There is nothing wrong with a house before 1979. Asbestos isn't going to be out in the open and it is only a problem if you are breathing in the dust over long periods of time. Most of the concerns over asbestos is propaganda nonsense.
The same goes for lead paint, you should be able to tell if the paint is old or not and I doubt your 10 month old is going to be eating the paint chips in the corners. All your parents grew up with lead paint on their toys.
There are issues with houses before 1979 though, the worse one by far because you do have a child is replacing windows. They passed a new law couple years ago (bullshit really) where if you a minor living in a household built before 1979 you have to seal off each room and replace windows carefully and super cleanly. The window repair people have to be certified to do this work and will charge you out the ass for it. If the child doesn't live in he house (like before you move in) than it can be a lot cheaper and just do extra vacuuming.
The ages you are looking for a house you shouldn't have much issues in the way of electrical, if you start looking for earlier homes you will run into those problems.
I didn't read every post just the first couple and the last 2, it sounds like you would probably be better off waiting a year and saving money before buying a house. This is a double edged sword though, than your child will be almost 2 and be a lot more mobile than they are now, so becomes even harder to do house work. Can't put them in a bouncer and drag them into a shade while you dig up dead bushes and redo landscaping.
I live in south-west Ohio, own a home with mortage, taxes, insurance rolled into a monthly payment of $830. Wasn't a 200k house, got it for 90k, before the crash was valued at 120k.
PSN id - kickyoass1
PaD id - 346,240,298
Marvel FF - Lil bill12
Yeah if I'm going to buy a house I am going to make 100% sure I love everything about the house that isn't fixable (painting/flooring is okay to change, but if I don't like the layout or whatever then it's a no-go). If I'm going to bite the bullet on buying then I want to make sure it's THE house we want. If we don't find anything right now I am absolutely not opposed to staying here another year I suppose, but we're going to have to definitely get a storage shed at that point.
If someone doesn't have construction experience, high income or the inclination to learn home improvement, I'd recommend away from houses older than 1979. As I said, I live in a house from 1907. It's been a mix of trials and joy, but in the end I'll lose money on it and have dealt with a lot of headaches to have a house with character, and I'm reasonably handy with tools and excess income. The biggest issue with older homes is that even easy stuff gets hard when the angles aren't straight and things bow/dip all over the place.
Also - Asbestos is not just an old-wives tale. It's harmful shit, and if you buy a place with it, have it correctly removed before moving in. Some people are not sensitive to it, and thus will never get asbestosis, but there are plenty on the other side of the scale with no real cure out there. Taking the risk of compromising your breathing for the rest of your life is not worth a cheaper house.
In terms of general stuff, you want to use the following order on houses in terms of weighting (IMO):
1. Location - you can't change it, so you better love it
2. Layout/General Size - assume most walls are structural as a worst case scenario.
3. Materials/Build Quality/Age - If the 2 above are stunners and it was built in 1950, it shouldn't be out of play. Same for if you want a brick facade and it's clapboard.
4. Interior materials - these are usually way easier to change out or update.
5. Colors - Easiest to change.
If it is in direct sunlight most of the day, it will take a lot of chemicals to keep the water balanced. The more shade the better, but the other side of that is more shade probably means more leaves & dirt for you to clean out of it.
Every few years you will have to pay a diver to go into the pool when you open it and inspect all around to insure no cracks (this is more a problem when you know you have one). The liner inside the pool will need to be replaced and is not cheap... also every couple years will need to buy new covers for the pool.
With you haveing a kid, will probably want the safety cover that has springs and wires in it so you can walk over it during the winter and not fall in. Which is more money and requires drillings holes into the concrete to support it.
Kick_04 on
PSN id - kickyoass1
PaD id - 346,240,298
Marvel FF - Lil bill12
One other thing to note, you & wife might feel differently...
Do not let a bad school district take away from a house if you really like it and is in your budget. There will always be some type of open-enrollment school nearish that you can drive your kid to when the schooling becomes more important. Also there will always be private schools, depending on your incomes at the time of that the goverment can & will help you send your child to a private school. My parents did this for my brother and I, I do not know the name of it buts its basically a bunch of rich people donate money to help kids go to private schools (got to have those tax breaks)... I feel having a kid go through 6/7th grade in public is good than move to private, gives the parents time to save some and lets them grow friendships near them and when the most critical education is going to be taught it is done in a better enviroment.
Bad area of town, yeah no go on house. Bad school district, up to you and your wives views on above statement.
