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Att'n Home owners! Is it worth it?

Discussion in 'Anything goes' started by SoSueMe, Apr 20, 2007.

  1. dog428

    dog428 Active Member

    That's good work. Congrats. I lie in bed at night and dream of finding out that the shithole neighborhood a little down from us has been bought by wealthy investors and they're planning to build $1 million homes there.

    This is our first experience with the home-selling process. It's an absolute bitch, especially since our realtor, as I mentioned, is a dipshit. Guy has just completely mailed it in. We go weeks at a time without hearing from the jackass. He's brought one client by to look at the house, and so far, that remains the only person, out of about 12, to look and not come back to us with an offer.

    At this point, I'm praying that no one comes with an offer we can't refuse before our contract with this guy is up. It would leave me sick knowing that we've handed him thousands for doing nothing more than hammering a sign in our front yard.
     
  2. RokSki

    RokSki New Member

    Housing is not a 'sure investment,' and it's not as hassle-free as many other investments, I'll tell you that. Lots of transaction costs, lots of upkeep/upgrading, etc. If you have kids or just want your own layout, it's great, but it wouldn't be my first investment for an investment's sake
     
  3. Birdscribe

    Birdscribe Active Member

    And that's going to drive you batshit crazy, dog. Trust me on this one.

    You're absolutely right about the home-selling process. It's a royal pain in the ass.

    We hired a realtor on the recommendation of a high school buddy of mine, who -- I found out later -- dated her. She didn't answer my calls for a week or two at a time, then would text and call me almost non-stop when I was on the road. I kept asking her what she was doing to market our home different from the FOUR others in our model for sale within two blocks.

    I'll let you know her answer when I get it.

    But she was a dream compared to the realtor of our buyer... who was their sister-in-law and possessor of a real estate license for all of 7 months. Our house was supposed to close in mid-December. I was off, my wife was off from work and we were surrounded by boxes. One day I get a call from the builder of my home saying their loan wasn't funded. Turns out their fly-by-night mortgage company decided to jack up their rates at the last minute.

    So we were in total limbo. My realtor couldn't get in touch with her. Meanwhile, my wife is about to start unpacking, then find a clock tower with a high-powered rifle. So I woke up one morning and said I'm going to call her every hour until I get her. The second hour, I reached her. She was apologetic and vowed to call my builder to see if they could find someone to get the loan funded... my suggestion all along.

    I put her in touch with the builder of our new house. Two days later, the ball was in motion and a month later, we were in. Three guesses who did most of the legwork down the stretch... and the first two don't count.

    Right now, realtors are mailing it in because they're actually having to WORK in this market. No more just hammering in the sign and sifting through 3-4 offers.

    Hopefully for you, dog, you whittled down the ridiculous 6% commission. Ours got 1.5 and the buyer's 3. On a $355k home, nobody was starving, I assure you.

    Good luck with this and keep me posted.
    After the way I gathered all parties together on the same page and got things back on track, I should have gotten it all. ;)
     
  4. dog428

    dog428 Active Member

    And that's going to drive you batshit crazy, dog. Trust me on this one.

    You're absolutely right about the home-selling process. It's a royal pain in the ass.

    We hired a realtor on the recommendation of a high school buddy of mine, who -- I found out later -- dated her. She didn't answer my calls for a week or two at a time, then would text and call me almost non-stop when I was on the road. I kept asking her what she was doing to market our home different from the FOUR others in our model for sale within two blocks.

    I'll let you know her answer when I get it.

    But she was a dream compared to the realtor of our buyer... who was their sister-in-law and possessor of a real estate license for all of 7 months. Our house was supposed to close in mid-December. I was off, my wife was off from work and we were surrounded by boxes. One day I get a call from the builder of my home saying their loan wasn't funded. Turns out their fly-by-night mortgage company decided to jack up their rates at the last minute.

    So we were in total limbo. My realtor couldn't get in touch with her. Meanwhile, my wife is about to start unpacking, then find a clock tower with a high-powered rifle. So I woke up one morning and said I'm going to call her every hour until I get her. The second hour, I reached her. She was apologetic and vowed to call my builder to see if they could find someone to get the loan funded... my suggestion all along.

    I put her in touch with the builder of our new house. Two days later, the ball was in motion and a month later, we were in. Three guesses who did most of the legwork down the stretch... and the first two don't count.

    Right now, realtors are mailing it in because they're actually having to WORK in this market. No more just hammering in the sign and sifting through 3-4 offers.

