Home buying thread

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I'm thinking of buying a winter home/condo. I'm sick of the winters in Connecticut and would like to play golf year round. My original plan was to buy up 4-5 rental properties and use that as my retirement plan with my traditional investment accounts being discretionary. I've been a landlord for 10 years now and have no desire to own more residential investment properties so now that plan is changing.

My criteria are that it has to be warm from October through April, has to have good golf nearby, preferably as a residency perk or a cheapish ($300/mo or less) membership to several courses. A place like Pinehurst NC would fit the bill if it wasn't a bit too chilly in those months for good golf. I'd prefer something like a condo where I wouldn't have to worry about property upkeep and I would prefer it to be under $300k.

There are some communities I am eyeing in SC, GA, FL, and especially Arizona but was wondering if anyone here knew of any "hidden gems" so to speak.

Oh, and nowhere closer than an hour to any overly "democratic" cities like Atlanta. I don't want to be anywhere near any "protesting" for as long as I live.

Hmmmm. Biloxi is a Casino city right? Isn't it a bit touristy?

EDIT: Haha, I always laugh at how far money goes in places like this. This would be an 800k house at least around here, even though it's slightly dated. 9045 W Cardinal Ln, Biloxi, MS 39532 | MLS #351994

Khane said:

Hmmmm. Biloxi is a Casino city right? Isn't it a bit touristy?

EDIT: Haha, I always laugh at how far money goes in places like this. This would be an 800k house at least around here, even though it's slightly dated. 9045 W Cardinal Ln, Biloxi, MS 39532 | MLS #351994

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Damn, that's giving property away. It's $500-$1mm per acre here without a house on it. Add in 3,200 sq ft and you're talking $1mm-$3mm.

That's pretty tempting if the surrounding area is nice.

probably pulling the trigger on refinancing on Monday. Glad I procrastinated over the last 9 months with this decision.

Wellsfargo is offering 3.125% on a 20% refi. Chase's rates look to be ~.2 to .3% less. Any recommendations on going through an unknown(least to me) online back for a refi?

Seems many online rates are low because they're not disclosing how much the rate is bought down via points

FWIW, I just closed a 2.75% jumbo refi with Chase a couple weeks ago (w/ points, 75% LTV). I can send over the dude I worked with if you want to compare rates. They aren't the most responsive, but they had the best rates for my jumbo.

Khane said:

I'm thinking of buying a winter home/condo. I'm sick of the winters in Connecticut and would like to play golf year round. My original plan was to buy up 4-5 rental properties and use that as my retirement plan with my traditional investment accounts being discretionary. I've been a landlord for 10 years now and have no desire to own more residential investment properties so now that plan is changing.

My criteria are that it has to be warm from October through April, has to have good golf nearby, preferably as a residency perk or a cheapish ($300/mo or less) membership to several courses. A place like Pinehurst NC would fit the bill if it wasn't a bit too chilly in those months for good golf. I'd prefer something like a condo where I wouldn't have to worry about property upkeep and I would prefer it to be under $300k.

There are some communities I am eyeing in SC, GA, FL, and especially Arizona but was wondering if anyone here knew of any "hidden gems" so to speak.

Oh, and nowhere closer than an hour to any overly "democratic" cities like Atlanta. I don't want to be anywhere near any "protesting" for as long as I live.

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Check out St. Augustine - I know of a few golf courses nearby but dunno if they're any good as I don't golf. Plenty of residential/condo's. Our company has a Condo here that I stayed at for a week, was pretty nice. Hard to beat NE FL weather for those months either

BrutulTM said:

They're claiming 1 gbps down and 20ms latency. It's different because the satellites are in low earth orbit. Traditional satellite internet uses a single satellite in geosynchronous orbit, which means that everyone is sharing one device that is like 20,000 miles away. Starlink will have thousands of satellites that are like 200 miles away. It's going to be totally different. That said, it won't be available in densely populated areas just because it can't handle that many connections from a single area, at least at first. If it's anything like what they're claiming though, it's going to be a massive upgrade for those of us out in the sticks and may be better than what's available in a lot of cities.

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Starlink will be amazing for people who want to build their family villa out in the middle of nowhere and telecommute in the New Normal. For the price of a 800 sq foot studio in Boston, San Fran or NYC you could build an entire compound with separate guest house / function hall / office complex. Internet reach has been the last major barrier to pulling that trigger for many people.

So I'm banking on that new normal. We're supposed to get an improved telework policy whenever we actually do go back to the office. I'm betting next year before that happens though.

I'm still working through buying a house. It's new construction, nearly finished. The builder is having a hard time getting the well driller to come out since that contractor has a huge backlog of wells to drill...

