Go live in a heated doghouse.
- Vote on answer
- posted
18 years ago
Go live in a heated doghouse.
Water in the basement or crawlspace. Don't trust a real estate agent. Don't tell them what you earn unless you are in a state that has special laws which require the buyer's agent to work for the buyer even though he might get paid from money from the seller. Pay for a home inspection and use one not recommended by your agent who wants the sale to go thru. Put in any offer "this contract is subject to approval by my attorney" and have an attorney look at the contract. If you live in a state with termites, that is something else to worry about. If your gut doesn't like a house, stay away from it. Think about resale.
Sounds like you have a good handle on what to look for already. Last time we moved my wife kept looking at all the older houses with charm and character. She saw charm and character, I saw the need for a lot of renovation. We finally found a 3 year old house that was "move in" condition. After 24 years, I'm still in good shape repair wise and kept making small improvements and update. No major plumbing or electrical work needed.
I brink this up because we looked at about 20 houses before buying. Don't get discouraged and don't listen to the sales pitch. Our realtor always brought out the positive things of a house, like how easy it would be to put jacks under the floors of a 100 year old house! Don't sign on the dotted line until you are satisfied the house will fit your needs.
To add one more thing, I would stay away from brick unless you know a mason who can tell you it was put up properly. Most brick veneer construction is missing flashing or has inadequate brick ties.
Well, maybe. I didn't look at this house before they bought it. I kinda wonder if they did either. All the old wiring stuff didn't really rear its ugly head until after they moved in and started to change light bulbs and plug in all their electronics. Seems like every time they move something, they find something else that needs fixing- took the cabinets down to find water damage behind them on the walls, stuff like that. Took down the wall to discover both a leaking roof and some leaking plumbing.
Yeah, I know what you mean. I like character and charm too, but I'm not interested in putting 8 hours of work into a house every day after getting home from work.
Her big thing is that (once again) she wants a farmette with some pets. Couple of dogs, half a dozen goats, some chickens. I can toadilly appreciate that too, but I can't see it happening. There is only *one* place that we can afford that is like that, and my gut feeling is *NO* all the way.
Unfortunately, I think she's rather disenchanted with househunting now, and every place we look at this weekend will be measured against "the farmhouse" and will (obviously) fall short.
I think one of the biggest things to look for are cracks in the drywall above doors and windows, and/or doors that don't seem to fit properly. Settling is very expensive to fix. If you don't trust your own judgment about home condition, you'd be a lot better off finding a friend in the construction business than hiring an inspector out of the phone book. Inspectors are often recommended by real-estate agents, and they don't want to tick one off by saying to much; also their liability is often quite limited in their contract. Don't get in a hurry or fall in love with a house, there will be others.
But true...altho I realized I moved a set of numbers up inadvertently...it was only something in the $200k when they bought it, not $300k, but the net result is the same...after the oil bust, they couldn't give it away--the only practical alternative was to let the bank come get it. ...
My slow dialup makes that impractical, but in such a small market there's going to be a range. I was speaking mostly of larger developments where one doesn't want to be the extreme--from the resale standpoint, it makes a place much more difficult to move.
In general, that's true--but how long it might take to recover is anybody's guess and would depend on many things that are impossible to predict.
My personal feeling is if one doesn't over extend on a mortgage and has reasonable expectations of returns, it is still a good time to buy...interest rates are only going to go up for the forseeable future and if one has good credit one should be able to still lock in a good rate. I don't think this is a good time to get snookered in by the low early rates w/ possible higher rates later on unless the limits are quite well defined and you _fully_ understand the conditions and the possible ramifications of any provision that you sign on to.
If, as you seem to think, housing in the area hasn't increased exorbitantly in the area to date, that makes it a better bet at present imo. I don't know much about Madison other than having been there some nearly 30 years ago on recruiting trips for my then employer so I don't know anything about the current economic patterns. If that looks stable for the foreseeable future despite the obvious problems, that's also a good sign. Major university towns tend to have a lot of tech and related stuff that is relatively immune to major problems such as the automakers, but there _can_ be real problems in those places, too.
Do I have a crystal ball? :)
Buy now. Unless the prices are grossly inflated in your area ($90k to $135k seems reasonable), then the sooner you buy the better the potential for profiting from market increases. Of course, if the market then goes down, then you can do your waiting...
" when I tried the A/C there was no cooling, had it inspected and found out it had no refrigerant and was told due to the age of the unit , about 18 years old it, was not feasible to try and find the leak to repair it.We're still trying to settle that with the lawyers. If the vendor has nothing to hide or fear they shouldn't object to some sort of " ass covering".
