing that I'm a little bit crazy, I did warn him that his enormous wooden antique furniture wouldn't fit in the tiny rooms of the houses he was looking at. He apparently didn't listen. I see the new place for the first time tomorrow, so I can supervise unpacking. :/

Where is it?

started looking 1.5 weeks ago and closed yesterday. I don't fuck around.

ha didn't mean close. my offer was accepted.

congrats!

Walden, NY

congrats to the new house buyers!

My parents just moved from their giant house of 40 years into a 2 bedroom condo and despite getting rid of a ton of stuff grossly overestimated how much would fit into the much smaller place. I guess they're just surrounded by tons of boxes and are desperately trying to get rid of more stuff so they can actually hang out in the new place.

I live in a fairly small condo. It's the kind of place an old retired couple would buy 40 years ago, but now there are families here because houses are so damn expensive. I'm building shelves everywhere to utilize the available space, and I think I prefer it to the spacious midwestern living I grew up in and around. But every once in awhile, we buy a new something or other, the empty space reaches a critical minimum level, and I end up taking a panic-fueled trip to goodwill to giveaway things I probably could have sold on craigslist.

the most important stuff is the stuff that allows you to disguise the amount of other stuff you have

kinder only u can answer that but the schools thing might be the decider? terrible local schools will cause you daily stress and anxiety. otherwise I'd stick with the closer, 90% perfect house tbh mainly because I'm lazy

xps Thank you!
Wanted to buy where I am now, ie Sedona or Village of Oak Creek AZ but after seeing some condos & townhomes here compared to single fam homes in Cottonwood (25 minutes away) I just couldn't pass up the bang for the buck. Basically same price gets you a shitty towhnhouse here or a nice single fam home in Cottonwood. Too rich for my blood here, had to face it. The market is INSANE in Sedona. Always has been, but surge in vacation rentals has brought in big money investors/flippers. Can always move back in a few years if I really don't like it Cottonhood I mean Cottonwood.

now where is the Breaking a Lease: C or D? thread...

kinder, I moved 5 years ago out of a big city where I could walk to everything and had so much more options to a tiny village a car ride from anything (including a shop but not a pub - I wanted one or the other so I could at least see another human face if I felt the need to - for many of the same reasons you're taking about; outside space, change of lifestyle. Love it and don't regret a minute of it.

In the interest of balance, the kids were old enough that they were at university for the majority of the period and they hate how quiet and remote it is (but then neither of them drive and want to do actual Young People's Things in the evening or at weekends).

xp oh weird, I used to live in Flagstaff 20 years ago and spent a lot of time driving around Sedona / Oak Creek Canyon / Jerome. I have really fond memories of that area, and some less fond ones of a really fucking weird party I ended up at in a trailer park in Cornville.

Housing costs in Flag seemed crazy high back then, I have no idea what they would be like now.

They are ridiculous now! I have friends who moved up there from here and I could not believe how high rents are.
Cornville is creepy, lots of meth heads and other weirdos. Cottonwood has a lot of that too, unfortunately. My new neighborhood seems relatively nice. Well-maintained homes and yards. My lot backs up to state land which was a major draw.

thanks tracer - primary schools in current place are fine, but secondary schools are a bit all over the place, so we'd end up moving in like 6 years time anyway (which would disrupt younger one's primary schooling) but I have in the back of my mind that I'd be in my 40s then so my life will be over anyway (joeks)

aldo I think you moved from where I am now. It's not so much a change of lifestyle I want for myself but for the kids I guess. It's the same distance from the city as one of the suburbs (teen kids would be able to get around easily) so it's more a psychological "aghh village life" thing I think.

sufjan despite living in what I consider a decent sized house all the storage is full up except for a drawer in a cabinet which I am excitedly trying to work out what could go in and free up space elsewhere. I am constantly thinking about chucking stuff out (mainly baby stuff tbh, why does everything to do with babies have to be so bulky?) in a kind of one-in-one-out mindset but I'd like to not think about it. It stops me from hoarding stuff though; I have a real dislike of the thought of something undeserved taking up space in my house.

io <3 for the diagrams; I sort of do that too

lol we have a baby swing in our living room right now, and I can't even access my records because of it. We also can't eat together at our kitchen table because there's a bouncer between one of the chairs and a wall.

I'm going to throw a party the day I get rid of the sodding Jumperoo
and the playpen stashed under the bed that I stub my toe on every other day
and the car seats

i want to get rid of my records AND the baby gear tbh

we have the biggest place we've ever had - 5 bedrooms - but i want these spaces to be functional and not storage

this dream house has a garage PLUS parking for at least 3 more cars in the drive so I'd be free to fill up the garage with ladders of various sizes, nearly empty tins of paint and boxes, nay CRATES, of cables. Maybe some bottles of fizzy water. This is what every girl wants deep down.

so I've been looking for an excuse to buy an outdoor camera, mostly to play around with before giving it to my dad as a gift -- they have a back yard where all kinds of wildlife hang out, and he'd love to see when animals dropped by when he wasn't there

I asked the roofers nicely if they'd mind if I put one on my garage while they were there, assuring them I'm just peeking at progress and not spying. so, of course I'm checking every few minutes and getting all excited

when I dropped by over lunch it looked like a missile had hit the front of my roof

i wish i could buy this house in my town. someone here should. i want to live in the 2 room studio. maria and the kids can have the house.

https://www.trulia.com/p/ma/greenfield/128-mountain-rd-greenfield-ma-01301--2000388499

that place is awesome! i def want to live on a Mountain Road somewhere at some point in my life.

damn western MA had gotten pricey! greenfield was supposed to be the cheaper alternative to northampton & amherst

ok never mind that place is luxurious

it sold for 150K in 2014