Home buying thread

Cad · Jul 7, 2021

swayze22 said:
He bought them all for ~$100k slum lording over the past years, sold them for ~$300k+/- in the roaring market.

Boom $3m. Math is easy!

Also, it's entirely possible he had costs and expenses plus mortgages on each property. He should turn a nice gain due to the property appreciation.

Good job dirk. I have kicked around investing in rental properties but have made so much in the market in the last ~8 years that it seems pointless adding more headache when I do literally nothing but click "buy" on Vanguard.

lurkingdirk · Jul 7, 2021

Cad said:
Also, it's entirely possible he had costs and expenses plus mortgages on each property. He should turn a nice gain due to the property appreciation.

Good job dirk. I have kicked around investing in rental properties but have made so much in the market in the last ~8 years that it seems pointless adding more headache when I do literally nothing but click "buy" on Vanguard.

Thanks man. I'm also just sick of dealing with renters. I screen them pretty well, and haven't had huge headaches, but I'd rather just cash out now when there is so much money to be made. For what I'm getting on sales, I'd have to stay in the rental business for decades.

Cad · Jul 7, 2021

lurkingdirk said:
Thanks man. I'm also just sick of dealing with renters. I screen them pretty well, and haven't had huge headaches, but I'd rather just cash out now when there is so much money to be made. For what I'm getting on sales, I'd have to stay in the rental business for decades.

I'm feeling the same way about my primary house - I'm over 100% gains so far since I bought it, and when we retire, I'm kicking around renting it out since the house rentals in my area are INSANE...

My total cost for my house is around $5000/mo (P&I, and property insurance) but houses like mine are renting for $11k-12k/mo... and it'll probably be worse by the time I retire in 7-8 years. Probably just free money if I rent, and I don't need the equity.

lurkingdirk · Jul 7, 2021

Cad said:
I'm feeling the same way about my primary house - I'm over 100% gains so far since I bought it, and when we retire, I'm kicking around renting it out since the house rentals in my area are INSANE...

My total cost for my house is around $5000/mo (P&I, and property insurance) but houses like mine are renting for $11k-12k/mo... and it'll probably be worse by the time I retire in 7-8 years. Probably just free money if I rent, and I don't need the equity.

Jeebus on a stick, $5,000/mo on a single property? I hope it has hookers and blow.

Cad · Jul 7, 2021

lurkingdirk said:
Jeebus on a stick, $5,000/mo on a single property? I hope it has hookers and blow.

Well I bought it for $1.4M, so, yea...

Fucker · Jul 7, 2021

lurkingdirk said:
Thanks man. I'm also just sick of dealing with renters. I screen them pretty well, and haven't had huge headaches, but I'd rather just cash out now when there is so much money to be made. For what I'm getting on sales, I'd have to stay in the rental business for decades.

I got sick of renters too. I had good ones and the occasional idiot. One tenant trashed the place and left it a complete mess. I made their lives hell for years trying to get my money back. Eventually, they dropped off the grid. I'm sure I wasn't the only person going after them for money.

I did it for @ 10 years. Did ok on rent and did pretty well selling the houses. Not obscene, but good enough.

A poster on another forum works at his family business, which is building and renting houses. They put up 60 houses before Covid hit. IIRC, they have almost 200 units total. Some people have utterly numbing amounts of cash. He showed a pic of his personal house, and...I shit you not...his driveway is worth more than most peoples houses.

lurkingdirk · Jul 7, 2021

Cad said:
Well I bought it for $1.4M, so, yea...

Got it. My personal property is worth well under a million, and I'm living in a part of the country where taxes and such are ridiculously cheap. Now that I'm mortgage free my property taxes on 40 or so acres is under $5,000 a year. My stupid HOA is about $200 a year, and I pay $150 to get my leaves picked up. Other than trash and utilities, I'm looking at under $1,000 a month to just have the place. It's stupid cheap here.

Fucker said:
I got sick of renters too. I had good ones and the occasional idiot. One tenant trashed the place and left it a complete mess. I made their lives hell for years trying to get my money back. Eventually, they dropped off the grid. I'm sure I wasn't the only person going after them for money.

I did it for @ 10 years. Did ok on rent and did pretty well selling the houses. Not obscene, but good enough.

