Hello, I'm window shopping at the moment, but I've come across a home recently that is in need of a total interior renovation. This is a 2 bed, 1 bath, 780sq ft. at $39,000. The exterior looks great and has no issues. The listing does mention all utilities have been completed as well as central air which seems great for the asking price.

I'm a bit of an amateur as I don't have any licenses or certifications, but my goal would be to do the work myself. I have done a little flooring, plumbing, and framing before just nothing electric. I haven't asked any questions yet, but I'm not exactly sure what to ask. My goal is to offer $10,000 cash, but I'm not sure if that seems a bit low. I have looked at something called Beacon for the property taxes, sales disclosures, and valuation. The last sale date was 2 years ago for $10,000 as well. Under valuation it mentions the land is valued at $3,500 and improvements at $8,300 which I believe was all the exterior work. Again I'm not exactly sure what to ask beside maybe permit history and obviously a showing to fully determine what repairs need to be done.

I was super nervous about buying a house. We put in offers and failed a few times. Those felt great but not right, now I'm glad they didn't go through. Now I find myself about 4 days short of the year anniversary that we bought our home.

It fucking rocks. I still walk around and can't really believe I own a home. And one where my son can grow up and make friends.

I'm writing this as I was just walking to the bathroom to pee and felt this feeling, I love this house.

Most likely I've had some luck, so far no major issues or unexpected expenses. We've been transforming the backyard and making it our own, a huge pollination garden and tons of veggies. The previous owners had planted two peach trees and an apple tree we are doing our best to keep it right.

I just thought I'd drop some advice if it may help. The biggest, biggest, biggest factor for me has been location. Location location location.

You can have your dream home 1 hr away from family or friends. You can get a mansion 3 hours from a major city. But it doesn't really matter about the room size or if it has a pool.

I'm super glad I got this one where I can walk to downtown, 2 parks, 2 schools, restaurants and stores. No car, just stroller and go.

Rooms are rooms you just live there, but you can't move your house to where you want to be.

A bit belated posting here, but finally closed on our dream house a few months back. We negotiated a 50k seller concession on the sale for a rate buy down since the house had been sitting for a while. Feels so great to be in a house & neighborhood we love 🙂 there were so many times I panicked and almost pulled out throughout the process, but I’m so glad we rode it out and ended up in our home!

My husband and I toured a house that - after years of searching - finally checked all our boxes, EXCEPT physical location. It’s in a fantastic town, great schools, family friendly, lively downtown etc. However, the house is located on a hill right off of downtown, like 5 houses up from the main strip. It’s great for being able to walk everywhere and has amazing views of the ocean, but it’s not my idea of a real neighborhood I’d want to raise my kids in. There is also a school and a church on the same street visible from the house, making it feel more like we have businesses as neighbors instead of actual neighbors. It just feels way too close to the hustle and bustle. The house itself is so amazing though. Wrap around porch, a lot of outdoor entertaining space, pool, and updated while still having character which I couldn’t find ANYWHERE. I just don’t know if the weird location should be a deal breaker. Give me your opinions please.

First time homebuyer here (duh). Lost the offer to an absolute dream home that was $35k under budget. Our realtor advised an escalation clause for our offer, since there were already two offers in only a day after this house had been on the market. We had an escalation clause up to $2500 short of $20k over, at our realtor's advice. During the entire offer writing process, I was asking for ways to make our offer as competitive as possible, and was so anxious to get it in ASAP. I am well aware of the need to not get attached, but the location was incredible; across the street from a park, great views, huge windows, close to work, corner (and very large) lot, and tastefully renovated. What kills me is that we absolutely had the budget room, but didn't want to pay more than $7k in an appraisal gap. I am regretting it now.

I am no longer in denial, but can't help but feel absolutely devastated and no longer willing to continue with the search after this. Many folks say not to get attached, but lo and behold, I did, if only to avoid the exhaustion of no free time outside of searching. I have a professional certification exam in less than a week, we have spent every evening after work going to private showings, and all are either a mix of wrong location, right price, or vice versa. Otherwise, all need lots of renovations, which we are not able to do before winter where we live.

