- U.S. new home sales shine in June; business activity picks up. The fundamentals for housing, which accounts for just over 3% of economy, remain favorable. The 30-year fixed mortgage rate is averaging 3.01%, close to a 49-year low, according to data from mortgage finance agency Freddie Mac.
- Can I Take it Off the Market?
- [FL] irresponsible homeowners or am I asking too much?
- Should I wait for the foreclosures to roll in before buying?
- Inspection period and repair addendum period.
- Buying a lot with plans to build in a year
- Water in basement 5 times in first 6 months of ownership.
- Is it worth it
- Bought a new home in DFW
- How to get more info on location
- Transmission Line easement through property
- HOA charges $485 for Master Policy and Condo Questionnaire. Is this normal? [CA - LA]
- Money in the bank, Low debt, Steady but low income. Can we qualify for an FHA?!
- Title insurance
- Mobile/Manufactured Homes
- Countering back and forth on an estate, need advice!
- Should we get a new agent?
- First Time Buyere with many many questions [Philly]
- When you found your home, did you have a “moment?”
- Do you think current selling prices will raise prices in the future?
- Looking for a new home!
- Concerns about investing in rent controlled LA
- Need a NY Downstate Agent
- Why are all modern suburbs Craftsmen houses?
| Posted: 25 Jul 2020 09:10 PM PDT |
| Posted: 26 Jul 2020 08:48 AM PDT My house has been on the market in California for 6 weeks with 2 price drops and no offers. A new housing development has started selling with similar, brand new homes for quite a bit less than what mine is on the market for. Being not so confident in selling, I found someone who wants to rent the house and I'm considering taking it off the market and renting it, but I'm concerned that the real estate agent, might try and keep me contracted to sell the house because they've put time and money into the sale. I pulled up my contract to review the terms and noticed that although it has a beginning date, the end date was left blank on the contact for the "Listing Period". Am I obligated to keep it on the market? I'm trying to figure out my position before I contact the agent. [link] [comments] |
| [FL] irresponsible homeowners or am I asking too much? Posted: 26 Jul 2020 07:22 AM PDT First time poster, looking for some advice from real estate professionals. We found a 1970 build home that we love the layout of, but has a few issues. We're using a va loan. Leaks from the roof in one room that the homeowner is repairing. A tree branch fell through the roof during a hurricane last year, they repaired that too. There's old water stains on the ceiling that would need replacement. There's aluminum wiring in the house, i fear the va would request it be refit or replaced. There's polybutelene pipe in the kitchen that does not go into the slab so we'd be able to replace that but we'd have to pay. The water heater is 24 years old, homeowners say that would be sorta covered in their $500 warranty. The roof is 12 years old but they just seem to keep patching it when an issue arises. Theres bubbling paint and a crack down one of the walls in an addition room, they say that just from it being an addition and settling. Otherwise saying there's not water damage. Other than these issues, the house is great. The house was listed for 375, they brought it down to 365 before we found it and put an offer on it. After the inspection we talked them down to 5k off the top. Theyre also providing 10k in sellers concessions towards closing. Now that we renegotiated to 360, they want to add that after the va appraisal, if the va requires anything else to be fixed that we the buyers need to pay for it and they won't pay anything else. Should we just walk away? Am I being unreasonable? Is it wrong of me to expect people to put a stable condition house on the market? [link] [comments] |
| Should I wait for the foreclosures to roll in before buying? Posted: 26 Jul 2020 09:16 AM PDT My wife and I are ready to move on from our place now and buy. We are in the 600k-650k price range and I'm just wondering if it's a better idea to wait. We are in the PNW Tacoma/Seattle market. I've heard mixed things and although I am very eager to buy I am now feeling uncertain. People keep telling me there's loads of people not paying their mortgages and before we know it the market will crash and everything will be cheap. I'm afraid of overpaying. Does anyone have any thoughts on this matter? I want to move! Thank you. [link] [comments] |
| Inspection period and repair addendum period. Posted: 26 Jul 2020 06:55 AM PDT Repair addendum was sent over 4 hours after the inspection period had closed. Buyers had until Friday at 5pm. Email for addendum came over at 9 pm that day. This was after we gave them 15 days instead of 10 and had two extra inspections done. Now what? The repair is pennies on the dollar compared to the earnest money. So now what? Do we have to respond? We aren't sure if their realtor dropped the ball and forgot or if maybe they are hoping we don't realize it. I'm not sure what happens now. [link] [comments] |
