deleted. my complaints make me feel shittier about myself because I'm talking about how my ability to do things most people can't still makes me miserable.
deleted. my complaints make me feel shittier about myself because I'm talking about how my ability to do things most people can't still makes me miserable.
Honestly, how you're feeling is fair, and due to the way our society pushes homeownership. I love having my house, but me and my wife waited 2 years to look because we weren't sure if I would get transferred to Dallas.
deleted. my complaints make me feel shittier about myself because I'm talking about how my ability to do things most people can't still makes me miserable.
Honestly, how you're feeling is fair, and due to the way our society pushes homeownership. I love having my house, but me and my wife waited 2 years to look because we weren't sure if I would get transferred to Dallas.
I like Adam Conover in general but I think this take is deeply problematic.
If the interest is higher than rent prices correct, you are not making a sound investment. Considering how much rent seems to be even in pretty cheap places, I don't think that exists anywhere at this point.
Also buying/selling is not that hard once you have built a little equity. (or rent out your old place and rent where you move to until your figure out how long term that new higher paying job might be)
The promise of a highly migratory workforce is also neo-liberal dystopic because it reinforces anti-union, anti-political action, and anti-community building ideas that come with putting down roots.
I apologize if my post was taken as hostile/snotty. I was just giving you some other options to check.
I know a number of people who are quite happy just renting for their lives. They consider the repairs and maintenance a lot less stress hanging over them, and are comfortable paying for someone else to deal with those issues.
If you're happy where you are, keep doing you (it's one of the reasons I'm still driving a 15 year old car). If you're at least interested in a change, do a little legwork and see what's available. You don't have to commit to anything.
+2
Donovan PuppyfuckerA dagger in the dark isworth a thousand swords in the morningRegistered Userregular
Urgh. Today it started raining hard in Australia, which has revealed two things:
1. there's some water leakage problem with the front porch workshop of this house that I don't quite understand. The punchline is that whole area needs the pebble epoxy stripped off, an actual waterproofing membrane applied, and retiling. Thinking some silicone caulk might mitigate for now?
2. But the back deck - hoo boy. So, the lower floor has this overhand which has been done up with fibreboard and downlights and all looks really nice. This completely hides the fact that all of this was attached to the underside of the upstairs balcony, and there is no membrane or roof beneath the boards to catch the water. It's "mostly" okay because there's a cover over the upper part of the balcony, but it still means any liquids which blow in from the side, any leaks, any thing like say, washing the windows or spilling something, not to mention the leaves, is just falling right through onto the bottom part of that roof.
Which explains why the halogen downlights are blown out.
I am in awe at whoever the fuck installed this and went "she'll be right". I assume this was all repainted before they sold because one decent rainstorm and the paint is bubbling right off because the water is coming through - worse, I need to get in there and check it's not just pooling underneath an enclosed beam.
This is all incredibly stupid, though not catastrophic as far as houses go. I'm thinking I'll pull up the upper deck over this area, we'll see if the lower boards can be saved, and I guess I'll build a proper enclosed space with fibre cement decking over sarking foil, waterproof and tile it and it should be good? Would look nicer too.
Re: the front porch - where is the water leaking from? Making the porch more waterproof just means that the water will find something else to destroy.
Buying a house outside of california sounds like a lot more fun.
Yeah places without foreign investors and NIMBY boomers are actually fairly good housing markets.
Even california isn't too bad if you're outside their 3 of the 6 most populous metropolitan areas in the country, still stupid compared to 160k though.
I spent half that on mine. California is dumb.
not a doctor, not a lawyer, examples I use may not be fully researched so don't take out of context plz, don't @ me
Buying a house outside of california sounds like a lot more fun.
Yeah places without foreign investors and NIMBY boomers are actually fairly good housing markets.
Even california isn't too bad if you're outside their 3 of the 6 most populous metropolitan areas in the country, still stupid compared to 160k though.
Buying a house outside of california sounds like a lot more fun.
Yeah places without foreign investors and NIMBY boomers are actually fairly good housing markets.
Even california isn't too bad if you're outside their 3 of the 6 most populous metropolitan areas in the country, still stupid compared to 160k though.
I spent half that on mine. California is dumb.
Man, now I feel like I overpaid for my house :0
Nah don't think of houses like that. This dude tried to pull a fast one and the realtors were trying to say "well the comps.." yeah well the comps you were pulling and showing me were perfect houses and this was not. A lot of people don't fight the comps, which is definitely a huge problem with how house prices keep escalating too. I probably paid too much still tbh.
Unfortunately it's hard to fight back when there's fucks buying land sight unseen because they've got stupid money then reselling it.. but that's a shitty metropolitan real estate market more than anything.
not a doctor, not a lawyer, examples I use may not be fully researched so don't take out of context plz, don't @ me
Buying a house outside of california sounds like a lot more fun.
