Home buying thread

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Grabbit Allworth_foh

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I just closed/moved in to a home I had built. I chose an existing floor plan from a builder and made a lot of changes to it.

It"s my first home, and my only regret is that I didn"t make the decision in time to receive the 8k.

Other than that, my wife and I couldn"t be happier.

The house is a tad over 2400 square feet on a half acre corner lot (dense forest behind me). Open floor plan with 4 beds, 3 baths, 2 car garage, and a really nice brick veranda in the back. The entire downstairs is hardwood (including the stairs to the second floor) except the master bath, second bath, and mud room, which are tile. Every countertop in the house is granite, including the mudroom. The master bath is massive with a framless glass shower and jetted tub. Recessed lighting, pendant lighting, 14" ceilings, great molding, "furtniture piece" cabinets in the baths, stainless steel appliances, the second and third baths are tiled around cast iron tubs (fuck inserts)2 Trane 15 SEER heat pumps, sprinkler system for the yard, etc, etc. Lots of bells and whistles.

The house is basically everything I ever wanted. Well, not everything. Everything I wanted, that I could afford.

At any rate, real estate here in Alabama is cheap. The above house cost me 263k. My real estate taxes are $1500/y, home owners insurance is $660/y, and my PMI is $1440/y.

I got a 4.25% fixed rate for 30 and my entire payment with escrow is $1575 which will go down a $120 when the PMI comes off.

I hope it doesn"t sound like I"m bragging, I"m just extremely excited and proud. In the next few months, I"m sure the new will wear off and the realities of home ownership will set in, but for now, it"s amazing.
 
Cutlery

Cutlery

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Just pray you had a good builder, or the realities of "Why the fuck is there water here?" and "What do you mean the builder"s number has been disconnected?" are gonna come first.
 
Cad

Cad

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TheCutlery said:
Just pray you had a good builder, or the realities of "Why the fuck is there water here?" and "What do you mean the builder"s number has been disconnected?" are gonna come first.
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This is true in any economy and with any cost home.
 
F

Fawy_foh

shitlord
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TheCutlery said:
Just pray you had a good builder, or the realities of "Why the fuck is there water here?" and "What do you mean the builder"s number has been disconnected?" are gonna come first.
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Oh so true... I am in new construction and fortunately I haven"t had a problem since moving in. (over 2 years).

My parents on the other hand... they built a massive home with crazy amounts of roof angles and the leaks have been impossible to control... It"s been about 9 years now and they are still battling it. Ceilings and roofing have been ripped apart trying to find where the water runs in. They always think it"s fixed until the next big storm rolls through. Fortunately, the latest fix may be working... still have our fingers crossed!
 
ToeMissile

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Grabbit Allworth said:
I just closed/moved in to a home I had built. I chose an existing floor plan from a builder and made a lot of changes to it.

It"s my first home, and my only regret is that I didn"t make the decision in time to receive the 8k.

Other than that, my wife and I couldn"t be happier.

The house is a tad over 2400 square feet on a half acre corner lot (dense forest behind me). Open floor plan with 4 beds, 3 baths, 2 car garage, and a really nice brick veranda in the back. The entire downstairs is hardwood (including the stairs to the second floor) except the master bath, second bath, and mud room, which are tile. Every countertop in the house is granite, including the mudroom. The master bath is massive with a framless glass shower and jetted tub. Recessed lighting, pendant lighting, 14" ceilings, great molding, "furtniture piece" cabinets in the baths, stainless steel appliances, the second and third baths are tiled around cast iron tubs (fuck inserts)2 Trane 15 SEER heat pumps, sprinkler system for the yard, etc, etc. Lots of bells and whistles.

The house is basically everything I ever wanted. Well, not everything. Everything I wanted, that I could afford.

At any rate, real estate here in Alabama is cheap. The above house cost me 263k. My real estate taxes are $1500/y, home owners insurance is $660/y, and my PMI is $1440/y.

I got a 4.25% fixed rate for 30 and my entire payment with escrow is $1575 which will go down a $120 when the PMI comes off.

I hope it doesn"t sound like I"m bragging, I"m just extremely excited and proud. In the next few months, I"m sure the new will wear off and the realities of home ownership will set in, but for now, it"s amazing.
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Grats. Photos?
 
S

Sharmai_foh

shitlord
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Fawy said:
Oh so true... I am in new construction and fortunately I haven"t had a problem since moving in. (over 2 years).

My parents on the other hand... they built a massive home with crazy amounts of roof angles and the leaks have been impossible to control... It"s been about 9 years now and they are still battling it. Ceilings and roofing have been ripped apart trying to find where the water runs in. They always think it"s fixed until the next big storm rolls through. Fortunately, the latest fix may be working... still have our fingers crossed!
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Is your parents home custom built or new construction?
 
C

Chaotic_foh

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Any recommendations for, I guess home buying and home improvement style magazines? Figure the more information I have the better.

Also, Grabbit that"s awesome. Having a home built to your specifications has to be a great feeling.
 
Cutlery

Cutlery

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Chaotic said:
Any recommendations for, I guess home buying and home improvement style magazines? Figure the more information I have the better.