Also for home repairs, I think it is going on still, but you can get a lot of different loans for home improvments espically if you go "green". My boss who makes over 100k a year was able to get a 40k loan when he bought his house to upgrade his radiator, A/C unit, water heater with very little intrest... This is something the realtor would have better knowledge over.
PSN id - kickyoass1
PaD id - 346,240,298
Marvel FF - Lil bill12
Being in Ohio makes that a bit difficult. You never know when Winter will strike!
I have never had to close a hot tub so I am not sure. Pools without heaters normally will be middle of September.
The pipes are not going to bust untill probably December/January if you live in south Ohio... you will get a better feel of it as time goes on, normally it is something you do when you stop using it. So if you got into 5 times first half of september and 0 times second half of september, go ahead and close it. If you use it up to halloween than close before thanksgiving.
Probably the most important thing to do with the unpredicatble weather in Ohio is every September buy the chemicals to close it and store on a shelf in garage. So if a freak snow storm comes on Halloween you will already be prepared to close it earlier than normal.
PSN id - kickyoass1
PaD id - 346,240,298
Marvel FF - Lil bill12
Urahonky, I am in Ohio (Cincinnati) and am in the process of buying my first house myself (just signed the contract last night and am working on setting up the Inspection today). In terms of cost, there will be two major things you need to keep in mind.
1) Location. This is going to be key, as it will affect everything from the initial cost of the home, to potential retail value, to the insurance and property taxes you'll have to pay. You need to keep a close eye on this. Even a difference of a couple of miles can save you vast amounts of money on a similar home.
2) Down Payment. You WILL need a down payment to get any kind of even semi-reasonable mortgage (lowest I've seen is 5%). If you don't have at least 20% to put down, you'll also have to get Private Mortgage Insurance, which is normally 1% of the mortgage (so your $220,000 mortgage will cost you an additional $150 to $200 per month).
You said you had about 20 houses you liked. Take a look at them on Realtor.com. When you look at a house there, under the "Property History" section you'll see the 2013 property taxes. Take that, divide it by 12, and add it to the monthly payment for your mortgage to give you an idea for the actual cost of the house each month. Add another $100 for Home Insurance (this is higher than it will be, but that gives you the maximum cost) and you'll have an idea of how much per month its going to cost you.
Also, you'll need savings to spend without even putting down money on a House. You'll want the house inspected ($300 to $500), have to put down Earnest Money ($1000 to $2000) to show that you're interested (you'll get this back if one of the conditional clauses triggers and the contract doesn't go through or when you close on the house), a potential Mortgage Application fee (mine is $300, to be returned to me if I close on the house), and then any repairs you might need to make, moving costs, and other miscellaneous things.
EDIT: Oh, almost forgot, be careful of HOAs. They have fees and add a lot of restrictions to what you can do with the house you buy. IMO they really suck. Oh, and Pools are expensive. Figure that the upkeep of a pool will add an additional $1000 to $3000 per year.
Location really is huge. I can't stress that enough. By looking a couple miles north of where I started my search, I found a very similar house for $23,000 less on the initial cost and $1000 less per year on taxes, and I stayed within the same township with the same high quality school district I wanted to be in. I really can't stress the location thing enough.
We narrowed our "liked" houses from 35 to 20 last night. We'll go through the 20 again and see if there's anything we can drop again.
The street view feature of google maps is your friend. Sketchy neighborhoods look completely different than nice neighborhoods, and you can tell this in the street view. It'll save you many a trip.
Not sure what you're using to find houses for sale, but zillow.com was a big one for me.
To each their own on asbestos & lead paint. If it is undisturbed it serves no health risk... but people still believe mercury is posionous and evacuate schools over a broken therometer and destroy the kids shoes.
The whole thing about replacing windows in a 1979 or older home is true however.
From the sounds of it, doesn't seem like will be able to purchase a home in the near future. You will not want to empty your bank account for a down payment. There will always be something you want to change or do differently right before you move in or right after you move in (like paint walls, flooring).
Talk to a realtor in your area, they will know about the loans you can get or can't get. They will know what areas to look at and what not to look at... if you and your wife are very serious about owning a home, take the next year to look some more and reflect on what the realtor has to say. So than by this time next year will be ready to sign the papers and start next chapter.
I purchased my home before I should of, it makes more strain on everything & everyone if not finacally ready for it. I only had 1 income, not 3, in the end you need to have piece of mind when you go to sleep each night. Walking past a chair in the hallway isn't that terrible.