| Buying a lot with plans to build in a year Posted: 26 Jul 2020 10:26 AM PDT My wife and I are considering building our next house and while we aren't yet ready financially to build our dream house we're keeping an eye on the inventory in our area. Recently a lot has come up for sale in a nice neighborhood where we want to be(good schools, convenient to work etc etc). Houses on this street go for 400-500k. In my area inventory is limited and especially limited when looking for > 1 acre in a neighborhood. Not being on a main road is a priority for us (not that that matters to y'all) My question is related to the financials of it all. We don't have the cash to buy the lot outright. Its listed at 65k and we are saving our money for the down payment on the eventual construction loan. Google has given me inconsistent answers as to whether or not we could get a loan for the lot until we are ready to build. Our work situation is stable, and don't expect that to change any time soon. [link] [comments] |
| Water in basement 5 times in first 6 months of ownership. Posted: 25 Jul 2020 07:47 PM PDT 3 times it was clean water - 2 of those because of a sump (it seems). Each time was a different sump pump (we have 2). One time was through the wall in heavy rain. Two times were the sewer lateral. The previous owner disclosed only 1 time there was water in the basement. I call bs. What can I do? I will he fixing both sumps, the sewer lateral, and putting in drain tile. But I feel like the previous owner dropped some serious bullshit on us. [link] [comments] |
| Posted: 26 Jul 2020 09:39 AM PDT I'm just wondering if putting an offer in is worth it. I'm looking for my first home. I saw one today 1640sqft, 3 bed, 3 bath (2 full 1 half bath). It has a 2 car attached garage. Originally went on the market for 165,000 September 2019. It has been on the market ever since and most recently dropped to 139,900 at the beginning of the month. Looking at comps in the neighborhood focusing on others that have been on the market a similar amount of time I'm thinking I can get a really good deal. The house does need some cosmetic upgrades. The biggest issues are water damage from a burst pipe in 2018 ( this was fixed) but it caused the wood paneling in the basement to kind of ripple and I have no idea if there is mold behind the paneling. What looks like wet concrete in the corner of the basement right below the electrical panel and a VERY low hanging wire in the backyard. Is it worth putting a low ball offer in and having an inspection done? Or does it sound like all the work and potential issues aren't even worth it? [link] [comments] |
| Posted: 26 Jul 2020 09:28 AM PDT Hello all! I signed a purchase agreement for a new home in the DFW area. Been renting and saving for a very long time and my heart is set on a new construction after all the wait. Lately I've been plagued with anxiety of this hot market screeching to a halt & property values falling. To be fair, this has been the DFW market since 2017. Feels like I've been trying to avoid this my whole life after 2008 and I'm worried I'm putting myself in this position because I want a change in my living situation and I'm ready to buy. In any case, the sales manager told us we have 7 days to back out for any reason and get our earnest money back. Based on reading the contract, she seemed to have given us incorrect information. Seems like it's 7 days if we didn't get a loan commitment. I've already pre-qualified at this point. See clause below: Contingency. The Contract is contingent upon Purchaser obtaining a loan commitment ("Loan") within7 days after the Date of Contract (the "Mortgage Contingency Date") I still am not sure if these feelings are panicking because of reddit trying to read the tea leaves on a crash or legitimate, but it would be nice to know what you all think if you have insight into the DFW market. And if you believe I've lost my earnest due to prequalifying already... wasn't really worried about that when signing but now I kind of am. Thanks! [link] [comments] |
| How to get more info on location Posted: 26 Jul 2020 09:03 AM PDT We are looking to move about 100 miles away from where we live now and need to get an idea of the crime rates, school district, general feel for the new location. Are there any websites that offer this info? I know Realtor.com gives the x/10 rating score for schools and it gives a color chart on crime, but how accurate is that? Also, is there something that lists the type of crime. I look at street view and the areas seem nice, well maintained lawns and houses don't look like they are falling apart but are there sites I can use to get a better picture? Any help would be greatly appreciated [link] [comments] |
