Home buying thread
- Thread starter Pasteton
- Start date
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Guest, it's time once again for the massively important and exciting FoH Asshat Tournament!
Go here and give us your nominations!Who's been the biggest Asshat in the last year? Give us your worst ones!
Asshat Brando
Potato del Grande
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If you're purchase contract specifies a closing of the 9th and no amendment has been signed by either party to change the date then you can ask the seller for compensation for the delay or you can threaten to cancel. Paying the cost of remarket the property and find a new buyer is usually enough to scare a seller into agreeing to any damages that you incur from the delay whether it be from daily rental charges or rate lock extensions.
Ritley
Bronze Baron of the Realm
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Your agent should have written in a clause that the seller has to pay $X per day after the agreed upon closing date that they are still in the house. Mine did when I bought my house and I got ~$200 for 2.5 days.
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So we've gotten prequalification out the way and we're pretty sure which lender we're going to go with. The wife and I have been using a few websites and we're a bit confused. Properties we'd like to look at that we found on zillow and trulia are NOT on realtor.com. Homes we found on a specific local agency MLS is NOT on realtor.com, but is on zillow and trulia. How am I supposed to know which shit is actually for sale and if I might be missing certain listings? Or just make a composite list and go to the realtor at this point?
Pasteton
Blackwing Lair Raider
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Ok so I found a place i am considering but the disclosures say there are two kinds of termites, and the roof apparently has to be changed. How much will this cost? And is their a way to keep termites away or do they keep coming back?
Crap apparently one of the types of termites is this
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formosa...ranean_termite
Crap apparently one of the types of termites is this
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formosa...ranean_termite
OneofOne
Silver Baronet of the Realm
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Damn...
Deathwing - Realtor.com was our go-to site after the MLS feed from our realtor. Everything else was too outdated/inaccurate. Our dude told us the MLS feed often had listings 1-3 days before everyone else, so perhaps that's where your realtor.com issue is /shrug
PS can we rename this thread "Stop Using Zillow, We Told You It Sucks"?
Falstaff
Ahn'Qiraj Raider
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Turns out we had it but I just assumed it wouldn't be an issue and never asked.
No big deal because we are closing tomorrow.
Kovaks
Mr. Poopybutthole
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we have been having similar issues, I have found out that zillow is unreliable, they don't update very quickly so houses that have been pending or sold for a while are still showing up as for sale. Especially in my market where things are getting snatched up within days of hitting the market. I have pretty much given up on any sites except realator.com and my agents because every time I fond something on zillow and send it to my realator it is already gone.
Sort of a rant, but what's the deal with newer homes being over-sized and on ridiculously tiny lots? This is especially prevalent out west. Just finalized a start date for my first job out of grad school (Pacific NW), and just a day or two of looking at houses online has convinced me that I will need to buy an old home to get a reasonable 1500-2000 ft^2 house on 8000+ ft^2. I just don't see the appeal in houses where your neighbor's living room window is 4 feet away from your own. Scared to death of HOAs as well.
Cutlery
Kill All the White People
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Well, the lot size is self explanatory. Smaller lots = more lots, and more lots = more money.
The rest is because people want bigger houses now. Probably because a lot of us grew up in tiny houses sharing bedrooms with 1 or 2 other siblings. No one wants that for their kids.
I live in Las Vegas, and it took me a long time to find a house that was 1700 sq ft on a 7500 sq ft lot. Many of them were 1700 on a 3-4000 lot. I know here, it's because they build quite a few homes very quickly, so they jammed them in as much as possible so the builder could make the most money humanly possible. You really have to go up in price to get the bigger lots.
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Found the same thing and did the same as you. I don't like having to rely on my realtor because the website they use(which is much better than realtor.com) is for them only and the listings she forwards to us expires in a month. Just screams artificial scarcity. But she's been an excellent realtor otherwise and we've already settled on a house, so I shrug it off.
On that note, the house we settled on is the one I mentioned in the other thread(yes, I'm going to assume people are reading both). The one with water problems. I don't feel I explained this properly the first time, partly because I don't think I looked into it correctly the first time. There's a set of concrete stairs outside leading up to the front door. They were poured over wood and both rest on top of the only unfinished part of the basement housing the drained and unused gas tank. The crack in the steps was allowing a little bit of water in and you can see where it had damaged the wood and where the owners had patched it with asphalt/tar. But the foundation itself is fine. No cracking or signs of water anywhere on the concrete. And this area extends outward that if water ran along the wood instead of dripping downward, it would just go back into the ground. In a few years, we're going to bust up the stairs and haul out the unused tank, lay new wood, and pour new stairs. Probably our first major home project.