PSN id - kickyoass1
PaD id - 346,240,298
Marvel FF - Lil bill12
To each their own on asbestos & lead paint. If it is undisturbed it serves no health risk... but people still believe mercury is posionous and evacuate schools over a broken therometer and destroy the kids shoes.
The whole thing about replacing windows in a 1979 or older home is true however.
From the sounds of it, doesn't seem like will be able to purchase a home in the near future. You will not want to empty your bank account for a down payment. There will always be something you want to change or do differently right before you move in or right after you move in (like paint walls, flooring).
Talk to a realtor in your area, they will know about the loans you can get or can't get. They will know what areas to look at and what not to look at... if you and your wife are very serious about owning a home, take the next year to look some more and reflect on what the realtor has to say. So than by this time next year will be ready to sign the papers and start next chapter.
I purchased my home before I should of, it makes more strain on everything & everyone if not finacally ready for it. I only had 1 income, not 3, in the end you need to have piece of mind when you go to sleep each night. Walking past a chair in the hallway isn't that terrible.
Painted over exterior lead isn't a huge deal, but the problem is you usually don't get that large a discount for buying houses with the above while having it hurt resale potential. Also, rules on it are getting more restrictive continually, so at some point it will be "whelp, get it removed or pay $Texas for insurance".
I'm trying to research property tax rates for some of these cities that I'm thinking of moving to, but can't seem to find much. I would assume it's a percentage right? I see a ton of information about Income Tax, but that's separate from property tax.
I'm trying to research property tax rates for some of these cities that I'm thinking of moving to, but can't seem to find much. I would assume it's a percentage right? I see a ton of information about Income Tax, but that's separate from property tax.
Zillow is useful for this, but they should have it published. I know in NH it's in the form of dollars per thousand. So $28 per thousand * 200 = 5600.
I'm trying to research property tax rates for some of these cities that I'm thinking of moving to, but can't seem to find much. I would assume it's a percentage right? I see a ton of information about Income Tax, but that's separate from property tax.
Zillow is useful for this, but they should have it published. I know in NH it's in the form of dollars per thousand. So $28 per thousand * 200 = 5600.
I was trying to make it easier for me to type in to Excel. I'd like to get a spreadsheet going so that way we can look at hard numbers for each of the houses.
There's a bunch of different things that go into property tax (including school levies, size of the property, random auditing and increases) that you can't just go for a general "In this City" or "In this Township." Your best bet is to look at a specific house on Zillow or Realtor.com, get the taxes from last year, and divide by 12 to get the monthly rate.
Not really. The thing is, you could have two houses exactly the same across the street from each other, but one could be on 1/3rd of an acre on a cul-de-sac and the other could be on a 1 acre corner lot, and you'd end up saving $500 a year if you bought the one on the 1/3rd of an acre because it's property taxes are less.
Right in the middle (faint blue font) is "property search" and click that. Than you can type in the number and street of the house you want to know and it shows everything about the house.
Size of Lot, Taxes, How much they paid for the house and when, rooms, Sq. Ft., etc...
Kick_04 on
PSN id - kickyoass1
PaD id - 346,240,298
Marvel FF - Lil bill12
PMI will vary. You can also do lender paid MI, which means you take like a quarter percent hit to interest rate and pay no PMI (as the lender pays it). Can be a better deal with lower payments.
Check out city-data.com. It has a crazy amount of zipcode-specific information. Your appraisal district may have a website to use for prop searches where you can get tax info (e.g. http://www.traviscad.org/)
Here in Austin we have 6 or so taxing entities (city, state, school, hospitals, community college, and I don't know what). I'd think it'd be similar elsewhere. Guess from the hip it's around 2.7% here.
States where there is state income taxes, property taxes should be lower.
Okay so I've been spending the day making a spreadsheet with numbers all over the place. I have the property tax and the PMI, what else am I missing out of our monthly payments? Housing insurance is roughly 525 a year here so that won't add much to the monthly payment.
Okay so I've been spending the day making a spreadsheet with numbers all over the place. I have the property tax and the PMI, what else am I missing out of our monthly payments? Housing insurance is roughly 525 a year here so that won't add much to the monthly payment.
$525 sounds kind of low for housing insurance unless its a bad house in a low crime neighborhood. I'd expect it to be closer to $700 or $800 a year for a $200k house, which would be something like an extra $50 or $60 per month.
Anyway, Mortgage, Taxes, PMI, and Insurance will make up your monthly mortgage payment. Other things you'll need to consider are electricity, water, sewer, natural gas (if the house has it) and garbage collection. That should cover all of the basic house bills.