A poster on another forum works at his family business, which is building and renting houses. They put up 60 houses before Covid hit. IIRC, they have almost 200 units total. Some people have utterly numbing amounts of cash. He showed a pic of his personal house, and...I shit you not...his driveway is worth more than most peoples houses.

I've been working with rentals for nearly 20 years now. I started small, and a few years ago went on a buying spree because things were really cheap and interest rates were outrageously low. It didn't take a lot of cash to pick up another 10 homes that were pretty much renter ready. I screened my renters very carefully, and most of them came through the university here. I had visiting professors, graduate students, and the like. They're not likely to screw things up too badly. But I just don't want to be on the hook anymore for anyone else's home. I'll deal with mine. Someone else can go change lightbulbs and furnace filters for renters.

Sanrith Descartes · Jul 7, 2021

Cad said:
Well I bought it for $1.4M, so, yea...

Fucking lawyers.

swayze22 · Jul 7, 2021

lurkingdirk said:
Got it. My personal property is worth well under a million, and I'm living in a part of the country where taxes and such are ridiculously cheap. Now that I'm mortgage free my property taxes on 40 or so acres is under $5,000 a year. My stupid HOA is about $200 a year, and I pay $150 to get my leaves picked up. Other than trash and utilities, I'm looking at under $1,000 a month to just have the place. It's stupid cheap here.

You have 40 acres AND an HOA? what in the fuck. what state are you in?

congrats on the rental portfolio and success you have had

Cad · Jul 8, 2021

lurkingdirk said:
Got it. My personal property is worth well under a million, and I'm living in a part of the country where taxes and such are ridiculously cheap. Now that I'm mortgage free my property taxes on 40 or so acres is under $5,000 a year. My stupid HOA is about $200 a year, and I pay $150 to get my leaves picked up. Other than trash and utilities, I'm looking at under $1,000 a month to just have the place. It's stupid cheap here.

*Cries in $30k/yr tax bill

I wouldn't live here if I didn't have to for the school district, the next decent school district is 30 miles from my job and would result in a 1hr+ each way commute. So, I get to pay the "live in the city and not have to send my kids to school in body armor" tax. Thats fine.

Since we have appreciated so much, it seems like this house could easily be a $100k/yr income by itself once I retire and rent it out. Alternatively I could sell it and just invest the equity (which at this point is like $2M+).

The income would be nice though. I dunno. Will have to cross that bridge when I come to it once my last kid is out of high school.

Gravel · Jul 8, 2021

Holy shit, this new agent is amazing. We've worked with 4 agents ever (buy, sell, and then our crap agent before this one), and she's by far the best.

We went to see two houses today, one of which is one we asked our previous agent to see (she said the other agent was mean, and never got us in). She showed up with a packet for each house with comps already done, she called an insurance agent and got us estimated annual insurance (including different hurricane deductibles), property tax rates, and even found the roof age.

She had sent an email this morning, unsolicited, basically saying she put our stuff in MLS, but she went through them and here are the ones she thought we should look at. But she also called some people she had sold to in the past that had houses that matches our criteria to see if they were interested in selling any time soon and got two hits. She also reached out to two builders to see if they had anything upcoming that might work.

I was discussing replacing the counters in one of them and mentioned how much we paid in CA, and she was like "here's a local company to call, it'd be about half what you paid in CA."

Then she called one of the builders and was able to get us in to a model house and another floor plan. They didn't have any irrigation, and she was all over it with price estimates for a shallow well cost and how much running the PVC would be if we did it ourselves or contracted it out.

I don't know how common an agent like this one is, but holy shit has it set a new standard. I've generally felt agents aren't worth their 3%, but in this case I'm thoroughly impressed and think she's earning it.

I guess I should also mentioned she talked a lot with us yesterday about the pros and cons of a VA versus conventional loan, options for lenders, and just a whole host of other things. I think we spent about 90 minutes in our first meeting with her yesterday just talking about our needs and options for various scenarios.

TomServo · Jul 8, 2021

Gravel said:
Holy shit, this new agent is amazing. We've worked with 4 agents ever (buy, sell, and then our crap agent before this one), and she's by far the best.

