Home buying thread

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Brando

Asshat Brando

Potato del Grande
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Mortgage interest is paid in arrears, the payment due Feb. 1 covers interest from January 1-31. Whenever you close a refi you will have interest due on the old loan from the 1st to the date of closing and the new loan from the date of closing to the end of the month. The reason it may be more is there is overlap that as you are noting should be refunded to you when all is said and done.
 
OneofOne

OneofOne

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This was a nice bonus for us when we bought our home, since we didn't realize mortgage is paid for the previous month, whereas rent is paid for the pending month. Extra unexpected cash in the pocket is always nice.
 
S

SaidBetterThan_sl

shitlord
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So we are about to head over to force the realtor to stop writing a contract with one set of individuals, and write a contract with us...wish us luck!
 
Jysin

Jysin

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Brando_sl said:
Force? Lets hear how it went.
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Yea, if someone else is going under contract, how on earth are you "forcing" someone to break that? There are legal liabilities on those 3 parties.

Borzak_sl said:
I guess I live a sheltered life. I never understood buying a house attached to someone elses house.


Looks nice tho, let us know how it goes.
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That's a staggering amount of money for a townhouse. Like you, I'd never pay for attached housing. Hell, I even forked over significantly more money in London for a "fully-detached" house. Fuck all that noise. If I were you, I'd rather slap an extra 30+ minutes commute each way to avoid it.
 
Vinen

Vinen

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Jysin_sl said:
Yea, if someone else is going under contract, how on earth are you "forcing" someone to break that? There are legal liabilities on those 3 parties.



That's a staggering amount of money for a townhouse. Like you, I'd never pay for attached housing. Hell, I even forked over significantly more money in London for a "fully-detached" house. Fuck all that noise. If I were you, I'd rather slap an extra 30+ minutes commute each way to avoid it.
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Depending on the quality of the townhome that's not too bad. Not everyone wants land or to manage property maintenance on their own. Lots of people don't understand this -

We have shitholes like this in the Boston area selling for 600+
2001 Symmes Cir # 2001, Arlington, MA 02474 is For Sale - Zillow

Wife and I just bought a townhome in the Boston area in the 600s... but given the way the docs are written it's really just two houses on a shared piece of land. Shared expenses are the 1 adjoined wall in the Garage and the land.
 
Cad

Cad

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Vinen_sl said:
Depending on the quality of the townhome that's not too bad. Not everyone wants land or to manage property maintenance on their own. Lots of people don't understand this -

We have shitholes like this in the Boston area selling for 600+
2001 Symmes Cir # 2001, Arlington, MA 02474 is For Sale - Zillow

Wife and I just bought a townhome in the Boston area in the 600s... but given the way the docs are written it's really just two houses on a shared piece of land. Shared expenses are the 1 adjoined wall in the Garage and the land.
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I don't know about these townhomes in particular but there are some near me that have these really thick walls in between the two units - so no sound or anything should travel between the two. But in my opinion to invest in a townhouse like that you should really be right in the city, right in the action, to justify the small/zero lot... I looked at the map and this townhouse seems to be like 40 miles from DC? Thats pretty far out there.
 
Vinen

Vinen

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Cad_sl said:
I don't know about these townhomes in particular but there are some near me that have these really thick walls in between the two units - so no sound or anything should travel between the two. But in my opinion to invest in a townhouse like that you should really be right in the city, right in the action, to justify the small/zero lot... I looked at the map and this townhouse seems to be like 40 miles from DC? Thats pretty far out there.
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Assume you are referring to SaidBetterThan's link. These townhomes are a couple of miles outside the Cambridge/Boston area
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in a semi-affluent hippie-town.
 
Cad

Cad

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Vinen_sl said:
Assume you are referring to SaidBetterThan's link. These townhomes are a couple of miles outside the Cambridge/Boston area
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in a semi-affluent hippie-town.
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I was, but I'm thinking of yours also, now that I look at it.

Here's my thought as to when a more dense development like townhomes or nice duplexes or even fourplexes works out - when the land is valuable enough to support it.

For typical houses, the land is worth very little and the improvement on the land is the lions share of the value. In high land value areas, that gets flipped on its head and you have a lot of either older smaller houses where the house is worth less than 50% of the total appraisal price (lot value is greater than 50%) or you see ludicrously nice houses.

For relatively small cheap townhouses where you have a lot of greenspace near it (and a bunch of single family homes) later on, you're going to be looking to sell your townhouse, and it'll be surrounded by single family houses and there won't be any real reason to buy your townhouse, assuming the land isn't crazily valuable for some reason (and it doesn't look like it is). Certainly not a slum or poor area, but it doesn't look to me like the land values are driving densification... it looks to me like a developer decided to try to make more money on his investment by selling to 4 people rather than 1.
 
Vinen

Vinen

God is dead
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Cad_sl said:
In high land value areas, that gets flipped on its head and you have a lot of either older smaller houses where the house is worth less than 50% of the total appraisal price (lot value is greater than 50%) or you see ludicrously nice houses.
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Welcome to this area of MA :*( The land my townhouse is located on is worth more then the structures built upon it.
 
Noodleface

Noodleface

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I used to drive a couple hours in highschool to go to my girlfriend's house in Arlington(she moved away) to bang her. Then she dumped me. I hate Arlington.
 
McCheese

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I guess I live a sheltered life. I never understood buying a house attached to someone elses house.


Looks nice tho, let us know how it goes.
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I think a lot of it is what you're used to. I grew up in a townhouse and in the area I live there are probably more townhouses than detached. Not to mention some of the townhouses are insanely nice.

Someone mentioned the thick walls between townhouses, and that's definitely true for most quality ones I believe. If you've never lived in a townhouse you might think it's like an apartment, where you can hear your neighbors all the time. However, after 29 years and countless shitty, ghetto neighbors at my parents townhouse we've never had a problem with noise coming from either side.
 
S

SaidBetterThan_sl

shitlord
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That house is in Chantilly, VA in Loudoun County. Median sales price is over $400,000 here and it is the highest income in the US, purchasing property here is very very costly. The specific house my wife and I are interested in is 8 miles from the airport (although not in the airport noise zoning) and future metro so the price is a bit higher...but we won't be paying that price, we managed to get into a government program and will be purchasing the house for $138,000. We did manage to force them to not write any contracts pending a judgement on who the parcel should be offered to.
 
McCheese

McCheese

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So we are about to head over to force the realtor to stop writing a contract with one set of individuals, and write a contract with us...wish us luck!
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We did manage to force them to not write any contracts...
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SaidBetterThan confirmed Don Corleone.

What government program allows you to purchase that house for $138,000?
 
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