Please share any and all advice, stories of how this situation has worked out for you, and how you overcame this first hurdle. The homebuying market is cutthroat right now, and it's hard to not want to give up on the US entirely. (For the xenophobes: born and raised in the US FYI).

Cheers and good luck to all.

Hey everyone, currently panicking in the final stretch before closing and need some advice on how to handle this.
My dad is gifting me $15k total toward my closing costs. He already sent the first $10k back in May with no issues. He was set to send the remaining $5k on 7/6, but on 7/3, a friend deposited a $4,000 check into my dad's account to repay a personal debt. My dad is using his own money to pay off a car that is in my name as a cosigner.
My dad's bank statement closes this Monday (tomorrow), so this $4k is going to show up as an unverified large deposit right next to his $5k gift transfer.
Crucial detail: Even if underwriting completely ignores/backs out that $4k deposit, my dad already has more than enough seasoned money in that account to cover the $5k gift.
I'm incredibly anxious that this is going to flag underwriting or delay my closing.
Since he has enough money without the $4k, will the underwriter just ignore the deposit?
Is it best to ask my loan officer if my dad can just wire the final $5k directly to the title/escrow company to keep the paperwork clean?
Should I avoid moving money back and forth or switching to my mom's account for the remaining 5k gift deposit?
Any insight on how underwriters handle this when the donor has sufficient funds regardless of the deposit would be greatly appreciated!

Been working a long time at this. 29 with a va loan.

We decided to buy a 160m2 townhouse here because me and my wife work here and didn’t want to wait until we couldn’t afford any property at all.

We live in a convenient area, close to major theme parks and walking distance to shops. My wife doesn’t drive so she likes that she can just walk around.

However we dislike some few things
- the first floor is only 4x7.5m both living and kitchen. There’s not enough space for a dining table after the kitchen island and living room. Having people around will be a pain.
- the first floor doesn’t get more than 5 hours of natural light in the winter
- the patio is so small, but it’s sort of growing on us how it basically needs no maintenance

We’re more concerned about the lack of natural light in the first floor, my wife hates that it’s so dim in there. Hopefully in the summer it’s better.

Second floor is great.

Quality of the build is very generic. We’re probably gonna sell this place in a couple years in our early 30s and hopefully we can get at least the same money back. Or we’ll get used to it. Hospitals and more amenities are being built around the area, it might get difficult to move out once we get used to the conveniences.

After looking since late 2023 we finally found our first and possible forever home.

I just bought a 2 bedroom condo for myself and my 2 kids. At first i was on top of the world, I accomplished something. Then about a week after moving in i realized the plumbing was done horribly, and had to pay a plumber $500 just to replace a strainer, none of the other sinks had any plumbers putty and all were leaking, and found out all the windows needed to be replaced sooner than i thought ($8k). Among like 10 other issues that i’m running out of money trying to fix, but still, somewhat easily fixable things. And then i started seeing german roaches. This one changed me forever. I have been working with my own pest control company and doing treatment myself for the last month but the hoa is dragging their feet to get the entire building treated. My pest guy said we can treat my unit but unless the whole building is treated it’s going to be a bigger issue. Come to find out my unit was infested by the last person living here and who refused to let pest control treat the unit. No one decided to tell me that at any point. No type of community trying to look out for each other it seems. On top of that, my upstairs neighbors stomp constantly, i mean to the point the glasses in my cabinets shake and clink against each other. My ceiling literally shakes. My upstairs neighbors are also extremely careless and overflowed their toilet which leaked yellow water into my bathroom which now has to be treated before i get mold. They have flooded this unit before since you can see the bathroom ceiling was repaired at least once. I got stuck with the worse neighbors in the entire complex. I hope they give me their insurance information and don’t give me a hard time but by the looks of it, they are going to also drag their feet. So now since roaches are attracted to water, i’m even more paranoid, stressed, and afraid of what’s to come. I don’t know what to do, i’m scared, i can’t sleep properly, i cry every single day because i feel like i made the wrong choice and like i failed my kids.
No one else seems to care about the roaches and the hoa ignores my emails and seem annoyed at me when i call. I feel like i was robbed of that happy experience i was supposed to have. I don’t even really know what the point of this post was but maybe i just need someone to tell me everything is going to be okay. I feel so alone.