So I've learned that realtors very, very, very purposely keep buyers from sellers. They try to control ALL of the communications. I was ok with that when she was doing what I asked. This is a NEW house though and since it's unfinished I wanted to influence everything that is unfinished. Not to be a pain in the ass... just to understand where the well and septic are, if I could move them a few feet here or there, what I might be able to pick out if there are options on things that still need to be completed, if I could store my stuff in the place and other logistics. I asked my realtor twice to set that meeting up but she refused. Finally she said I would not be able to meet the owner because the owner would not be willing to take the time to meet with me to entertain any of my requests. I didn't like it. To me, she should have tried to set that meeting up. I also wanted to measure the owner in my own mind. Is he actually going to finish this deal? Is he going to take my EMD to finish the house and then look for a higher bid cancelling our deal? Could I store my stuff there? Will we make the closing date?

So during the appraisal process there are no good comps that have sold right in that area in the last year. I dug pretty hard myself and the appraiser was saying it wasn't appraising for what I offered. I saw a house across the street almost identical listed for $30k more than mine so I was curious why it wouldn't appraise. The seller's realtor sent in comps and I was copied on that email. BAM - I had their contact info so I asked them to set up a meeting with me. The other realtor forwarded my info over to the seller and we met yesterday. It was perfect. We discussed options, punch list, the seller was perfectly cool with me storing my stuff there and even suggested it when they had done something similar for another buyer down the street.

I notified my realtor I met with the seller and she got all in my ass about violation of protocol and all this shit. She claimed she can't protect me if I talk to the other parties directly and I get it. Maybe I was slightly retarded but I asked the realtor twice to set that meeting up and she refused. I pointed that out as she was knee deep in my ass threatening to go to the board against the other realtor.

I don't like those realtor protocols. We lost the offer on another house. We would have viewed that house 2 days prior when it first became available if she hadn't missed a selection in MLS for basement furnaces required. Everything else for that house was in my parameters. Then she made several math mistakes that I corrected multiple times. Those mistakes may have deterred the other realtor we put an offer in with for the first house from accepting our offer but either way we were late by a few days.

Shit happens so I just let it go but I still had to make corrections for the offer on the current home. I ended up finding the house I put an offer on through my agent.

All in all, I don't trust realtors. I wanted to look the owner in the eye and get to know the guy to make my own assessment. He's a regular guy like me, trying to finish the house, make some money and keep moving on with his regular business.

I now understand why Redfin exists. It's a much more open business model that doesn't protect the traditional control model where realtors guarantee they get their percentage by ensuring they control the transaction completely on their side.

Watch your ass with your realtors is all I'll say on that...

Navy Fed has been good. They estimate real high on their closing costs, almost gave me a heart attack since they were over 4% of the cost of the home, more than the 3% I had been told to estimate. 1% may not sound like much but 6 or 10k when you're laying out a budget for purchasing and what you have to buy once you close can make a big difference.

I'm pretty happy with the price of my house. When the appraisal issue came up the seller's realtor had to send in a bunch of comps to prove it was worth the price. I did my own research trying to figure out what to offer on the house when we put the bid in. That was a really weird situation too. My realtor told me to over 3% below asking on the first house and we did, went up $20k and still lost it. Then on this house she told me in the current market she recommended I offer the full asking price but said it was my call, she said she'd gone over that a few times over with her boss and it has to be my decision in the end. So to me that was like woah I have to figure out what to offer. Offering full asking price seemed stupid when I didn't suspect there were multiple competing offers. We had that information that there were views on the house but no other offers from the seller's realtor.

I searched and searched the development trying to focus as much on houses that sold within the last year. My house is near identical to the one across the street going for $30k more but very similar to 2 houses that sold for $40k less last year. The other 2 houses are smaller, fewer bedrooms, less square footage. I only had 2 extremes almost $100k apart so I chose near the middle to make an offer. The other realtor only drove us up $5k and accepted. Right then I KNEW we had offered too much but... it was still $50k less than the house across the street. I have since found out that house has a pending offer for $40k more than I agreed on, yaaay me but I could have paid less...

So if you end up in my situation doing your own comps trying to figure out what to offer or just get an idea what to offer... Read up on how appraisals are done on houses but unless you're an appraiser you aren't going to get that right. Then go look up houses that are similar in square footage, bedrooms, bathrooms and general layout and finishes both interior and exterior, as close as you can get. Appraisers are only looking at homes that sold within the last year and generally they only want within 1 mile but they did take comps for homes up to 5 miles away for my appraisal.

If you know there are competing offers maybe you offer a bit more. If there are no competing offers then open the bid with some room to work your way up toward their asking price if you feel that's fair based on homes that are similar that sold in the last year.

I hope the home buying business gets a better model. Having a realtor that HELPS protect you that will do what you ask is what's ideal.

Lanx said:

pretty sure this is just to justify their job and keep their commission instead of going

hey seller, wanna just ditch these useless retards?

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That is my EXACT opinion. Why not just be honest about the whole deal and lay out services for drawing up contracts, state that your value is navigating the home purchase process between a buyer/seller and the other realtor/party involved plus the bank and all the city, state and local requirements.

That's the shit I want my realtor to help me with and since the buyer is paying the realtor fee yeah sure, I'm happy to have my realtor do all the stuff I don't know how to do and "protect me" however she does.