Home buying thread

Talked to an idiot today that is closing on a house with no inspection in 2 days. They are in a hurry to beat the interest rate hike. Fail on so many levels.

I can't believe there is a lender out there that would allow that

I think FHA loans only send their own inspector but I have no idea. He said the real inspection hadn't been done.

I've mentioned it before but I wouldn't believe anything an inspector said. I sold a house and the inspector was too fat to use a ladder so everything he looked at was eye level or lower. He never entered the attic which was simply a crawl space deal with a door that was 4' tall.

They didn't change the rate. So he's really gonna be screwed if he finds out the house is defective.

Xarpolis_sl said:

The issue is mold. The ENTIRE basement stinks of mold. The previous owners have done a lot of work to the place to try and eliminate it, but the mold stench just permiates everything. Walking through that house last night has my throat feeling ragged. Such a shame. That house would be incredible.

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From how you describe it I'd be cautious. Basements that leak like that where you'd have the nasty mold smell permeating throughout an entire 2600 foot basement is a huge warning sign. Its also expensive to actually fix requiring you to dig out the foundation or the area where the water is pooling to enter the home. Since you can smell it everywhere down there it would indicate a design flaw somewhere and not just a local intrusion which might require you to excavate around the entire basement to seal the under ground portions of the house properly.

While it might be common to have some mold in homes down south, it is NOT common to have the stench of mold through the entire home. There is a big difference.

I'd run from a house which you describe. If you want to look into you can have a remediation firm come out and take a look at it. They can check moisture levels behind the walls without ripping things down and you can get a good idea of what you're looking at.

That said, if it stinks like that then there is a major problem.

Actually, that's a fix that's already been done to the house. They lifted the entire foundation of the house and added a drain that dumps into the sump pump.

I would assume that this was a complete fix for the problem, and they just assumed the mold smell would go away on its own, or maybe they're used to the smell. But that's why the mold guy is coming out. To let me know just how bad of a problem it really is, or if they just didn't spend the money to fix it officially. I really don't know, but I'm hesitant. Aside from the mold issue, I've been having visions of grandeur about this house. So many possibilities.

Make sure you find out if the house had any insurance claims in the last 5 years, especially related to water.

Yup.

Ok, it has a Form a Drain. That's the raised foundation. I don't know how long it's been there, though.

Here's an update on our house buying adventures. We still really like the short sale house I listed above with the mold. A specialist came out and said it's not too bad and could easily be restored.

Anyway, on the hard part. The owner of the loan (bank) has something in the paperwork saying that they will not accept offers on this people that need to sell their current house first. They only want you if you don't already have a mortgage or can afford a second mortgage. Unfortunately, we don't fit into either of those categories.

So we're going to have to sell the house we currently have and "hope" that we can get this other place. There's no guarantee that the bank will even accept our offer (we're going to lowball it, they want too much as is). Fortunately, my mother said that we could move in with her for a few months while we transition, but that's pretty rough. I don't know what to do.

I mean, I guess we're going to have to sell our house, but it's a real kick in the pride to have to return home after being on your own for a while. The only thing that I don't mind about it is that this isn't a sign of failing in the real world. Just circumstances above my control as far as what the bank is after.

Ok so what happens if they accept another offer in the meantime? Banks couldn't care less about your intentions or the musings of an agent...

Not saying don't go for it but get choices 2-5 in line (maybe more depending on your market) if you really can't stand being out of your own house for a length of time.

I 'lost' a house (technically two I guess but the second they verbally said they wanted more) after I submitted an offer on just because they were gaming the system to hopefully get juicier no-pressure offers instead of listing it properly as UCB - the sale went through later that day. I was pretty pissed at the time.

I'd agree with Palum, if you haven't seen ANY other houses in your price range that you would be satisfied with, don't sell your house and put all your eggs in one basket. If you guys aren't super picky, or waiting for the "deal of a lifetime" type price, and would be perfectly happy in whatever your 3rd or 4th choice would be right now, then go for it.

I'd get on Zillow, look around a LOT in your price range and see if you can find at least a handful of houses on the market, right now, that would meet your criteria and at least look like you'd be happy with them. That would be a good sign that even if this house fell through, you could still find a new home you'd be happy with.

If this house is a once in a blue moon opportunity and you don't like anything else in your price range thats on the market right now, that's a HUGE risk.

I guess if nothing else, if you put your house up for sale I'd be calling the other bank/selling agent DAILY to see if any other offers have come in on that property, and yank your house off the market as soon as one does. The really dicey time period is going to be once you get your house under contract, but it still hasn't closed yet and you're waiting for that 30, 60 days or whatever. Once you hit that point there's no going back.

This whole thing begs the question if it's such a good deal $/sq foot why it's not off the market already.

It's not that it's a great deal for square footage. And it's not really a fix up type of house. It's just that I'm incredibly impressed with the structure of the house. It's built VERY well. Aside from that, it would be incredibly easy for me to work on to do all kinds of crazy shit in the future. But yeah, I can understand your thinking.

I believe it's not getting more attention because it's listed as a 5 bedroom, 2 bathroom. If I end up getting it, it would become a 3 bedroom, 3 bathroom type of place.

Ahh, sucks to be that listing agent. I'm sorry your house plan fell through.

We toured a new house that went on the market the other day. The entire neighborhood has houses in the $450k range, and this house is listed at $166k. My realtor suspects it'll actually sell for $225k. It's a big fix-er-up, but there are endless numbers of house flippers that have been going through the place. It's got a ton of potential. A shame that someone let the house get into the position it's in. I don't think he ever cut the grass or did any sort of maintenance to the place in the 10 years that he lived in that house. The neighbors are saying this house "used" to be pristine. I would assume that place already has a few offers. We have PODS being delivered to our house today. Time to start uncluttering the place in preparation for putting it on the market.

Some of those flips are crazy. Where I last lived in Baton Roug there was a house 3 doors down on a corner lot. It was for sale for $300k and it was clear the couple who owned it just never updated it much thru the years. Older neighborhood that has always stayed pretty high rent, now that the original owners are passing on their kids have tons of money into the houses. Or whoever bought them after they passed.

Anyway the house sold and I saw it on the market a little over a year later for $750k. Crazy. They redid the house to where the front of it now is on the other road on the corner. The house next door had a second floor added on. Crazy shit. The house across the street was for sale for $300k and I talked to someone who looked at it and they wanted it for just the lot, tear it down and start over.

I couldn never sink that much money into a "hope" it works out kind of a deal.

I would recommend against that for most people.