I sent our Realtor some questions and I thought it was chuckle-worthy:
If you want to see any houses ... 6 or more .. you will need to see them with me in order for me to be your agent...so, don't call anyone else.
and then the answers to my questions, followed by this gem:
if you have another day in mind, let me know, as well... we will get started..... again .. don't call another agent because you don't want to "bother me" ... I am here to help you....and I am a full time agent dedicated to working with people like you.
I thought that was pretty funny. But she's been in business a looooong time, and she's really good at it. So I'm willing to ignore the signs of desperation!
I sent our Realtor some questions and I thought it was chuckle-worthy:
If you want to see any houses ... 6 or more .. you will need to see them with me in order for me to be your agent...so, don't call anyone else.
and then the answers to my questions, followed by this gem:
if you have another day in mind, let me know, as well... we will get started..... again .. don't call another agent because you don't want to "bother me" ... I am here to help you....and I am a full time agent dedicated to working with people like you.
I thought that was pretty funny. But she's been in business a looooong time, and she's really good at it. So I'm willing to ignore the signs of desperation!
All realtors are somewhat desperate, and they want you to sign the paper that says they get commission on any house you buy.
Heating wise, the breakdown for cost per month basically works like this:
1. Geothermal - practically free
2. Natural Gas
3. Wood Pellets (I think)
4. Wood
5. Propane
6. Oil
7. Electric - NO NO NO NO, unless you live somewhere like SoCal
In addition - forced hot water is more efficient than forced hot air, but it means you need a separate system for AC (if you want it). For forced hot water, baseboards or 2 pipe radiators both work well, as does radiant. Stay away from any steam heat, especially if it's 1 pipe steam (2 pipe is a pretty easy conversion to forced hot water if the boiler goes).
Coldwell Banker is the company she works for. I didn't have to sign anything.
@schuss I would absolutely LOVE Geothermal heating. Oh man that would be glorious, but this is Ohio. Don't want anyone thinking they're liberal hippies for going Geothermal!
Posts
The same goes for lead paint, you should be able to tell if the paint is old or not and I doubt your 10 month old is going to be eating the paint chips in the corners. All your parents grew up with lead paint on their toys.
There are issues with houses before 1979 though, the worse one by far because you do have a child is replacing windows. They passed a new law couple years ago (bullshit really) where if you a minor living in a household built before 1979 you have to seal off each room and replace windows carefully and super cleanly. The window repair people have to be certified to do this work and will charge you out the ass for it. If the child doesn't live in he house (like before you move in) than it can be a lot cheaper and just do extra vacuuming.
The ages you are looking for a house you shouldn't have much issues in the way of electrical, if you start looking for earlier homes you will run into those problems.
I didn't read every post just the first couple and the last 2, it sounds like you would probably be better off waiting a year and saving money before buying a house. This is a double edged sword though, than your child will be almost 2 and be a lot more mobile than they are now, so becomes even harder to do house work. Can't put them in a bouncer and drag them into a shade while you dig up dead bushes and redo landscaping.
I live in south-west Ohio, own a home with mortage, taxes, insurance rolled into a monthly payment of $830. Wasn't a 200k house, got it for 90k, before the crash was valued at 120k.
PaD id - 346,240,298
Marvel FF - Lil bill12
How do you guys feel about pools? One of the houses we looked at had a decent sized in ground pool.
Also - Asbestos is not just an old-wives tale. It's harmful shit, and if you buy a place with it, have it correctly removed before moving in. Some people are not sensitive to it, and thus will never get asbestosis, but there are plenty on the other side of the scale with no real cure out there. Taking the risk of compromising your breathing for the rest of your life is not worth a cheaper house.
In terms of general stuff, you want to use the following order on houses in terms of weighting (IMO):
1. Location - you can't change it, so you better love it
2. Layout/General Size - assume most walls are structural as a worst case scenario.
3. Materials/Build Quality/Age - If the 2 above are stunners and it was built in 1950, it shouldn't be out of play. Same for if you want a brick facade and it's clapboard.
4. Interior materials - these are usually way easier to change out or update.
5. Colors - Easiest to change.
If it is in direct sunlight most of the day, it will take a lot of chemicals to keep the water balanced. The more shade the better, but the other side of that is more shade probably means more leaves & dirt for you to clean out of it.