Yeah places without foreign investors and NIMBY boomers are actually fairly good housing markets.
Even california isn't too bad if you're outside their 3 of the 6 most populous metropolitan areas in the country, still stupid compared to 160k though.
I spent half that on mine. California is dumb.
Man, now I feel like I overpaid for my house :0
Nah don't think of houses like that. This dude tried to pull a fast one and the realtors were trying to say "well the comps.." yeah well the comps you were pulling and showing me were perfect houses and this was not. A lot of people don't fight the comps, which is definitely a huge problem with how house prices keep escalating too. I probably paid too much still tbh.
Unfortunately it's hard to fight back when there's fucks buying land sight unseen because they've got stupid money then reselling it.. but that's a shitty metropolitan real estate market more than anything.
Honestly, it seems unlikely that anyone overpaid by an amount that really matters. The vast majority of the price of a house is the location and approximate size. Unless the house is falling apart and needs to be condemned, chances are you paid about what it was worth at the time.
When the wife and I bought we probably could have haggled another 2-3% off the price (which if your house is 500k is a lot of money), but would it have been worth losing out? We had 6 offers go to someone else because we were trying to be aggressive with our offers, even though they were all over asking price (fucking metropolitan pricing)! In the end, we just slightly overbid on a house we really wanted cause we were tired of looking. I feel like either the housing market continues to be fine, and whatever you paid will be less than you can sell it for in 3-5 years, or the housing market tanks and you're underwater even if you got a great deal.
Jebus314 on
"The world is a mess, and I just need to rule it" - Dr Horrible
Yeah you're going to change your mortgage price by maybe thirties of dollars at the most. Sure it adds up over time, but would it be worth it? I wasn't in a super big rush to buy my house so I wasn't really worried about negotiating hard. I also didn't have a house to sell or a significant other that would be hurt if this dried up either. That gave me a lot of freedom to be a hardass so it worked in my favor.
When everyone was "upside down" on their houses back in the beginning of the decade.. I kind of rolled my eyes. Sure, you are upside down if you planned to use your house to step stone your way into a huge house, or if you planned to sell in a few years, but if you were planning to do what our parents and their parents did and basically live in it for a decade or more, it's unlikely you would stay upside down for long. No one really did and the people who walked away from their houses ended up paying the price.
You should really look at houses as "can I afford to live in this place, and do I want to live here for a significant amount of time?" rather than "can I extract the most value from this property as possible" which is why I think people who do those calculations about rent vs buy are sometimes looking at houses in completely the wrong way (unless, of course, they plan to move in the next 4 years in which case don't ever buy).
The real meat and potatoes of owning a house if you do it all right is leveraging your equity for loans (like HELOC and secured loans) to lower your interest rates to near zero versus 10%+, and also having $0 rent when you're 65+, which is an important part of your retirement portfolio. You can plan and plan, but you never know how fast real estate is gonna get away from you and your $3.5 million dollar 401k by the time you're retired, and if 2000-2020 is any indication, you'll never keep up if you plan to be one of those codgy farts who spent their life as a renter and not being tied down because you lived life on the go. Also most states have a extremely discounted property tax for seniors so that's another benefit right there.
not a doctor, not a lawyer, examples I use may not be fully researched so don't take out of context plz, don't @ me
I mostly just can't understand retiring and having to account for roughly 20k+ a year in rent in your income. That would give me fucking panic attacks.
not a doctor, not a lawyer, examples I use may not be fully researched so don't take out of context plz, don't @ me
Buying a house outside of california sounds like a lot more fun.
Yeah places without foreign investors and NIMBY boomers are actually fairly good housing markets.
Even california isn't too bad if you're outside their 3 of the 6 most populous metropolitan areas in the country, still stupid compared to 160k though.
I spent half that on mine. California is dumb.
Man, now I feel like I overpaid for my house :0
Nah don't think of houses like that. This dude tried to pull a fast one and the realtors were trying to say "well the comps.." yeah well the comps you were pulling and showing me were perfect houses and this was not. A lot of people don't fight the comps, which is definitely a huge problem with how house prices keep escalating too. I probably paid too much still tbh.
Unfortunately it's hard to fight back when there's fucks buying land sight unseen because they've got stupid money then reselling it.. but that's a shitty metropolitan real estate market more than anything.
Honestly, it seems unlikely that anyone overpaid by an amount that really matters. The vast majority of the price of a house is the location and approximate size. Unless the house is falling apart and needs to be condemned, chances are you paid about what it was worth at the time.
When the wife and I bought we probably could have haggled another 2-3% off the price (which if your house is 500k is a lot of money), but would it have been worth losing out? We had 6 offers go to someone else because we were trying to be aggressive with our offers, even though they were all over asking price (fucking metropolitan pricing)! In the end, we just slightly overbid on a house we really wanted cause we were tired of looking. I feel like either the housing market continues to be fine, and whatever you paid will be less than you can sell it for in 3-5 years, or the housing market tanks and you're underwater even if you got a great deal.
