The Super Official Homeowners Thread

[Deceus]

I spent 30 years in Fairfax and Loudoun County - never stepped foot in Massanutten once but have been to all the other places mentioned. shrug

Remember you have to deduct your mortgage interest from your gain. You aren't making 6% on the full house amount, you're making 6% on your equity and roughly 3% on your mortgaged value. Based on your numbers, you're making about 4.25% to keep the place. That's a losing prospect against the market. Don't forget it would also cost money to refinance and put money down for PMI. Subtract more if you're paying someone to manage the property. I think a 2-3% rate of return is more accurate in your situation.

What's the break even on refinancing and closing costs? It's got to be a few years. Seems crazy to me to refinance if you think you might sell it before you break even... especially if you don't need to get from under the VA loan at this point.

Break even is as low as 2-3 years, obviously depends on the rate I get and the exact closing costs but wouldn't take long if I went from 4.6% to 3%. Won't need to for sure but would like to have full eligibility back ASAP so I'm free to move on anything I see as fast as I need to. Would hate for something perfect to pop up just a little early in my planned timeline, priced well and have to miss out again because I need 45 days to get funding or barely miss out because it's not quite done processing. I won't lose any sleep if I sell super early for some unforeseeable reason and the move cost me a 2 or 3 grand so I'm just gonna start the process now.

Not putting money in the market this year regardless but my point of view is this:

$350k * 3% is still 10.5k not counting rental income. $35k * 15% is 5.25k. I know the market overall is better but shorter term I'd still only gain half what I could simply holding onto the house. And that assumes I have the discpline to put it all in. The real deal breaker is it just doesn't feel safe putting money in unless there's another big dip. My luck, this long run comes to an end the day I drop a couple ten thousand into it. May consider selling and putting the house profit into the market when it does drop though. That's a different conversation for a different day. Right now I'm just trying to maintain momentum and build up something worth talking about.

I know there's a break even point there too especially if I considered throwing what would be money paid to rental expenses into the pot every single month but I know I'm not going to do that. The hidden benefit of the real estate route is it leaves me no choose but to be all in.

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[D_Eclipse9916]

I spent 30 years in Fairfax and Loudoun County - never stepped foot in Massanutten once but have been to all the other places mentioned. shrug

Remember you have to deduct your mortgage interest from your gain. You aren't making 6% on the full house amount, you're making 6% on your equity and roughly 3% on your mortgaged value. Based on your numbers, you're making about 4.25% to keep the place. That's a losing prospect against the market. Don't forget it would also cost money to refinance and put money down for PMI. Subtract more if you're paying someone to manage the property. I think a 2-3% rate of return is more accurate in your situation.

What's the break even on refinancing and closing costs? It's got to be a few years. Seems crazy to me to refinance if you think you might sell it before you break even... especially if you don't need to get from under the VA loan at this point.

He is renting it out. ROI should be in the 15-20% on equity. I wouldn’t invest 6 hours away in massunetten though. Heck I’m not even investing where I live which is why I’m 45 minutes from them.


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[Jake]

I would not want to be tied to a rental property in Harrisonburg, dependent on tourism to a not-top-of-mind ski resort, amid a global pandemic, while living six hours away.

You do you but I'd vote to just sell the place and go.

[Deceus]

Eh, long story short: apparently I'm crazy but I've made up my mind. Definitely keeping the house for at least a year and definitely going to rent a 3 bedroom place in Charlotte at some point. Not sure what I was thinking trying to pull the trigger on a house so soon, probably "I'm never going to rent ever again" but that's 110% the smart move. Going to hold out on that as long as I can since it's not super clear when exactly anyone is going back to the offices at BoA. That'll give me 4-5 months to get a feel for the job without stressing living situation or move at all. It also gives me time to set things up here. Being six hours away is less than ideal but I'll hardly be the first person to ever manage an Airbnb that way. Most of those issues have solutions and it won't be that difficult to find a property manager either.

