Buying A House: C or D?

i suppose it could have been a fence made from 1930 Martin guitar fretboards

also i challenge the next strong wind to blow ~your~ fence down

fkn come at me bro lol

Seems like anyone building fences would be a little bit of a wall nut.

My god, that's almost...immoral. Walnut! Did they have trouble driving fasteners through it?

i have to replace my 20x16 detached garage by October and the wood prices are terrifying me

Mid century modern fencing

Are other supplies as bad as lumber rn? We are planning our bathroom renovation which probably will not require any lumber (not changing the layout) but curious about tile and other stuff.

Oh hi, I am in the midst of a gut reno of a 1920 bungalow. Pro tip: order appliances at least 10 months before you need them, because that's how long it will take for them to deliver. Toilets, on the other hand, are only 6-12 weeks out.

Tile is not so bad.

Q: couches - where can you get one, like, tomorrow?

A: nowhere

Ugh C is replacing his entire kitchen in August/Sep so I guess he should order that new range now, eh?

I think I have finalized the kitchen design...it's fully custom because a friend is building the cupboards, which SEEMS like a good thing until you realize it takes all the structure out of having to choose cabinets, which makes it more complicated. Also, you have to choose little things really early on, like what ELECTRICAL OUTLETS you want, because they affect cabinet sizes etc. It's a little overwhelming but I think we're getting there.

I had to have some work done on my porch replacing some rotten boards, was pretty expensive for a small job

my contractor said things are so nuts

like usually for a big job the main lumber order would be 35k, now it's 75-80k before they've hammered one nail

I have friends who bought a new house in December and ordered all new furniture cause their old furniture was 20+ years old and still haven't received most of it yet.

Yeah we've had some issues with furniture - we ordered our sectional when we got to the house in the fall and any custom color/fabric would have taken like ten months so we just got what they had in stock. Later we ordered patio furniture and it took months and some of it isn't coming until this fall. Even the umbrella was just delayed to August which is annoying because, you know, summer.

Thankfully we already have the vanity for the bathroom. Hopefully fixtures/toilets/shower doors are not too bad.

Obvious solution here is never renovate

We renovated our kitchen 4 years ago with all new appliances and the garbage disposal, oven and fridge all broke last week. Had to pay to get the oven fixed and fixed/replaced the other two myself

See, what did I tell you

We had to replace a couple gates and a fence in our yard this summer. It was definitely more expensive than I would have guessed (although all three quotes we got were within $200 of each other), but I'm glad we kicked it off when we did. Talking to the foreman when they were here the other day, he said if we signed the contract now it would be 60-75% higher than what we paid.

I bookmark this thread to remind me that it's for the best that I still rent

note to self: let house fall down around me

that appears to be the course i'm on

OTOH, periodically checking Redfin / Zillow and seeing my house is guesstimated at 180% what I paid for it in 2009 makes my retirement more realistic. Have delayed refinancing, but am going to jump on it now, aiming for a 10 year fixed. Will still pay less than current payment, and will keep applying extra monthly to principal. 2008 build. House exterior's in good shape. Feel lucky that original home builder CamWest had deserved reputation for good quality. A few appliances are starting to die glorious deaths, like my garbage disposal, too. Coincidence or AI evidence?

xxp - torn between the shiftiness of renting and wishing I’d have been able to buy and the anxiety attack I have for my
mom’s roof every time there’s a chance of hail.

Q: couches - where can you get one, like, tomorrow?

A: nowhere

Used, everywhere.

My god, that's almost...immoral. Walnut! Did they have trouble driving fasteners through it?

― Ima Gardener (in orbit), Thursday, June 10, 2021 8:45 AM (three hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

yes! it's taking them like 30 minutes to put up each board at the moment.

here's the gate. bottom half is some tropical hardwood. top half is "construction grade" walnut ($11/ft). they're going to stain it to look like the bottom. there's another 30 ft of this to go.

https://i.imgur.com/oAXylDL.jpeg

and i agree it is immoral but they told us it would probably add 3-4 months delay if we waited for more suitable wood, so immoral it is!

