Real Estate: Listing agents, why don't you ever take photos of garages? |
- Listing agents, why don't you ever take photos of garages?
- Coronavirus: Housing demand may be bouncing back
- Looking to buy, making sure I’m not crazy
- Mortgage bailout balloons by half a million more loans in one week
- Finding Large Farm Property To Start Co-op/ Group Living
- Request for info: Construction costs
- Worth it to challenge an appraisal?
- Can anyone ballpark how much prefabs cost in the Midwest?
- home warranties
- First time homebuyer, cancelling my THIRD contract today and wondering if I should
- Thoughts on renting to buy?
- Rural RE and internet: Can we have our cake and download it too?
- HOA Fees are higher than what was advertised!
- Wealthy Mortgage Borrowers Face Cold Shoulder From Lenders
- Any subreddit for mortgage brokers?
- Apartment Search
- Question for San Francisco landlords/owners: will (apartment) rental prices go up, or down, or neither?
- Employment/Income Verification Question
- Looking at alternative financing solutions to try and beat bank rates, ie insurance companies, etc - anybody tried any of these?
- How much should I care about deeded easement access to water line?
- Ditch our lender, or ride this one out?
- Does a landlord have to fix a leak?
- What happens if appraisal comes in only a fraction lower than asking?
| Listing agents, why don't you ever take photos of garages? Posted: 23 Apr 2020 08:57 PM PDT I'm an engineer looking for a SFH with a big garage for a shop, and 95% of the listings I'm interested in have zero photos of the damned garage. It's literally one of the selling features, why leave it out? [link] [comments] |
| Coronavirus: Housing demand may be bouncing back Posted: 24 Apr 2020 08:35 AM PDT Sales of both newly built and existing homes tanked in March, as potential buyers hunkered down and potential sellers pulled their homes from the market, both watching their economy in free fall from the coronavirus. Now, suddenly, buyer demand at least may be climbing back. Pending home sales — a measure of signed contracts, not closings — are about 32% lower annually now, according to research by Zillow. But the week-over-week change in pending sales turned positive in the week ending April 15. Pending sales were up 6.2% week over week as of the seven days ending April 19. Zillow also noted that web traffic on for-sale listings and requests to connect with real estate agents have grown in recent weeks as well. While web traffic to Zillow listings in some markets is still way down from a year ago, the national total jumped 13% annually for the week ending April 13. In 30 of the 35 largest metro areas, web traffic to for-sale listings was higher annually during the second week of April. https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/23/coronavirus-housing-demand-may-be-bouncing-back.html [link] [comments] |
| Looking to buy, making sure I’m not crazy Posted: 24 Apr 2020 04:38 AM PDT My wife and I started looking to purchase our first home right before this pandemic hit. After two months of showings, we found a home that we liked enough to put an offer in on. We both were working from home before this pandemic, and our jobs are in a field that is extremely secure. We have 20% down and scores in the 800s. We are in a current living situation which allows us to leave or stay at any time and for as long as we like. Based on these facts, we believe we are the best buyers that a seller is going to find in this market right now. The original asking price was $455k. After 35 days on the market, we put in an offer of $415k. They countered at $446. We decided to hold. The listing was dropped to $441 the next day. It's now two weeks later and our real estate agent received a call from the listing agent with another counter from the sellers at $430. We love the house but we see where this market is going. We are digging out heels in at $415. We feel a little ridiculous not coming off our original price, but are we really? What does the sellers agent coming back to us tell us in general? The property was built in 2016 and sold for $390k then and is in a desirable part of a city in Florida. [link] [comments] |
| Mortgage bailout balloons by half a million more loans in one week Posted: 24 Apr 2020 05:57 AM PDT As someone who's actively looking to purchase at the moment, this scares me:
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| Finding Large Farm Property To Start Co-op/ Group Living Posted: 24 Apr 2020 09:01 AM PDT Hey all, hope everyone is staying healthy and staying positive. I'm a senior in undergrad and i've been quarantined with my housemates (and best friends) for nearly three months now. We have been friends for a long time and have always semi-seriously talked about wanting to live together after undergrad, during graduate school, or even after grad school. This quarantine has shown us how happy, functional, and productive we are together and how we seriously would be interested in living together more permanently. There are seven of us, and we are hoping to turn whatever property we get into a somewhat functional self sustaining farm. I'm hoping you all can point me in the direction of some real estate browsing servers that are more specifically larger ranch properties on large plots of land. I would appreciate your help, as Zillow & other popular services have not been all that insightful. Thanks! TLDR; online browsing tools to look for a large property to start a cooperative housing project with my bffs! [link] [comments] |
