The Super Official Homeowners Thread

[Sully]

Ahh I was going to say I wouldn't mind having one if you wanted to sell it after but I need longer than 11 feet. If I get one, my only attachment would be at peaks so 11 wouldn't get me far enough back down the roof. Guess I'll just stick with the piece of foam for now.

Sent from my SM-G973U using Tapatalk

[Deceus]

Officially under contract! Just took de-listing the house, finding the perfect cleaners, spending $2k on bedding, towels, dishes, etc and another $2k on a new washer + dryer to handle the demand of washing everything every stay.



Still came out ahead on the short-lived rental business: $7,500 in booking across 8 weekends with 2 of them intentionally left vacant is just ... wow. Covid cabin fever definitely helped out a lot but the slopes aren't even open... Really makes this bittersweet. Honestly it's dumb enough for me to own one house when I hardly have 3 months in savings and shit for retirement. The good news is I'm just under the 15 day cut-off for paying federal taxes so long as I cancel somebody's stay next month. (sorry friend but you have a full month to find something new)

They lead with quite the backhand though: "We really like the place but everyone agreed this place was $345k tops. Anyways here's $360k for it. Hope you appreciate our generosity of paying the asking price and agree to the terms without question."



I wish I could be so carefree with my backhands. I mean I know it's not personal but damn they really could have just left off that first part and it would've changed nothing. Like you clearly don't really believe that or you would have offered that much and if it were true I would have accepted. But hey let's not let common sense get in the way of a good time. They put $5k down as goodwill, offered to pay cash if they had to and qualified to bypass the appraisal process all together. I'm not one to argue with that and I'll turn the other cheek if they want to have another go.

[Apoc]

That lead is extremely common in house offers... and offers for pretty much everything else in this world. I think they call it negotiation. Don't take it personally.

[Deceus]

That lead is extremely common in house offers... and offers for pretty much everything else in this world. I think they call it negotiation. Don't take it personally.

I didn't, just didn't understand the mindset there. I mean it's one thing to lead an undercut mentioning a slightly bigger undercut, sure. If you're paying asking price what's to negotiate? "Hey I'll pay you exactly what you want, I don't have a lot of time to negotiate so take it fast or leave it." Would've been my move but I'm not exactly the best salesman or buyer in the world so maybe I'm just missing something here.

I think they were just trying to awkwardly assert "hey you had this listed for less last week, we could've offered you that but didn't so just make this smooth for us and we're good." Still made me double take.

---

For example, I just accepted. I didn't say "Hey if you offered $345k I would've walked but since you didn't: I accept" Like what would be the point. People are just trash at actual negotiating or maybe I am. Probably both.

[ScottyB]

congrats, and that gif could not be more perfect for the timing on things after buying all the nicey nice stuff. nothing's ever easy, is it?

thats a really odd way to communicate on their part. i'd just laugh it off. how about we put a positive spin on it; "everyone told us we're being stupid but we like your place so much we'll pay extra, thanks!"

[.RJ]

Still came out ahead on the short-lived rental business: $7,500 in booking across 8 weekends with 2 of them intentionally left vacant is just ... wow. 

I've been looking for a 2nd place out in the mountains somewhere to use on weekends and rent when not using it - when the rona hit, I scrapped the idea in the short term thinking our economy was going to be kind of fucked for a bit.... was wrong on that.  Hopefully things settle down next year and I can find something, but it sounds like I should be buying 4 or 5 of them

[Deceus]

Still came out ahead on the short-lived rental business: $7,500 in booking across 8 weekends with 2 of them intentionally left vacant is just ... wow. 

I've been looking for a 2nd place out in the mountains somewhere to use on weekends and rent when not using it - when the rona hit, I scrapped the idea in the short term thinking our economy was going to be kind of fucked for a bit.... was wrong on that.  Hopefully things settle down next year and I can find something, but it sounds like I should be buying 4 or 5 of them

I feel better about it when I consider the upcoming election. It feels like there's a good chance for panic on either likely outcome. Really don't want to be stuck holding 2 properties during another dip like the last one. That would be painful.