    Hopefully for you, dog, you whittled down the ridiculous 6% commission. Ours got 1.5 and the buyer's 3. On a $355k home, nobody was starving, I assure you.

    Good luck with this and keep me posted.
    After the way I gathered all parties together on the same page and got things back on track, I should have gotten it all. ;)
    [/quote]

    I'll tell you what really got me pissed: The TV show "Buy Me," which shows the selling process and follows the realtors and sellers along for a few weeks.

    I. WANT. THESE. REALTORS.

    For God's sakes, there was one woman who took 18 different clients by to see this house in a MONTH. And this wasn't some grand home. It was a nice, simple, $150-200k house -- like the one I'm selling.

    They do all these great things, like put signs up for miles around, run full-color ads, hold open houses every other weekend, link virtual tours and loads of pics of the house on their website. And most importantly, they genuinely seem as if they wanna sell the sumbitchin' house.

    But you know, I'd almost be willing to let all of that slide had three other realtors not called me and said they had clients interested in seeing my house but had been unable to get my realtor on the damned phone.
     
  5. T2

    T2 Member

    I'm single and pay a very reasonable rent for a small apartment. I could spend more and buy a house with its hassles of maintenance and yardwork and such. Some have urged me to do so. They point out that the hundreds of dollars I now spend on rent each month is "going down the drain" and not building any equity for me.

    But what do they think I'm doing with the hundreds of additional dollars a month that I'm not spending on a house? Throwing it away? No, I'm investing that money, and over the years I've built up as much equity (in stocks and bank deposits and such) as I would have built up in a house. And the stocks are a lot easier to sell.
     
  6. Webster

    Webster Well-Known Member

    Timely thread. The missus and I have rented in NYC for years. We've never wanted to buy because we weren't sure where we were going to end up and the cost of an apartment in NYC.

    We got lucky when my daughter was born, because someone in my building converted a large (by NYC standards) one bedroom apartment to a one bedroom with a small nursery. Now that my daughter is 20 months old, our place just isn't big enough. We looked into three bedroom apartment in my 'hood, but one in a nice building with any space to keep even a fraction of our stuff would be around $2 million. Plus a monthly maintenance fee.

    We realized that we keep 75% of our stuff at my in-laws and that our place was just no doable for too much longer. Also, we liked to have another child in the near future and didn't want to do a house search with a pregnant wife or a newborn.

    So, we've been looking at the 'burbs for the past two months. Very scary proposition. I've never lived in a house in my entire life. We decided on NJ because of family considerations. After settling on a town, we've driven our realtor nuts and have looked at every single house in our price range. Finally, on Tuesday, she called us and said that she found the house for us. We drove out that night, walked in, looked at each other and knew that we had the place. Meeting with the builder of the place today to go over details. By the time that the sun falls, I might be a home owner.
     
  7. Tom Petty

    Tom Petty Guest

    awesome. good luck man.
     
  8. Pancamo

    Pancamo Active Member

    Two factors will play in a property values dropping in the next year:


    A: Sub-Prime lenders closing shop
    B: People who bought homes with negative amortization loans


    There will be a ridiculous amount of homes being foreclosed and dumped on the market by banks which will lower prices since banks don't want to be land owners. The next issue is rents will be driven upward because the demand will increase with all the foreclosed families needing places to live without being able to qualify for mortgages.
     
  9. Football_Bat

    Football_Bat Well-Known Member

    So if you own a second property and can afford your first-property mortgage now ... CHA-CHING!
     
  10. Pancamo

    Pancamo Active Member

    Cha-Ching if you plan on holding for a long time and bought low, otherwise, you can be holding a property that you opurchased for $200K that will fetch $170K on the open market. If you plan on holding forever, values are meaningless.
     
  11. Mystery_Meat

    Mystery_Meat Guest

    Announcer: HOMEOWNERS!
    Butt-head: Uh, listen up, Beavis. A huh huh, huh huh.
     
  12. BTExpress

    BTExpress Well-Known Member

    Very doubtful.

    A home's appreciation also counts toward "equity." And the tax advantages mean you CAN own almost as cheaply (in monthly payments) as renting.

    I bought my home in 1996 for $129,000.

    It's worth $380,000 today.

    Had I been renting (and investing) since 1996, would my "investments" be worth $380,000?

    And would I be 54 months away from having ZERO rent/mortgage to pay for the rest of my life?

    Not. Even. Close.
     
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