| Request for info: Construction costs Posted: 24 Apr 2020 08:52 AM PDT Could use some help from the brilliant minds on this reddit forum. I am currently researching what average costs are by market for development construction. What are the best tools to use to arrive at some decent figures? Are there any construction indexes that I could use as a benchmark? I've heard of turners construction index in passive conversation. I am looking to improve my input assumptions for proforma and looking to forecast how the corona virus will affect construction values in the near to short term. Thank you [link] [comments] |
| Worth it to challenge an appraisal? Posted: 24 Apr 2020 04:26 AM PDT We are in the process of refinancing our home in Atlanta. We have only been in the house a year It's a small 2 bedroom / 1 bath built in 1939 Listed price of the home was $185,000 We did a seller repair escrow to have a driveway replaced and expandeded, as well as.new retaining walls which brought the actual price up to $205,000 Appraisal came back a year ago at 210,000 and they took into account the repair that was about to happen Since then we have mostly done cosmetic work on the house , on the exterior, new exterior doors etc. I don't expect all of that to change the appraisal that much. Anyways we just go the refinance appraisal back and it came in at 200,000 Ive heard of worse, but is it worth challenging this.? The appraiser dinged us on one window in the house that was missing a pane of glass and had plywood in place. We were already in process of having the window restored but had to stop due to rain. He also dinged us about 5% compared to other comps because we were on a busy street, previous appraisal didn't take that into account [link] [comments] |
| Can anyone ballpark how much prefabs cost in the Midwest? Posted: 24 Apr 2020 08:24 AM PDT Our family already owns a piece of lakefront property, passed down through generations. My siblings and I want to put a house on it, and want something easy, like a prefab. All the sites I see don't give any sort of cost estimation! I'm very early stages, trying to avoid in depth phone calls and meetings, so really just want a ballpark of what a three bedroom, 1500 square foot ish home would run to see how feasible it would be. [link] [comments] |
| Posted: 24 Apr 2020 11:40 AM PDT hey All, for those who chose to have home warranties. what did you take into consideration when buying it? The home we close on soon includes 1 year/$600 paid by seller. [link] [comments] |
| First time homebuyer, cancelling my THIRD contract today and wondering if I should Posted: 24 Apr 2020 09:40 AM PDT Homebuying has not been a fun process for me at all. I got incredibly close to one home (2 weeks from settlement) and it all fell through. Had a second home I was close to that fell through. Now I'm on the third home that I've been very close to, after looking at about 20-30 homes. This is my favorite house of **any** that I've seen so far. Everything seemed pretty well after inspection, but there was a red flag that the inspector couldn't get into the crawlspace under the addition. The addition was built only an inch and a half off the ground and there is no access underneath. I understand that this is a red flag, but initially my realtor told me it should be fine because we could simply install French drains. My realtor sent me a waiver to say I would move forward, but then that same day had her brother-in-law look at the inspection and said it was a major red flag. Then the seller's agent said that the addition was built on steel beams, so it would likely not be an issue with termites and the only issues would be water (which a French drain could fix) or rodents living underneath. She had a contractor go out and look at it and he said it would take $15k - $20k to fix the issues. At that point, my realtor told the seller that I intend to cancel our contract without consulting me at all. I only found out when I checked my email and saw she sent me a contract cancellation to sign. Now I'm sitting here incredibly defeated that once again I feel like I've wasted money on these inspections and gotten once again so close to finally having a house that I really like. My realtor is a joke and flip flops ALL the time on how she thinks I should proceed and is obviously very overbearing--so I'm asking you all, do you think I should cancel the contract at this point or move forward? [link] [comments] |
| Posted: 24 Apr 2020 09:11 AM PDT Just sold my condo and was about to close on a house. After weeks of delays due to my buyers having problems we finally closed by my loan got denied the night before closing. The...night....before... I closed on the condo. The loan was denied due to my commission pay taking a substantial hit. I'm still working but only making half of what's normal. The underwriters didn't like that and for obvious reasons didn't feel comfortable. Fortunately I'm not too phased by it as I have savings for this sort of thing along with a girlfriend who pays half of costs anyway. Matter of fact the house would have been cheaper per month than the condo go figure. Now I have the option to rent the house until I can close on it which is anyone's guess. The sellers are asking for about $200 more than I would be paying for a mortgage. Which is supposedly $200 less than what their current mortgage. I'd pay utilities and be responsible for any upgrades or repairs I'd want to make. I will obviously hold off on those until the house was in my name. BUT, there was some plumbing repairs that needed to be addressed that i would be receiving a credit for at closing. So I'd be responsible for that at least. Thoughts? What should I be aware of/ask for? I want to best protect myself and any liability. Currently we are talking about a 6 month extension which I feel is more than enough time and if it's not then the economy is real bad and I'll be happy to have not bought a house. [link] [comments] |