I've said it before in this thread, but I'll say it again since it bears repeating. Write a sob-story letter to accompany your offer. Maybe not sob-story, but something to put an actual face on you to differentiate you from others (we literally included a photo from our wedding). We bought our place last spring, and we were also in a competitive metro market. We lost out on 8 offers, many of which were to cash-only investors. The one that finally got accepted was $20k over asking, and they took our offer over someone that had offered $50k over asking, simply because we wrote a letter introducing ourselves as newly-weds just looking for a forever-home to start our family, etc etcm, and that really resonated with the family selling their home. They wanted to sell to another family, rather than investors.
We bootstrapped up to a California home by riding the gentrification wave out of Seattle (amusingly fueled by Californians), which gave us "bonus" equity we wouldn't have had even after a decade of saving.
For us, this place is a low risk, long term investment account. There's always going to be someone who wants to live here, so ideally the money we're putting in we'll be pulling out when we retire to whatever much less expensive Del Boca Vista we settle on. For me, that's one of the real comforts of ownership, even at a very high buy in.
Buying a house outside of california sounds like a lot more fun.
Yeah places without foreign investors and NIMBY boomers are actually fairly good housing markets.
Even california isn't too bad if you're outside their 3 of the 6 most populous metropolitan areas in the country, still stupid compared to 160k though.
I spent half that on mine. California is dumb.
Man, now I feel like I overpaid for my house :0
Nah don't think of houses like that. This dude tried to pull a fast one and the realtors were trying to say "well the comps.." yeah well the comps you were pulling and showing me were perfect houses and this was not. A lot of people don't fight the comps, which is definitely a huge problem with how house prices keep escalating too. I probably paid too much still tbh.
Unfortunately it's hard to fight back when there's fucks buying land sight unseen because they've got stupid money then reselling it.. but that's a shitty metropolitan real estate market more than anything.
Honestly, it seems unlikely that anyone overpaid by an amount that really matters. The vast majority of the price of a house is the location and approximate size. Unless the house is falling apart and needs to be condemned, chances are you paid about what it was worth at the time.
When the wife and I bought we probably could have haggled another 2-3% off the price (which if your house is 500k is a lot of money), but would it have been worth losing out? We had 6 offers go to someone else because we were trying to be aggressive with our offers, even though they were all over asking price (fucking metropolitan pricing)! In the end, we just slightly overbid on a house we really wanted cause we were tired of looking. I feel like either the housing market continues to be fine, and whatever you paid will be less than you can sell it for in 3-5 years, or the housing market tanks and you're underwater even if you got a great deal.
I've said it before in this thread, but I'll say it again since it bears repeating. Write a sob-story letter to accompany your offer. Maybe not sob-story, but something to put an actual face on you to differentiate you from others (we literally included a photo from our wedding). We bought our place last spring, and we were also in a competitive metro market. We lost out on 8 offers, many of which were to cash-only investors. The one that finally got accepted was $20k over asking, and they took our offer over someone that had offered $50k over asking, simply because we wrote a letter introducing ourselves as newly-weds just looking for a forever-home to start our family, etc etcm, and that really resonated with the family selling their home. They wanted to sell to another family, rather than investors.
The letter thing works! I had always scoffed that the idea and honestly found it a little ridiculous, but when we put in an offer on our current place, the realtor told us they had offers in and more people looking. I wrote a funny letter rather than a serious one, and the sellers specifically referenced our letter as one of the reasons they picked our offer (they even had a slightly higher offer in place that we were given an opportunity to match). I was stunned.
The letter thing can work, and my wife and I definitely benefited from it in our house search, but I have to say I really hate the practice. It opens up so much opportunity for housing discrimination.
I mostly just can't understand retiring and having to account for roughly 20k+ a year in rent in your income. That would give me fucking panic attacks.
I mean... how many renters do you think believe retiring is in their future at this point?
0
MichaelLCIn what furnace was thy brain?ChicagoRegistered Userregular
edited February 2020
Yeah the personal letter thing just seems like something that reenforces invisible privilege in what should be a business transaction.
I'm sure my social anxiety plays a role, but I have no interest in knowing anything about the other party, either as a buyer or seller. Can they get approved to buy this house without lots of drama? Yes? Awesome.
Sorry, I'm not trying to blast anyone here but this is a hot topic for me.
Yeah the personal letter thing just seems like something that reenforces invisible privilege in what should be a business transaction.
I'm sure my social anxiety plays a role, but I have no interest in knowing anything about the other party, either as a buyer or seller. Can they get approved to buy this house without lots of drama? Yes? Awesome.