Nice bookcase you've got there!

fwiw lumber is finally falling

July lumber futures peaked a month ago and are limit down again today, lowest price since April 22nd: pic.twitter.com/2PfiWBKZLp

— Conor Sen (@conorsen) June 7, 2021

but appliances and fixtures/fittings are going to take longer to come back in stock.

we bought one of these (i know it's insane $ for some foam but it's big hit, highly recommended if you have young kids, made lockdown bearable). like i say, it's just foam, shipping from inside the US. it took 9 weeks to be delivered.

https://nuggetcomfort.com/products/the-nugget

and now this https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/10/business/starbucks-shortages.html

caek is that big enough for a smallish adult

Asking for me

yes, i have slept on it

Ha we just got our nugget after ordering it like 5 months ago

"We believe we will continue to experience below-average levels of new housing supply in our markets which will support future rental rate growth and home price appreciation." Blackstone, in the prospectus for the Invitation Homes REIT

— Alex Fisch (@AlexFischCC) June 9, 2021

When they tell you why they're going to do what they then do, believe 'em. pic.twitter.com/FIoRvD12KG

— Alex Fisch (@AlexFischCC) June 9, 2021

How do can we stop the REITs? American Homes 4 Rent, another residential REIT buying your neighborhood, recently disclosed its Achilles' Heel in another SEC filing--more homes equals more vacancies and slower rent growth. pic.twitter.com/mL41xlUqjL

— Alex Fisch (@AlexFischCC) June 10, 2021

I have a wooded vacant lot out my kitchen windows, with squirrels and woodpeckers and raccoons. Lately there's been guys in orange vests wandering around and it stresses me out, I know they want to build an ugly apartment building there (aka "podium building"). I'm torn because California obv needs plenty of new housing but this weird hilly lot has never been built on (in a heavily developed neighborhood).

I might 'discover' some pre-Christian artifacts over there if I'm forced to.

Fuck me. We need a new fence and just started the process of looking for bids. One 16' section of our fence collapsed and we figured we should just replace the entire thing because it's all old and patched up. We have a gigantic yard, wondering if we should put this off for a few months...

If you can get by, I'd wait and check in a month or so when prices should have stabilized quite a bit.

xxp ralph fiennes will find your boat

xp agreed. we're doing the fence as part of a big job involving the garage, so the lumber craziness is getting lost in the noise of that project, but i would not do a fence on its own right now. it might make sense to find the contracter and book them for like september/october though. it seems a lot of them are booked weeks in advance.

so caek are you saying I should invest in INVH instead of trying to buy a house?

sadly yes

right? if you hate blackrock buying homes as investment vehicles wait until you hear about homeowner cartels around the country conspiring to keep supply low and prices high https://t.co/SyQoJL8DES

— b-boy bouiebaisse (@jbouie) June 10, 2021

It does seem safer to invest in hundreds of thousands of houses than one house, which could catch fire and wipe me out

Ideally I’d just rent a house directly from the state

Anyway splashing $1k into INVH just to annoy…someone. Myself.

Used, everywhere.

― Alba, Friday, 11 June 2021 2:45 AM (five hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

OTM, we just got a great* set of dining room chairs for a local auction house for what seems like a very reasonable price for 6 solid walnut chairs.

*greatness is still to be determined lockdown only ended last night, but if we really don’t like them we can keep them until we find something we do like and then back to the auction house they go.

Estate/divorce/house clearance auctions are good too.

are there not bedbugs down under

homes get more valuable because not owning a home gets worse.

https://gen.medium.com/the-rents-too-damned-high-520f958d5ec5

Even in Philly, the housing market is wild. Fixer-uppers in our neighborhood are going for as much as we bought our renovated house for in 2018, and newly renovated stuff is going for almost double.

Some friends who live on the other side of "a line" that divides one part of the city from another had a couple move into the house across the street— they bought their house for 120k in 2011. The house across the street went for 850k to a couple who recently came to Philly from New York.

is the line school districts?

https://nuggetcomfort.com/products/the-nugget

omg you bought the sex couch!

https://www.refinery29.com/en-us/2021/02/10254737/nugget-after-dark-tiktok