Home buying thread

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Kedwyn

Silver Squire
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You can make a lot of money but you need to do a lot of the work yourself. It is actually quite easy once you get into it and figure things out and for what you can't do you can hire subs directly. Going through a contractor is just stupid as all you're doing is adding 10-100%+ to the total price for a paper / phone call manager.

Youtube shows you everything you need to know and Home depot rents all the tools pretty damn cheap. You can also buy them if you have other property as the investment isn't all that much. Especially for simple things like flooring which can add a lot of value for next to nothing. Fucking migrants fresh off the banana boat can lay wood floor or carpet everyone here, well most everyone here, can do it as well.

Once you start doing your own work you'll realize how easy this stuff is and how bad you get fucked hiring some guy that never bothered to graduate high school to come fix your shit for $80-150/hr. Youtube makes things trivial to learn and once you start working a little with your hands you become a much more well rounded individual and it brings out a part of your brain that has been lying dormant.

So watch some videos, take a day off, rent some tools and do your first floor project. Your fat ass probably needs the exercise anyway.
 
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Tenks

Bronze Knight of the Realm
14,163
606
Yeah but Joeboo isn't buying a house in shambles, gutting it and flipping it. He's taking a house which I assume is in working order and just updating it. The whole crux of a flip is buying a house that is in a shitty state for dirt cheap. In his instance it would be like just going to ReMax and buying a house, updating it and flipping it. That isn't where the money is made.
 
Borzak

Borzak

Bronze Baron of the Realm
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My parents were almost double the comp price they were given and the appraisal. Apparently they ONLY go off the house or did. They had a 40x100' finished and air conditioned shop. The lady who bought it for her sister and her husband paid with a check at 100% of askig price. I think the family she bought it for said they wanted to use part of it for a shop and divide part of it into a game room or man cave.

I think their comps were a bunch of crap. It was in a "subdivision" but not an everyday one. All the lots were 2-5 acres and a lot of people had horses and such. There were only a limited number of houses that had sold in the past few years to pick from.

I wish I had made a copy of the check. Lady owned a sex toy business and had a dildo logo on her check.
 
Palum

Palum

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joeboo_sl said:
General question for those of you who have recently bought or sold homes...

Is it beneficial when trying to sell your home to be MORE updated (new bathrooms, new kitchen, new floors, etc) than the vast majority of homes in your neighborhood...or are most people going to look at the comps and see that you are trying to sell your home for 20% more than everyone else in your neighborhood and either not even bother making an offer, or try to low-ball you.

The reason I ask, my neighborhood was built 20-25 years ago and I've been keeping an eye on Zillow for several months now, and it seems like the vast majority of homes that come on the market still have those 20 year old finishes (light colored wood cabinets, white/black appliances, carpeting in bathrooms, corner sauna tubs, etc). I don't know if we would be better off selling as-is, similar to most of the others, or if spending $20-$30k to redo our bathrooms and kitchen and floors(replace carpet with wood or laminate) would pay off, as we would then need to price our home WAY above everyone else in the neighborhood. (we're talking 150-200k homes here, so the reno would likely be 10-15% of the total home value right now).

I honestly haven't seen a single home in our neighborhood come on the market that is completely updated...one bathroom might be, or the kitchen might be but nothing else is, etc.

Just how important are comps for setting the pricing in a neighborhood?
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Comps are super importantifthey are actually comps and not just 'kind of close' or 'similar because they also have walls' and stuff like that.

Obviously, individual buyers preferences will vary but from my perspective, a few things on updates:

1) You will almost never get your full value out with rare exceptions (ie gorgeous house in dire need of an updated kitchen but otherwise tasteful and immaculate, cheap landscaping, etc.).
2) You may need to update some things to get a buyer (I'm looking at you wallpaper and lipstick red frieze).
3) Look at your market segment and buyer, if you are going 3% down no-cash as your likely buyer, they can't afford to buy a house thatneedsnecessary things done to feel comfortable living there so you may have to consider fixing more than you might otherwise.
4) Stay away from unnecessary changes to get a particular aesthetic that has no necessary functional change. Everyone wants to paint/change carpet/new appliances/etc. and as long as it is clean and in good order it should be fine for most.
5) Consider cheap but effective updates like nice/new looking wallplates, inexpensive but weighty and good looking door handle sets, etc.
 
darkmiasma

darkmiasma

Trakanon Raider
845
632
Just closed on my refinance tonight - went from 5.125% for 30 years to 2.99% for 15 years - paying less than I was before, getting out of my mortgage about 10 years earlier and I'm saving 120K+ in interest - I think I'll enjoy a drink and victory fap tonight.
 
