Home buying thread

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Gravel

Gravel

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So the wife and I are hoping to be in the Florida panhandle in the next few months (been saying this for a while though and the job prospects haven't worked out). We'll be renting for a while, but the plan is to buy as soon as we get a better feel for the areas.

I have two options that I'm pretty committed to, but wondering if anyone has experience in one or the other or both. Looking at something in the 1000-1300 sqft range.

The first would be to buy a piece of land and build a house. I'd be looking to do almost all of the actual building myself. We'd need to get an architect and structural engineer up front to get plans, obviously, and I'd contract out the foundation (more than likely I'd buy a "cheap" plot, around $100k or less, near the beach and have a piling foundation). I'm comfortable doing the framing (may need to contract help for the roof framing), electrical, and all finishing work. I've done minor plumbing, but that and HVAC might be my other sticking points.

The other option is buying a dump that's already permitted, doing a complete tear down to the studs, and rebuilding it. From what I can tell though, this may end up running $150k just for the dump.

We've still got lots of time, and we'll probably reach out to someone when we get to Florida to consult on the pitfalls of either plan. I'm also a bit nervous about insurance in Florida as my father-in-law (who has a place in Alabama on the coast) is always talking about how no one would insure his property. His is a trailer though and I'm wondering if that has something to do with it.
 
Sanrith Descartes

Sanrith Descartes

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Gravel said:
So the wife and I are hoping to be in the Florida panhandle in the next few months (been saying this for a while though and the job prospects haven't worked out). We'll be renting for a while, but the plan is to buy as soon as we get a better feel for the areas.

I have two options that I'm pretty committed to, but wondering if anyone has experience in one or the other or both. Looking at something in the 1000-1300 sqft range.

The first would be to buy a piece of land and build a house. I'd be looking to do almost all of the actual building myself. We'd need to get an architect and structural engineer up front to get plans, obviously, and I'd contract out the foundation (more than likely I'd buy a "cheap" plot, around $100k or less, near the beach and have a piling foundation). I'm comfortable doing the framing (may need to contract help for the roof framing), electrical, and all finishing work. I've done minor plumbing, but that and HVAC might be my other sticking points.

The other option is buying a dump that's already permitted, doing a complete tear down to the studs, and rebuilding it. From what I can tell though, this may end up running $150k just for the dump.

We've still got lots of time, and we'll probably reach out to someone when we get to Florida to consult on the pitfalls of either plan. I'm also a bit nervous about insurance in Florida as my father-in-law (who has a place in Alabama on the coast) is always talking about how no one would insure his property. His is a trailer though and I'm wondering if that has something to do with it.
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I lived in FL for near-abouts 50 years. Mostly S FL but I know the state like the back of my hand. My thoughts:
1. If you arent familair with Fla home owners insurance start reading. Windstorm coverage is aids. Its worse near the coasts but it sucks anywhere in the state. There are only a handful of insurance companies will to even write policies in the state which makes it worse.
2. If you are buying property to build on, you really need someone who knows the land. Acreage that looks amazing in Oct, can be underwater May - July if it cant handle the daily thunderstorms.
3. I have bought wrecks and stripped them down and its a good plan. Gutting to the studs means you can built it up with modern hurricane codes (storm glass, storm doors, hurricane rated roof etc) and save a big chunk of the insurance as the state mandates insurance credits if your house is built to storm code. Look this up on the State insurance site.
4. Check local permitting laws and fees. Some towns are very reasonable and some ass rape you. Most who ass rape you on fees see it not as a safety thing but as a revenue stream.
5. Speaking of 4 above, check out the pension liabilities of the city and county you are checking out. Some municipalities have seriously shitty unfunded pension liabilities which translates to you being boned on continuous property tax raises to cover the shortfalls.
6. Enjoy not living in a liberal shithole.
 
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BrutulTM

BrutulTM

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Sanrith Descartes said:
I lived in FL for near-abouts 50 years. Mostly S FL but I know the state like the back of my hand. My thoughts:
1. If you arent familair with Fla home owners insurance start reading. Windstorm coverage is aids. Its worse near the coasts but it sucks anywhere in the state. There are only a handful of insurance companies will to even write policies in the state which makes it worse.
2. If you are buying property to build on, you really need someone who knows the land. Acreage that looks amazing in Oct, can be underwater May - July if it cant handle the daily thunderstorms.
3. I have bought wrecks and stripped them down and its a good plan. Gutting to the studs means you can built it up with modern hurricane codes (storm glass, storm doors, hurricane rated roof etc) and save a big chunk of the insurance as the state mandates insurance credits if your house is built to storm code. Look this up on the State insurance site.
4. Check local permitting laws and fees. Some towns are very reasonable and some ass rape you. Most who ass rape you on fees see it not as a safety thing but as a revenue stream.
5. Speaking of 4 above, check out the pension liabilities of the city and county you are checking out. Some municipalities have seriously shitty unfunded pension liabilities which translates to you being boned on continuous property tax raises to cover the shortfalls.
6. Enjoy not living in a liberal shithole.
Click to expand...

The takeaway from this is, you are going to die in a hurricane.
 
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TJT

TJT

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Putting an offer down in the Leander area of Austin. Northern suburb of the city but also on the metro line which is what I was looking for. Its all out open bidding wars on NEW construction.