Let me get this right. You bought a house with a A/C system that is 18 years old, had it inspected in December thought they couldn't run it, with a closing date in April, find out in June that the A/C doesn't work and you want compensation and are wasting time with lawyers? Any home inspector will tell you that an 18 year old A/C system is at the end of it's usefull life, whether it's running or not. Plus anyone could have turned it on during a walk through in April to verify if it runs. So, talk about ass covering, I don't see where the seller owes you anything.
"phaeton" wrote on 20 Oct 2005:
You've asked the question in a way that focuses everyone on the mechanical status of the house. That's fine, but there's nothing mechanical that can't be fixed at some cost.
There are, however, things that can never be fixed, and before you buy, you need to know what you're getting into.
1) Quality of the local schools. If the schools are bad, that means your house will be worth less, and there will be fewer interested buyers. And if you have kids, it will mean $$ for private schools. 2) Quality of the neighborhood. Drive (or better, walk) around during weekends, the day, at night, during rush hour. Does it seem safe? Nice neighbors? Well-kept houses? No dogs barking all night? Check on the crime rate (police can tell you this). Neighborhood association exists? Traffic?Remember, real estate agents may bypass bad parts of the neighborhood when getting you to the house to give you a favorable impression.
3) Commute. Drive your route to work in the morning and drive home in the evening. If you have to wait 20 minutes just to get out of your neighborhood, or 5 minutes to get out of your driveway, you'd better love long commutes.
Be aware that home inspectors make most of their money from real estate agent's referrals.
If they consistently discover problems that blow the agent's deal they won't get more referrals.
Never go with an inspector recommended by the agent.
Still, even if you find your own inspector he still would LIKE to get future referrals from your agent.
Home inspectors are important and should be used, but don't bet the farm on what they say.
Of course if you have a personal friend who inspects homes you have the best possible situation.
And the inspector will tell you that he has errors and omissions insurance, so if he misses something it will be covered by his policy. WRONG.
need to know what you're getting into.
Yes, and true. And I've got a mixed bag of data in that regard. We looked at 7 properties this weekend, and made a point to drive around the neighbourhood (would have walked, but it was cold and pouring rain, and I've come down with some walking death hack in the last couple of days). Three places were fair, one was 'interestingly odd', one made us run screaming from and two have made us consider putting an offer on.
One is a small "Swiss Tudor" style house that is in a small town called Cambridge. Cambridge seems to be a relatively upscale area- UW Madison is about 30 minutes away and a goodly lot of the college *graduates* that stay in WI tend to settle in Cambridge. Not wild college kids, but the graduates that are ready to start careers and families. It is on a quiet street and the houses around it seem to be about the same caliber. Nice area. The house itself is about 1100 sq ft- very open and very 'simple'. Minimal yard, no garage, no basement (all three bummers) but it has a brand new gas water heater and boiler. Small, clean, and afaik completely solid and nothing at all wrong with it other than some minor cosmetics. It's about 20 years old.
The other is an older house that has been completely remodeled on the inside. Everything was new and included. There were two other houses for sale on the same street (two of which were next door to each other). They're all about the same cost but this one was the gem. There were a lot of other houses for sale in this town. I expected to see brand new toxic waste dump or nuclear test ground somewhere near by, but there was none. Asked one of the realtors why everyone was moving out of town. She says "houses here don't sell quite as fast as they do in Madison or Deforest, so they will sit on the market for 4 or
5 months and they tend to pile up." That could be good news or bad news, i take it.In this house, All the floors were level and solid. Still not much of a yard to speak of, but a single car garage. Has an unfinished but clean and tidy basement with a slightly low ceiling. New roof on the house itself, but not on either the front nor rear porch. Saw some water stains in the front porch, and both porches have sank a little bit. They haven't pulled away from the house afaict but I'm curious to see what the home inspector says about how hard it would be to jack them up and refoot them. One section of the basement didn't appear to have working lighting (yeah, shame on me for not bringing a flashlight) so I couldn't see the wiring panel nor the water heater and gas boiler (this one also has the oldschool radiators in every room). The realtor says he's pretty sure that they were all new but I'd still like to see them or have our home inspector tell me that they are. All in all a very liveable place. Too bad it has no yard. I'm actually surprised that the missus liked this house (she didn't even want to look at it, i set up the showing behind her back).
The other two on this street were about the same, except one was remodeled by the owner (with some interesting choices) and it was a pretty good sized house with a decent floor plan. The other was slightly smaller with more old woodwork, but it just didn't do anything for us. Both of them (they were next door to each other) had an electrical substation up against the back yard. I could hear it hum from inside the house, and had no interest in being anywhere near that thing. They were also right next to the tracks and we got to witness a coal train and an amtrak fly by. bleh.
