Buying A House: C or D?

Like we might have to break the dining room wall and put in a sliding door and a new deck. Could actually be quite nice but would want to lower our offer.

oh yeah we totally had an illegally finished basement when we bought and then after one of our neighbors got fined for having it as well i started getting worried about getting fined and not being able to sell until it was either brought up to code or returned to the original state.

this town is notorious for being a stickler for code. It's not visible from the outside because (1) it's in back and (2) the door is still there, it's just blocked inside by a dishwasher. But i assume that in the process of getting permits for the other work we'd do (which this town requires for literally fucking anything) that issue could be discovered as well.

I would consider doing the work as long as the seller will lower the price, it doesn't seem crazy and we wanted to redo the deck or rip it out and put a patio anyway, so it's just a matter of adding a sliding door and changing the deck location. And actually maybe moving a recessed radiator, which seems a little more complicated, unless we want to put the deck door on the side of the house and have it wrap around or something. :?

Meanwhile, a great house is on the market in a town we like slightly less nearby so we are going to check it out just in case.

Still in limbo about that house, but the good news is the code issue is more minor than we thought, just need to close up the kitchen door with wall or window. So we may actually move forward soon.

Meanwhile, we had made an offer on another house which wound up with multiple offers as I expected (pristine, reasonably priced house in great location and school district with no inventory on market). We may have actually made the high offer but were asked to waive the mortgage contingency and refused. That seemed insane to do, but someone else was either insane or had a ton of cash lying around.

There's really no downside to waiting for the right spot. Home values are on a downward trajectory, and many more people will sell if the economy continues to crash imo.

NYC metro area can tend to behave a little differently than everywhere else (although the burbs were on a downward slide pre-COVID because of the Trump tax changes and boomer retirement). I think this is definitely pushing a lot of families like mine out the door faster--people that maybe would have eventually found their way to the suburbs and are like "fuck it, do it now." Would also kind of like to at least be in contract by school start, assuming there is going to be school ever again.

Lost bid # 3 yesterday. This evening I made an offer on a preforeclosure that wasn’t on the market. Needs some work but could be much worse and the location and yard are great.

And that one failed too. Decided to rent a house. Signed a lease today. Market is insane.

And that one failed too. Decided to rent a house. Signed a lease today. Market is insane.

Sorry to hear that. I'm surprised--everything I read about the Toronto market (which I sort of keep track of out of deference to my broker friend) says it headed straight down.

There’s a panicked flight from nyc to the suburbs. Market in the city is def down. I have to think it can’t stay like this for too long and it should die down once we are past the window of people trying to get their kids into school (or possibly earlier).

Compounded by low inventory as a lot of people aren’t listing/showing right now.

The rental market in my area is batshit, seriously thinking about trying to park a tiny house in my mom's driveway.

I was against renting because the market for that is even more insane than buying, but something sort of fell into our lap.

right opportunity will come along later

a realtor tried to get us to see a not-yet-listed house a few weeks ago and I nixed it because the lot is listed at 4000sf, i.e. doesn't have much yard

I just got a message from them saying "My husband and I had this whole thing about whether you could or couldn't fit a swingset back here and I think that you can!" lol, if you have to argue about it

one of the most frustrating things about home ownership imo is appliance repair + replacement. most of the repair ppl are bad, often can't help you, are quick to say something can't be replaced (bc they get paid a coming-out fee whether or not they do a repair), and then when you go to replace it your options are not great either. last year we had to replace a washer + dryer and we used lowes and it took weeks and they were a huge pain and delivered the wrong thing and then had to come back etc. such a terrible experience. anyway my fridge died today.

i've had good luck dealing with small appliance stores for purchasing at least.