I get the feeling Massanutten isn't well regarded here but did some digging through some Airbnb data analytics. It matches what I've tracked and what I experienced renting the room out last year. Even with a 45% occupancy rate and an average house I'm likely to clear $50,000/year in revenue. That's definitely on the low end and I'll likely be looking at closer to $60,000. I already have to deal with the tax non-sense this year, might as well see if this business will scale. I have 2 whole weeks with nothing to do thanks to an unexpected severance so definitely have the time to cover all my bases and nail down all the expenses before committing to anything.

[Apoc]

Given your job and living situation history, being able to move back into your house if shit goes awry probably isn't a bad idea.

Do airbnb analytics factor in COVID impacts on demand?

[Deceus]

Given your job and living situation history, being able to move back into your house if shit goes awry probably isn't a bad idea.

Do airbnb analytics factor in COVID impacts on demand?

Yes



Pretty big hit in March, April and May. Immediate return to pre-covid levels in June. Definitely matches what I've seen in person. Looks like the average nightly rate dipped from $330 to $210 for the 3 months. Significant but not life ruining for sure. This data is skewed a bit by the time shares the resort keeps listed on the site. They're always listed available and you're basically just transferred to their booking process after you pay on AirBnb.

And yeah that's another huge personal benefit. Unless I absolutely fall in love with Bank of America, I'm also likely moving back to a full time remote job sometime in the next 5 years. Could be sooner if BoA doesn't work out. I did actually land one right when I accepted with BoA and gotta say it was tempting to back out but I'll take the higher rate for now. Would be nice to have a choice between the 2 areas when that time comes if I can.

[Apoc]

Show me the comparison to last June if you want me to be a believer.

[Deceus]

March actually wasn't much worse than last year. April was where the real impact was for sure. June is about on par with last year with regards to revenue but looks like rates haven't quite caught up. Lotta people probably decided to throw caution to the wind and take advantage of the lower rates I'm guessing. Would love to see more growth but supply also doubled (43 properties to 88) in that same time so I'd say things are pretty good. I'm surprised the fall is so low but equally surprised summer time is so high.

The current plan is to have a 2 night min and just block off Mondays. Basically make is so people are either staying Tues-Thur, Fri-Sun or Thur-Sun. That should make it real easy to manage, don't care if it leaves money on the table. Hoping to get it running like clock work and just have cleaning service come by Sunday/Thursday just after check-out time and have the property manager swing by in the evening.

Worse case it's a total pain in my ass and I just sell since that's always an option.

[JustinG]

Wife and I have decided to build again, moving to the neighborhood beside us for a little more privacy (wooded lot, back yard butts up to protected wetland) and some extras we'd like to have now that there are 2 kids. When we built this house, we had said 1 was enough, but we changed our mind.

For those who have built, what do you wish you had done in hindsight.

For those of you who haven't, what would you do if you did build.

Looking for anything, like

Generator hook up
Outlets in the soffit for holiday lighting
Pot filler

Anything you can think of.

[WRXtranceformed]

Eh, long story short: apparently I'm crazy but I've made up my mind. Definitely keeping the house for at least a year and definitely going to rent a 3 bedroom place in Charlotte at some point. Not sure what I was thinking trying to pull the trigger on a house so soon, probably "I'm never going to rent ever again" but that's 110% the smart move. Going to hold out on that as long as I can since it's not super clear when exactly anyone is going back to the offices at BoA. That'll give me 4-5 months to get a feel for the job without stressing living situation or move at all. It also gives me time to set things up here. Being six hours away is less than ideal but I'll hardly be the first person to ever manage an Airbnb that way. Most of those issues have solutions and it won't be that difficult to find a property manager either.

I get the feeling Massanutten isn't well regarded here but did some digging through some Airbnb data analytics. It matches what I've tracked and what I experienced renting the room out last year. Even with a 45% occupancy rate and an average house I'm likely to clear $50,000/year in revenue. That's definitely on the low end and I'll likely be looking at closer to $60,000. I already have to deal with the tax non-sense this year, might as well see if this business will scale. I have 2 whole weeks with nothing to do thanks to an unexpected severance so definitely have the time to cover all my bases and nail down all the expenses before committing to anything.

