Buying A House: C or D?

well we're getting the work done after purchase so anything after that is our (the buyers) problem. getting the seller to do the work before purchase, no idea if that's common or not... maybe we're the suckers here! if you've got guarantees i would've thought that would be a good bargaining chip.

that feeling when you get the keys to your new house and turn up and the old owners haven't moved all their stuff out yet...

ah, this happened to my friends recently, there was a lot of drinking wine in the garden

the seller is doing the work for us, it slowly moves on

I think that means all the stuff belongs to you, Ledge.

The worst thing is a nice note from the old owners making a gift of the ugly sofa they couldn’t be arsed to move to the tip themselves.

I don't know the details of this stuff but I suspect it's supposed to be explicitly spelled out in the contract (probably in a part no one reads).

My house had been empty when I bought it, but there were a few "staging items," i.e., a few pieces of furniture to give you an idea of what the place would look like when occupied.

Some of the things we didn't care about (they belonged to the listing agent, not the previous owners). But one was an absolutely lovely antique pub table (it fit the room exactly), and we asked for it to stay. But this was just a verbal arrangement, we didn't have it codified contractually.

Of course when we arrived we found the table gone - had to call frantically to get them to bring it back, which they did.

Britishers buying and selling a house - last time I did this you had to have buildings insurance in place on the new house from the completion date. Now it seems it needs to be from exchange which in our case might be a couple of weeks before completion. But I have buildings and contents insurance with the same provider so how does this work - can they move the buildings insurance from exchange but keep the contents insurance until completion? We're going away probably between exchange and completion so want to make sure our contents are insured.

I guess they're essentially two separate policies?

I've now owned my house for 4 years (+3 days) and three different listing sites are estimating it's nearly doubled in value, give or take a couple thousand. Stay put and hope for the best, or sell and move somewhere cheap? Nothing's keeping me here except for laziness and my very average job.

if you want to move out of the area, do it. if changing housing in the same area would mean a comparable or worse deal when it comes to location and price, stay

I have considered moving to a cooler social district but it’s less than a ten minute drive away and a one bedroom would be the cost of my mortgage. I mean, wtf? home maintenance sucks but that seems like a raw deal

JF where do you live? I think US real estate is going to flatline and/or go down soon. I kind of think I may have already missed a window for selling in NY (since inventory has gone up and people have slowed down on buying because of tax changes/rates). The last time I sold it was probably a little too early to get the max but the place I bought after has appreciated what I would've made anyway if I had stayed, so it wasn't a loss and it's much easier to maintain where I bought. Just live where you want to live.

u.s. real estate is hugely dependent on the market in which one actually lives--imo, real estate in metro boston isn't going down anytime soon b/c we just don't have the right number of houses. JF lives in atlanta iirc and doubling value certainly makes an interesting case to sell if one is not tied to that city.

Oh yeah, I think Atlanta should keep going up, unless the broader market tanks soon/black swan event. My first place I sold more than doubled and was still going up but I just really didn't want to live there anymore and wanted something easier.

I moved to Atlanta in 2011, bought a house in 2014 while the market was still sorta reasonable in various parts of the metro area, and have watched it explode in the 4 years since. If I were buying or renting now, there'd be nothing I could afford pretty much anywhere in Fulton county. I was just looking at estimates to see where things are at right now, but in all honesty I don't really want to sell and move. I'd probably have a hard time buying a comparable house to mine anyplace I'd want to live and keep my mortgage payment at $600 like it is now.

That is quite a reasonable mortgage. I suppose the best would be to hang on to it and save, move when prices go down again, rent house out until prices go up and you can sell. Seems like the market shouldnt influence too much of your decision if its not an investment property and you plan to buy in the same area.

Things are definitely becoming more buyer-friendly (marginally) in Seattle this year, some of the evidence being that there are actually multiple new condo projects getting planned, one is even converting before construction that was planned as rentals like everything else since the recession. (There’s some bizarre law in Washington that I guess means some lawyers have a cottage industry where they get to sue every condo developer as a matter of course? I don’t know the details.)