We went to see two houses today, one of which is one we asked our previous agent to see (she said the other agent was mean, and never got us in). She showed up with a packet for each house with comps already done, she called an insurance agent and got us estimated annual insurance (including different hurricane deductibles), property tax rates, and even found the roof age.

She had sent an email this morning, unsolicited, basically saying she put our stuff in MLS, but she went through them and here are the ones she thought we should look at. But she also called some people she had sold to in the past that had houses that matches our criteria to see if they were interested in selling any time soon and got two hits. She also reached out to two builders to see if they had anything upcoming that might work.

I was discussing replacing the counters in one of them and mentioned how much we paid in CA, and she was like "here's a local company to call, it'd be about half what you paid in CA."

Then she called one of the builders and was able to get us in to a model house and another floor plan. They didn't have any irrigation, and she was all over it with price estimates for a shallow well cost and how much running the PVC would be if we did it ourselves or contracted it out.

I don't know how common an agent like this one is, but holy shit has it set a new standard. I've generally felt agents aren't worth their 3%, but in this case I'm thoroughly impressed and think she's earning it.

I guess I should also mentioned she talked a lot with us yesterday about the pros and cons of a VA versus conventional loan, options for lenders, and just a whole host of other things. I think we spent about 90 minutes in our first meeting with her yesterday just talking about our needs and options for various scenarios.

Bitch wanna eat.

Intrinsic · Jul 9, 2021

Gravel said:
Holy shit, this new agent is amazing. We've worked with 4 agents ever (buy, sell, and then our crap agent before this one), and she's by far the best.

We went to see two houses today, one of which is one we asked our previous agent to see (she said the other agent was mean, and never got us in). She showed up with a packet for each house with comps already done, she called an insurance agent and got us estimated annual insurance (including different hurricane deductibles), property tax rates, and even found the roof age.

She had sent an email this morning, unsolicited, basically saying she put our stuff in MLS, but she went through them and here are the ones she thought we should look at. But she also called some people she had sold to in the past that had houses that matches our criteria to see if they were interested in selling any time soon and got two hits. She also reached out to two builders to see if they had anything upcoming that might work.

I was discussing replacing the counters in one of them and mentioned how much we paid in CA, and she was like "here's a local company to call, it'd be about half what you paid in CA."

Then she called one of the builders and was able to get us in to a model house and another floor plan. They didn't have any irrigation, and she was all over it with price estimates for a shallow well cost and how much running the PVC would be if we did it ourselves or contracted it out.

I don't know how common an agent like this one is, but holy shit has it set a new standard. I've generally felt agents aren't worth their 3%, but in this case I'm thoroughly impressed and think she's earning it.

I guess I should also mentioned she talked a lot with us yesterday about the pros and cons of a VA versus conventional loan, options for lenders, and just a whole host of other things. I think we spent about 90 minutes in our first meeting with her yesterday just talking about our needs and options for various scenarios.

But is she hot?

Khane · Jul 9, 2021

Intrinsic said:
But is she hot?

She sounds hot. Like the kind of agent I'd want to meet.

Intrinsic · Jul 9, 2021

Everything is double confirmed for my close on Monday but still no word at all about the sellers finding a place to rent. They have three weeks so still some time. Am thinking that as that window draws down they’ll get desperate and won’t be surprised if they start asking us about leaving behind swing sets, trampolines, gun safe. Things I’m not sure I’d want to bother moving to a rental. Then again who knows, people make strange decisions.

Three weeks which sssuuuuuccckkkssss. God being in an apartment is so boring. No projects, no improvements, no yard. Being in a house became so second nature that the last two months here have felt more claustrophobic than I imagined possible. Give me a month and the posts will start about having too much shit to do!

Gravel · Jul 9, 2021

Hope they're busting their asses trying to find a place. The rental market is just as cutthroat as the real estate market. It literally became an all day job for me to find us a place. I'd get up early and hit refresh on every property management company's website every 15-20 minutes. And even then, putting in an application within 5 minutes of the house we're in being posted, we were 2nd in line. I'm just glad the people who beat us either didn't qualify or dropped out.

Anyway, yeah the realtor is decently attractive. She's probably late 30s or early 40s, with 3 kids, but I'm getting older too, so that's not the same turnoff that it would be to a 20 something.

