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House/Homeowner thread: HOW much money?
Phoenix-D
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Once again I welcome you to the house/homeowner thread. Bitch about how much that thing is going to cost or how long it's taking that other thing to get fixed. Crumbling walls? Cracked Foundation? Leaking pipes? Look no further for dubious advice.
Home Hunting Resources
zillow.com
trulia.com
realtor.com
www.redfin.com
Credit Resources
creditkarma.com
annualcreditreport.com
mint.com
Mortgage resources
mortgagecalculator.org
www.bankrate.com/calculators/mortgages/mortgage-calculator.aspx
(now with stolen OP)
Home Hunting Resources
zillow.com
trulia.com
realtor.com
www.redfin.com
Credit Resources
creditkarma.com
annualcreditreport.com
mint.com
Mortgage resources
mortgagecalculator.org
www.bankrate.com/calculators/mortgages/mortgage-calculator.aspx
(now with stolen OP)
+8
Posts
One of the houses we looked at had a stream as the property line. The owner assured me it was fine, my hindbrain went NOOOOOOOOOOOOOPE. To be fair it was probably safe- it's uphill from the houses on the other side of the stream. But still.
And since it's in the way of our new front fence (that also wont have a gate there) it has to go.
I did it in two stages, one is just breaking up the concrete with a hammer, two is prying the pieces apart and removing them.
Anyway, so it turns out that the path was poured directly onto a clay pipe that runs from the house to the curb. The pipe isn't even buried, they just poured the concrete directly onto it. And is made from clay.
So that was fun.
I am 99% sure that it's just a storm water pipe, but we're getting someone in to look at it before I remove anymore of the path.
It’s not a very important country most of the time
http://steamcommunity.com/id/mortious
We just clean off any surface gunge and whatever is in it that resists mould-growth stops the actual sealant itself from getting mouldy.
My wife and I are eternally at odds in that she doesn't want to use lots of/any chemicals or spend money on grass seed or watering/sprinklers and so on but somehow wants me to turn the lawn into a putting green regardless. She will accuse me of being an "I told you so" person when she complains about excessive clover or so on while comparing our lawn to the neighbors with lawn services and sprinkler systems. Luckily the largest house nearby up on the corner is usually a brown dandelion field so I don't have to feel like I'm the one bringing things down.
One of the easiest ways I've found of controlling weeds (though not clover) is just mow height. The longer the grass, the less sunlight weed sprouts get so they often can't get established. So, I only mow on the highest setting my mower allows. It does require slightly more mowing, especially during the rainy seasons, but definitely creates less weeding.
As for clover though, I actually like it mixed in with my grass as it's far more drought resistant than grass so I can keep it green in the dead of July/August without needing to constantly water it.
You'd be an awesome man for letting the local growth take over and sticking it to the man.
https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561197970666737/
How hard is it to do by hand? Will it cost all the money? All the time? All the swearing?
Our backyard is moss and a small garden.
Way better than grass.
Its also a small backyard.
Alternative: seal the tile.
Basically, clean the tile really well, to the point that you're happy with the appearance, then apply a penetrating sealant. That's designed to fill the pores that you're complaining about. It does need to be re-applied every few years, but should be easier than re-tiling.
A steam mop might also help a lot when it comes to cleaning the tile.
And failing that you could always use a pressure washer!
We're letting our backyard slowly turn into clover. The front is still grass, but the only seed I've put down is in a bare spot where a new sewer line was put in.
Speaking of, what does everyone recommend for fallen leaves? We have a service in town that will come by and vacuum up piles at the front of the yard, but would it be better to leave them?
Ecologically it's better to leave them. They're useful for local animals and provide soil nutrients.
This also means *so many bugs* so take that into consideration. I'd keep leaves away from siding for example.
And don't leave them a long time *then* clean up. Aside from the usual old leaf eew you'll kill anything nesting on them.