Sorry, I'm not trying to blast anyone here but this is a hot topic for me.
Nope, you and Possum are spot on imo. It's kind of gross that it's become a thing. Both on our sale and on our buy, we were asked to meet with the other side. It was a harmless 10 minutes of smalltalk, but I did not care for it one bit, especially after you just finished "negotiation" pricing with them. I consider it more of a nuisance from an anxiety/I don't want to know you vibe, but it definitely can be used as a bias tool.
I mostly just can't understand retiring and having to account for roughly 20k+ a year in rent in your income. That would give me fucking panic attacks.
I mean... how many renters do you think believe retiring is in their future at this point?
I'm renting and am well on my way to retirement. You just factor a payment into your budget. Instead of buying a house I rent, part of that calculation is that I can save more for retirement. It's not so complicated, but then again I'm in a fortunate enough position to save a decent amount for retirement.
Another fun thing I saw locally - house listings where the included photos had a handful of prominently visible confederate flags.
So, rain management question. The neighboring house sits slightly above ours, and basically all their rainwater gets dispersed on one side of our house. There’s a strip of level land that runs up against the house (where the water hits), And around the back there’s a decent little slope. There’s a slight drip in our basement crawl space during heavy rains that I’d like to deal with while it’s minor. How do you go about redirecting water, and is it something a stubborn amateur can handle?
I’m thinking I need to build in some drainage on the affected side of the house - a slightly sloped trench with gravel running towards the back yard (where it can continue down the slope to be my other neighbors problem, mostly kidding). I’d like to avoid making something ugly, but I’m more worried about the level of necessary precision here.
I mostly just can't understand retiring and having to account for roughly 20k+ a year in rent in your income. That would give me fucking panic attacks.
I mean... how many renters do you think believe retiring is in their future at this point?
I'm renting and am well on my way to retirement. You just factor a payment into your budget. Instead of buying a house I rent, part of that calculation is that I can save more for retirement. It's not so complicated, but then again I'm in a fortunate enough position to save a decent amount for retirement.
How can you save more for retirement by renting? Is the market _that_ upside down?
My mortgage payment, with the taxes, is about $400 a month cheaper. And it's just going to get cheaper year after year.
Even if you don't plan to retire, not having an actual payment per month is worlds better while you're working.
bowen on
not a doctor, not a lawyer, examples I use may not be fully researched so don't take out of context plz, don't @ me
I mostly just can't understand retiring and having to account for roughly 20k+ a year in rent in your income. That would give me fucking panic attacks.
I mean... how many renters do you think believe retiring is in their future at this point?
I'm renting and am well on my way to retirement. You just factor a payment into your budget. Instead of buying a house I rent, part of that calculation is that I can save more for retirement. It's not so complicated, but then again I'm in a fortunate enough position to save a decent amount for retirement.
How can you save more for retirement by renting? Is the market _that_ upside down?
My mortgage payment, with the taxes, is about $400 a month cheaper. And it's just going to get cheaper year after year.
Even if you don't plan to retire, not having an actual payment per month is worlds better while you're working.
I live in NYC, renting is definitely cheaper than buying a comparable home here. I think that's true a lot of places. Buying does give you more cost certainty, I agree with you there.
One thing that became apparent when I was looking to buy is that I also save by renting a smaller apartment/house than I would buy. At the time I was living in a 1BR, but my wife and I wanted a family so buying a 1 br meant we would have to move in a couple years. But, if we bought a 2 or 3 br then until those rooms are needed we're paying a lot of extra money/month for empty space. In both cases I thought it made more sense to just save the extra money.
I would guess that the price difference for different sizes is normal. I've heard of mystical places where renting is more expensive than buying, but unfortunately I don't live in one of them.
So, rain management question. The neighboring house sits slightly above ours, and basically all their rainwater gets dispersed on one side of our house. There’s a strip of level land that runs up against the house (where the water hits), And around the back there’s a decent little slope. There’s a slight drip in our basement crawl space during heavy rains that I’d like to deal with while it’s minor. How do you go about redirecting water, and is it something a stubborn amateur can handle?
I’m thinking I need to build in some drainage on the affected side of the house - a slightly sloped trench with gravel running towards the back yard (where it can continue down the slope to be my other neighbors problem, mostly kidding). I’d like to avoid making something ugly, but I’m more worried about the level of necessary precision here.
Depending on your soil, you have a few options:
1) Dry well -- if you have relatively porous soil (note, I live in DE and our neighborhood basically is a filled-in swamp, so it's all clay), you can dig a hole and put some sort of plastic "bin" in it that has holes in the sides. Add some landscaping fabric, and the idea is you run your drainage to the hole and let it dissipate into the soil after the rain has passed.