Also, Grabbit that"s awesome. Having a home built to your specifications has to be a great feeling.
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Magazines? What is this, 1980?

You have the internet at your disposal. Google.
 
C

Chaotic_foh

shitlord
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Google spits out the same bullshit. Magazines are an excellent source of ideas that don"t depend on my input for a result that may or may not have occurred to me. I don"t think that"s too difficult a concept to manage.
 
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Evelys_foh

shitlord
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Hubby and I are looking at purchasing something in the $330k range in Silicon Valley in 6months to a year. Looks like it"s possible to get a pretty decent 3br/2ba with a garage at that price or cheaper.

Once we start the process, we"ll let you know how it goes. Probably going to end up doing a 3.5% down FHA loan since we"re first-time homebuyers, and even with PMI, taxes, fees, etc. rolled in, and setting aside cash for maintenance (and as older homes, they"ll need them), it looks like it"ll only be costing us about $200ish more a month compared to rent in the same area for a 2br 2ba apartment.

Any advice, of course, is appreciated.
 
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Gopher Yerguns_foh

shitlord
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So the house across the street from me just sold. It"s the first home in our neighborhood to sell in nearly a year, so I looked up the sale price to get an idea of what our place might be worth. The selling price was listed as 200K with a 60K seller subsidy. Does anyone know what that means? I thought a seller subsidy was when the seller paid some or all of the buyers closing costs, but 60K is way too high to be just closing costs. Any idea what else it could mean? And does that mean the actual value of the home is 140K and not 200K? Thanks.
 
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Unidin_foh

shitlord
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Gopher Yerguns said:
So the house across the street from me just sold. It"s the first home in our neighborhood to sell in nearly a year, so I looked up the sale price to get an idea of what our place might be worth. The selling price was listed as 200K with a 60K seller subsidy. Does anyone know what that means? I thought a seller subsidy was when the seller paid some or all of the buyers closing costs, but 60K is way too high to be just closing costs. Any idea what else it could mean? And does that mean the actual value of the home is 140K and not 200K? Thanks.
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Anything left in the house of value could be considered a subsidy. If they sold it with furniture and appliances that can make up a chunk of it. Did the former owner die?
 
G

Gopher Yerguns_foh

shitlord
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Unidin said:
Anything left in the house of value could be considered a subsidy. If they sold it with furniture and appliances that can make up a chunk of it. Did the former owner die?
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It was empty. It"s a rental property that has been unoccupied for a while.
 
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Picasso3

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Really considering a joint buy on a house with a friend of mine. We lived together during college and it worked out fine -- i am still skeptical of such a serious investment with another person though.

Anyone done this? I"m going to write something up as clear and concise as possible that basically says everything 50/50 and no backing our for at least 2 years (not sure on that number yet) and then if either one of us wants to sell we will.

I was going to go in alone -- but all the houses under 100k (my range) near charleston are *total* pieces of shit w/ structural problems etc. but at 160k we can get a 2600 square ft rancher w/ deck and garage that appears solid as a rock to me.

So picasso says buy the 160k making my payment on 80k, have split utilities and property taxes (significant imo), and have a house that"s value isn"t a gamble.

Thank you for your time.
 
Cutlery

Cutlery

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There are a few guys I think I could make that work with -- the number is very small though. I"ll tell you what though, that whole thing goes to shit the minute one of you wants to get a family going...which may or may not be convenient for the other.
 
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Picasso3

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We"re still young and ugly so I"m not too worried about the family thing. That"s why I think its a good idea to to have it so if either wants out after a couple years, we sell.
 
Cutlery

Cutlery

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Also take into consideration that shit breaks/needs improvements in a house. You"ve gotta come up with some plan for that, or you"ll be arguing about whether you really NEED a new dishwasher or not too.

I mean, it"s pretty possible that like the deck falls off the house and one of you is like "okay, well lets split the cost of putting the deck back on" and the other is like "Fuck it, I just sit around playing WoW anyway and never even go into the backyard, I don"t need it." Extreme, but you know what I mean.
 
E

Evelys_foh

shitlord
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TheCutlery said:
Also take into consideration that shit breaks/needs improvements in a house. You"ve gotta come up with some plan for that, or you"ll be arguing about whether you really NEED a new dishwasher or not too.

I mean, it"s pretty possible that like the deck falls off the house and one of you is like "okay, well lets split the cost of putting the deck back on" and the other is like "Fuck it, I just sit around playing WoW anyway and never even go into the backyard, I don"t need it." Extreme, but you know what I mean.
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A friend of mine owns a house with his roommate like Picasso is talking about. They put together a contract that laid out the terms of maintenance (50% split, and a mandatory contribution of something like $50 to a jointly held savings account to pay for repairs), right of sale (if one party wants to sell, the other party has to refuse the opportunity to buy that share before it can be sold to someone else, and the other party has the right to match any offer made), and some other things to do with what happens if one of them dies and all of that. They sat down with a lawyer to have this contract drawn up, and had it notarized -- if you do decide to buy a house with someone like that, it"s probably worth the few hundred in legal fees and notarization to have an independent lawyer draw up a fair contract, sign it, and have it notarized.
 
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