Home buying thread

Erronius

Erronius

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I"m just not sure. My guess is old-style weatherproof covers, maybe cords staying plugged in long-term, water getting into the outlet, but I"m still not 100% sure. My guess is, whatever happened happened a while ago, and they simply quit using it and went to another outlet. When we got there, the cover was in place, and that was as you see it in the pic.
 
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Wolfen_foh

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I made an offer on a short sale last week. I"m in SW Florida, where house prices are more depressed than just about anywhere else. Houses are CHEAP AS FUCK right now in my area.

Short sales are a pain in the ass, tho. The seller must first agree to the price, then it goes to the bank, which takes months. Then they usually come back with a higher number and "round and "round you go.

Getting my hands on a foreclosure has been tough. They sell to investors the instant they hit the market - sight unseen. I sent in an offer on a foreclosure that was on the market for 3 days. It was already sold. It"s a dog-eat-dog buyers market here right now and the bottom has been reached.
 
Cutlery

Cutlery

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Wolfen said:
I made an offer on a short sale last week. I"m in SW Florida, where house prices are more depressed than just about anywhere else. Houses are CHEAP AS FUCK right now in my area.

Short sales are a pain in the ass, tho. The seller must first agree to the price, then it goes to the bank, which takes months. Then they usually come back with a higher number and "round and "round you go.

Getting my hands on a foreclosure has been tough. They sell to investors the instant they hit the market - sight unseen. I sent in an offer on a foreclosure that was on the market for 3 days. It was already sold. It"s a dog-eat-dog buyers market here right now and the bottom has been reached.
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Entirely the opposite here. The only houses on the market now are complete pieces of shit. Everyone who has a house worth something took it off the market because they won"t get what it"s worth. There are a few exceptions, but those are people still clinging to the hope that they"ll get 300k for their 175k house, and they"ve been listed forever.

Everything else either needs 120k in retaining wall work, a new roof, or is completely trashed inside. And the prices just keep going down.
 
AladainAF

AladainAF

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Several 4/3 in the Austin area for around 115k or so non-foreclosures, housing prices here are really stable, pretty much exactly what its been for years.

I was thinking of picking one up but decided to just refinance what I got instead.
 
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Wolfen_foh

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House I looked at today is 1877 sq. ft. under air. 3/2/2/. Two years old and in great shape. Super kitchen with nice appliances. Very nice house with nothing damaged. Short sale asking price: $54,900. It appraised two years ago at $336,000. There are hundreds just like this one.

Edit: Oh yeah, I made an offer.
 
Cutlery

Cutlery

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Wolfen said:
House I looked at today is 1877 sq. ft. under air. 3/2/2/. Two years old and in great shape. Super kitchen with nice appliances. Very nice house with nothing damaged. Short sale asking price: $54,900. It appraised two years ago at $336,000. There are hundreds just like this one.

Edit: Oh yeah, I made an offer.
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That doesn"t make any sense at all. Short sale is the last stop before foreclosure, it"s what the bank will take to pay off the loan. If they paid 336 for it 2 years ago and only need 55k to pay off the loan, there"s something there that doesn"t stir the kool-aid. They could refi that and turn it into a $200 a month payment. If you managed to pay off 280k of house in 2 years, you have no issues with owing 55k.
 
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Wolfen_foh

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TheCutlery said:
That doesn"t make any sense at all. Short sale is the last stop before foreclosure, it"s what the bank will take to pay off the loan. If they paid 336 for it 2 years ago and only need 55k to pay off the loan, there"s something there that doesn"t stir the kool-aid. They could refi that and turn it into a $200 a month payment. If you managed to pay off 280k of house in 2 years, you have no issues with owing 55k.
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The owner didn"t pay that much off. With a short sale, the seller keeps lowering the price until they start to get offers. The market is so depressed here that it takes a price this low to get an offer. If the seller agrees to the price, then it goes to the bank to see if the bank will take that amount. Again, since the market here is so amazingly bad, banks are willing to take nearly whatever they can get, even if they lose tons of money on the deal.

What will happen in this case, when it goes to the bank, they will counter offer with a higher number. I expect that counter offer to be between $60 to $65k (mega bad market again). I"ll then make another counter and see if we can agree.

I have access to site called listingbook.com. I can see what other houses in the area have sold for. They are averaging right at the asking price. It"s amazing that one can get a house that was once appraised for over $300k for around $60k, but that is exactly what is happening here.
 
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Sharmai_foh

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That still sounds insanely suspicious.... 300k down to 50K? Do you have any pictures of this house? How many inspections are you going to have?
 
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Wolfen_foh

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Sharmai said:
That still sounds insanely suspicious.... 300k down to 50K? Do you have any pictures of this house? How many inspections are you going to have?
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I know it sounds crazy, but as I said before, there are hundreds and hundreds of houses priced like this. I just can"t adequately explain how bad the housing market is here.

If my offer is accepted, I"ll have all the necessary inspections done before closing.

Some pictures...

The landscaping looks like shit because it has been vacant for awhile. And no, that"s not my car in the driveway.
 
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Sharmai_foh

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Wow nice. that is excellent condition (yard notwithstanding but it"s really not that bad)

Here in Indiana that would go for about 100-120k since it had no basement and no second floor plus another 30k for the artistic style but that style might be common where you are though.

Still an excellent find. Is it near the highway and major cities?
 
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Wolfen_foh

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Sharmai said:
Wow nice. that is excellent condition (yard notwithstanding but it"s really not that bad)

Here in Indiana that would go for about 100-120k since it had no basement and no second floor plus another 30k for the artistic style but that style might be common where you are though.

Still and excellent find. Is it near the highway and major cities?
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The style is what 99% of Florida houses look like. It"s not in BFE.
 
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Sharmai_foh

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The cabinetry and appliances look nearly brand new and almost excatly the style of what is in my house except a different color and my house was built new from centex.

I"d bet the ripped out the old cabinetry and appliances and bought that stuff new from a dying new home builder which is great news for you.

All those appliances are whirlpool gold right?
 
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Eduardo_foh

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I have a quick question for someone that might have done this before. Say I wanted to pay cash for a house instead of dealing with mortgages, etc. My question is: Do the prices that Realtors list include all the hidden fees? Closing costs, what the fuck is that? Say a house is listed at $99,000.00, is there a good chance that is all it will actually cost if I show up with a cashiers check? When paying cash, is it generally easier to talk them down in price, or are there no incentives on the sellers end when the buyer is using cash? I"m a complete house buying noob and will be researching it all very soon, just curious if anyone has ideas about this.
 
Eomer

Eomer

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No idea how it works in the US, but in Canada you have to worry about legal fees to have the title transferred by a lawyer. Pretty sure they"re the only ones that can do it. Expect about $300-500 for that. Otherwise, from what I can recall about buying my place from my brother and the condo before that, there were no other fees really, other than the realtor"s commission which comes out of the sale price anyway.

Some places have land transfer taxes as well, though. That"s some gay assed shit right there.

I don"t believe there"s really any huge incentive or bonus to being paid in cash, though.
 
Cad

Cad

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Doesn"t matter to the seller if you pay cash or not, they either get cash from you or cash from your lending institution. You still have to pay all the fees you ordinarily would have to pay, minus loan origination fees or any other fees your lending institution might charge, since obviously you wouldn"t have those. The escrow would be simpler too but I wouldn"t expect a break on that.
 
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splorge_foh

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Cad said:
Sure, building equity is great, and as soon as it is feasible, I"d buy in order to do that and not throw money away on rent. In order to be financially independent though, you need to be able to not have to rely on your job income to survive - if your house payment is costing you 33-50% of your net income (count property tax, homeowners insurance, and utilities you"ll have to pay that you don"t pay when renting along with that) and you"re not expecting any large jumps in your income anytime soon, then you"ll be stuck paying that loan off over the life of the loan. Check out how much interest you end up paying doing it that way, it offsets any equity you"ll build. On a normal $200k house, you could buy the house, pay it off in 5 years, and then buy a lamborghini to go along with it.... or you could pay the house off in 20 years and pay interest. Which is smarter?

Find a house that is somewhat below your means (whatever that is) and get it paid off, then you can do the same for a bigger house, and stepping-stone your way into the lifestyle you want. You just can"t have it right now, and be financially responsible at the same time.
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this is a completely silly argument and view of how mortgages and lending work.

on top of the obvious fact that you will live in a crappier place than you can reasonably afford, all you are saying is: pay your mortgage fast and early and you wont pay interest.

using your logic why not take it to the extreme and to pay the entire balance cash right up front, that way you wouldn"t have to pay any interest at all..

paying your mortgage down can be a good idea in certain circumstances (like when you have adjustable rates and want to lower the principal), but you are completely missing the point that LEVERAGE allows people to accrue value without having the money present. In most cases of non speculative real estate investment, property is a pretty crappy place to keep your money, especially in your own house when compared to other investment vehicles.

by paying down your mortgage in 5 years you are massively deleveraging your investment.

your aversion to debt in general is an odd viewpoint and perhaps a result of the recent financial crisis.

its really finance 101

sometimes debt can be good, for example when the stock market is in a bull run.

by borrowing from the bank at 5% to pay for your house, you can earn 10% on the stock market by investing what you would have put into paying down the mortgage. if you are aggressively paying down your mortgage, you are suffering the opportunity cost of missing what you could have earned investing it elsewhere. the same logic applies to renting vs. buying.

advocating being financial responsible and buying something within your means is always wise, and on that point i agree with you.

however, saying debt is bad and you should never be in debt is simply bad finance. in the same sense that credit cards are debt, as long as you pay them off every month i consider it to be a 30 day interest free loan.
 