Haven't been on the forums in a while but just saw you're looking at moving to my neck of the woods in CLT.  If you need some advice on what part of town to rent in and not to rent in, just shoot me a DM.

[Sully]

Which one? Summer lake?

Pot filler would be cool. Networking in every room maybe? I mean you guys may have super cool mesh networks but at least for the streaming devices in every room, might be nice.

More outlets in the garage for sure. I figured I'd have to add my own but I guess I never realized you'd only get like 2 for the entire garage. Have them insulate the garage for sure before sheetrock. Maybe an extra hosebib. Maybe make sure they run extra water lines or a larger pipe size for the upstairs. Our shower is super effected by other things using water upstairs which will also probably limit us if I was to try and upgrade our shower to digital control and more heads or jets. Heated tile floor in bathroom... More recessed lighting cans. Our spec came with 4 I'm the kitchen. People who actually built, could pick more. Definitely would have added some for living room and master. The side mount direct drive garage door opener and a fan pre wire in garage.

I've been super interested in new building styles and if it's an option and you can swing it, I'd say look into a sealed controlled crawlspace. That and maybe even 2x6 engineered framed house. Probably a ton of other stuff. I'll probably be building my next house myself though. Either completely or with my company. We don't build many cause main Street gets all butt hurt about us being competition but my boss builds a pretty nice house

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[Deceus]

Eh, long story short: apparently I'm crazy but I've made up my mind. Definitely keeping the house for at least a year and definitely going to rent a 3 bedroom place in Charlotte at some point. Not sure what I was thinking trying to pull the trigger on a house so soon, probably "I'm never going to rent ever again" but that's 110% the smart move. Going to hold out on that as long as I can since it's not super clear when exactly anyone is going back to the offices at BoA. That'll give me 4-5 months to get a feel for the job without stressing living situation or move at all. It also gives me time to set things up here. Being six hours away is less than ideal but I'll hardly be the first person to ever manage an Airbnb that way. Most of those issues have solutions and it won't be that difficult to find a property manager either.

I get the feeling Massanutten isn't well regarded here but did some digging through some Airbnb data analytics. It matches what I've tracked and what I experienced renting the room out last year. Even with a 45% occupancy rate and an average house I'm likely to clear $50,000/year in revenue. That's definitely on the low end and I'll likely be looking at closer to $60,000. I already have to deal with the tax non-sense this year, might as well see if this business will scale. I have 2 whole weeks with nothing to do thanks to an unexpected severance so definitely have the time to cover all my bases and nail down all the expenses before committing to anything.

Haven't been on the forums in a while but just saw you're looking at moving to my neck of the woods in CLT.  If you need some advice on what part of town to rent in and not to rent in, just shoot me a DM.

Yeah I definitely could use some advice. I lied: I'm selling my place here and putting an offer on a place down there as soon as I'm under contract. It's a bit of leap of faith but rates are stupid low, my job is pretty chill and secure. Even if it's not there's at least 1,000 other openings for me. Moving to the west coast isn't ever going to happen and I don't think I could stand the weather in Texas so with NoVa, Seattle and Austin ruled out: Charlotte is easily my best bet career-wise. It also happens to line up with all my other interests pretty well. Might as well drop the ole anchor for real this time.

Realtor is REALLY pushing me to stick to Fort Mill/Lake Wylie mainly for schools and taxes. I don't want to deal with a single point of failure in my commute (49) so that kinda narrows it down to just Fort Mill if I want to just listen to her (i don't). Market is super hot in Fort Mill and likely won't have the time to lose a bunch of bidding wars so even that's not super attractive but definitely on the radar. Looking at a place in Huntersville near Hopewell as my #1 choice house-wise. Location-wise I was thinking North Waxhaw/Marven/Weddington area. I don't mind the idea of riding the blue line for half my commute to zone out on podcasts/coding stuff, not sure it's going to be all that great in reality though. Would be nice to not have to buy a commuter vehicle just to avoid dragging the Ram into uptown everyday. But I'm 100% open to more input. Just kinda winging it based on schools and maps at this point. No idea what a real commute is going to look like once COVID actually settles down. Was originally looking around Concord but schools are so hit and miss out there from the looks of it.