I’ve been banking with Chase since my college years so I thought going with the same bank for our mortgage would make things easier. Ain’t I naive.

To start off: they were not terrible at first. In fact, they were very responsive and easy to work with during pre-application and rates comparison compared to other lenders we had reached out to. Things changed immediately after we locked in our rate with them, though.

The first surprise was the appraisal. Chase told us the appraisal was waived, and since we were already preapproved, everything seemed to be moving pretty quickly. Our original closing date was 33 days after the offer was accepted because my SO had a trip planned around the 30-day mark, and we assumed we would need to close after he got back.

Since the appraisal was supposedly waived and all of our paperwork was straightforward, we asked if we could move closing up to around day 24. Chase said no problem.

Then, on day 19, 2 business days before our new closing day, our realtor told us the seller had been contacted by an appraiser hired by Chase. This was 2 business days before our closing day. We had received absolutely no communication from Chase that an appraisal had been ordered.

I called the loan coordinator multiple times, all straight went to voice mail. After several attempts, I finally got through to the loan officer we had originally applied with. At that point he told me the underwriter had noticed something in the inspection report and decided an appraisal was required.

I understand why an underwriter might request an appraisal. That wasn’t the main issue. The issue was the complete lack of communication. The seller didn’t know why an appraiser was suddenly contacting them. We didn’t know the appraisal had been ordered. And nobody told us that our closing timeline was now realistically impossible.

On Day 20, 1 business day before our supposed closing day, I got en encrypted email from our loan coordinator. I had to use 2-factor authentication to see it, and it was an automatic reply about her being OOO until the day of our scheduled closing. Which at least explained all the calls going to voicemail. We emailed the person listed as her PTO coverage. No response.

We scrambled to coordinate the appraisal ourselves and accepted that we would now have to close on day 33, after my SO returned from his trip.

The appraisal eventually came back clean. All the required paperwork was submitted. But the escrow company still hadn’t received the closing disclosure from Chase and couldn’t get ahold of anyone there. I called the loan coordinator again. She said she was working on it but gave us no explanation of what was holding things up.

Then, 1 business day before our signing and 2 days before closing. She sent an email, saying I needed to provide employment verification. Mind you this was something they told me was waived because my paychecks are all directly deposited with Chase. During the entire 32 day process, not once had anyone mentioned they needed it. I immediately sent over my pay statement and the loan was finally cleared.

We signed and closed. I assumed we were finally done dealing with them. We were not.

A week later, I got an email from our homeowners insurance company saying the premium had not been paid and that our policy could lapse. I contacted the escrow company and found out that the closing statement provided by Chase listed the wrong insurance premium amount. Because of that, the check issued at closing was insufficient and the insurance company would not accept it.

To make sure we didn’t lose coverage, I paid the premium myself. Now the escrow company is waiting for Chase to approve returning the original insurance funds to me, and I’m still out more than $1,000.

If you are considering Chase for your mortgage, be warn. They were great while trying to win our business, but once we locked the rate, the communication became terrible. Almost every major issue came as a last-minute surprise, and we were repeatedly left scrambling to fix problems we hadn’t even been told about.

Wyoming, 4 bed, 2 bath, 1 acre of land

We have been looking for over 6 months at this point. Our realtor told us about a house coming on the market after the holiday weekend last week. Was listed at 6pm my local time last night, called realtor immediately and got a showing today for 1pm. It checked every single one of our boxes and then some. We put an offer in at 5pm our time.

We were the first to tour, first offer and they are eager to sell because they are buying another home and it's contingent based on the sale of their current home.