My wife and I are moving out of London, something we would have done in maybe 10 years (when we'd be in our mid-fifties) but my wife got very sick two years back and is still in a long recovery process, London is a tough place to be if you don't move at everyone else's pace and my sis in law and wife's parents had a plan to move to Norfolk this year, so we are doing the same, selling the house, paying off the mortgage and cash buying a place.

We've found a lovely house in a great little town, and now things are moving, got an offer on our place, had our offer accepted, booked a survey, getting quotes from removals companies, slowly packing up spare rooms, yesterday I sat down with my two solicitor's quotes and there's a £960 difference between them, lot's of head scratching, now for two/three/however many months of freefall wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

600 bux for a mortgage is madness to me (nyc)

Yeah, that is insane.

Be my neighbors! The houses on each side of my property are vacant and are deteriorating quickly after being abandoned by owners who were in various stages of rehabilitating them (one of them is basically just a frame with a brand new roof on it, and it's been like that since summer 2016—I expect it's just going to collapse on itself one day).

So yeah, my mortgage is affordable and I have no directly adjacent neighbors (plenty other people on the street, though, just not next to me), but I also think the value estimates don't take into account I live in a perfectly nice house between two should-be-condemned properties.

The frustrating thing is that other houses all throughout the neighborhood have been rehabbed and quickly turned around for waaaaaaay more than I bought mine for. These two houses are just cursed or something.

I would sit on it for at least five or six more years.

Sure, you'd make back on what you bought it for, but all you've really been paying since 2014 is your interest. Get some of that principal paid, sell it for 20% more or whatever, and you'll really feel like you've made some money.

I actually keep looking at land in Winterville (near Athens). Is there ever going to be a train from athens to atlanta? I keep seeing things about it.

I wouldn't hold my breath. There's not even a straight shot on the Interstate from Athens to Atlanta.

Every community has their second ave subway

BLOODY solicitors!

Both times selling a property, we've had the normal solicitor go on holiday and older gentlemen fill in (different ones, apparently) who actually cannot use email or even look up anything basic on the internet.
Today he called and was reading random sentences of my own email of questions back to me in order to answer the same questions I was re-asking on the phone.

i already have a house that i love but this wonderful foursquare is on one of the most beautiful streets in town. i won't buy it but i want it. maybe a tad overpriced, it needs some cosmetic work, not hugely crazy about the kitchen updates but within the next 5 years i think this will be considered a great price for this house especially considering all the other houses are this street are gorgeous. we looked at a few on this street when we were house hunting and i regret not buying one there.

https://www.redfin.com/OH/Lakewood/1452-Northland-Ave-44107/home/70838312?utm_source=myredfin&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=instant_listings_update&riftinfo=ZXY9ZW1haWwmbD04MTIyMjU0JnA9bGlzdGluZ191cGRhdGVzX2luc3RhbnRfMTUmdHM9MTUzMzg0NjkzMDY2OSZhPWNsaWNrJnM9c2F2ZWRfc2VhcmNoJnQ9aW1hZ2UmZW1haWxfaWQ9ODEyMjI1NF8xNTMzODQ2OTIwXzImdXBkYXRlX3R5cGU9MyZzYXZlZF9zZWFyY2hfaWQ9MTc4NzMyMjAmbGlzdGluZ19pZD04NjIzMjkzOCZwcm9wZXJ0eV9pZD03MDgzODMxMiZwb3NpdGlvbl9udW1iZXI9MQ==

That’s a Big Family house

jesus that's ugly inside. look at how the fridge sticks out, lol. nice porch tho.

it has *potential*

i love the gold brick foundation, all that gorgeous woodwork throughout

Extensive house hunting today, i day of three smells:

1) the awful cologne of estate agents
2) even worse scented candles
3) the carpet glue smell that hold down the awful cheap grey carpet that seems to have become a mandatory precursor to listing a house.

moved in today. chaos obv but I am surprised at how good I feel. I didn't think I cared that much, but the thought I might never have to deal with a landlord again is incredible

great stuff ogmor, congrats

just sold our house and had an offer accepted on a new place over the weekend, now plunged into the tedious world of arranging contracts, getting movers arranged &c &c

super-psyched to have more space into which i can expand my store of clutter over the next few years

congrats ogmor & bg! good luck to you all

i'm digging my house a lot these days, though i already want to change the color of the walls on the first floor

ah, yes, new house means more scope for clutter, this is surely the true purpose of moving. what is a home but useful clutter? we've never really had to discuss home decor before and suddenly we have to work out our taste. a bit of painting is on the cards. the cats are spooked.