2) Weeping tile -- you build a trench and add a liner, then drop in a plastic pipe with holes in it. Cover with gravel, then either leave it or cover it over with soil. Again, the idea is to consolidate the drainage and run it either off your property or out to the storm sewer. This is the solution that basement waterproofing companies will use, if they don't install French drains (which is another option; the idea there being that you let the water come in and then use a sump pump to handle it). In the case of the basement companies, they install the weeping tile right next to the foundation after sealing the outside of the foundation
3) Dry stream -- dig a meandering trench and line it with fabric and large rocks. You can add ornamental plants and some other decorations. The idea here is to "live with" the drainage by making it pretty. Again, you can run it either off your property or to a storm drain.
4) Cistern -- my info on this isn't great. It's basically a dry well, but without holes in the sides. You either have a submersible pump that removes the water to a storm drain or similar; or you have passive drainage at a specified fill level (i.e. 2/3 of the way up). I don't recommend this because then you have standing water underground, basically year round.
For any of these, check your local government for regulations before going hog wild (that being said, the 2 and 3 are shallow and relatively benign)
So, the water department messed up setting up my account when I bought my house last May. I should have called b/c my bill showed $0 but it's hard to find an hour in the middle of a work day.
Today, I get my water shut off for "illegal usage". Spend my lunch break calling them. They were fairly pleasant (no fees, set up a correct acct, etc) but it won't be turned back on for 24-48 hours. Tonight may be tough.
I would personally just pay for 1-2 nights at a hotel, or go shower at the Y. Even if you have to pay a nonmember fee each time you go to the Y, it's worth the cost.
Or maybe try something like Planet Fitness? I don't know if they have showers.
Then again, I loves me some showers; even on weekends.
So, the water department messed up setting up my account when I bought my house last May. I should have called b/c my bill showed $0 but it's hard to find an hour in the middle of a work day.
Today, I get my water shut off for "illegal usage". Spend my lunch break calling them. They were fairly pleasant (no fees, set up a correct acct, etc) but it won't be turned back on for 24-48 hours. Tonight may be tough.
If you have neighbors that are willing to help you out, you can make due with a bucket or two of water. The obvious big worry is the toilet. But you can flush a toilet so long as there's water in the back tank.
"The sausage of Green Earth explodes with flavor like the cannon of culinary delight."
I mostly just can't understand retiring and having to account for roughly 20k+ a year in rent in your income. That would give me fucking panic attacks.
I mean... how many renters do you think believe retiring is in their future at this point?
I'm renting and am well on my way to retirement. You just factor a payment into your budget. Instead of buying a house I rent, part of that calculation is that I can save more for retirement. It's not so complicated, but then again I'm in a fortunate enough position to save a decent amount for retirement.
How can you save more for retirement by renting? Is the market _that_ upside down?
My mortgage payment, with the taxes, is about $400 a month cheaper. And it's just going to get cheaper year after year.
Even if you don't plan to retire, not having an actual payment per month is worlds better while you're working.
I live in NYC, renting is definitely cheaper than buying a comparable home here. I think that's true a lot of places. Buying does give you more cost certainty, I agree with you there.
One thing that became apparent when I was looking to buy is that I also save by renting a smaller apartment/house than I would buy. At the time I was living in a 1BR, but my wife and I wanted a family so buying a 1 br meant we would have to move in a couple years. But, if we bought a 2 or 3 br then until those rooms are needed we're paying a lot of extra money/month for empty space. In both cases I thought it made more sense to just save the extra money.
I would guess that the price difference for different sizes is normal. I've heard of mystical places where renting is more expensive than buying, but unfortunately I don't live in one of them.
Ah yeah, if you're in the major metros that is definitely your reality.
Rent on a 2 bedroom apartment here is like $1200-1600 depending on if you want to live in the shitty area or not. You can get it cheaper but you really, really do not want to live in those places. My mortgage + taxes is $1100, and I live in a village where I pay extra taxes on top of the already crazy high NY property taxes you're probably intimately aware of. It went up about $5 a month this year for the tax increase. If I was in an apartment still that would've been $50.
not a doctor, not a lawyer, examples I use may not be fully researched so don't take out of context plz, don't @ me
I mostly just can't understand retiring and having to account for roughly 20k+ a year in rent in your income. That would give me fucking panic attacks.
I mean... how many renters do you think believe retiring is in their future at this point?
I'm renting and am well on my way to retirement. You just factor a payment into your budget. Instead of buying a house I rent, part of that calculation is that I can save more for retirement. It's not so complicated, but then again I'm in a fortunate enough position to save a decent amount for retirement.
How can you save more for retirement by renting? Is the market _that_ upside down?
My mortgage payment, with the taxes, is about $400 a month cheaper. And it's just going to get cheaper year after year.
Even if you don't plan to retire, not having an actual payment per month is worlds better while you're working.
I live in NYC, renting is definitely cheaper than buying a comparable home here. I think that's true a lot of places. Buying does give you more cost certainty, I agree with you there.