Siliconemelons

Siliconemelons

Avatar of War Slayer
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darkmiasma_sl said:
Just closed on my refinance tonight - went from 5.125% for 30 years to 2.99% for 15 years - paying less than I was before, getting out of my mortgage about 10 years earlier and I'm saving 120K+ in interest - I think I'll enjoy a drink and victory fap tonight.
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Cheers!
 
Big Phoenix

Big Phoenix

Pronouns: zie/zhem/zer
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joeboo_sl said:
General question for those of you who have recently bought or sold homes...

Is it beneficial when trying to sell your home to be MORE updated (new bathrooms, new kitchen, new floors, etc) than the vast majority of homes in your neighborhood...or are most people going to look at the comps and see that you are trying to sell your home for 20% more than everyone else in your neighborhood and either not even bother making an offer, or try to low-ball you.

The reason I ask, my neighborhood was built 20-25 years ago and I've been keeping an eye on Zillow for several months now, and it seems like the vast majority of homes that come on the market still have those 20 year old finishes (light colored wood cabinets, white/black appliances, carpeting in bathrooms, corner sauna tubs, etc). I don't know if we would be better off selling as-is, similar to most of the others, or if spending $20-$30k to redo our bathrooms and kitchen and floors(replace carpet with wood or laminate) would pay off, as we would then need to price our home WAY above everyone else in the neighborhood. (we're talking 150-200k homes here, so the reno would likely be 10-15% of the total home value right now).

I honestly haven't seen a single home in our neighborhood come on the market that is completely updated...one bathroom might be, or the kitchen might be but nothing else is, etc.

Just how important are comps for setting the pricing in a neighborhood?
Click to expand...
Who the fuck puts carpeting in a bathroom?
 
Palum

Palum

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Cad's just upset to learn his parents had terrible taste and the rest of us had tile even in the 80s.
 
meStevo

meStevo

I think your wife's a bigfoot gus.
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As someone who's still perpetually window shopping carpet in a bathroom is way too common. First thing wife notices.

Also, redfin is awesome for house hunting w/ someone else. Shared favorites list is great.
 
Borzak

Borzak

Bronze Baron of the Realm
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Palum_sl said:
Cad's just upset to learn his parents had terrible taste and the rest of us had tile even in the 80s.
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Pretty much. I think carpet in the bathroom and think 60's or 70's. I have never seen a house built in the 80's that had carpet in the bathroom.

Now they might have had linoleum.
 
Eomer

Eomer

Trakanon Raider
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Yeah, I don't think it was 80's. Definitely 60's and 70's. I'd love to know what disgusting moron thought that was a good idea.
 
Cad

Cad

scientia potentia est
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Maybe my parents house in the early 80's was build in the 70's. I don't know. Christ. My grandparents house is actually the one I'm thinking of, I think our house at the time had linoleum.
 
opiate82

opiate82

Bronze Squire
3,078
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A lot of the houses in my area that were built in the 90's have carpeted bathrooms. Generally higher-end homes with very large master-baths.
 
Joeboo

Joeboo

Molten Core Raider
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Yeah, carpeting was actually the higher-end finish in bathrooms rather than linoleum in the 80s and early 90s. Hell, buddy of mine has a house built in 1998 and it had carpet in one of the bathrooms when he moved in.
 
T

Tenks

Bronze Knight of the Realm
14,163
606
Can someone help me out with how this all works. Ok lets say I have 60k invested into my home. I have 40k liquid money in the bank. If I make an offer on the home since my current one is not sold can I defer a down payment to avoid PMI or will my down payment only be the 40k liquid in my account? So like I have a net of 100k so I could put 20% down on a 500k home but only 40k of it is readily available until my house would sell.
 
Palum

Palum

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It has to be available in the escrow account at the time the mortgage funds. That said, there are "one time refi" loans for people in your situation with good credit. Essentially if you can qualify for the second mortgage, you can, only once, essentially refi without any application process basically by changing the outstanding principal. In your case you would sell your house then apply the 60K to the principal then have them recalc rates and PMI.
 
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Tenks

Bronze Knight of the Realm
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606
Palum_sl said:
It has to be available in the escrow account at the time the mortgage funds. That said, there are "one time refi" loans for people in your situation with good credit. Essentially if you can qualify for the second mortgage, you can, only once, essentially refi without any application process basically by changing the outstanding principal. In your case you would sell your house then apply the 60K to the principal then have them recalc rates and PMI.
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Perfect. I'm not in the situation at the moment just wasn't sure how it all worked since I'm 99% sure I'll probably buy a house before selling my current for our next home.
 
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