[Apoc]

The way your decision making process goes, might want to make sure that anchor isn't too heavy. 

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Wife and I have decided to build again, moving to the neighborhood beside us for a little more privacy (wooded lot, back yard butts up to protected wetland) and some extras we'd like to have now that there are 2 kids. When we built this house, we had said 1 was enough, but we changed our mind.

Revolve that door, dawg.

[JustinG]

Which one? Summer lake?

 Yea Summerlake.
Def more outlets in the garage, did that here.
Also gonna do a 220 and a couple of 40 amps out there.
Also def doing power and ethernet for the tv hookups I think like 4 are included.
Good idea on the garage fan. Prob gonna axe the included lights add ceiling outlets and plug in my own leds.

[WRXtranceformed]

Eh, long story short: apparently I'm crazy but I've made up my mind. Definitely keeping the house for at least a year and definitely going to rent a 3 bedroom place in Charlotte at some point. Not sure what I was thinking trying to pull the trigger on a house so soon, probably "I'm never going to rent ever again" but that's 110% the smart move. Going to hold out on that as long as I can since it's not super clear when exactly anyone is going back to the offices at BoA. That'll give me 4-5 months to get a feel for the job without stressing living situation or move at all. It also gives me time to set things up here. Being six hours away is less than ideal but I'll hardly be the first person to ever manage an Airbnb that way. Most of those issues have solutions and it won't be that difficult to find a property manager either.

I get the feeling Massanutten isn't well regarded here but did some digging through some Airbnb data analytics. It matches what I've tracked and what I experienced renting the room out last year. Even with a 45% occupancy rate and an average house I'm likely to clear $50,000/year in revenue. That's definitely on the low end and I'll likely be looking at closer to $60,000. I already have to deal with the tax non-sense this year, might as well see if this business will scale. I have 2 whole weeks with nothing to do thanks to an unexpected severance so definitely have the time to cover all my bases and nail down all the expenses before committing to anything.

Haven't been on the forums in a while but just saw you're looking at moving to my neck of the woods in CLT.  If you need some advice on what part of town to rent in and not to rent in, just shoot me a DM.

Yeah I definitely could use some advice. I lied: I'm selling my place here and putting an offer on a place down there as soon as I'm under contract. It's a bit of leap of faith but rates are stupid low, my job is pretty chill and secure. Even if it's not there's at least 1,000 other openings for me. Moving to the west coast isn't ever going to happen and I don't think I could stand the weather in Texas so with NoVa, Seattle and Austin ruled out: Charlotte is easily my best bet career-wise. It also happens to line up with all my other interests pretty well. Might as well drop the ole anchor for real this time.

Realtor is REALLY pushing me to stick to Fort Mill/Lake Wylie mainly for schools and taxes. I don't want to deal with a single point of failure in my commute (49) so that kinda narrows it down to just Fort Mill if I want to just listen to her (i don't). Market is super hot in Fort Mill and likely won't have the time to lose a bunch of bidding wars so even that's not super attractive but definitely on the radar. Looking at a place in Huntersville near Hopewell as my #1 choice house-wise. Location-wise I was thinking North Waxhaw/Marven/Weddington area. I don't mind the idea of riding  the blue line for half my commute to zone out on podcasts/coding stuff, not sure it's going to be all that great in reality though. Would be nice to not have to buy a commuter vehicle just to avoid dragging the Ram into uptown everyday. But I'm 100% open to more input. Just kinda winging it based on schools and maps at this point. No idea what a real commute is going to look like once COVID actually settles down. Was originally looking around Concord but schools are so hit and miss out there from the looks of it.

Sorry I might have missed it, but will you be commuting into uptown?  That will definitely help skew my recommendations

[D_Eclipse9916]

Fort Mill is growing rapidly and I can’t imagine will be a good commute to Uptown pretty soon. That said, a lot of companies are also building just south of Uptown.

Not exactly heard great things about Lake Wylie.

Either south or north traffic on 77/85 is pretty brutal. Nothing like NoVa, but might make your life pretty brutal.