Cad

Cad

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splorge said:
this is a completely silly argument and view of how mortgages and lending work.

on top of the obvious fact that you will live in a crappier place than you can reasonably afford, all you are saying is: pay your mortgage fast and early and you wont pay interest.

using your logic why not take it to the extreme and to pay the entire balance cash right up front, that way you wouldn"t have to pay any interest at all..

paying your mortgage down can be a good idea in certain circumstances (like when you have adjustable rates and want to lower the principal), but you are completely missing the point that LEVERAGE allows people to accrue value without having the money present. In most cases of non speculative real estate investment, property is a pretty crappy place to keep your money, especially in your own house when compared to other investment vehicles.

by paying down your mortgage in 5 years you are massively deleveraging your investment.

your aversion to debt in general is an odd viewpoint and perhaps a result of the recent financial crisis.

its really finance 101

sometimes debt can be good, for example when the stock market is in a bull run.

by borrowing from the bank at 5% to pay for your house, you can earn 10% on the stock market by investing what you would have put into paying down the mortgage. if you are aggressively paying down your mortgage, you are suffering the opportunity cost of missing what you could have earned investing it elsewhere. the same logic applies to renting vs. buying.

advocating being financial responsible and buying something within your means is always wise, and on that point i agree with you.

however, saying debt is bad and you should never be in debt is simply bad finance. in the same sense that credit cards are debt, as long as you pay them off every month i consider it to be a 30 day interest free loan.
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Nobody reading this board is operating at a financial level where the 5-7% difference you *can* make if you invest your home equity rather than let it sit in the property is going to make a hill of beans difference. Everyone here operates off of their job income, and my strategy allows you to do the most with that income while taking minimal risk. What if you get laid off tomorrow and yourhighly leveragedinvestment can"t be liquidated in a reasonable timeframe? What if you take a bath on your other investments trying to liquidate to pay mortgages?

My way, you don"t give the bank a lot of money in interest, you don"t run the risk of getting your home foreclosed, and in return for that, you give up living in a bling-bling house that you can dubiously afford (for a little while) and 5-7% income.

I"ll take the security of my home every time. If that causes me to fail finance 101, I"m okay with that.
 
T

Tortfeasor the Damphair_foh

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splorge said:
this is a completely silly argument and view of how mortgages and lending work.

on top of the obvious fact that you will live in a crappier place than you can reasonably afford, all you are saying is: pay your mortgage fast and early and you wont pay interest.

using your logic why not take it to the extreme and to pay the entire balance cash right up front, that way you wouldn"t have to pay any interest at all..

paying your mortgage down can be a good idea in certain circumstances (like when you have adjustable rates and want to lower the principal), but you are completely missing the point that LEVERAGE allows people to accrue value without having the money present. In most cases of non speculative real estate investment, property is a pretty crappy place to keep your money, especially in your own house when compared to other investment vehicles.

by paying down your mortgage in 5 years you are massively deleveraging your investment.

your aversion to debt in general is an odd viewpoint and perhaps a result of the recent financial crisis.

its really finance 101

sometimes debt can be good, for example when the stock market is in a bull run.

by borrowing from the bank at 5% to pay for your house, you can earn 10% on the stock market by investing what you would have put into paying down the mortgage. if you are aggressively paying down your mortgage, you are suffering the opportunity cost of missing what you could have earned investing it elsewhere. the same logic applies to renting vs. buying.

advocating being financial responsible and buying something within your means is always wise, and on that point i agree with you.

however, saying debt is bad and you should never be in debt is simply bad finance. in the same sense that credit cards are debt, as long as you pay them off every month i consider it to be a 30 day interest free loan.
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It will always make more financial sense to take the money you would have used to pay off your mortgage and actually invest it. However, most people don"t seek to pay off their mortgage for purely economic reasons. It gives people a warm and fuzzy feeling to have their house paid off. It kinda goes with the American Dream ideal. Finance gurus have written entire books about stripping all your home equity and investing it and their arguments are 100% valid, but there will always be savvy intelligent people who will read those books and choose to ignore them.
 
Aychamo BanBan

Aychamo BanBan

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Wolfen said:
I know it sounds crazy, but as I said before, there are hundreds and hundreds of houses priced like this. I just can"t adequately explain how bad the housing market is here.

If my offer is accepted, I"ll have all the necessary inspections done before closing.

Some pictures...

The landscaping looks like shit because it has been vacant for awhile. And no, that"s not my car in the driveway.
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That house was at some point $300,000? The inside is all builder-grade low cost stuff.
 
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