Why that long explanation? Don't overlook a house just because of water problems. I imagine it's the only reason we got the place. It had been on the market before(at the wrong time), but the owners have done an excellent job upkeeping the place and renovating. 240k for 2100sqft in Ithaca. And about 1.5 acres of yard
Cutlery
Kill All the White People
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I've got almost a full acre lot too, but I have a couple things going for me. First is that it butts up to a pond and part of it is wooded as a result. Second, I have a 20x40 in-ground pool which takes up a gigantic amount of space. My next project when the wife gets her next grade increase is gonna be building a firepit/gazebo to take up space in the rest of the lawn that heads down to the pond.
So, the answer to your question is either A) Riding lawnmower, or B) landscaping/projects to remove the lawn. Most people have way more fucking lawn than they need, and I just do not understand the constant watering/maintenance most people put into it.
Joeboo
Molten Core Raider
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We have a large-ish yard. The backyard is about 6000 sqft, and the front is another 2000 or so. I'd say our lot is maybe 1/4 - 1/3 of an acre overall. Nothing huge, but definitely larger than average for most middle-class neighborhoods. I don't bother with a riding lawnmower, I just use a self-propelled push mower, and the main thing is to carefully consider your landscaping and what it will do to your mowing.
When we first moved in, all the backyard had was a deck(rectangle), 2 large trees, and a shed(rectangle). Even though the yard was huge, it was just mowing in long, straight lines over and over again. Now(thanks to the wife) we have a garden, several flower beds(of rounded/organic shape, not square), random bushes and such. Mowing takes probably twice as long now because I'm constantly maneuvering and turning around stuff(not to mention all the extra trimming afterwards). So consider that while landscaping...putting in a flower bed that stretches down the whole fenceline on the side of the yard would still be easy to mow past, but if instead that becomes 4 or 5 seperate smaller beds, mowing becomes a PITA.
When we first moved in, all the backyard had was a deck(rectangle), 2 large trees, and a shed(rectangle). Even though the yard was huge, it was just mowing in long, straight lines over and over again. Now(thanks to the wife) we have a garden, several flower beds(of rounded/organic shape, not square), random bushes and such. Mowing takes probably twice as long now because I'm constantly maneuvering and turning around stuff(not to mention all the extra trimming afterwards). So consider that while landscaping...putting in a flower bed that stretches down the whole fenceline on the side of the yard would still be easy to mow past, but if instead that becomes 4 or 5 seperate smaller beds, mowing becomes a PITA.
Joeboo
Molten Core Raider
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Just dont be that guy who mows his tiny ass yard with a riding lawnmower. We have a guy in our neighborhood whose yard is so small he almost has to just keep constantly turning his riding mower in circles to mow it. Can barely go in a straight line for very long. It's pretty funny to watch. Would probably take 10 minutes tops with a push mower, but he ends up spending an hour trying to maneuver this huge mower around the tiny yard, constantly reversing, turning, going forward, turning again. Its like watching a terrible parallel parker.
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No, what you do is pop out a few kids and have them do it. I pay my 11 yr old $5 or some microsoft points and my lawn gets magically done. And when the 11 yr old gets tired of doing it, or when he realizes hes getting ripped off, I have an 8 yr old to take his place.
Its funny , hes already asking to do it this summer.
Its funny , hes already asking to do it this summer.
AladainAF
Best Rabbit
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It's not just there. I moved into a neighborhood like this. However, I did get the biggest corner cul-de-sac lot in the neighborhood for this very reason, so there is good distance in our place. We have a 3500 sq ft place with a 16,000 sq ft lot. But most of the other lots are much smaller and yes, the homes are within arms length. I don't get it. I wouldn't live in this place if I had to get one but I love the lot we have. Especially the amazing view.
Putting an offer in next week for my next home. I wanted some land this time, nearly 10 acres, 2000 sqft shop for the man space, after that I could care less about the house thats on the property.