[Deceus]

Sorry I might have missed it, but will you be commuting into uptown?  That will definitely help skew my recommendations

Yes ... probably. I'll be in the BoA headquarters on N Tryon when things go back to normal, if they do. They seem pretty adamant they're a "work from the office" company at heart but no one has made any kind of real decision yet so I guess we'll see.

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Fort Mill is growing rapidly and I can’t imagine will be a good commute to Uptown pretty soon. That said, a lot of companies are also building just south of Uptown.

Not exactly heard great things about Lake Wylie.  

Either south or north traffic on 77/85 is pretty brutal. Nothing like NoVa, but might make your life pretty brutal.

Yeah I feel the same. It might not be so bad right now but they're going to start construction on the toll roads running south soon and they're running it to the border allegedly. That's probably going to be hellacious for a few years. So many new construction places too. Sticking to the North side, Lowe's is still an option as is anything in uptown but staying south of the border means I can take the train in and not worry about getting out of the city everyday. Can't really find a spot in Fort Mill with bad schools and the taxes are definitely significantly lower. I pay like $1,800/year right now, can't imagine $500+/month.

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Yea Summerlake.
Def more outlets in the garage, did that here.
Also gonna do a 220 and a couple of 40 amps out there.
Also def doing power and ethernet for the tv hookups I think like 4 are included.
Good idea on the garage fan. Prob gonna axe the included lights add ceiling outlets and plug in my own leds.

I'm sure you already know this but I'm definitely never doing any sort of high maintenance siding ever again. Even if there are solid contractors in the area to do the work, getting a call back was a damn challenge for me. Work had to be scheduled months out and was still kicked out a couple more. Lot of people just straight refused to even quote the stain job because of how uneven the lot is. It's the main, and practically only reason, I decided against keeping the house even though projected revenue for a full house this month is over $7,000. There just isn't enough rentals and the timeshares suck ass. Just easier to walk way while I'm up and not deal with this every 2-3 years. Not doing anything other than composite decking either, I'll get it built covered if I have to.

Definitely undervalued having a nice level yard too. Would play with the kid outside in the evenings a lot at the old place, just can't do that here with my .1 acre cliff of a front yard.

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The way your decision making process goes, might want to make sure that anchor isn't too heavy. 

Hey, leaving government contracting behind was like 3 years overdue. Capital One was ... idk what that was. Poorly managed and very poorly timed is probably the nicest way to put it, so I'll leave it at that. The goal was always to break the NoVa/remote golden hand-cuffs, that was always the driving force. Definitely don't regret going back either. That was a rather glorious career-building 9 months. Managing my own contract for 6 months and then sifting through the garage of the failed modernization effort was an honest resume-maker. A little more experience with things at scale and I'm likely set for life.

[WRXtranceformed]

Sorry I might have missed it, but will you be commuting into uptown?  That will definitely help skew my recommendations

Yes ... probably. I'll be in the BoA headquarters on N Tryon when things go back to normal, if they do. They seem pretty adamant they're a "work from the office" company at heart but no one has made any kind of real decision yet so I guess we'll see.

This shit forum man, i typed out a long response and it just deleted it before i could post. I'll try to summarize because im not writing all of that again:
1. If you care mostly about schools and resale:
Fort Mill - best schools in the area by far, they do have a ridiculously high school tax on new home purchases though, you get what you pay for.  Baxter Village or anywhere on the 521 side of 77 is best IMO. SC is best for low taxes, cheap everything and bonus points for no car inspections of any kind. NC has almost entirely shitty schools so plan to budget for private school if you don't choose SC
2.  If you care about commute:
South Park, Myers Park, Dilworth - $$$, nice but still close to ghettos and shit schools
3.  Weddington/Waxhaw - we live across the border in SC about 2 miles from Waxhaw.  Love it here, new schools going up everywhere, gigabit fiber, low tax,  high quality of life. Would never live here if I had to commute into the city though.
4. Also consider:  Ballantyne, lived there for 8 years.  Lots of money, nice new stuff, close to 485 so slightly better commute. Its kind of like a mix between Ashburn and Vienna
5. I personally would not live in:  Lake Wylie, Tega Cay, anywhere close to South Tryon or Steele Creek, anywhere north of the city (for several reasons but especially after that bullshit toll lane deal went through), North Davidson, Matthews

