Buying A House: C or D?

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.

it's just occurred to me that there must exist a ghost inspection service somewhere. for people who are worried about ghost infestations.

xp the foundation is mostly bees, but our guy said thats good for drainage

xp Don't the ghostbusters do that for one bit of the Successful Business Montage in the first film?

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-MwFYQeWtDbE/UoK-OirBJJI/AAAAAAAAEXw/CVsrt2rMnyo/s1600/ghostbuster-logo.jpg

“performing paranormal inspections in addition to our usual home inspections gives our buyers added peace of mind knowing that they’re making the right choice with the most important purchase of their lives.”

there we go

BTW, home inspections are cool as fuck.

Not in my experience. They're not opening walls or doing anything that would actually detect real problems, so they will only notice the most obvious problems. Because of this, their reports have so many caveats and limitations as to be worthless. Someone who has made a career out of home inspections is someone who hasn't actually dealt with construction.

I would rather walk through the house with a really good contractor who you trust if you actually want to learn how the house is built.

I mean it doesn't take a genius to count how many layers of shingles a roof has and make a not if the number is more than two.