Sent from my Pixel 3 XL using Tapatalk

[Deceus]

Annnnndddd I slept on an air mattress at my parent's place for 2 nights this weekend for nothing. I'm out $900 of that $7,500 because someone couldn't tell me they had a severe cat allergy... It's mostly because I'm not as big of an asshole as I make myself out to be and gave them a refund when I didn't have to. Just didn't want to deal with it to be honest. Her cancelling meant I didn't have to work in my parent's dining room today and I could be home at my office. Definitely needed this to feel better about missing out. I get that's a pretty common allergy and I should probably should disclose a cat lives here in-between stays... but had she mentioned it at any point during our conversations where I asked if she had any questions or concerns no less than 3 times, this could have been avoided. I can't anticipate every single thing. Do I disclose there's shellfish in the freezer, peanuts in the locked pantry, that I cook pork on my grill? People are stupid, not sure why I'm surprised. Of course all that goes away if it were strictly a rental but still, I fucking hate dealing with people. It's the main reason I'm a programmer. Money be damned.

ANYWAYS, finally under contract to buy a place so the end is nigh. Of course even that was it's own shit-show. Put a full price offer on a place right across the border in Fort Mill. Gorgeous place that had been used as a high end long term rental for the last 5 years. Looked super well taken care of so I put in a full price offer even though it had been on the market for 2 weeks. The didn't like that I needed to sell my house before the bank would hand me another $540,000 loan and legitimately didn't understand why I wasn't just paying in cash. (lol) Apparently I was dealing with a commercial real estate agent that hadn't actually even been at the property since he bought it. His agent told mine he was about to snap and walk away as the guy made him walk through every single word of every single section of the contract. Long story, short: he took the full 48 hours and waited til 30 minutes after the deadline to counter by asking for $15,000 more because it wasn't a cash offer. I countered with my middle finger because I'm childish like that.

Moved on to option #2 and had to deal with the most incompetent listing agent I have ever encountered and hopefully will ever encounter. A place in Concord: $155k cheaper, .5 acres, no HOA, huge driveway with extra parking area for a trailer, nice pool, 3000 sqft, solid schools and very motivated sellers who just dropped their price $25k. I had my agent draw up an offer Friday night because there's no way I'm not buying it based on all that alone. I asked the listing agent to show it to me since it was over an hour away for my agent. She couldn't commit to Friday evening but would "try". She never got back to me on that and apparently didn't roll out of bed until 10:30 on Saturday. I found this out when she told me she had only returned my call because I called her office and they called her. She wasn't even ready for work and no longer wanted to show me the house because I seemed too anxious and she was worried she would cost her sellers the sell ... This is where I started to lose my shit in my parent's living room. I called my agent to go schedule the showing since she was always willing to make the drive if needed. Apparently almost the entire day was booked up with showing requests that were pending the listing agent's approval. We were told there were none. At this point I just sent the damn offer and set the inspection for this Friday. Worse case scenario I'm out some earnest money and time. I doubt a grainy facebook messenger video really would've revealed anything that would have prevented me putting down an offer anyways. I have the floorplans, 50+ pictures and disclosures. She didn't want to give the seller's the offer because 1. The pre-approval letter worth a full $175k more than the property didn't have the right address and wanted one specifically for this house and 2. Since I hadn't seen it in person she was worried there was a chance I'd back out when I got there. Got my agent on it and she told her to cut the shit and put the offer in front of the sellers and we'll go from there. Big surprise they signed it right away ... so hooray I guess. Wish I felt more happy and less exhausted.

I do hope this has been mildly entertaining at least. Should be a good glimpse into the shit-show that buying/selling can be for those of the club members that haven't taken the plunge. Definitely appreciate all the input, it has definitely helped me step down from a ledge or 2 through this whole ordeal.

[ScottyB]

sorry Chris. you're absolutely right though. unless you either get lucky, strike a handshake deal, or "know people" you're in for a ride. i've never seen another industry in my life so dominated by utterly useless people than real estate. shame too, because i know some good agents and they really can be an asset.

[Deceus]

Pretty excited to get down there and see it Friday.

[D_Eclipse9916]

Congrats!

Sounded like you should have dealt with my uncle haha. Looks nice and enough property to add a second garage/workshop. I think you will end up liking this area better than hburg/massanutten. There really is a TON of outdoor stuff to do down here and lots of people wanting to do it.


PS - Ex rentals are a crapshoot. Can either be taken care of extremely well because of picky tenants, or left to rot until it's absolutely needed maintenance.

Do you have a trailer yet? We might be able to work out a deal for storage since you mentioned it.

[Deceus]

PS - Ex rentals are a crapshoot.  Can either be taken care of extremely well because of picky tenants, or left to rot until it's absolutely needed maintenance.  

Do you have a trailer yet?  We might be able to work out a deal for storage since you mentioned it.

