Home buying thread

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Unidin

Molten Core Raider
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Yeah between talking to my estate agent for a long time on this topic and searching I think I now have a pretty strong understanding of all the differences, advantages/disadvantages ect.. of Freehold vs leasehold.

But I still fee that I do not understand why Freehold is so much more in London then leasehold. Doing some comparisons in other areas of England it seems the freehold vs leasehold is far more reasonable when you consider ground tax, price to extend the lease ect... There must be some reason for the huge premium in London.

Almost all of us are American and we don't use that terminology here nor (I think) those specific products for loans. It may be more helpful to ask a board that's based in the UK.
 

Ark

Trakanon Raider
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Any of you Dallas folks have a recommended buyers agent experienced with VA loans?
 

Whidon

Blackwing Lair Raider
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Almost all of us are American and we don't use that terminology here nor (I think) those specific products for loans. It may be more helpful to ask a board that's based in the UK.

Yeah, well I've lived most my life in America also and currently live here but I'm planning to move obviously. I figured maybe there were some people on here that had an idea since London is a big market and lots of people who own property there are internationals.

In the end, I decided to wait at least until this fall to see is governmental action is coming that would greatly effect values. Radical plans to end huge costs of buying a freehold unveiled
 

Onoes

Trakanon Raider
1,400
1,030
Well, we just closed on house, pretty excited. It's a 5 year old house that a rich lady bought for her kid, who's career is Twitch Streamer. He sat at home, smoked weed all day, and had 5 dogs who pissed on everything. The homes in the area are going for 300k+ and the owner just wanted to sell it as is for what she paid for it brand new, $231,000 total. I pulled out all the carpet already, and am having it tiled. A good cleaning, plus new flooring, and paint everywhere it should be good as new, for less than 10k, possibly closer to 5 (We're painting it ourselves).

Pretty fucking stoked, not going to lie. My current house is fine, but this one is pretty much a step up in every way EXCEPT a dedicated gaming space. I've converted the garage in my existing house to a second living room effectively, so its wall to wall with board games, mini's, and a giant 8x5 gaming table. I don't have any idea what I'm going to do about that at the new place, I'd like to actually keep the garage a garage this time around, so I'm seriously considering putting up a 16x12 shed with AC in the back or something. Right now I just don't know.

home.jpg
 
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Keystone

Lord Nagafen Raider
458
250
nice man, looks great!

Anyone have any experience with working with a buyers agent who offers rebates at closing? I'm pretty close to starting seriously shopping for a house in Florida (my wife already thinks she found the one) and just seems crazy to not use someone who's going to end up giving me anywhere from 1% up to one guy I see that offers 80% of his commission as a refund at closing. I assume these are a you get what you pay for situation, however it's not like the buyers agent really contributes that much right? I mean my last house I found 100% myself and basically the only thing the agent contributed was "helping" me negotiate as far as what was reasonable to ask for etc.
 

Lanx

Oye Ve
<Prior Amod>
60,070
131,364
nice man, looks great!

Anyone have any experience with working with a buyers agent who offers rebates at closing? I'm pretty close to starting seriously shopping for a house in Florida (my wife already thinks she found the one) and just seems crazy to not use someone who's going to end up giving me anywhere from 1% up to one guy I see that offers 80% of his commission as a refund at closing. I assume these are a you get what you pay for situation, however it's not like the buyers agent really contributes that much right? I mean my last house I found 100% myself and basically the only thing the agent contributed was "helping" me negotiate as far as what was reasonable to ask for etc.
i read abit about that a while ago, i mean you can see it that they are obviously in a very high ticket place AND they do a lot of volume as well, and they'll keep on doing this as well b/c the greatest advertising for an agent is word of mouth "oh honey use our agent, he was so great!!!"

but then you can also get one w/ the attitude of "yo this is a budget showing, email what properties you want, and i'll come and open the door for you"

while i admit my agent was practically worthless (he was assigned to us by the company), there were two highlights
1. he negotiated a warranty/replacement furnace, between his and the sellers commission and have it installed b4 we moved in
2. he knew a quality home inspector

what i would do in your case is double check the seller/buy agents on zillow

like here is house for sale
c4d748e197888aa4897ae01db5e61643.png


OK forget that it's 1300 sq ft house for less than the price of a honda civic, notice theres not even a listing agent present

really use zillow to research the agents themselves, you can click on their names and get an idea for em.
 

Fogel

Mr. Poopybutthole
11,921
42,392
nice man, looks great!

Anyone have any experience with working with a buyers agent who offers rebates at closing? I'm pretty close to starting seriously shopping for a house in Florida (my wife already thinks she found the one) and just seems crazy to not use someone who's going to end up giving me anywhere from 1% up to one guy I see that offers 80% of his commission as a refund at closing. I assume these are a you get what you pay for situation, however it's not like the buyers agent really contributes that much right? I mean my last house I found 100% myself and basically the only thing the agent contributed was "helping" me negotiate as far as what was reasonable to ask for etc.

Which part of Florida you moving to? I'm halfway into the buying process down there myself and just went with the standard commission realtor, so can't speak for any rebates. I'll be in the St. Augustine area.

So I just received the inspection report, nothing to major. The inspector did note that the compressor was rated at 25 amp max but it's on a 30 amp breaker. So far google is telling me that its not a big deal except it might void the warranty. Big deal or not a big deal? Don't want to break balls over something minor.

214850

214851
 

Vinen

God is dead
2,782
486
If its under a few hundred to fix I'd let it slide and then get an electrician to come by after closing. I used the inspection report at my house as a punchlist for post-movein. In our case we did know of the condition of certain areas of the property (read: Garage) so we did factor that into our offer (we went in at 200K under asking and met at 150k under)

On the other-hand. If you have a large amount of findings then modify your offer. I'm not familiar with Florida but in MA we go Offer -> Inspection -> P&S. P&S is when the actual contracts are signed.
 

Fogel

Mr. Poopybutthole
11,921
42,392
Moot point, found out the contractor bumped into the inspector and said he'd fix it right away. It's new construction, so the list wasn't big to begin with.
 

Vinen

God is dead
2,782
486
Moot point, found out the contractor bumped into the inspector and said he'd fix it right away. It's new construction, so the list wasn't big to begin with.

Ohh thats entirely different. For new construction everything should be fixed no matter how minor.
 

Khane

Got something right about marriage
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Alright fellow landlords. I have an apartment back on the market for the first time in a long time and it's been a while since I've had to list it. I put it up on Zillow, Apartments.com, Cozy.co and Craigslist. Zillow and Apartments.com automatically list it on a few sister sites as well but are there any other sites with high traffic I should list it on as well? I'll be using Cozy to handle all applications and screenings.
 

Lanx

Oye Ve
<Prior Amod>
60,070
131,364
Alright fellow landlords. I have an apartment back on the market for the first time in a long time and it's been a while since I've had to list it. I put it up on Zillow, Apartments.com, Cozy.co and Craigslist. Zillow and Apartments.com automatically list it on a few sister sites as well but are there any other sites with high traffic I should list it on as well? I'll be using Cozy to handle all applications and screenings.

i'm not a landlord, but if you want more eyes on the apt
  • Zillow Rentals.
  • Trulia Rentals.
  • Apartments.com.
  • Realtor.com Rentals.
  • Zumper.
  • Apartments Finder.
  • HotPads.
  • Apartments by Apartment Guide.
  • Rent.com.
  • RadPad.
you won't recognize some of em, cuz they're through the appstore now, a lot of searches happen on mobile, don't forget that for the future (i'm sure the majority just scrape from google or mls, but doesn't hurt to cover your bases)
 

Keystone

Lord Nagafen Raider
458
250
Which part of Florida you moving to? I'm halfway into the buying process down there myself and just went with the standard commission realtor, so can't speak for any rebates. I'll be in the St. Augustine area.

We just moved to Tampa area a few months ago and decided we liked it pretty fast so looking to break our appt lease and get into a house sooner than expected lol. We ended up finding a realtor based out of Orlando that also services tampa and offers 50% rebate on his commission as a buyers agent. So far he's been great, very responsive / proactive with setting up showings etc whenever we ask. The one downside is he has a bit of a commute so if we really wanted to look at something RIGHT NAOW we would likely have to get it set up and do the whole "I'm represented but my agent is out of town" thing with the listing agent to try to see the property.
 

TJT

Mr. Poopybutthole
<Gold Donor>
40,698
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Well, we just closed on house, pretty excited. It's a 5 year old house that a rich lady bought for her kid, who's career is Twitch Streamer. He sat at home, smoked weed all day, and had 5 dogs who pissed on everything. The homes in the area are going for 300k+ and the owner just wanted to sell it as is for what she paid for it brand new, $231,000 total. I pulled out all the carpet already, and am having it tiled. A good cleaning, plus new flooring, and paint everywhere it should be good as new, for less than 10k, possibly closer to 5 (We're painting it ourselves).

Pretty fucking stoked, not going to lie. My current house is fine, but this one is pretty much a step up in every way EXCEPT a dedicated gaming space. I've converted the garage in my existing house to a second living room effectively, so its wall to wall with board games, mini's, and a giant 8x5 gaming table. I don't have any idea what I'm going to do about that at the new place, I'd like to actually keep the garage a garage this time around, so I'm seriously considering putting up a 16x12 shed with AC in the back or something. Right now I just don't know.

View attachment 214756

I dig the rock garden. I wish we had them in central Texas. I absolutely hate lawns. This is in Arizona or something?
 

Khane

Got something right about marriage
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The new owners of your house will thank you for all the hard work and effort you put into getting that shed installed.
 
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