One thing that became apparent when I was looking to buy is that I also save by renting a smaller apartment/house than I would buy. At the time I was living in a 1BR, but my wife and I wanted a family so buying a 1 br meant we would have to move in a couple years. But, if we bought a 2 or 3 br then until those rooms are needed we're paying a lot of extra money/month for empty space. In both cases I thought it made more sense to just save the extra money.
I would guess that the price difference for different sizes is normal. I've heard of mystical places where renting is more expensive than buying, but unfortunately I don't live in one of them.
Ah yeah, if you're in the major metros that is definitely your reality.
Rent on a 2 bedroom apartment here is like $1200-1600 depending on if you want to live in the shitty area or not. You can get it cheaper but you really, really do not want to live in those places. My mortgage + taxes is $1100, and I live in a village where I pay extra taxes on top of the already crazy high NY property taxes you're probably intimately aware of. It went up about $5 a month this year for the tax increase. If I was in an apartment still that would've been $50.
We've been thinking of moving upstate somewhere, but it would have to be pretty far to make a real difference.
So, the water department messed up setting up my account when I bought my house last May. I should have called b/c my bill showed $0 but it's hard to find an hour in the middle of a work day.
Today, I get my water shut off for "illegal usage". Spend my lunch break calling them. They were fairly pleasant (no fees, set up a correct acct, etc) but it won't be turned back on for 24-48 hours. Tonight may be tough.
If you have neighbors that are willing to help you out, you can make due with a bucket or two of water. The obvious big worry is the toilet. But you can flush a toilet so long as there's water in the back tank.
Yeah, going to have to figure out a plan with the wife tonight. We could probably grab a gallon or two of water for the toilets and be fine tonight (but she for sure will want a shower), I wouldn't want to do that for two days, though, so hopefully it's back on tomorrow.
Another fun thing I saw locally - house listings where the included photos had a handful of prominently visible confederate flags.
That would fuck me up. Like I can perform the logic of "they're not part of the house and they won't be there when you move it" but then another part of my head says "yeah, but... fuck those people".
Another fun thing I saw locally - house listings where the included photos had a handful of prominently visible confederate flags.
That would fuck me up. Like I can perform the logic of "they're not part of the house and they won't be there when you move it" but then another part of my head says "yeah, but... fuck those people".
The only redeeming part would be to cover the house in rainbow colors or something.
Need a voice actor? Hire me at bengrayVO.com
Legends of Runeterra: MNCdover #moc
Switch ID: MNC Dover SW-1154-3107-1051 Steam ID Twitch Page
Another fun thing I saw locally - house listings where the included photos had a handful of prominently visible confederate flags.
That would fuck me up. Like I can perform the logic of "they're not part of the house and they won't be there when you move it" but then another part of my head says "yeah, but... fuck those people".
I'd also be concerned about whether their neighbors harbored similar views, too.
Another fun thing I saw locally - house listings where the included photos had a handful of prominently visible confederate flags.
That would fuck me up. Like I can perform the logic of "they're not part of the house and they won't be there when you move it" but then another part of my head says "yeah, but... fuck those people".
I'd also be concerned about whether their neighbors harbored similar views, too.
Yeah I hadn't considered that. That's probably really valid. I need to know that if I put a Bernie yard sign or bumper sticker on that I'm not going to be subject to harassment, vandalism, or theft. I don't need all my neighbors to agree with me but I do need to know I and my shit are safe.
Posts
Honestly, how you're feeling is fair, and due to the way our society pushes homeownership. I love having my house, but me and my wife waited 2 years to look because we weren't sure if I would get transferred to Dallas.
Or to let Adam Conover explain:
I like Adam Conover in general but I think this take is deeply problematic.
If the interest is higher than rent prices correct, you are not making a sound investment. Considering how much rent seems to be even in pretty cheap places, I don't think that exists anywhere at this point.
Also buying/selling is not that hard once you have built a little equity. (or rent out your old place and rent where you move to until your figure out how long term that new higher paying job might be)
The promise of a highly migratory workforce is also neo-liberal dystopic because it reinforces anti-union, anti-political action, and anti-community building ideas that come with putting down roots.
"I don't need friends or family, I have a career"
I know a number of people who are quite happy just renting for their lives. They consider the repairs and maintenance a lot less stress hanging over them, and are comfortable paying for someone else to deal with those issues.
If you're happy where you are, keep doing you (it's one of the reasons I'm still driving a 15 year old car). If you're at least interested in a change, do a little legwork and see what's available. You don't have to commit to anything.
Re: the front porch - where is the water leaking from? Making the porch more waterproof just means that the water will find something else to destroy.
I spent half that on mine. California is dumb.