Every few years you will have to pay a diver to go into the pool when you open it and inspect all around to insure no cracks (this is more a problem when you know you have one). The liner inside the pool will need to be replaced and is not cheap... also every couple years will need to buy new covers for the pool.
With you haveing a kid, will probably want the safety cover that has springs and wires in it so you can walk over it during the winter and not fall in. Which is more money and requires drillings holes into the concrete to support it.
PaD id - 346,240,298
Marvel FF - Lil bill12
not near as much
just make sure you prep it for the winter! Don't want burst pipes!
Do not let a bad school district take away from a house if you really like it and is in your budget. There will always be some type of open-enrollment school nearish that you can drive your kid to when the schooling becomes more important. Also there will always be private schools, depending on your incomes at the time of that the goverment can & will help you send your child to a private school. My parents did this for my brother and I, I do not know the name of it buts its basically a bunch of rich people donate money to help kids go to private schools (got to have those tax breaks)... I feel having a kid go through 6/7th grade in public is good than move to private, gives the parents time to save some and lets them grow friendships near them and when the most critical education is going to be taught it is done in a better enviroment.
Bad area of town, yeah no go on house. Bad school district, up to you and your wives views on above statement.
Also for home repairs, I think it is going on still, but you can get a lot of different loans for home improvments espically if you go "green". My boss who makes over 100k a year was able to get a 40k loan when he bought his house to upgrade his radiator, A/C unit, water heater with very little intrest... This is something the realtor would have better knowledge over.
PaD id - 346,240,298
Marvel FF - Lil bill12
I have never had to close a hot tub so I am not sure. Pools without heaters normally will be middle of September.
The pipes are not going to bust untill probably December/January if you live in south Ohio... you will get a better feel of it as time goes on, normally it is something you do when you stop using it. So if you got into 5 times first half of september and 0 times second half of september, go ahead and close it. If you use it up to halloween than close before thanksgiving.
Probably the most important thing to do with the unpredicatble weather in Ohio is every September buy the chemicals to close it and store on a shelf in garage. So if a freak snow storm comes on Halloween you will already be prepared to close it earlier than normal.
PaD id - 346,240,298
Marvel FF - Lil bill12
1) Location. This is going to be key, as it will affect everything from the initial cost of the home, to potential retail value, to the insurance and property taxes you'll have to pay. You need to keep a close eye on this. Even a difference of a couple of miles can save you vast amounts of money on a similar home.
2) Down Payment. You WILL need a down payment to get any kind of even semi-reasonable mortgage (lowest I've seen is 5%). If you don't have at least 20% to put down, you'll also have to get Private Mortgage Insurance, which is normally 1% of the mortgage (so your $220,000 mortgage will cost you an additional $150 to $200 per month).
You said you had about 20 houses you liked. Take a look at them on Realtor.com. When you look at a house there, under the "Property History" section you'll see the 2013 property taxes. Take that, divide it by 12, and add it to the monthly payment for your mortgage to give you an idea for the actual cost of the house each month. Add another $100 for Home Insurance (this is higher than it will be, but that gives you the maximum cost) and you'll have an idea of how much per month its going to cost you.
Also, you'll need savings to spend without even putting down money on a House. You'll want the house inspected ($300 to $500), have to put down Earnest Money ($1000 to $2000) to show that you're interested (you'll get this back if one of the conditional clauses triggers and the contract doesn't go through or when you close on the house), a potential Mortgage Application fee (mine is $300, to be returned to me if I close on the house), and then any repairs you might need to make, moving costs, and other miscellaneous things.
EDIT: Oh, almost forgot, be careful of HOAs. They have fees and add a lot of restrictions to what you can do with the house you buy. IMO they really suck. Oh, and Pools are expensive. Figure that the upkeep of a pool will add an additional $1000 to $3000 per year.
Unless you, your wife or your roommate are avid pool users, do not bother. There are other ways to make your backyard nice.
IMO asbestos and lead paint is serious business especially if you have a toddler or baby.
Not sure what you're using to find houses for sale, but zillow.com was a big one for me.
The whole thing about replacing windows in a 1979 or older home is true however.
From the sounds of it, doesn't seem like will be able to purchase a home in the near future. You will not want to empty your bank account for a down payment. There will always be something you want to change or do differently right before you move in or right after you move in (like paint walls, flooring).
Talk to a realtor in your area, they will know about the loans you can get or can't get. They will know what areas to look at and what not to look at... if you and your wife are very serious about owning a home, take the next year to look some more and reflect on what the realtor has to say. So than by this time next year will be ready to sign the papers and start next chapter.
