House buying sucks

Matthew said:
House buying vs house selling: I've bought 2, sold 1. Selling was so much easier than buying.
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When I bought this house, I looked at a number of them, none of which I liked enough to make an offer. Houses weren't selling quickly at the time, but it also seemed like there were few choices. Finally the agent told me that I could buy a lot and hire a contractor to build for about the same price as I could buy an existing house. That worked out well for me since I don't have much interest in fixing or modifying things. At the time I wanted a house on a larger lot or acreage. It wasn't hard to find a lot in a half built out subdivision since this was just as the market was starting to come back after a long downhill slide in Colorado.
 
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denverpilot said:
................................But big houses can't be made smaller, so unlike other taxes, it's kinda harder to cut back on something........................
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Oh yeah they can. Jump into the "wayback machine." It's late 70's California. The prop tax system is the "we need(want) this much money, assess, then divide by the number of properties to get the tax owed. It's outta control. People are grumbling. Some guy, I think it was in San Diego, gets out his saws, crowbars and other implements of destruction and starts "reducing" his house to get the assement down. Front page news. Tax reform followed. Prop 13 in 1978.
 
asicer said:
Actually, in those areas a $500k home would be called a "share".
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Also those areas have the higher crime rates, more pollution, etc.

I got busy doing some yard work a week or so ago, had both my front door and mud room door completely wide open, with only my automatically closing but non locking little glass storm door shut, finished the yard work and went to work, came back the next day, pulled up and I was looking right through my house, oops.

Know what was missing, not a damn thing, coulda left the house like that all week.

Try that in DC, LA, NYC, etc :)
 
We bought our home 5 years ago, intend on living there at least 10 more years, when we'll evaluate the secondary-level schools in our area for the little one(s). We'll stay in the neighborhood-setting while the children are young so they have more potential playmates, but won't worry about it once they're young teens and such. We hope to purchase 5-10 acres after that and build a custom home that we'd retire in. My parents did approximately the same thing, although they were in the home I grew up in for 20+ years before moving into a more rural area and building a new home. I hate moving and packing/unpacking boxes, so they fewer moves in life, the better.
 
James331 said:
Also those areas have the higher crime rates, more pollution, etc.

I got busy doing some yard work a week or so ago, had both my front door and mud room door completely wide open, with only my automatically closing but non locking little glass storm door shut, finished the yard work and went to work, came back the next day, pulled up and I was looking right through my house, oops.

Know what was missing, not a damn thing, coulda left the house like that all week.

Try that in DC, LA, NYC, etc :)
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Yup, every now and again, someone would forget to close the garage door when they left (or it hit something and went back up) and we'd get home with it having been wide open all day with tools/equipment all on display. We never had a thing stolen, and it was in a suburban neighborhood. Just different types of people I suppose!
 
SoonerAviator said:
Yup, every now and again, someone would forget to close the garage door when they left (or it hit something and went back up) and we'd get home with it having been wide open all day with tools/equipment all on display. We never had a thing stolen, and it was in a suburban neighborhood. Just different types of people I suppose!
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I forget to close my garage door at night sometimes and nothing has happened. I also don't worry if I'm not home to pick up packages delivered to my porch. That is one of the things I'm going to miss with my new city life.
 
SoonerAviator said:
We bought our home 5 years ago, intend on living there at least 10 more years, when we'll evaluate the secondary-level schools in our area for the little one(s). We'll stay in the neighborhood-setting while the children are young so they have more potential playmates, but won't worry about it once they're young teens and such. We hope to purchase 5-10 acres after that and build a custom home that we'd retire in. My parents did approximately the same thing, although they were in the home I grew up in for 20+ years before moving into a more rural area and building a new home. I hate moving and packing/unpacking boxes, so they fewer moves in life, the better.
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You have it backwards. Moving teenagers away from their friends will not be a popular idea. Younger kids deal with that better. 10 years is a log time, though and priorities change.
 
I've bought 7 houses in the past 13 years and sold 5 of them. My friends think I'm nuts. I am. Currently have 1 on the market and contemplating the other. Neither market I live in (the 2 I own are 2 hours apart) are doing well.
 
I listed mine FSBO 6 weeks ago.. had about 25 showings, no offers. Listed it today with an Agent, so hopefully get some movement. Not looking forward to having to jump on new listings with full price offers hoping to score a house when I'm ready to buy.
 
John221us said:
You have it backwards. Moving teenagers away from their friends will not be a popular idea. Younger kids deal with that better. 10 years is a log time, though and priorities change.
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Eh, we'd be staying within a 20-mile radius, so it's likely that most of their friends will revolve around sports which they'd still be on the same teams. They'll manage one way or the other! :)
 
I guess I got lucky. I bought my current house when there was few buyers and more sellers, and now I will be selling with more buyers with few quality houses available. The realtor tells me it will go quick at a better price than I paid. I hope so because I did take care of it and made improvements.

The house I am buying went with out a realtor. We found it through friends at church. The realtor said it would have sold within a week at or above asking price if it was on the market.

I don't know, the population is approaching 25,000, it might be time to move to a quieter town....
 
SoonerAviator said:
Lol, maybe in NYC, SanFran, Seattle, or DC. No one in the central US is going to call a $500K home low-end, much less $1M.
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So true. A couple of years ago I was looking at the possibility of moving to Akron (long story...). A mansion there (and I mean "mansion" that was 4000-ish square feet built back in the 20's/30's and fully updated) was under $400,000. The market topped out for newer McMansions at $600-700K.

DC area, "middle" is $500-$600K to $750K. Above that gets into the "high end" range. Back before the 2008 crash the prices were high enough in the region that there was a saying "drive 'till you qualify".
 
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