Yeah that shit sucks. I had to buy a new dishwasher a couple years after we moved into our place -- one place wouldn't deliver, another first said they would but then showed up and said they couldn't do the install because it required drilling into our granite countertop and that was against their policy. Then finally a third company would do it and said it was never necessary to drill into the countertop. But the dishwasher we bought (whirlpool gold with stainless steel tub -- supposedly a solid mid-tier dishwasher) had constant problems. It's full of little cheap plastic pieces that constantly break. We did pay for an extended warranty, but it's still a massive pain in the ass to get it serviced each time. Then the stupid plastic handle broke off our kitchenaid microwave, and we kept supergluing it back on but it kept breaking and also the glue expanded in a way that looked ugly, so we paid some silly amount of money just to have someone come replace the handle. Then the magnetron stopped working and that would have been another $250 or so to fix at least, so we bought a new one. Range microwaves are themselves absurdly expensive it turns out.

i just bought this bullshit

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00AH5Z7CO/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

My dryer died and I decided to just replace it with a drying rack because pandemic money fears + it's just a pain in the ass to install. Not so bad for now except sheets still mean a trip to the laundromat.

I also never replaced a door rail on my fridge because the replacement part was like $60. For a fucking rail.

I enjoy replacing parts on my working appliances so they stay working and have done all the replacement installations myself (dishwasher, microwave needed a help from a handyman because the vent wasn’t cut properly). It’s annoying but since we had to take out a loan to replace our fucking old-ass ROOF last year I don’t really sweat it.

dryers are not necessary

we're five & in a small apartment so our dryer preserves important living space. not necessary but it's better than having a bigger apartment.

well alternatively you could have fun constructing 'wet forts'

one of the big draws of southern european life is the thought of pegging all my washing to a pulley over the street and letting it drip a great distance down on to pedestrians below

we didn't have a dryer at first, but we do laundry once a day and we only have one room where the drying rack can fit, and it takes up almost all the walkable space there when it's up.

dishwashers are not necessary---but I expect someone will chirp up the way I did to explain why they are. or probably this has already happened on some thread or another already.

Dishwashers use a lot less water and energy than washing manually.

There you go.

I never understand dryers. Why throw your money away when the air will do it for free.

Because our air is wet.

^^^this

Our A/C died last week. Granted it was over 20 years old, it had a good run, but sad face over swift dispersal of $7800.

And anyone who tries to tell me A/C is unnecessary has clearly never been to DC in the summer. There’s a reason it is known as The Swamp.

I found a good local repair person who told us in no uncertain terms NOT to replace our old appliances, because most new appliances have computers in them that are not repair-friendly.

With the old ones there might be an occasional need to replace a door latch or gasket or belt or something, but they can be coaxed back with ease. New ones tend to require programming fixes that are way more expensive and disruptive.

he is right

xp Have you considered draining it?

our oven has a touch screen to change temps (not a multitouch smartphone phancy thing, just a monochrome screen laid over physical buttons) and it keeps coming undone & we keep having to fasten it again. a temp dial would be much better.

I bought my microwave in the mid 80s and it's still working, except for the light inside, which is not easy to replace. It didn't have the built-in carousel feature so I have one of those plastic ones that you have to wind up but I rarely bother with that. The timer is all mechanical and there is no LED panel.

dryers can make a big difference in small spaces and humid climates when you have kids -- it can be hard to have laundry hanging around the house/apartment 4-5 days a week.

the allies won world war ii with nickn's microwave

My parents still have our first microwave from the 80s. It is huge and freakin' loud.

Why throw your money away when the air will do it for free.

a week and a half's worth of laundry is five bucks in a dryer or we could literally cover every surface in our entire house with wet cloth for four hours, hm let me think on this

it's fine to have, or not have, some of the common household appliances depending on one's preferences and living situation.

yeah, sorry; I got piqued because i did laundry today and it took four hours and a lot of lifting
i quit sending out my laundry when COVID happened out of safety concerns and it's now become one fo the real banes of my life

it's fine to have, or not have, some of the common household appliances depending on one's preferences and living situation.

BURN THE HERETIC

So, it looks like I am buying one after all...

We are finalizing the contract, mortgage application is underway and looking good etc.

BTW, home inspections are cool as fuck.

congrats! they are cool but be prepared to deal with a bunch of stuff that never came up in your inspection.

We had a to get a second home inspection, because we got into a huge fight with our first home inspector who refused to wear a mask.

hope you paid for the bee inspection. Would be a shame to move in only to find the house is full of bees.