American house buying/selling is kind of crazy compared to the UK. The big plusses I can see are:
1. You don't move all houses in a chain on the same day like we do or really form chains at all it seems.
2. Property tax means house prices are more or less public knowledge. Even in low sales areas.
3. US houses are generally much newer and higher quality/ design than in the UK.
The minuses:
1. Realtors and the associated 5% fee?! The seller paying the buyers agent? Here the fee is max like... 3%. Usually like 1-2%
2. Realtors being involved past the find a house stage? Over here the rest is handled by solicitors.
We have a system that works similarly to house sale chains. We call them "home sale contingencies" and they're basically a contract that says "I will buy your house if and when my house sells (within a certain reasonable timeframe." (There are other contingencies, too, like inspection contingencies - "I will buy your house if the home inspection shows no major problems.")
Home sale contingencies are unpopular in the US. Sometimes, they pop up in slow markets at slow times.
(Also, sellers don't get input into loan terms in the US. Maybe they do in strange rarified cases, or maybe I'm just unaware of them, but AFAIK they aren't really a thing. Restrictions on the buyer are known as CCRs - covenants, conditions, and restrictions - and they're usually dictated by neighborhood standards, like HOAs, not the seller. And CCRs usually cover things like appearance and authorized use, not the loan itself. But I might be unaware of something or misunderstanding Phoenix-D's draft.)
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
I have no idea how this market is still surviving.
And though I admit I don't really rigorously know all of this, so many weird Americanisms can be boiled down to "we made [thing] worse so we could have it faster and cheaper" and I'm inclined to believe that's true for housing too. (Though because our housing market is horribly broken, it didn't turn out to be cheaper.)
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
Housing affordability is at record lows, evictions are at historic highs, the housing shortage is the worst it's ever been, and HUD has observed that the composition of homeless adults has been shifting towards more chronic homeless rather than temporarily homeless. It's a trainwreck in slow motion.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
As I understand it the UK (and many European countries) have a lot of very old housing.
It's not so much that the new housing that is being built it worse than the new housing in the US so much as it is that renovating extremely old housing is often an absolute nightmare and that's if you're even allowed to.
Oh I totally sympathize with that.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
Many UK houses are 90-200 years old with 0 insulation. They are made from brick and often are terraced. Insulating them would dramatically reduce the floorspace. UK planning permission makes US zoning look sane so rebuilding is out of the question. Since the walls are brick internally with no voids getting rewiring or plumbing work done is extremely expensive.
Where I am at the terms of the loan are written in the contract and amending then requires seller approval. They do get input.
That seems nuts to me. Here you disclose approximately how much you are financing of the purchase in your offer but that's it, and it's not remotely binding either. Our loan didn't finalize until deep into the process, rather close to closing, and we had a contingency that let us back out of anything went wonky with the financing
Like as the seller, you're granting the contingency because it looks like the buyer will actually succeed in securing the financing.
If the buyer is all "yes my financing plan is this gofundme i set up I'm sure I'll hit my goal within the next two weeks" you probably don't want to set up a contract just for them to obviously pull out when they fail to get financed.
Like, that's the whole thing with "cash sales" they're usually not literally unfinanced, they just have no financing contingency.
fuck up once and you break your thumb / if you're happy at all then you're god damn dumb
that's right we're on a fucked up cruise / God is dead but at least we have booze
bad things happen, no one knows why / the sun burns out and everyone dies
Edit: I guess I didn't mention that in my first post but your offer generally includes a pre-approval letter from your lender saying they will loan you money
That's for a conventional loan. There's other loan types with additional restrictions or rely on the the house meeting certain standards requiring inspections, etc that can cause the sale to fall through. For example, the loan may require the breaker box to be up to a certain code. If it's not, and the owner won't agree to fix it prior to the sale, then the loan won't be approved.
This might be an issue of semantics. Probable loan type and any extra loan requirements are disclosed at offer time. The seller accepts those when they accept the offer and they become part of the contrac but I wouldn't classify any of that as the seller having input on the terms of the loan.
It plugs into a GFCI receptacle next to the sump pit; can I get a computer UPS and mount it on the wall? What am I missing?
Something like a car battery seems excessive and I need to install a controller + transfer switch if I go that route.
We've been here since 2012 and the longest outage we've had was about 10 hrs. Last night's outage was 2 hrs.