| Transmission Line easement through property Posted: 26 Jul 2020 08:58 AM PDT Toured a really nice home this weekend, but found out there is a transmission line easement which covers about half of the backyard and the woods behind the backyard (with another 0.5acres in the property behind the easement). There are NO transmission lines installed there right now. The asking price doesn't seem to reflect that there is an easement there. Do these easements ever expire? What are the risks of putting an offer on the property? [link] [comments] |
| HOA charges $485 for Master Policy and Condo Questionnaire. Is this normal? [CA - LA] Posted: 26 Jul 2020 08:57 AM PDT I'm in the process of closing a condo right now. 10 more days ish to close, and I've got my underwriting loan approval. The lender currently requested Master Policy and Condo Questionnaire to the HOA, and the HOA charges us $485 outside of escrow for receiving docs within 7-10 days, and/or additional $285 for expedited fee in 24 hours. The seller had tried to ask the HOA on my behalf, hoping we'll get them for free, but they insisted on the charge. They demand secured funds only in form of money order or cashier's check. I'm a first time homebuyer, does this seem normal? I just wonder why they charge on such high fees when they're only just pdf files, or maybe there are some reasons I'm not aware of? Anyone has an idea? I'm just really hoping I can close on time. [link] [comments] |
| Money in the bank, Low debt, Steady but low income. Can we qualify for an FHA?! Posted: 26 Jul 2020 08:56 AM PDT Hello, My wife and I recently got married and have been renting for the past 5+ years. We're looking to take the next step and own a home but are a bit overwhelmed by where to begin! Our financial situation is a bit tricky.... I have very steady and consistent work history for the past 10+ years where I made between 30-50k depending on the job. However, I recently lost my job due to Covid and have been collecting unemployment. My credit score is in the low-mid 600's and I have appx 40k in student loans that are currently in forbearance (federal CARES act put them in forbearance with no interest until the fall!). My savings account consists of only a few grand that I would ideally like to avoid touching! My wife's financial situation is much better from a reserves perspective haha. She has about 200k in her savings (her father passed and left her with some money) and little to no debt (other than a credit card that she pays down regularly). She makes around 30k per year (probably not this year.... but the last few years!) from investments with her money (she has a financial adviser who controls investments) and it offsets the cost of living for her/us so she nets nothing essentially in the end. She is a full time therapist and has been practicing licensed for about a year and a half and makes about 30k per year. She only has 1.5 years of income history from a job though and all of her other income history is strictly from the investments. Will we have a shot at qualifying for an FHA loan given her income history? I am ignorant to what qualifies/doesn't qualify as income and what they're looking for exactly when it comes to length of history. I'm assuming I'm useless in this equation from a loan approval standpoint and we're better off using her, let me know if I'm on the right track! If you've made it this far thanks a lot for reading! Let me know what you think our best move will be. :) [link] [comments] |
| Posted: 26 Jul 2020 08:52 AM PDT The more I read on title insurance the more it seems like yet another racket in real estate. It's mandated and costs are inflated when compared to actual claims and payouts. If I'm buying a property without financing so title insurance would not be required, does anyone know of an underwriter that would offer competitive pricing below the state rates? (.75% in this case) Edit: Im thinking of foregoing the insurance all together and trusting the title search. If there's a reasonable rate I would get it... [link] [comments] |
| Posted: 26 Jul 2020 08:49 AM PDT I'm looking for houses to buy in Bay Area, CA and I found certain homes under the category Mobile/Manufactured which are much cheaper than the others even though they're newly constructed. My question is how do these houses work? Do we have to own a piece of land where we can shift these houses to? [link] [comments] |
| Countering back and forth on an estate, need advice! Posted: 26 Jul 2020 08:45 AM PDT My fiance and I have been looking for a house for almost 6 months now. We saw a house go on the market last week and went to take a look on Friday. Its a 1600~ sq ft ranch, 2 beds 2 baths but pretty large size. Its only the 2 of us for now so meantime its fine, with opportunity to build up (either master suite or entire 2nd floor with 3 beds). Its in a really high end town, its one of the cheapest houses in the town in a million dollar neighborhood. And its an estate. Asking price is $559k, we offer $510k just to see interest as houses have been flying here. At first the selling agent tells my agent that there is another offer on the table close to listing price, ok fine. He calls my agent back later and says the family whos handling the house likes our terms and offer letter I wrote, and