Another place was neat, but it listed two things on the data sheet that probably should have tipped me off- one is that it has an artesian well on the property, and that sometimes with heavy rains you might see "some water in the basement". When we actually got to the place, the first thing I looked for was a bilge pump in the basement, and there was one, about a foot off the floor- brand new, in fact. But then I looked at the walls and support posts and the watermark was about waist high, and looked like it got hit frequently. Yikes. Too bad too, it was a nice house also with brand new everything- stove, fridge, dishwasher, central air and heat, washer, dryer, two new bathrooms all less than a year old.
The one we ran away screaming from actually gave me a bad feeling the minute I walked into the door. Floors all sank to the middle of the house, none of the doors fit, most of the windows looked trapezoidal and none of them would budge. All the walls were covered in something hideous and the basement was a total nightmare. Knob and tube wiring that looked like it had been patched, bypassed, reworked or otherwise butchered a thousand times over and sealed up with duct tape, masking tape, twine or sometimes just left bare. Also, in the basement it was very apparent that the house was indeed caving in on itself. And never mind all the junk and trash all in it, the horrible smell, and the pile of dead ducks in the garage.
The final house was, "interesting". Word on the street was that the owner was an elderly lady, about a thousand years old. Her husband (now dead) built the house, and later went insane. My guess is that he was well on the way when building the house. It was neat though- all kinds of secret passages and hidden rooms throughout. It was billed as a "3 bdrm house with a 2bdrm apt". It could have been recombined or left separate. It was huge, about 3030 sq feet and the tour of it reminded me of The Shining when they were going through the resort lodge. I was not prepared for the massiveness of this house. We went through room after room, each of them grand and spacious, then the
2bdrm apartment on the other side, also quite luxurious. Then we went through the basement. Yet another labrynth of rooms, passageways and halls. There must have been about 8 more finished rooms down there. 10 foot ceiling all through the basement. Two oil furnaces, a gas water heater and an oil water heater. Never seen one of those before. I was already overwhelmed and thinking to myself "this place rocks, but it's just way too much house to maintain".Federal Pacific fuse panel. Yep- fuses. No wonder most of the electrical outlets in the house were 2-prong. Lots of intricate plumbing that looked about 5 years away from failure, some had already blown up and been fixed. One basement room had a bit of damage from a water heater explosion. And it had other issues- seemed like the whole house was gradually leaning to one side, and the basement of all things seemed to slope in all sorts of directions. Either the house was built a piece at a time and there were many slabs under the basement flooring, or it was all one big slab that was cracking and sinking. I had already written the place off by then but it was still a bummer to see that it was probably all going to come down soon one way or another.
One end of the basement was under the garage, with a concrete ceiling and beams. Underneath it was easily enough room to put 2 more cars, and it looked like they had closed up a garage door down there.
Oh well. It was a fun experience, that last house. So odd, but in a neat way. It was like taking a tour of a fortress or something. If it didn't make me guilty wasting the realtor's time, I would almost ask for a second showing just to see it again.
That's kind of how I was thinking. And fwiw there were a lot of houses in the area (a couple more on the same street) that were for sale and they were all about the same $$.
Now it's time to find out why everyone's moving out ;)
"phaeton" wrote on 24 Oct 2005:
Walmart going in down the block? Street being widened? Schools being consolidated with another town?
Real estate agents of the more shady variety won't disclose such things because "they haven't been approved, only proposed."
It's perhaps a good idea to stop by "city hall" and see what you can find out about proposed changes. Public librarians can be helpful too. And of course a good buyer's agent would tell you those things right up front.
I enjoyed your description of the houses. Remember, all that stuff can be fixed for a price. If the house price is low enough, you can get a terrific deal if you don't mind putting up with some construction while you are living there.
well hell... I was starting to dig up data from the EPA and DNR website about possible hazardous material contamination in the area and the missus just flipped the fence and decided on a different house we saw (the small, simple tudor house).
Somehow, that is a relief. *shrugs*
Ahh yes. The small Tudor house. No garage, no basement. Mow the entire lawn with a push mower in about 1 beer (or about 12 minutes). No surprises, no secrets. WYSIWYG. Not a lot of opportunity to change stuff around, but it's small enough that you could almost say, retile the kitchen floor on a whim and then with minimal guilt change it again later on if you don't like it. Older woman selling it because she's getting married and moving in with Mr. Man. The house also has a gas boiler system but I bet it's small enough that a couple of small, modern space heaters would heat it nicely. Hell, we could probably even heat the house with all of our computers. hah!
I hear mixed things about gas boilers and their efficiencies and PITA value.
I might be able to pour a slab and build a porch or sun room on the back. That would be a nice project to attempt in a couple of years or so.
I enjoyed telling the stories about the houses, thanks for listening. I truncated them quite a bit though. I could have rambled on for another dozen pages (i'm like that) ;)
HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.