Current circumstances mean this is in my thoughts at the moment.

First step: I have started segregating clutter.

didn't you move not so long ago? hope all's ok

Here's my biggest biggest tip ever - get anything and everything agreed explicitly in writing with your buyers/sellers even if you assume it's obvious.

Certain people in our transaction are making my life a total misery.

5-6 years since last move, which was a drama.

This is... different. Not really in a position to talk about it yet except that it'll probably involve downsizing which is great for clutter management motivation.

Hope you find your ideal place. <3

That's the problem, this a a huge thing which for me I'm sure will be the ideal place but Mrs aldo requires more of a leap of faith.

Location definitely doesn't have the same type of housing available and the best/easiest answer will involve somewhere smaller. Decluttering will be helpful beyond any need to do so to be honest, and I'll end up doing it anyway.

we’ve been in a couple months now and have so far:
- repointed outside
- cleared gutters at front
- installed new bathroom
- sanded and varnished upstairs throughout
- plastered and painted upstairs throughout
- stripped all wallpaper
- repaired and reseated the double glazing

not sure what to do now. we had thought we were going to build an extension to connect the house to the garden but the architect has quoted figures which are substantially north of what we’d expected. if the garden was south facing (it’s NE) I would probably not balk because I know I would live there long enough (10+ years) to recoup but I’m in two minds. it’s hard to know how “bad” the garden is without having lived a summer with it. it’s quite long so should hopefully get some sun up the back till quite late on... ?

depressing

Have you weatherproofed everything for the winter?

seeing a lot of price drops in my hood, def starting to look like a buyers market again

there were articles last month about how nyc was cutting prices on the most listed apartments since 2006.

we have some original cupboards (edinburgh presses) and wardrobes (from 1927) and they are soooooo narrow. whyyyyyyyyyyyyy ? I can't even hang a suit in one e.g.

Yeah our last place had built-in wardrobes either side of the chimney breast but they're too shallow to hang anything sideways. hanging frontways plus shelves, was the answer.

There are probably a million things wrong with this place (oh, that sliding glass door,) but there's also probably a billion cool things that are right.

https://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-detail/506-Sands-Ct_Gallup_NM_87301_M26502-77696#photo23

so today my neighbor's adult son, who is a handyman by trade and cleans his folks' yard every week, tells us that he believe's he's owed compensation for cleaning up leaf litter from the trees on my property that share a boundary with theirs. there are several trees and they drop a fair amount of debris, but nothing harmful to their property by what I understand to be the law in this kind of situation. They're not the friendliest people in the world, so this feels an awful lot like a shakedown. What am i supposed to do, pay him every week to keep his own yard clean?

― Scam jam, thank you ma’am (Sparkle Motion), Thursday, May 17, 2018 4:04 PM (one year ago)

For god's sake he's back at it, albeit this time not explicitly trying to get me to pay him. In the ensuing year, I've taken it upon myself to very tidily trim the hedge/privacy screen between us and his mother's property, trim the tree in my yard to about half the size it has been for the last 5 years, and remove all dead branches from the tree in my backyard that borders their property. Now yesterday he's out telling me that the tree planted by the city in front of my house is "a fire hazard". He's telling me I need to be responsible for the leaves it's dropping (it's a big magnolia and sheds huge leathery leaves regularly). "I don't know what the status is with your parents, but my parents can't be having all these leaves in front of their house. This is ridiculous." I tried to straight out ignore him but he kept going on about it. All I could manage to get out in a courteous manner was "you have the issue completely wrong and I'm done discussing it with you".

Can I just say that buying a house is a major fucking dud.

co sign. have you actually bought somewhere or are you in the purgatory of being in a chain?