As far as her hustling, in our long meeting I actually mentioned that we'd be retiring as soon as we close on a house. She's said, "have you guys heard of the FIRE movement?" Her and her husband could apparently retire but they just enjoy doing real estate. So the reality is it doesn't sound like they need the money at all. She's just got a kick ass work ethic.

Khane · Jul 9, 2021

Gravel said:
Hope they're busting their asses trying to find a place. The rental market is just as cutthroat as the real estate market. It literally became an all day job for me to find us a place. I'd get up early and hit refresh on every property management company's website every 15-20 minutes. And even then, putting in an application within 5 minutes of the house we're in being posted, we were 2nd in line. I'm just glad the people who beat us either didn't qualify or dropped out.

Anyway, yeah the realtor is decently attractive. She's probably late 30s or early 40s, with 3 kids, but I'm getting older too, so that's not the same turnoff that it would be to a 20 something.

As far as her hustling, in our long meeting I actually mentioned that we'd be retiring as soon as we close on a house. She's said, "have you guys heard of the FIRE movement?" Her and her husband could apparently retire but they just enjoy doing real estate. So the reality is it doesn't sound like they need the money at all. She's just got a kick ass work ethic.

That's probably a thing for most ambitious/intelligent people. Retiring early seems great, but then boredom sets in and eventually feeling like you're lazy/regressing.

Sanrith Descartes · Jul 9, 2021

Gravel said:
Holy shit, this new agent is amazing. We've worked with 4 agents ever (buy, sell, and then our crap agent before this one), and she's by far the best.

We went to see two houses today, one of which is one we asked our previous agent to see (she said the other agent was mean, and never got us in). She showed up with a packet for each house with comps already done, she called an insurance agent and got us estimated annual insurance (including different hurricane deductibles), property tax rates, and even found the roof age.

She had sent an email this morning, unsolicited, basically saying she put our stuff in MLS, but she went through them and here are the ones she thought we should look at. But she also called some people she had sold to in the past that had houses that matches our criteria to see if they were interested in selling any time soon and got two hits. She also reached out to two builders to see if they had anything upcoming that might work.

I was discussing replacing the counters in one of them and mentioned how much we paid in CA, and she was like "here's a local company to call, it'd be about half what you paid in CA."

Then she called one of the builders and was able to get us in to a model house and another floor plan. They didn't have any irrigation, and she was all over it with price estimates for a shallow well cost and how much running the PVC would be if we did it ourselves or contracted it out.

I don't know how common an agent like this one is, but holy shit has it set a new standard. I've generally felt agents aren't worth their 3%, but in this case I'm thoroughly impressed and think she's earning it.

I guess I should also mentioned she talked a lot with us yesterday about the pros and cons of a VA versus conventional loan, options for lenders, and just a whole host of other things. I think we spent about 90 minutes in our first meeting with her yesterday just talking about our needs and options for various scenarios.

Welcome to finding someone who is actually good at their job and tries to win. What used to be the baseline in America is now the exception to the rule.

Rease · Jul 10, 2021

Hope this is the right thread, I am looking for some advice. I am looking to buy some acreage to build a home on near extended family. The areas I am interested in are Tennessee nearish to Knoxville, Western PA or Northeastern GA. I would prefer access to a lake and no closer than 30 to 60 minutes drive of a town/city with grocery, hardware, bank etc. What I mean is I want a blank canvas, no close neighbors and a decent range of nothing around the property. I want the mineral rights, lumber etc no surface rights only property. No electricity or improvements besides water is a plus. I have found a few decent looking spots and went to check them out but haven't found what I am looking for yet. I am posting here hoping someone familiar with one of these areas might have an idea of where to start looking. Thanks in advance...

Gravel · Jul 11, 2021

So is there anything to look out for with new construction? My wife decided to google the builder (mostly to look up the HOA), and now she's spooked. But I'm guessing most of that is just "people who have problems will complain, and people who are happy will be quiet."

Like, I definitely have concerns with new builds because I feel like labor is pretty shit, but that's likely not going to be any different than 20 years ago. Ditto with using cheaper materials to save money, I have no clue whether that 1986 home did too, but it's more readily apparent in new construction when someone complains.

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