countered back at $545k. I said lets do 525k, best and final. Main reasons- its a 2 bedroom house with very small backyard. Theyre selling as is so we really cant go back and ask them to fix anything- but as of now the house looks to be in good condition and well taken care of by the previous owners (one whom apparently passed away in the house according to google). The house still needs work, theres a stained rug in the room, horrid carpet in the master, little mold in the basement with the linoleum coming up on the floors etc. Estimate at least 20k to fix any damages and re do the floors in the bedroom and upgrade the outdated bathrooms. The listing agent says i think 525k is too low and have your people come to the open house today and introduce themselves and ill show them around and the potential. I think even if we did offer 535 he would have the same answer. We do like the house and the area a lot but i just cant tell if we're doing the right thing here by countering lower Did we do the ri [link] [comments] |
| Posted: 25 Jul 2020 04:28 PM PDT First time buyers here. We've been very actively looking at houses for about four months in Southern California. We were assigned an agent through a partnership program our credit union/lender. The idea is that these agents are supposed to be seasoned with first-time buyers and know the loan program/process we're using (conventional) super well, and if we buy a home through her, we get a small rebate after we close. Our agent isn't egregiously bad, but we're starting to wonder if another agent might be better able to help us get an offer accepted. We've seen over thirty houses across nine cities. (We both commute in opposite directions so have some location flexibility.) We've found most of the properties we've looked at on Zillow, save for maybe three; we're okay with doing the looking leg work. Our realtor has been able to get us into most of the houses we've wanted to see, but she sometimes has a hard time getting in touch with sellers agents and isn't familiar with most of the places we're looking. We've put in nine offers and have been the back-up on about seven. For the first offer, our agent sent us a detailed valuation report about the house and neighborhood and disclosed that the sellers wanted a 30-day escrow and rent-back but wouldn't give us any more direct guidance on price or anything else. We offered $11k over asking, and it sold for $57k over our offer price. For every house since, we've had to ask her to send a report or comps. She hasn't really helped us understand how to use or make sense of these things, and she won't offer specific feedback on how we should craft offers. The sixth offer, we got a "best and highest" counter offer. Our realtor told us to go with whatever we felt comfortable with. We looked at recently sold houses in the area and modestly increased our offer; she seemed supportive, and we got outbid. When we asked her later what we could have done differently, she sort of scolded us, saying that her report gave a higher estimate (it did, but with a range of about $60k, and again, no guidance about how to read it) and that we needed to go with a number that we would not regret finding out someone else had paid for the house. We really loved house #9 and wanted to go all in. We requested the valuation report and comps and spent time on our own trying to interpret them. She suggested we offer $15k under what we wanted to offer (which would still have been $10k over asking) because the house needed work. We went with our bigger offer number. We also pushed her about how we could make our offer stronger, and she suggested offering a fixed amount over the appraised value with our contingency and including a DU with the offer instead of just a pre-approval letter. We still lost the house, but where were those suggestions for the other eight offers? We recognize that our realtor has put a lot of time and energy into us, but whatever we're doing isn't working. We sent her an email asking her to sit down with us this weekend and rethink our strategy to figure out how we can find out about/see houses quicker and put in stronger offers. We haven't heard back yet (it's been about a day). We are financing, have a lower down payment than other buyers in our market, and are keeping some contingencies in place, so we know that's a big part of why we're not finding success. But also, we have plenty of cash to close the loan, two stable incomes, great credit histories, and are buying under our approved limit. Is our realtor also part of what's holding us back? [link] [comments] |