| Rural RE and internet: Can we have our cake and download it too? Posted: 24 Apr 2020 05:25 AM PDT My wife and I are starting the process of saving up and looking at locations to live (5 years away depending on what happens over the next year or two). My wife would really like to live in a rural area again. She grew up surrounded by farms and would like to go back to that. On the other hand, i've only lived in the North East Corridor so I know nothing about rural life. The biggest worry is that she works in tech and would need reliable internet with reasonable up/down speeds to send/receive large amounts of data. Besides using https://broadbandnow.com/, looking at local government webpages about internet, and contacting providers directly, what other tips/things to look out for do y'all suggest for our search? At the moment there's no restrictions on locations where we would be able to live. I have my own set of preferences, for example not in tornado alley, and not in a flood prone area (not necessarily fema regulated flood zones, just areas that may flood based on local/federal maps of different flood chances) Note that, in a rural home buying situation she would (most likely) be the sole income, and we have no kids. Not sure if that's relevant to this question. [link] [comments] |
| HOA Fees are higher than what was advertised! Posted: 23 Apr 2020 02:30 PM PDT In the process of closing, HOA dues turned out to be much higher than what was originally communicated. How should we proceed? Should we as for the Seller to bring the price down on the home? Should be ask for the difference in HOA * 30 years? Would love some advice on what is reasonable. [link] [comments] |
| Wealthy Mortgage Borrowers Face Cold Shoulder From Lenders Posted: 24 Apr 2020 08:30 AM PDT A particularly surprising statistic:
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| Any subreddit for mortgage brokers? Posted: 24 Apr 2020 04:43 AM PDT |
| Posted: 24 Apr 2020 08:20 AM PDT Hi everyone! I'm looking for advice on apartment searching when you're unable to view in person due to Coronavirus. Is there anyway to legally hold an apartment until you're able to view in person? I fell in love with an apartment (YouTube video and photos) but feel uneasy signing a lease without seeing it in person first. I don't want to lose the apartment but also don't want to be unreasonable in what I ask the realtor. Anyone else in the same position? Any landlords/realtors have advice on how they'd like future tenants to handle this? [link] [comments] |
| Posted: 24 Apr 2020 08:02 AM PDT What are your opinions? The bay area has always had very strong housing demand, and that demand will continue. But over the next several months, will there be too many people wary of committing to a new lease, causing rent prices to fall slightly? [link] [comments] |
| Employment/Income Verification Question Posted: 24 Apr 2020 07:52 AM PDT My spouse and I received our clear-to-close and have our closing scheduled about 3 weeks out. I am salaried and working from home, and my wife is an essential worker so she is still working full time. I've heard that lenders are checking income as well as employment during the last few days before closing. Even though the business is essential, the store has limited open hours slightly over the last week or two. Is a 5-6 hour reduction per week (temporarily) from 40 to ~35 hours enough to blow up the closing? This business still considers employees working more than 30 hours to be full-time employees. Take home pay is still about the same, but gross is lower and taxed less. Just curious if any lenders or mortgage brokers or anyone who has faced this can weigh in? Thank you very much! [link] [comments] |
| Posted: 23 Apr 2020 09:14 PM PDT Hope everyone is doing well. I have a few commercial (office, medical) and multifamily properties (in California and Massachusetts) that I'm looking at refinancing now, in an effort to take advantage of the fall in rates. I've spoken to a number of brokers and banks and am consistently being quoted rates in the 3.7-4.2 range, but this process has me wondering if I can do better with some outside the box solution? I previously worked for a real estate investment manager in Germany, that was able to secure financing for their portfolio deals at rates below 1% (they unfortunately don't lend internationally). I did a quick search, and bear with me here, but haven't seen too much content on this sub of people trying to go outside the box with setting up financing. Here's what I've looked at so far:
I'm wondering if anybody has experience (sourcing, etc) with any of the above (or alternatives), and if so, how they went about their search. [link] [comments] |