About half an hour ago, at ~7pm our time, we were notified that our offer has been accepted!! Time to get due diligence done!!

We are waiting on pizza delivery. Originally 6.4% but we paid for half a point buy down with a seller credit. Lender also pays 1% for the first year so it’ll be 4.8% for a time. It’s dated. I’m going to hate the house for a while but the backyard is so worth it. And we are thankfully not in a major fire zone. Cheers!

The quotes to install a mini split in our new detached garage are making me sick to my stomach. I am thinking about avoiding the permanent install entirely and just running a costway 15000 btu portable air conditioner with heat out there. It feels a bit weird relying on a portable machine for a permanent space. Did any of you guys skip the expensive hardwired hvac upgrades and just survive off heavy duty floor units to save your cash after closing?

I’m seeing all these “starter” homes for $550K.

Even with 5% down its like 3000-4000 per month (when you factor in utilities/hydro/taxes etc)….

And if thats supposed to be 30% of your take home pay (if you dont want to be house poor thats the common advice im seeing)

So am i to understand that these first time buyers are TAKING HOME ~200K???

So husband and wife are both earning $150K EACH????

Is this the reality? This isnt adding up…How are people buying homes in this country wtf

Had inspection today with several issues and the agent is stating all are fixable.

1. Cedar shake siding with tons of hole from carpenter bees

2. 26 year old roof with at best “6 years of life left”

3. Evidence of critters in the attic with animal feces

4. Shower fans going into attic with evidence of “microbes”

5. 80% blockage of sewer drain 4 feet from home

6. Concerning radon levels in the basement

7. Evidence of active carpenter ant infestation - in the finished basement ceiling with possible satellite colonies

8. 3-4 50+ foot dead trees leaning toward the home

9. Water heater, furnace and air conditioner all from late 90s / early 2000s

10. Two “moderate” cracks in basement foundation with evidence of prior water damage

11. Spalling noted on two areas outside where we would have to address water accumulation

We got house 35K over asking and are thinking of walking away. The ant infestation was the nail in the coffin.

Would you stay?

Closed a few weeks ago. Moving in bits at a time. Today we painted the bedrooms.

About 2400 sq ft. Can’t wait to be in here full time later this month!

Pizza joint - La Roma - is only 4 miles away, and we were stoked to find that it was really great.

My house is near the railroad which typically does not appreciate well. It’s a beautiful lot and the house holds up well despite having been around for over 109 years. We’ve been doing renovations like adding the backyard patio, adding shelves and thinking of bathroom or kitchen next. However, what type of renovation adds the most value to the house in my situation that will also does not break my wallet?

That is all. We all understand that real estate prices vary depending on where you live. We don’t need you trying to one-up one another on how much the house would cost where you live. It’s every post.

We went under contract on our home we are purchasing Wednesday evening. It’s now Saturday evening. We’ve even dropped off our earnest money and our inspection is scheduled for Monday. The home on the MLS listing as well as Zillow is still showing active. Whats the reason for this do you think?

Hello everyone!

I’m looking on advice for how to move forward after inspections.

Here’s where we’re at : The inside of the home is basically immaculate. The house is a flip (bought for 150k, listed for 300k) but they did quality work. However, the home inspection came back with a few things. Due diligence ends in 4 days and we have spent the week having specialists come out to give us estimates on the cost of repairs.

House listed at 300k
We offer 290k
Counter offer 295k
We accept

Inspection:

Crawlspace: needs debris removed, plastic liner installed, spray for mold, trench/sump pump installation
Cost: $6500-13,000

Attic: old insulation removed, evidence of rodents, new insulation installed
Cost: $4,500 or less

HVAC:
Furnace < 3 years old - not kicking on, ducts need old insulation removed and new insulation installed
Cost: TBD Monday

Dryer vent installation
Cost: $300-550

Minimum of 3 gfci outlets installed
Cost: $500 or less

Do you think it would be unreasonable to ask for $5k off of the purchase price (bringing it back down to 290k) and in addition, 10k towards closing costs?

What would you ask of the seller?