| First Time Buyere with many many questions [Philly] Posted: 26 Jul 2020 08:10 AM PDT My husband and I want to buy a house. Hooray! We got a couple pre-approvals. Great! First - We didn't really have a solid understanding of how realtors worked in the beginning so we just kept hitting the, "view this house" button on redfin and zillow, etc. We eventually realized we always got the same lady when we used redfin and now we're like, is that our realtor? We didn't hire her... Do we work on finding one independently? Second - between the shortage of houses on the market and my distaste for current trends we've considered a few fixer-upper type homes. From 1-10 How stupid is that? We both have high tolerance for chaos, and a place to live, but ZERO experience with construction. Also, I know mortgages exist for this but what kind? Are they worth getting? Third - we are also considering a duplex for rental income. Those loans are also different it seems and I know even less about that than single family homes. Research is mostly intimidating so far but maybe with a roadmap I can try again. Are we just cruising for bruisings? Does the lady from our tours want to murder us? Why are loans different for duplexes and are they harder to get? If a house needs repairs do I hire a contractor/get estimates before or after we buy it? How do I know if it's a ton of repairs or few without an inspection first? How do I estimate those costs in a loan? How long should all this take? Will our pre-approvals expire? [link] [comments] |
| When you found your home, did you have a “moment?” Posted: 26 Jul 2020 07:11 AM PDT My partner and I are first time buyers. The market in our area is moving extremely fast - most of the time houses are only listed for 24-48 hours - so we're feeling some pressure to move quickly. We've been looking for houses for about 9 months, put an offer on one a few months ago that got rejected, and recently put an offer on another house that got accepted. The inspection went better than we thought it would (the only thing it could potentially need is a new HVAC unit), so things are moving smoothly so far. Now, this house checks all of our major boxes. The layout isn't 100% what we would want, but comes close and I definitely think we can make the space work for us. It's decently updated so we're only expecting to change the paint, some flooring, and the light fixtures/ceiling fans. On paper this is the house. What's tripping us up though is that we didn't have a moment where we felt this is the one. We're not overly excited like we thought we would be, and my partner is feeling extremely nervous about the whole thing. My question is, people of Reddit, when you found your home, did you have an "aha" moment where you knew the house was perfect for you? Is not being excited about the house a red flag that we should be concerned about? Thanks! [link] [comments] |
| Do you think current selling prices will raise prices in the future? Posted: 26 Jul 2020 06:55 AM PDT As mentioned and discussed frequently on here, the current market is insane. My husband and I are looking to buy in the next couple of years but I've started looking around in some desirable areas to see what's out there. I see houses that we would look at going for close to 100k over their asking price. Do you think this will drive up the valuations of future sales in the neighborhood? [link] [comments] |
| Posted: 26 Jul 2020 06:50 AM PDT Me, my wife and kid purchased our first home 8 years ago and got a great deal on our place. Fast forward 8 years and we feel we're ready to upgrade to something with a little more room and farther from town. Home buying and selling is all a foreign language to me. I know I've managed to acquire quite a bit of equity in my current property but how I roll that into my next purchase is beyond me.... Could someone explain the basics to me? [link] [comments] |
| Concerns about investing in rent controlled LA Posted: 25 Jul 2020 07:30 PM PDT So I've been saving and saving and I can finally afford to house hack in Los Angeles, but I just don't understand how to justify it as an investment with rent control in LA. Is most of your return coming from price appreciation on the property? I'm looking at a place in West Hollywood with 4 units: Price: $1.6 million Total income after all expenses: $64k = 4% return (cap rate), prior to interest expense from a mortgage. West Hollywood rent increases are 75% of CPI increases. So assuming no price appreciation, how do investors justify this investment given the stock market returns 6% on average? Any advice would be really appreciated, and sorry if this post is redundant - my first time posting on here. TLDR: 4% cap rate in WeHo, but rent increases are a joke from rent control. Are returns mostly from price appreciation? How do you justify vs 6% stock market returns on average [link] [comments] |
| Posted: 26 Jul 2020 02:34 AM PDT Wife and I are looking to move out of Manhattan for a family friend community in Rockland County, Tarrytown ...or really any of the NYC commutable metro north towns. Can anyone recommend how to find a quality real estate agent?..buying a car during COVID was pretty painful so any tips on things to look out for would be appreciated. [link] [comments] |
| Why are all modern suburbs Craftsmen houses? Posted: 26 Jul 2020 05:59 AM PDT Colonial house layout seems a lot more practical, functional, and cheaper to build. [link] [comments] |
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