I purchased my home before I should of, it makes more strain on everything & everyone if not finacally ready for it. I only had 1 income, not 3, in the end you need to have piece of mind when you go to sleep each night. Walking past a chair in the hallway isn't that terrible.
PaD id - 346,240,298
Marvel FF - Lil bill12
Painted over exterior lead isn't a huge deal, but the problem is you usually don't get that large a discount for buying houses with the above while having it hurt resale potential. Also, rules on it are getting more restrictive continually, so at some point it will be "whelp, get it removed or pay $Texas for insurance".
I see this document but I feel like it confuses me more than it should... Are those numbers per thousand or something?
Zillow is useful for this, but they should have it published. I know in NH it's in the form of dollars per thousand. So $28 per thousand * 200 = 5600.
I was trying to make it easier for me to type in to Excel. I'd like to get a spreadsheet going so that way we can look at hard numbers for each of the houses.
http://www.hamiltoncountyauditor.org/
Right in the middle (faint blue font) is "property search" and click that. Than you can type in the number and street of the house you want to know and it shows everything about the house.
Size of Lot, Taxes, How much they paid for the house and when, rooms, Sq. Ft., etc...
PaD id - 346,240,298
Marvel FF - Lil bill12
I'm using this site: http://www.mortgagecalculator.org/ and it's set to 0.05%, and my numbers are coming out to: 95 Monthly PMI Payments of $59.38 Each.
But when I go here: http://www.goodmortgage.com/Calculators/PMI.html and type in the loan and interest rate it's coming out to 85.50. I'm not sure which one is correct.
Here in Austin we have 6 or so taxing entities (city, state, school, hospitals, community college, and I don't know what). I'd think it'd be similar elsewhere. Guess from the hip it's around 2.7% here.
States where there is state income taxes, property taxes should be lower.
Also a interview/chat with a few Realtors will help you determine who you should have help you with the process.
We got lucky and found the right guy on the first try.
3DS FC: 5343-7720-0490
Which pretty much makes FHA loans useless except for the extremely desperate, that probably shouldn't be buying a house in the first place.
Okay so I've been spending the day making a spreadsheet with numbers all over the place. I have the property tax and the PMI, what else am I missing out of our monthly payments? Housing insurance is roughly 525 a year here so that won't add much to the monthly payment.
$525 sounds kind of low for housing insurance unless its a bad house in a low crime neighborhood. I'd expect it to be closer to $700 or $800 a year for a $200k house, which would be something like an extra $50 or $60 per month.
Anyway, Mortgage, Taxes, PMI, and Insurance will make up your monthly mortgage payment. Other things you'll need to consider are electricity, water, sewer, natural gas (if the house has it) and garbage collection. That should cover all of the basic house bills.
Thanks I'll get the average utility costs from our Realtor. Good thing to remember!
don't get average utility costs from a realtor. They're trying to sell you a house.
Get it from a neighbor if you can.
do not NOT NOT NOT get a home with electric baseboards.
my winter heating bill regularly cracks $500 for a 1200 s/f house.
find a place with a good heat pump and maybe an oil backup (though that will cost a ton too).
remember since you're not in a building with a bunch of other apartments, your're heating/cooling it all by yourself.
I sent our Realtor some questions and I thought it was chuckle-worthy:
and then the answers to my questions, followed by this gem:
I thought that was pretty funny. But she's been in business a looooong time, and she's really good at it. So I'm willing to ignore the signs of desperation!
All realtors are somewhat desperate, and they want you to sign the paper that says they get commission on any house you buy.
Heating wise, the breakdown for cost per month basically works like this:
1. Geothermal - practically free
2. Natural Gas
3. Wood Pellets (I think)
4. Wood
5. Propane
6. Oil
7. Electric - NO NO NO NO, unless you live somewhere like SoCal
In addition - forced hot water is more efficient than forced hot air, but it means you need a separate system for AC (if you want it). For forced hot water, baseboards or 2 pipe radiators both work well, as does radiant. Stay away from any steam heat, especially if it's 1 pipe steam (2 pipe is a pretty easy conversion to forced hot water if the boiler goes).
it's dumb and the good ones won't demand it
advance contracts are for realtors who are bad and are afraid of people firing them because they're bad
I've used Coldwell Banker twice, would use again, no contracts
@schuss I would absolutely LOVE Geothermal heating. Oh man that would be glorious, but this is Ohio. Don't want anyone thinking they're liberal hippies for going Geothermal!