| How much should I care about deeded easement access to water line? Posted: 24 Apr 2020 07:16 AM PDT I'm in early contract on a house with a deeded easement to the neighbor for access to their water line. This line is relatively young for the area, put in around 1955. The town can't tell me at the moment exactly where the line runs, they don't have a map. The front yard is a steep hill, like 30% grade, and it must run through it somewhere. But there's no telling how far near the house or road it is. This seems like less of an issue than like if regular use was given by easement. How concerned should I really be here? Are there more scenarios than I'm thinking of where the neighbor (any owner) would move forward with digging up the line? [link] [comments] |
| Ditch our lender, or ride this one out? Posted: 24 Apr 2020 06:34 AM PDT If you don't want to read the details - are lenders just being EXTRA picky about certain documents now because of COVID? Is this normal or expected, or would it be a good idea to get help from a different lender? We feel like nothing we provide is good enough and are worried they're going to drop us at the last second and cause us to lose the house. We are scheduled to close May 29, so still a ways out. Back story: This is my second home purchase, my husband's first. We are 27, DTI of about 16%, credit scores near 800, house we are trying to buy is about 1.5x our combined income. Our initial discussion with the LO made it sound like this would be no problem and our numbers look great, etc. We got pre-approval for the house we wanted to put an offer on, but then the next day, received an updated approval letter for $30k less?? The problem has been with my husband's income. He has been with the same company for 7 years total (5 consistently since college), but because of a relationship change with the company, his tax documents are different for 2017 and 2018. He was a W-2 employee who bought 5% of the company, so 2018 was the first year he didn't receive a W-2, but rather a K-1. They said they couldn't verify his income was steady and basically that at any time he could stop receiving payments. Sure...but is that not the case with every job ever? In order to get them to re-pre-approve us for our intended amount, they requested and we provided them with: -tax returns for 2017/2018 (his company is late in issuing k-1s), K-1s, W-2 -bank statements for the last 16 to show his consistent payment -report from the company's accountant showing all payments to him in the last 16 months -2019 1099 for his base comp -signed operating agreement showing his ownership % -signed letter from the managing partner outlining his relationship with the company, base comp amounts, and explaining how it was reported for tax purposes previously and currently, and stating he is a permanent, full time employee -his company's tax return for 2018 -company financials for 2017-2019 After this, they finally upped our pre-approval back up $30k so we could make an offer on the house. They then gave us conditional approval so we can move forward, but are asking for us to provide signed front pages of those tax returns to prove he filed (as a CPA I cringe to think that they believe carries more weight than the IRS transcript they requested), and bank statements from 2018 showing my 2017 refund and his 2017 payment. AND they said this is contingent upon verification of his employment. This whole thing has me so stressed out because after we give them exactly what they ask for, they seem to want more. I get that they'll ask questions but I don't remember it being nearly this difficult for myself 4 years ago when I made half as much and had more debt fresh out of college. So my question is, if you've stuck around to read all of this - should we ride it out with our current lender because this is normal? Is every non W-2 employee typically scrutinized as much? Is it specifically scrutinized because of Coronavirus? I don't mean to sound whiny, I really am just curious if this is typical, or if we should concurrently seek the advice of another lender if they continue to give us push back on his income situation. I just don't think there is any other evidence we could possibly provide because nothing else exists. If this is normal, that's fine, I just don't want to lose the house at the last minute after our current home is sold. Any input is appreciated. [link] [comments] |
| Does a landlord have to fix a leak? Posted: 23 Apr 2020 06:49 PM PDT You know those knobs that control the hot and cold water that connects to the washer? Well if one of those slowly leaks when that knob is turned on, does the landlord have to fix it? It's only the hot, not the cold and it seems to have been an issue for a while since that knob is rusted.....and I just moved in...second thing I've noticed in less than a week. [link] [comments] |
| What happens if appraisal comes in only a fraction lower than asking? Posted: 24 Apr 2020 01:45 AM PDT I'm in the process of buying my first home. I understand that I'll be lent what the appraisal is and not more. But I was was wondering what would happen if it was very close to the asking-say only hundreds or a thousand dollars less than the offered price? Will I still be approved for the offered price or will I be approved exactly to the penny of the appraisal? I'm just wondering exactly how strict this is [link] [comments] |
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