The Benefits of Home Ownership?

[cramx3]

I'm no expert, but my understanding is that inventory is still low so a crash isn't too likely.  But the market will, as Stadler stated, level off due to the increased rates.  If I look on zillow, my house value is still going up, but not as crazy as it was last year.  It's definitely slowing down or leveling off. 

[Nick]

Well, we're officially on the home-selling side of things for the first time: https://www.redfin.com/PA/Quakertown/286-Johnson-Ln-18951/home/39085736

In our last move we had weeks to get everything from our old apartment to the new house. This time will be... different.

The plan of attack right now is to sell with a contingency that we must find suitable housing, and then we must find said housing. The end result will still be us closing on our current home and then closing on a new home in the same day, with technically a few hours of homelessness. I am not looking forward to that move at all.

We're being very picky in what we're looking for in our new home, so hopefully our agent is right and we see a good bit more homes listed after Labor Day.

[King Postwhore]

I feel a 3 bedroom for the monsters to have. Lol

[Cool Chris]

Holy shit $245,000 for a sfr? In my zip code the median list price is $750,000.

[King Postwhore]

That's F'ing nuts Chris!! 

[Cool Chris]

https://thejimmychuang.com/listing/WA/Seattle/103-Bellevue-Avenue-E-a-98102/150160979

Once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to purchase a parking space in The Marq Condominium. Spacious designated parking #15 in a secure garage, easily fit a full-sized sedan. 24/7 Access. Pet-friendly building with no rental cap and high association reserves. Mere steps from lively capitol hill and everything the city has to offer! Parked and enjoy the hippest bars, restaurants, cafes, and nightlife. Light rail Station, Amazon Go, and Whole Foods Market are just a few blocks away. Not living in the building? Great investment for additional city parking or feel free to rent out. Not to be missed.

$38,000 for a parking space.

[Nick]

Holy shit $245,000 for a sfr? In my zip code the median list price is $750,000.

If it makes you feel any better (it won't), we paid 153k when we bought it in 2016.

[faizoff]

 

This isn't quite home ownership, but there's no separate thread for home rentership As some of you may know, just a few days ago I up and moved down to Florida (Orlando suburbs) for a job I took during the pandemic. Still unpacking and in the process of buying a bunch of furniture, but I'm pretty excited. I've got a one year lease on this place, and once I get settled and have a feel for the area I'll be turning my attention towards buying.

Late in replying, meant to comment earlier. Congrats on the move axeman! House looks great, extremely hot market in Orlando esp the suburbs. Good luck with your home search, I've been looking in Tampa close to two years but prices just aren't coming down in the areas I'm interested.

That looks fantastic!!! I've seen that enclosed pool set up in a LOT of homes in Florida. I'm assuming it's due to a large amount of mosquitos or bugs? Or is there some other indigenous animal that is designed to keep out?

Either way....it looks like a sweet set up 

In Florida, at least in some of the cities like Orlando and Tampa, there are a billion trees planted in every subdivision. Those screens help in keeping the leaves out of the pools. Almost every pool I've seen has those screens for that purpose, the leaves getting everywhere is a pain to deal with during fall.

[Stadler]

Well, we're officially on the home-selling side of things for the first time: https://www.redfin.com/PA/Quakertown/286-Johnson-Ln-18951/home/39085736

In our last move we had weeks to get everything from our old apartment to the new house. This time will be... different.

The plan of attack right now is to sell with a contingency that we must find suitable housing, and then we must find said housing. The end result will still be us closing on our current home and then closing on a new home in the same day, with technically a few hours of homelessness. I am not looking forward to that move at all.

We're being very picky in what we're looking for in our new home, so hopefully our agent is right and we see a good bit more homes listed after Labor Day.

Don't rule out a closing, with a one-week residual. That used to be a deal-breaker (I would NEVER EVER let someone stay in a home that I now had title to), but it's not in today's market; we stayed in our old home for 30 days after closing a year ago.  It was a GODSEND. 

[Grappler]

New home fun:

Prior owners advised us of an occasional sewer gas smell in the basement.  "it's just the floor drains - put water into them...."   Two weeks ago, I was over by the main sewer pipe leading out of the basement and it smelled AWFUL.  Raw sewage odors were coming from it.  Had a plumber out and he confirmed that the seal was broken.  He came by this morning to do the repairs and re-seal the connection, but he checked the condition of the sewer pipe in the ground first.  The cast iron pipe has sheared off and broken in the ground - waste water is leaching out into the soil, and if left untouched, the sewer pipe would eventually clog with TP at the break and sewage and waste water would back up into the home.  So we now have to have it dug up in the front yard/garden bed and a new pipe installed.

Thankfully, I have underground utility coverage on my homeowners insurance.  It should be covered, subject to the $500 deductible.  Much better than having to cough up the full $3,500 bill.

[Nick]

New home fun:

Prior owners advised us of an occasional sewer gas smell in the basement.  "it's just the floor drains - put water into them...."   Two weeks ago, I was over by the main sewer pipe leading out of the basement and it smelled AWFUL.  Raw sewage odors were coming from it.  Had a plumber out and he confirmed that the seal was broken.  He came by this morning to do the repairs and re-seal the connection, but he checked the condition of the sewer pipe in the ground first.  The cast iron pipe has sheared off and broken in the ground - waste water is leaching out into the soil, and if left untouched, the sewer pipe would eventually clog with TP at the break and sewage and waste water would back up into the home.  So we now have to have it dug up in the front yard/garden bed and a new pipe installed.

Thankfully, I have underground utility coverage on my homeowners insurance.  It should be covered, subject to the $500 deductible.  Much better than having to cough up the full $3,500 bill.

Not a fun situation, but you had a double positive whammy of sorting this in time and having it covered by insurance, so this should hopefully end well for you!

---

We're off to a very promising start as home sellers. Basically first tour today was from an investor who already owns several units in my townhouse HOA community. Official offer will likely come tomorrow, but basically he's going to be offering us list price with a long rentback option. Biggest thing we're waiting to see is how much per month he would plan to charge us in rent. Unless it's something astronomical our realtor is basically saying we should absolutely take this deal, and it has some major advantages.

Pros:
-No strict deadline to move out after closing.
-We can set a closing date on a new house and then stop renting ~2 weeks later, giving us a very easy move within that period.
-Ready to close in 10 days, meaning selling is done immediately and we can just 100% focus on buying.

Cons:
-I was realistically hoping to get about 5k over asking.
-We're paying more for rent than we would be for our mortgage. Based on comparable rentals, probably like $600/month. The longer we search, the more it costs us.

The ability to find our dream home with no major pressure, along with an easy move means we will 99% take this if the agreement doesn't have anything insane in it.

[Nick]

And...... we're sold. We have to get and sign a lease within 3 days, but assuming that happens, all is good.

We basically pay $600 more than our mortgage for 3 months (during which we hope to be out), and $850 more than our mortgage after that.

[lordxizor]

And...... we're sold. We have to get and sign a lease within 3 days, but assuming that happens, all is good.

We basically pay $600 more than our mortgage for 3 months (during which we hope to be out), and $850 more than our mortgage after that.

Is it too late to stop the sale and just rent out your current home once you move out and pocket that $850 a month yourself?

[Nick]

And...... we're sold. We have to get and sign a lease within 3 days, but assuming that happens, all is good.

We basically pay $600 more than our mortgage for 3 months (during which we hope to be out), and $850 more than our mortgage after that.

Is it too late to stop the sale and just rent out your current home once you move out and pocket that $850 a month yourself?

That's a fantastic question. Right out of the gate the thought arose from our realtor of using our current property as an investment property and buying a new house. Couple of issues. Firstly, we don't have the liquid assets to buy a new house. I mean, we could do a 3% down loan, but then it'll get loaded with PMI, we'll have a higher interest rate, and it wouldn't be ideal. Secondly there is a good chance we wouldn't get approved for a house in the range we're looking at while also holding on to our current mortgage. And lastly, is that neither of us are in a place where we want to start being landlords.

[Nick]

We have our new home.

https://www.redfin.com/PA/Richlandtown/144-2nd-St-18955/home/173785517

Closing our current home on Sep. 7.
Closing on our new home on Oct. 14.

We plan to utilize our rent back until ~Oct. 31 assuming our new landlord allows us to do a partial month (likely from how he's handled everything thus far), or worst case scenario until Nov. 7 if we have to do full months. So we'll have at least two weeks of overlap where we are renting our current home while also owning our new home, giving us plenty of time to transition.

Plenty of early projects being considered for the new property:
-Immediate must is transferring the charger for both of our cars to the new house.
-Finding suitable window for cats and hanging their bird feeder outside it.
-Long term definitely want some sort of catio or outdoor area for the cats.
-One cool feature about this property is the garage and house have roofs that are perpendicular to one another, meaning that one has to have a semi-ideal facing for solar. I'd definitely like to invest in that, and the roofs are only 5 years old.
-We had talked about wherever we move building a media closet, and this place has a ton of options for it. She has a ton of books and I have a ton of CDs/DVDs, so I want to build sliding shelves for everything within a closet type area. Might be hard to describe, but hopefully I can draw a sketch at some point.