When you're getting close to a decision, feel free to message me and I can give you my thoughts for what they're worth 

[Deceus]

This shit forum man, i typed out a long response and it just deleted it before i could post. I'll try to summarize because im not writing all of that again:
1. If you care mostly about schools and resale:
Fort Mill - best schools in the area by far, they do have a ridiculously high school tax on new home purchases though, you get what you pay for.  Baxter Village or anywhere on the 521 side of 77 is best IMO. SC is best for low taxes, cheap everything and bonus points for no car inspections of any kind. NC has almost entirely shitty schools so plan to budget for private school if you don't choose SC
2.  If you care about commute:
South Park, Myers Park, Dilworth - $$$, nice but still close to ghettos and shit schools
3.  Weddington/Waxhaw - we live across the border in SC about 2 miles from Waxhaw.  Love it here, new schools going up everywhere, gigabit fiber, low tax,  high quality of life. Would never live here if I had to commute into the city though.
4. Also consider:  Ballantyne, lived there for 8 years.  Lots of money, nice new stuff, close to 485 so slightly better commute. Its kind of like a mix between Ashburn and Vienna
5. I personally would not live in:  Lake Wylie, Tega Cay, anywhere close to South Tryon or Steele Creek, anywhere north of the city (for several reasons but especially after that bullshit toll lane deal went through), North Davidson, Matthews

When you're getting close to a decision, feel free to message me and I can give you my thoughts for what they're worth 

Ah yeah, saw quite a few amazing places/communities north of Lancaster along 521 but came to the same conclusion. Indian Land is about as far South as I can probably go and keep my sanity with a commute. Even then I can't find much worth the hassle there that beats what I'm seeing in Marvin/Waxhaw. A lot more space for the same money, the schools aren't much worse and still miles better than I ever got.

Greatly appreciate the input and will definitely send you some specific places once I'm actually under contract here. Can't really beat local intel.

[WRXtranceformed]

This shit forum man, i typed out a long response and it just deleted it before i could post. I'll try to summarize because im not writing all of that again:
1. If you care mostly about schools and resale:
Fort Mill - best schools in the area by far, they do have a ridiculously high school tax on new home purchases though, you get what you pay for.  Baxter Village or anywhere on the 521 side of 77 is best IMO. SC is best for low taxes, cheap everything and bonus points for no car inspections of any kind. NC has almost entirely shitty schools so plan to budget for private school if you don't choose SC
2.  If you care about commute:
South Park, Myers Park, Dilworth - $$$, nice but still close to ghettos and shit schools
3.  Weddington/Waxhaw - we live across the border in SC about 2 miles from Waxhaw.  Love it here, new schools going up everywhere, gigabit fiber, low tax,  high quality of life. Would never live here if I had to commute into the city though.
4. Also consider:  Ballantyne, lived there for 8 years.  Lots of money, nice new stuff, close to 485 so slightly better commute. Its kind of like a mix between Ashburn and Vienna
5. I personally would not live in:  Lake Wylie, Tega Cay, anywhere close to South Tryon or Steele Creek, anywhere north of the city (for several reasons but especially after that bullshit toll lane deal went through), North Davidson, Matthews

When you're getting close to a decision, feel free to message me and I can give you my thoughts for what they're worth 

Ah yeah, saw quite a few amazing places/communities north of Lancaster along 521 but came to the same conclusion. Indian Land is about as far South as I can probably go and keep my sanity with a commute. Even then I can't find much worth the hassle there that beats what I'm seeing in Marvin/Waxhaw. A lot more space for the same money, the schools aren't much worse and still miles better than I ever got.

Greatly appreciate the input and will definitely send you some specific places once I'm actually under contract here. Can't really beat local intel.

Sounds good bro!  Yep we're in Indian Land.  When I moved from Ballantyne it only ended up being like 9 miles down the road     But that across the border life is so nice.  Income tax situation is also better in SC I forgot to add