Home buying thread

moonarchia

moonarchia

The Scientific Shitlord
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TJT said:
The only comment here I can reliably make is that Remote jobs are simply a lot rarer now and will get more rare. They exist and you can get them. But its much more difficult. Hybrids are far easier to get because so many are competing for WFH jobs now. If you are willing to continue working in your industry this can be an advantage. We all love WFH but its just not like it was in 2021.
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Customer service jobs are particularly well suited for it, because call centers are physically expensive and turnover is always insane. Much cheaper to ship someone a work laptop and not waste the millions every year to rent an office building and pay electricity. I also have a decade of customer service experience and can handle a shrieking Shaniqua trying to quibble over a $2 price increase. They are the majority of what WFH jobs are listed right now.

But yeah, engineering jobs aren't likely to be WFH. I am going to try to stay where I am, because Denver still has a lot of tech companies. I am open to moving because of my current situation, but if tech is crashing out, it's going to do so nation wide. WFH is ideal, but insurance and paying the bills is mandatory.
 
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Nija

Nija

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Daidraco said:
Been dwelling on this today. I say change the way you're looking at it and view it as a personal challenge to yourself to spread your wings a bit financially.

Get a well known property management company to rent your condo out for you. After HOA fee's and such, you might break even - but hopefully itll give you a little pocket change. That way someone that knows the in's and out's of rentals is in control and its not all on you to learn with trial and error.

Then rent yourself something small, closer to wherever you land a job you're comfortable at. After you've regained some stability and found a better job (you will) - you'll have a record of payments coming in from your Condo as additional income. The collateral from the Condo (roughly 60k according to you), the history of rental payments, and your new job, should "walk the walk" for you to purchase your next property.

My main priority for you is to let your 401k continue to grow, and you also have some random tenant paying your principal for you, which also lightens your bills and sets you up for success in the long run instead of walking backwards.

This is roughly how I built my first 4 unit apartment complex, so Im not talking out of my ass. Just find a job quickly, any job, and dont let depression talk you into moping around. If you at least entertain this idea and have more questions, you know how to reach me big dog. :emoji_muscle:
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I personally feel that this is really good advice. I would think about this deeply. Maybe have a few AI tools also think about it deeply and get their opinion. You can be specific there; they already know everything about us anyhow.
 
Intrinsic

Intrinsic

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Things have been moving fairly slowly on our build at the moment. Last week we met our drafter out at the lot to look at dimensions, trees, sunlight, access, orientation, lots of little things I was happy to hear he is considering.

While our builder has never worked directly with this guy for a home design, he has built several houses based on his designs. We looked at some on his work and while his exterior stuff was way too modern for our liking he did have a few other houses not on his Facebook / Houzz business page that we liked much better. His floor plans seemed to match well with what we want. Just need to make sure he can pull together the style.

$1.30/sf with a minimum of 3,400 per the BoA rules. Anything over that we’ll just true up at the end. Was something like $400 due now’s some % at first drafts and remaining at final deliverables. Interiors, exterior elevations, 3d rendering(s). No hard limit on revisions but we talked how obviously we don’t want 50 versions. I’d like to be around 3,600 and know we could be fine at that square footage, which means we’ll probably end up at 6,000 square foot, obviously.

I’m really stuck on heating and cooling efficiency primarily because our current house is a nightmare to keep comfortable. So trying to consider and discuss options with our builder as far as most return on cost to improve overall build. Like 2x4 vs 2x6 framing, 24” off center, fully encapsulated, spray foam, blown fiberglass, vented vs conditioned attic, blah blah. I don’t want to put spend the 20 year return on energy savings, but also don’t want to do nothing.

We’re going to have a 500 gal LPG because there’s no City gas. We will have neighborhood sewer and not our own septic. May consider things like Daikin whole home heat pump. Definitely looking at full manual j/d/s. But again, don’t want to go overboard here but trying to get to the “sweet spot.” Arkansas isn’t THAT bad for weather so it isn’t like we need super special considerations.

Should have our initial draft in 2-3 weeks, then do our revisions, then see what builder puts together cost wise. Figure out where we are and what can go up/down allowance wise.
 
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Khane

Khane

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Probably a few coinciding factors contributing to that

1) Purchasing power as you said
2) Younger generations feeling far more comfortable staying at home with their parents than previous generations (and their parents also allowing it)
3) Cities rapidly turning into crime-ridden shitholes since COVID and many older city folk who have never owned, because city real estate prices, suddenly fleeing and becoming suburbanites with money to spend on their first home.
 
Cad

Sheriff Cad

scientia potentia est
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Gravel said:
7 year gain in 5 years is a giant oof. Talk about purchasing power going into the toilet.
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I think as the cities spiral into more crime and jogger zones, the cost of living with non-joggers goes up and up. HUD and the state governments have gone out of their way to try to break up non-jogger zones, causing the remaining non-jogger zones to be even more desirable (and expensive).

On top of that now you have entire cities full of indians which you have to avoid but for different reasons, and they also drive the cost up.

Nobody wants to build cheap new houses because you can't really make a profit at it, and land is limited. Why make $20k profit on a $180k house on a piece of land if you can make $80k profit making a $500k house? Both will sell. Developers aren't morons. Meanwhile all the older neighborhoods are full of joggers and mexicans so it's you and the infinite indians bidding on the houses in decent areas.

Good luck!
 
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Intrinsic

Intrinsic

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Our next step now that we’ve bought this land 15 miles outside of town should probably be to go ahead and buy the next lot 15-30 miles further lol.
 
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