Man, now I feel like I overpaid for my house :0
Nah don't think of houses like that. This dude tried to pull a fast one and the realtors were trying to say "well the comps.." yeah well the comps you were pulling and showing me were perfect houses and this was not. A lot of people don't fight the comps, which is definitely a huge problem with how house prices keep escalating too. I probably paid too much still tbh.
Unfortunately it's hard to fight back when there's fucks buying land sight unseen because they've got stupid money then reselling it.. but that's a shitty metropolitan real estate market more than anything.
Honestly, it seems unlikely that anyone overpaid by an amount that really matters. The vast majority of the price of a house is the location and approximate size. Unless the house is falling apart and needs to be condemned, chances are you paid about what it was worth at the time.
When the wife and I bought we probably could have haggled another 2-3% off the price (which if your house is 500k is a lot of money), but would it have been worth losing out? We had 6 offers go to someone else because we were trying to be aggressive with our offers, even though they were all over asking price (fucking metropolitan pricing)! In the end, we just slightly overbid on a house we really wanted cause we were tired of looking. I feel like either the housing market continues to be fine, and whatever you paid will be less than you can sell it for in 3-5 years, or the housing market tanks and you're underwater even if you got a great deal.
When everyone was "upside down" on their houses back in the beginning of the decade.. I kind of rolled my eyes. Sure, you are upside down if you planned to use your house to step stone your way into a huge house, or if you planned to sell in a few years, but if you were planning to do what our parents and their parents did and basically live in it for a decade or more, it's unlikely you would stay upside down for long. No one really did and the people who walked away from their houses ended up paying the price.
You should really look at houses as "can I afford to live in this place, and do I want to live here for a significant amount of time?" rather than "can I extract the most value from this property as possible" which is why I think people who do those calculations about rent vs buy are sometimes looking at houses in completely the wrong way (unless, of course, they plan to move in the next 4 years in which case don't ever buy).
The real meat and potatoes of owning a house if you do it all right is leveraging your equity for loans (like HELOC and secured loans) to lower your interest rates to near zero versus 10%+, and also having $0 rent when you're 65+, which is an important part of your retirement portfolio. You can plan and plan, but you never know how fast real estate is gonna get away from you and your $3.5 million dollar 401k by the time you're retired, and if 2000-2020 is any indication, you'll never keep up if you plan to be one of those codgy farts who spent their life as a renter and not being tied down because you lived life on the go. Also most states have a extremely discounted property tax for seniors so that's another benefit right there.
I've said it before in this thread, but I'll say it again since it bears repeating. Write a sob-story letter to accompany your offer. Maybe not sob-story, but something to put an actual face on you to differentiate you from others (we literally included a photo from our wedding). We bought our place last spring, and we were also in a competitive metro market. We lost out on 8 offers, many of which were to cash-only investors. The one that finally got accepted was $20k over asking, and they took our offer over someone that had offered $50k over asking, simply because we wrote a letter introducing ourselves as newly-weds just looking for a forever-home to start our family, etc etcm, and that really resonated with the family selling their home. They wanted to sell to another family, rather than investors.
For us, this place is a low risk, long term investment account. There's always going to be someone who wants to live here, so ideally the money we're putting in we'll be pulling out when we retire to whatever much less expensive Del Boca Vista we settle on. For me, that's one of the real comforts of ownership, even at a very high buy in.
The letter thing works! I had always scoffed that the idea and honestly found it a little ridiculous, but when we put in an offer on our current place, the realtor told us they had offers in and more people looking. I wrote a funny letter rather than a serious one, and the sellers specifically referenced our letter as one of the reasons they picked our offer (they even had a slightly higher offer in place that we were given an opportunity to match). I was stunned.
I mean... how many renters do you think believe retiring is in their future at this point?
I'm sure my social anxiety plays a role, but I have no interest in knowing anything about the other party, either as a buyer or seller. Can they get approved to buy this house without lots of drama? Yes? Awesome.
Sorry, I'm not trying to blast anyone here but this is a hot topic for me.
Nope, you and Possum are spot on imo. It's kind of gross that it's become a thing. Both on our sale and on our buy, we were asked to meet with the other side. It was a harmless 10 minutes of smalltalk, but I did not care for it one bit, especially after you just finished "negotiation" pricing with them. I consider it more of a nuisance from an anxiety/I don't want to know you vibe, but it definitely can be used as a bias tool.
I'm renting and am well on my way to retirement. You just factor a payment into your budget. Instead of buying a house I rent, part of that calculation is that I can save more for retirement. It's not so complicated, but then again I'm in a fortunate enough position to save a decent amount for retirement.
So, rain management question. The neighboring house sits slightly above ours, and basically all their rainwater gets dispersed on one side of our house. There’s a strip of level land that runs up against the house (where the water hits), And around the back there’s a decent little slope. There’s a slight drip in our basement crawl space during heavy rains that I’d like to deal with while it’s minor. How do you go about redirecting water, and is it something a stubborn amateur can handle?
I’m thinking I need to build in some drainage on the affected side of the house - a slightly sloped trench with gravel running towards the back yard (where it can continue down the slope to be my other neighbors problem, mostly kidding). I’d like to avoid making something ugly, but I’m more worried about the level of necessary precision here.
How can you save more for retirement by renting? Is the market _that_ upside down?
My mortgage payment, with the taxes, is about $400 a month cheaper. And it's just going to get cheaper year after year.
Even if you don't plan to retire, not having an actual payment per month is worlds better while you're working.
I live in NYC, renting is definitely cheaper than buying a comparable home here. I think that's true a lot of places. Buying does give you more cost certainty, I agree with you there.
One thing that became apparent when I was looking to buy is that I also save by renting a smaller apartment/house than I would buy. At the time I was living in a 1BR, but my wife and I wanted a family so buying a 1 br meant we would have to move in a couple years. But, if we bought a 2 or 3 br then until those rooms are needed we're paying a lot of extra money/month for empty space. In both cases I thought it made more sense to just save the extra money.
I would guess that the price difference for different sizes is normal. I've heard of mystical places where renting is more expensive than buying, but unfortunately I don't live in one of them.
Depending on your soil, you have a few options:
1) Dry well -- if you have relatively porous soil (note, I live in DE and our neighborhood basically is a filled-in swamp, so it's all clay), you can dig a hole and put some sort of plastic "bin" in it that has holes in the sides. Add some landscaping fabric, and the idea is you run your drainage to the hole and let it dissipate into the soil after the rain has passed.
2) Weeping tile -- you build a trench and add a liner, then drop in a plastic pipe with holes in it. Cover with gravel, then either leave it or cover it over with soil. Again, the idea is to consolidate the drainage and run it either off your property or out to the storm sewer. This is the solution that basement waterproofing companies will use, if they don't install French drains (which is another option; the idea there being that you let the water come in and then use a sump pump to handle it). In the case of the basement companies, they install the weeping tile right next to the foundation after sealing the outside of the foundation
3) Dry stream -- dig a meandering trench and line it with fabric and large rocks. You can add ornamental plants and some other decorations. The idea here is to "live with" the drainage by making it pretty. Again, you can run it either off your property or to a storm drain.
4) Cistern -- my info on this isn't great. It's basically a dry well, but without holes in the sides. You either have a submersible pump that removes the water to a storm drain or similar; or you have passive drainage at a specified fill level (i.e. 2/3 of the way up). I don't recommend this because then you have standing water underground, basically year round.
For any of these, check your local government for regulations before going hog wild (that being said, the 2 and 3 are shallow and relatively benign)
Today, I get my water shut off for "illegal usage". Spend my lunch break calling them. They were fairly pleasant (no fees, set up a correct acct, etc) but it won't be turned back on for 24-48 hours. Tonight may be tough.
Or maybe try something like Planet Fitness? I don't know if they have showers.
Then again, I loves me some showers; even on weekends.
I so envy the home prices some of you guys have in your areas. The cheapest single detached home in Metro Vancouver is over $500k
If you have neighbors that are willing to help you out, you can make due with a bucket or two of water. The obvious big worry is the toilet. But you can flush a toilet so long as there's water in the back tank.
Ah yeah, if you're in the major metros that is definitely your reality.
Rent on a 2 bedroom apartment here is like $1200-1600 depending on if you want to live in the shitty area or not. You can get it cheaper but you really, really do not want to live in those places. My mortgage + taxes is $1100, and I live in a village where I pay extra taxes on top of the already crazy high NY property taxes you're probably intimately aware of. It went up about $5 a month this year for the tax increase. If I was in an apartment still that would've been $50.
We've been thinking of moving upstate somewhere, but it would have to be pretty far to make a real difference.
Yeah, going to have to figure out a plan with the wife tonight. We could probably grab a gallon or two of water for the toilets and be fine tonight (but she for sure will want a shower), I wouldn't want to do that for two days, though, so hopefully it's back on tomorrow.
That would fuck me up. Like I can perform the logic of "they're not part of the house and they won't be there when you move it" but then another part of my head says "yeah, but... fuck those people".
The only redeeming part would be to cover the house in rainbow colors or something.
Legends of Runeterra: MNCdover #moc
Switch ID: MNC Dover SW-1154-3107-1051
Steam ID
Twitch Page
I'd also be concerned about whether their neighbors harbored similar views, too.
Yeah I hadn't considered that. That's probably really valid. I need to know that if I put a Bernie yard sign or bumper sticker on that I'm not going to be subject to harassment, vandalism, or theft. I don't need all my neighbors to agree with me but I do need to know I and my shit are safe.
Orange County?
twist: gay long beach