[hunnus2000]

That's exciting!

Good luck to you and your family Nick! 

[ReaperKK]

That's a beautiful house Nick congrats!

[Chino]

Noice! I like how it's tucked away in its only little nook off the main road.

[Grappler]

Nice house!



I'm still waiting for my sewer issue to be completed.  Work was scheduled for Monday.  Rain on Sunday pushed it off to today, so the equipment didn't destroy our yard.

The contractor's truck broke down on the way to my house.  Rescheduled again for Thursday.   

In the meantime, I have to re-arrange my work schedule so I can be home on Thursday.  I'll be missing one of my kid's preschool days tomorrow while I'm in the office.  Also, the smell in the house is worse, and with the seal broken around the pipe and wall, the smell is coming into the walls of the home.  My daughter's bedroom (2 stories above the basement) smells like a toilet.  It's awful.  She slept in our bed last night, and likely will for the next 2 nights unless the smell dissipates.

I can't wait for this to be finished. 

[TAC]

Nice!

Looks close enough that you can stumble home from the Gruvers Beer Bar!

[cramx3]

That's a nice home and a quick sale.  Sounds like things worked out really well.

[Lonk]

Nice home, really good yard space too!

[gmillerdrake]

Very nice home Nick    Super exciting for you guys.

[Nick]

Nice home, really good yard space too!

Thanks everyone, and funnily enough this was one of the few strikes against the property! We wanted a small yard, but this was really nice and not huge so we were happy with it.

The other major issue the house has, is a slight oddity in its setup. The bathrooms are in the basement and 1st floor, with the intended master on first floor. Ideally we want to have a floor between my gaming/music area and the bedroom to help with sound at night since she goes to bed 2 hours before me.

So we may try to get a tiny half bath on the top floor, depending on how sound travels.

[Cool Chris]

First off... what the heck is picture 24?

Secondly, so happy to hear you found a great place. I remember when we bought our house, I went through some hard times before I met my wife, and was happy to have a roof over my head. I thought owning a home wasn't going to be in my future. It's not the biggest or grandest home, but it's our home, and I love being here. I hope you feel the same about yours. 

[KevShmev]

Not sure I mentioned this in this thread or not, but I bought a condo last year and moved into it last May (nearly 16 months ago). 

The basement is finished and just as nice as the upstairs.  The other day, I saw the 2nd snake in six months down there.

Based on the look of it and everything I have read, it was probably a ring-necked snake.  Looks more like a worm than a snake, and is fairly harmless, but it is still a bit creepy.  The advantage is that those things probably keep away other critters like spiders (amazingly, I have barely seen any of these since moving in), mice, etc.  Still, I would rather not see them. 

I talked to some of my neighbors last night, all of whom said they occasionally see them in their places as well and they usually just pick them up and throw them outside.  I ain't about to do that.

This means it is time to move, right? 

[TAC]

Kev, every now and then I get a snake at the bottom of my stairs leading to my basement. I usually just get some grill tongs to grab them. I actually saw a little one a few weeks ago. It was the first one I had seen in a few years.

My back yard is filled with them.

[wolfking]

Snakes are fine.  The ones over here can kill you but they are more scared of you than them and won't attack or try to bite you unless you really try and piss them off.  I've had a few encounters. 

[KevShmev]

Okay, your posts are making me feel a little better about it, but it is still a bit weird.  I do have a critter control guy coming out tomorrow, so I will see what he says.

[TAC]

He'll just use that foamy stuff to fill up any cracks along your sill.

[KevShmev]

He'll just use that foamy stuff to fill up any cracks along your sill.

And hopefully bring some life-size bubble wrap for me.

[TAC]

He'll just use that foamy stuff to fill up any cracks along your sill.

And hopefully bring some life-size bubble wrap for me.

How are you going to let him in while you're standing on your coffee table?

[Podaar]

Don’t listen to them , Kev. Nuke your condo from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure!

[KevShmev]

I may need to borrow Rick Dalton's flame thrower.

[wolfking]

Okay, your posts are making me feel a little better about it, but it is still a bit weird.  I do have a critter control guy coming out tomorrow, so I will see what he says.

I'm not sure what it's like over there, but here, they are literally everywhere, you just never really see them.