Yeah I wasn't really looking to play that game. Saw wood ash in the gas fireplace, the pool heater was busted and the appliances in the tiki hut apparently hadn't been touched in something like 15 years the disclosure said.

No not yet, that might be a long ways down the road too. Not sure how much racing I'll be doing over the winter. Shoot me a PM here or in on GroupMe. Closing date is shooting Nov 2nd but might get bumped up to Oct 29th if the lenders get everything together fast enough.

[JPolen01]

Holy driveway. At least you'll never have to move snow! Pool looks nice too.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[ScottyB]

dude, score. great looking property. its going to be weird for you being able to roll your car around in the driveway if you want, instead of fearing it launches down that ski jump of a driveway you used to have.

that stonework around the front/side looks really nice btw.

[Apoc]

sorry Chris.  you're absolutely right though.  unless you either get lucky, strike a handshake deal, or "know people" you're in for a ride.  i've never seen another industry in my life so dominated by utterly useless people than real estate.  shame too, because i know some good agents and they really can be an asset.

Long haul trucking. Way worse than real estate.

[ScottyB]

sorry Chris.  you're absolutely right though.  unless you either get lucky, strike a handshake deal, or "know people" you're in for a ride.  i've never seen another industry in my life so dominated by utterly useless people than real estate.  shame too, because i know some good agents and they really can be an asset.

Long haul trucking. Way worse than real estate.

but Smokey and The Bandit made it look too cool for me to believe that!

[Deceus]

Holy driveway. At least you'll never have to move snow! Pool looks nice too.

Yeah, it was a huge bonus but wasn't holding out for something like that. Looking at google street view they had a huge fifth wheel camper and I'm sure they got tired of that thing blocking everything. The biggest thing keeping me from driving the Demon most days is having to shuffle 3 cars around just to leave. Too much of a pain for a quick trip to the store unless I'm really feeling motivated to drive it.

Definitely room for more shop space at the end of it too like DJ mentioned. Pretty excited for that eventually. Backs up to like 50+ acres of undeveloped land too. I'm honestly not worried in the least about seeing it Friday, just excited. It seems perfect for me, a lot like the first house I fell in love with but with a pool this time.

[.RJ]

sorry Chris.  you're absolutely right though.  unless you either get lucky, strike a handshake deal, or "know people" you're in for a ride.  i've never seen another industry in my life so dominated by utterly useless people than real estate.  shame too, because i know some good agents and they really can be an asset.

Long haul trucking. Way worse than real estate.

yeah, shipping a car is an exercise in frustration with armed, insufferable armenian dudes that uses neither GPS or a clock

[Deceus]

The excitement is slowly starting to take over the stress. Going to set aside a good portion of the money from my sale as well as pay off what's left of my student loans. Probably have about $10k to mess with when we move in, any ideas helping me spend it? It's a healthy distraction from how much of a pain in the ass this has been.

Going to start with the garage for sure. My shop space is going from two separate 720sqft rooms to one 600sqft garage. That means I'll have to combine the woodshop with the car and bike stuff. Not a huge deal but going to require some crafty storage solutions and much better dust collection at the least. Can't just buy a ton of husky shelves and just throw everything on it like last time. Probably start with a decent lumber rack and build something ceiling mounted like so:



Debating on getting a husky cabinet setup for one wall when they go back on sale and doing a pegboard/french cleat wall under it but those are hella pricey. $2k for 2 lockers and 4 cabinets ... yikes. The heavy duty ones do look nice though.

The second biggest "problem" I see is going from a walk-in pantry to ... well nothing. So probably going to need a stand-alone pantry cabinet. Thinking of building something myself unless I can find something nice on marketplace for cheap. Something like this without the winerack up top should be fairly easy to make on my own but would be nice to not need to:



Outdoor furniture is probably up next. Haven't looked too hard here to be honest so give me some ideas to make the pool area nicer. Probably spend a fair amount of time using it so don't mind spending a bit extra for something decent as long as it'll last.

Might upgrade the water heater if it's looking old. Any kitchen ideas? I really loved the hanging pot rack I put in my current place. Beats the hell out of digging and shuffling around cabinets for skillets and pots. Probably do another one of those for sure as they're pretty cheap.

[JPolen01]

Assuming you haven't done the home inspection yet, I'd wait for that until you start spending money. How much grass does the property have? Do you need a riding mower?

Hot water heater is always a good idea if it's on the older side. Pretty cheap in the grand scheme of home ownership.

I would add some shutters for a bit more curb appeal. Another fairly cheap, but substantial update.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk