ksdaddy Posted June 3, 2011 Share Posted June 3, 2011 Bought my 'starter' house in 1983 for $13,000. Been there ever since. I must be a slow starter. Starting a new life now. I'm selling it to my daughter for a token amount of money and I will keep the deed until it's paid. I go in to my bank on June 8th to pre-qualify. The prices of houses have given me a heart attack but I want to be prepared in case some ungodly deal comes up. I make good money for this area and my total debt is about $780 (yes, $780). Financing will not be a problem. I have about $10K in cash but most of that will be going into a much needed roof and bathroom on my old house... way overdue... way WAY overdue. I have a home equity loan still open on the old house with a zero balance so I can tap into that for the 10% down payment on a new one. Time to go shopping. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr. Natural Posted June 3, 2011 Share Posted June 3, 2011 Happy house-hunting! I'm doing the same thing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BigKahune Posted June 3, 2011 Share Posted June 3, 2011 . Good luck with the crazy housing market. B) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Riffster Posted June 3, 2011 Share Posted June 3, 2011 Prices and interest rates are great right now, I am sure a change of surroundings will do you good. I refinanced our house at the killer rate of 3.375% a few months ago, I reduced the loan by 11 full years for almost the same previous payment. It certainly makes up for the loss of value of our house. There are some good deals out there that are tempting, we are saving for an even nicer house since houses valued at $300K or more have taken more of a beating in the Nashville area and I feel it is a good opportunity. We already have the 20% but I am saving fo another year to have a cushion. When we move I will rent our current house, I can easily rent this 2,300 sqft house for little over the mortgage payment and in 14 years it will be paid for. Good luck on your search and I would advice you to go to a Mortgage company to get a better rate faster, Banks move slowly due to corporate policies and just workflow, processes, etc. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
retrosurfer1959 Posted June 3, 2011 Share Posted June 3, 2011 Good Luck ksdaddy change and a new start is good sometimes especially after what you've been through. There's some good buys out there right now but it get's weird fast in the mortgage world right now. I've bought three homes so far this year all at really good prices and all needing some work. Sadly rentals are even worse right now easy to find renters but it can be pretty hard to get them to pay. So many people that are in the rental market right now have screwed up credit already so they don't care, I had one last month that was a month past due after being late 3 out of six months just move out in the middle of the night. Weird thing was they took every lightbulb in the house and one of the three toilet seats with them not sure why they took one toilet seat maybe one of them had bonded with it? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G McBride Posted June 3, 2011 Share Posted June 3, 2011 Your guitars have outgrown your starter home, haven't they? I hope you find one with a nice workshop and a music room. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChanMan Posted June 3, 2011 Share Posted June 3, 2011 Bless you, your new home and your new start sir! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stevef Posted June 4, 2011 Share Posted June 4, 2011 +1 on chanman's blessings... Enjoy the thrill of spending money!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tazzboy Posted June 4, 2011 Share Posted June 4, 2011 Best in luck on finding the right house and remember the three words of Real Estate. Location, Location, Location. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ksdaddy Posted June 4, 2011 Author Share Posted June 4, 2011 Went to the lumber place this morning and coughed up $1430 for roofing material. By the time I got home the daughter's BF had a whole bunch of the roof already stripped. My daughter is helping too. The 1981 boards on the garage are in surprisingly good shape and the 1959 boards on the house look good so far. They delivered a rolloff for the debris. I finally go fixing this house up and now I'll be handing it over! I'd like to do vinyl siding later this summer. Depends on the budget. I keep going and she'll end up getting the house for free. The plan is to sell it to her for $200/mo for 5 years, then $250/mo for another 5. Works out to $27K, which is the price of a new car. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
daveinspain Posted June 4, 2011 Share Posted June 4, 2011 Went to the lumber place this morning and coughed up $1430 for roofing material. By the time I got home the daughter's BF had a whole bunch of the roof already stripped. My daughter is helping too. The 1981 boards on the garage are in surprisingly good shape and the 1959 boards on the house look good so far. They delivered a rolloff for the debris. I finally go fixing this house up and now I'll be handing it over! I'd like to do vinyl siding later this summer. Depends on the budget. I keep going and she'll end up getting the house for free. The plan is to sell it to her for $200/mo for 5 years, then $250/mo for another 5. Works out to $27K, which is the price of a new car. Congratulations on being a good Father... And congratulations on your new home as well. Just a note, please be careful and buy something you can handle even if things suddenly change.... Best of luck!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TommyK Posted June 5, 2011 Share Posted June 5, 2011 Good luck Scott. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Californiaman Posted June 5, 2011 Share Posted June 5, 2011 There are deals to be made out there. Be patient. Be persistent in your search. Of course you're on the right track by getting pre-qualified. Good luck. You'll know when it's the right house for you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fl00dsm0k3 Posted June 5, 2011 Share Posted June 5, 2011 we re modeled our kitchen about two years ago Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TommyK Posted June 6, 2011 Share Posted June 6, 2011 I thought you had that cabin in the woods. Maybe you could update that? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ksdaddy Posted June 6, 2011 Author Share Posted June 6, 2011 Lynn and I must have looked at 20 houses yesterday, mostly drive-bys punctuated by me rapidly accelerating away. One keeps haunting me though. A 3 BR ranch with garage on 2+ acres. It's suffering from some neglect but seemingly cosmetic (so far). Built in 1964 and for the most part it has retained that 'look'. Rob and Laura Petrie could have lived there. It's not 'turn key' but not a 'fixer-upper' either. Petrie New Rochelle model Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ne14t? Posted June 6, 2011 Share Posted June 6, 2011 Lynn and I must have looked at 20 houses yesterday, mostly drive-bys punctuated by me rapidly accelerating away. One keeps haunting me though. A 3 BR ranch with garage on 2+ acres. It's suffering from some neglect but seemingly cosmetic (so far). Built in 1964 and for the most part it has retained that 'look'. Rob and Laura Petrie could have lived there. It's not 'turn key' but not a 'fixer-upper' either. Petrie New Rochelle model Man $69K nothing for a house like that on a nice piece of land, if you wanted to get that type of housing here in Vancouver you looking at probably about $600,000 to start depending on how close it is to downtown and the condition of the house. A friend of my sisters purchased a small parcel of land, probably 0.5 acres, with a really crappy rancher on it, spent $120K and change lived on the property for 10 years and turned around and sold it for just shy of $700,000 so the new owners could rip it down and put a huge ugly arse house on the entire lot, then the remainder of the grass is covered with gravel or asphalt. They tried selling the house, for two yeas it sat listed at $1.2million and I dont think I ever saw anyone go look at it, so much was wrong with the place that nobody in there right mind would bother getting into something like that. Housing here is a nutty market though, if you got cash to spare and can buy houses in Vancouver its nothing but profit in the long run. I have been looking at upgrading to a place I can call my own, and well even a Condo here I am looking at about $320,000 to start and it just goes up from there, somedays I wonder if I will even be able to afford a house, each year housing costs go up, taxes go up, in general the whole cost of living goes up, yet wages always remain the same. Vancouver is braded as the nicest city in Canada, but its also the most expensive, I would have to say at least 30% of the work force in Vancouver is probably still living below the poverty line, you need to take home about $28,000 minimum here to not be considered poor. And I dont mean like the governemnt gives you food stamps poor, because sadly you make enough money not to qualify for food stamps, income assistance or food bank handouts; however your still poor enough that you might be wondering what you will eat come the following week. Anywho enough with the stupid depressing stuff, good luck and happy house hunting! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Riffster Posted June 7, 2011 Share Posted June 7, 2011 That's a nice setting, more than 2 acres, charming rustic-ish house, nice size garage and the woods look great. I would love to have that kind of land, I am sitting on a quarter acre in a subdivision. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ksdaddy Posted June 7, 2011 Author Share Posted June 7, 2011 I like that house but my 'fixer-upper' nature needs to be kept in check. Lynn and I have discussed it and she brings me down to Earth. "Why spend $60,000 on a piece of _____ and then have to put another $40,000 into it?" I know the prices seem low to some of you, but the prospect of paying $135,000 (avg) for a 3 bedroom ranch frightens the crap out of me. Those are just numbers beyond my comprehension. But I can see the advantage of paying more up front and then being able to move in and enjoy it from Day One. A big thing with me is location. I mean to say it's not just picking a good location, I'm kinda specific. I work in the next town south and where I'm located now it's about an 11 mile drive. I don't want to increase that if I can help it. Lynn is an RN but she left her job a couple years ago due to family issues (not pretty; she was in an abusive relationship to the point of her not being able to perform at work)... she is rabid to get back into the field and will likely want to work at the hospital in town, which is only a 5 mile drive from here. If my house collapsed into the ground like the Amityville Horror house, then I'd just buy a new modular and put it on this lot. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TommyK Posted June 7, 2011 Share Posted June 7, 2011 Dang Scott, If I didn't know better the linked home looks a lot like your old one with a bigger garage door. One advantage to buying a 60K house then puting 40K into it. If you put the 40K into it a little at a time and don't finance it, you keep more of Scott's money in Scott's pocket. Modular is not a bad way to go. Our house is a modular. Some mods come together one room at a time like a box of Legos. Ours came together in two halves, split down the ridge roll. I call it a pull-together. My wife doesn't like the term, as it is the same term used to describe some livestock buildings. But, because it is towed down the road in halves, they made the outside walls out of 2x6 lumber so that it doesn't fly apart at 65 mph. This thing retains winter heat and summer cool. When I got home last night, our house was 10 degrees cooler than outside with no air conditioning. Granted, it was 90 outside and 80 inside, but it was cooler. Most modulars have 2x4 outside stud walls. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Riffster Posted June 7, 2011 Share Posted June 7, 2011 Just make sure you assess the property well and know what you are getting into. Sure fixing a home can be a big task but you can do that, location on the other hand cannot be changed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ksdaddy Posted June 7, 2011 Author Share Posted June 7, 2011 We looked at one house this weekend and I want us to take a second look. It's an older house, 20s or 30s. A few years back (I swear this is true, I couldn't make it up) a Sheriff went off the road, the car went airborne, and smashed through the kitchen wall. I think it was rented at the time and just became semi-abandoned. In 2007 a guy began renovating it and using it for storage for his electrical business. That snowballed into major renovations... roof, furnace, windows, siding... a peek inside shows bare plywood on the living room floor and a few rough edges. It has a nice deck out back, it's on Route 1, and it's about 1 mile south of where Lynn and I currently live. She has an apartment just up the road from this house and I live about a mile north on a road that runs parallel to Route 1. So it's very close! The guy that owns it is currently in jail. Yesterday the price was $79,000. Today the price is $59,000. http://www.progressiverealty.net/detail.asp?key=19349 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Riffster Posted June 7, 2011 Share Posted June 7, 2011 2-story, 2,000 sqft on an acre lot for $59K?...blows my mind, it really does. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TommyK Posted June 7, 2011 Share Posted June 7, 2011 2-story, 2,000 sqft on an acre lot for $59K?...blows my mind, it really does. Location, location, location. House like that, 60 miles east of me would bring a couple mil. 60 miles south and west of me, 59K sounds about right, Where I sit, it would probably bring a quarter mil. Where my FIL lives in No.Arkansas? You'd be lucky to get 20K out of it. Oh, and my FIL's taxes were $200 last year. Most people down there worry about coming up with that much property tax each year. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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