Welcome to Texas + Californians in 2021!
 
Sanrith Descartes

Sanrith Descartes

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TJT said:
Putting an offer down in the Leander area of Austin. Northern suburb of the city but also on the metro line which is what I was looking for. Its all out open bidding wars on NEW construction.

Welcome to Texas + Californians in 2021!
Click to expand...
As big as Texas is, why do you want to live in the largest Lib shithole of the State?
 
TJT

TJT

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Sanrith Descartes said:
As big as Texas is, why do you want to live in the largest Lib shithole of the State?
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I wanted to move to Oregon. Woman wasn't having it. We both have extremely good jobs here and hers will no longer be remote. Also she has this whole "friends" group thing. Which is apparently important to regular people.
 
Sanrith Descartes

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TJT said:
I wanted to move to Oregon. Woman wasn't having it. We both have extremely good jobs here and hers will no longer be remote. Also she has this whole "friends" group thing. Which is apparently important to regular people.
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Tell the friends thats why we created facetime. I understand the good job thing though. It is why I am stuck in NY. Thoughts and prayers.
 
fris

fris

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While Austin is very left, Leander is very much Trump County. Go a bit further into Burnett and you might get shot fur being a dem
 
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Lanx

Lanx

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TJT said:
Putting an offer down in the Leander area of Austin. Northern suburb of the city but also on the metro line which is what I was looking for. Its all out open bidding wars on NEW construction.

Welcome to Texas + Californians in 2021!
Click to expand...
better have more cash on hand then

new construction = needing 10% cash on hand to fix all the mistakes in a year, or whatever they say may or may not be covered under warranty
 
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TJT

TJT

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Lanx said:
how much is your house?

that sounds like a sky high deposit, i believe for my 175k home they wanted 2.5% so about 5k

is your area "hot" now?
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Absolute hottest in the nation Austin, Texas.

New construction deal is you bid on what you want. If you bid over their list price you need to pay both the difference cash money and the $1k earnest. If you back out they keep both.

It used to be you only bid on like the 5 premium lots in a development.
 
Sanrith Descartes

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TJT said:
Absolute hottest in the nation Austin, Texas.

New construction deal is you bid on what you want. If you bid over their list price you need to pay both the difference cash money and the $1k earnest. If you back out they keep both.

It used to be you only bid on like the 5 premium lots in a development.
Click to expand...
That sounds insane. We have a national moratorium on not foreclosing/evicting the millions not paying rent and people want to bid up prices on houses? Once the eviction/foreclosure moratorium makes its way into the courts there will be a glut of houses coming available.
 
TJT

TJT

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Sanrith Descartes said:
That sounds insane. We have a national moratorium on not foreclosing/evicting the millions not paying rent and people want to bid up prices on houses? Once the eviction/foreclosure moratorium makes its way into the courts there will be a glut of houses coming available.
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While I think this is true in a lot of places. Austin seems to be a different story. We're getting the majority of the out of state transplants right now. It's so bad that the new construction sales practices have completely changed in 90 days. Retail sales that are not new construction are not even on the market for 24 hours. All selling at 10-25% over depending on location. I thought it was bad when I first bought in 2016 but this bullshit is something else.

Seems to be across TX too. Not just Austin.
 
Sanrith Descartes

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TJT said:
While I think this is true in a lot of places. Austin seems to be a different story. We're getting the majority of the out of state transplants right now. It's so bad that the new construction sales practices have completely changed in 90 days. Retail sales that are not new construction are not even on the market for 24 hours. All selling at 10-25% over depending on location. I thought it was bad when I first bought in 2016 but this bullshit is something else.

Seems to be across TX too. Not just Austin.
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Speaking only for myself, I wouldn't buy in a market like that. I saw 2004-07 first hand. Homey don't play that.
 
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TJT

TJT

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While I would agree it isn't like I'm getting a super overleveraged house loan on a bullshit ARM that will rape me in 5 years. This is well within our price range and the interest is dirt cheap.

I don't think the 2008 mortgage crisis has many parallels here.
 
Khane

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TJT said:
I don't think the 2008 mortgage crisis has many parallels here.
Click to expand...

It's interesting to hear you say that because you are so conservative and have a good financial portfolio. I think there are many parallels.

Overvaluation and bad debt being the biggest two. Both being exacerbated by COVID in the form of temporary debt moratoriums and people with money fleeing major metropolitan areas to the suburbs which is causing pricing in said suburbs to skyrocket.

Our economy is also staring down the barrel of stagflation.
 
TJT

TJT

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Khane said:
It's interesting to hear you say that because you are so conservative and have a good financial portfolio. I think there are many parallels.

Overvaluation and bad debt being the biggest two. Both being exacerbated by COVID in the form of temporary debt moratoriums and people with money fleeing major metropolitan areas to the suburbs which is causing pricing in said suburbs to skyrocket.

Our economy is also staring down the barrel of stagflation.
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The key component here is that while debt is cheap right now its not everyone gets a loan with no downpayment cheap. Every retard isn''t getting a house at extreme value. I have no doubts that the rental market is going to take a nosedive in the next year. But I argue that, in my specific instance, the location I'm buying has an extremely low rental market. Investors are heavily restricted from buying. Etc.

I am very open to hearing other opinions as to why this might be a bad call tho.
 
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