The Home Ownership Thread

[Harold falcon]



I would keep it unfinished, at least for the most part (could have a sort of finished room like how my parents had a sort of play room with a large rug and only furniture and things that aren't going to care if they get a bit wet).

But it's the perfect place for laundry (with the luxury of a huge laundry-room sink), for a workshop, to hide the furnace where its noise won't be noticed, to put the cat litter and a beer fridge, and for storing out of season athletic equipment.

Whenever I see articles about people going minimalist and not needing any storage space because they only have 50 posessions, I figure that they must not have any hobbies that I would like. Pretty hard to have more than a passing interest in sports like cycling/skiing/sailing/ or even tennis without having places to store equipment out of season. Hard to own enough tools to fix your vehicle or build/repair some furniture if you go minimal.

Agreed. I have a whole room devoted to my hiking/camping equipment.

 

[M. Bardamu]



Laundry room on the second floor (floor with all the bedrooms) = massive win

I really don't get this.

Sure it's nice to have your clothes storage close to your clothes washer. But that almost always means close to the bedroom. I don't want a drier anywhere near my bedroom. **** is loud. Plus that means keeping your dirty clothes near your bedroom.

I say **** it. I have an almost 200 square foot utility/laundry room in the basement. I can have clothes piles 5 feet high before having to do laundry. And it's out of the way. I have massive drying racks so I can air dry virtually all my clothes. If I tried replicating the same space upstairs, I'd lose a lot (at least 10% of my 1000 sq ft bungalow) of my living space.

Laundry on the sleeping floor (top floor) is great, until one of the hoses bursts...good luck getting your washer/dryer out of the way and shutting the valve off before extensive flooding and water damage occurs. That's provided you are home when the hose bursts, and not in Australia for a few weeks...

Something like an Intelliflow shutoff is a must, as is a drainable catch basin under the washing machine.

 

[Piobaire]

All this talk reminds me why I'm happy to have only one floor. Also happy I have a huge utility room with sink and a folding counter and closet hanging bar in there.

 

[Douglas]

We converted a "summer kitchen" room in our old house to a 2nd floor laundry and it was ******* heaven. No, you couldn't run the dryer at night, but laundry was so easy.

In our new house we have the laundry in the basement, and the basement stairs are steep and narrow, and taking laundry up and down is a giant, giant PITA. It is nice to have room to spread out, but even today I occasionally consider if we could sneak in a stacking or combo unit somewhere upstairs near the bedroom at least to do things like socks, tshirts, and underwear just to cut down on the lugging of huge baskets up and down an awkward stair.

 

[Piobaire]

The main way to make laundry easier is to send most of your trousers and shirts out for cleaning (which is what we do).

 

[Ataturk]

Most full-size (front-load) washers and dryers can be stacked. There's no reason not to do it if you can. It frees up space and the extra weight helps to reduce noise from the washer.

 

[otc]



All this talk reminds me why I'm happy to have only one floor. Also happy I have a huge utility room with sink and a folding counter and closet hanging bar in there.

No basement? You don't live in one of those anti-basement states do you?

We converted a "summer kitchen" room in our old house to a 2nd floor laundry and it was ******* heaven. No, you couldn't run the dryer at night, but laundry was so easy.

In our new house we have the laundry in the basement, and the basement stairs are steep and narrow, and taking laundry up and down is a giant, giant PITA. It is nice to have room to spread out, but even today I occasionally consider if we could sneak in a stacking or combo unit somewhere upstairs near the bedroom at least to do things like socks, tshirts, and underwear just to cut down on the lugging of huge baskets up and down an awkward stair.

No point in running the dryer at night anyway...everything will just come out wrinkled from sitting right?
Sound like you need a laundry dumbwaiter.

The main way to make laundry easier is to send most of your trousers and shirts out for cleaning (which is what we do).

Only problem is that I don't trust commercial laundry with my shirts. I'd send them my socks, underwear, and t-shirts, but that just seems silly.

I rarely wash my pants (and obviously, the wool stuff has to be dry cleaned) so the pants thing isn't really an issue.

 

[idfnl]



Most full-size (front-load) washers and dryers can be stacked. There's no reason not to do it if you can. It frees up space and the extra weight helps to reduce noise from the washer.

Good point, though have you seen how large washers and dryers have gotten lately? Some of them look like semi trucks. I know its partly the bottom shelves, but still.

 

[aravenel]

That's largely due to the bottom shelves, which come separately and are removable.

 

[Ataturk]

They posed that picture with a little tiny woman and a low ceiling to make their products look bigger. I bet you she's under five feet tall.

 

[Ataturk]

Oh, yeah, and the machines are sitting on a raised platform. She's wearing high heels and the floor of the platform is over her ankles.

I googled it, though, and apparently that's a special "gigantic" washing machine for the Korean market. As I understand it most Koreans don't even have washing machines, so I guess it's giant to them.

 

[MrG]

I thought about starting a thread for this, but I figured I'd ask here first, given it's a thriving thread and I'm sort of on topic.

As some of you know, I'll be relocating soon. We own our house, and I don't think we have enough equity to sell right now without walking away empty-handed. That being the case, we're going to be landlords for the foreseeable future. I have zero experience on the landlord side of renting, so I'd be interested in advice from those of you who own rental properties.

For context, it's a single-family home in a neighborhood where I know there are some rental houses that have been occupied as long as I've lived there. I also live in a college town where people come and go, so there's likely a market. Also, I'll be living about 1.5 hours from the house, so I don't really have the ability to drop in whenever I might want/need to do so.

My first question is regarding property management companies. I'm strongly leaning toward one, but does anyone have advice either way?

Secondly, I'm open to any advice people might have on making being a landlord as painless as possible.

 

[idfnl]



I thought about starting a thread for this, but I figured I'd ask here first, given it's a thriving thread and I'm sort of on topic.

As some of you know, I'll be relocating soon. We own our house, and I don't think we have enough equity to sell right now without walking away empty-handed. That being the case, we're going to be landlords for the foreseeable future. I have zero experience on the landlord side of renting, so I'd be interested in advice from those of you who own rental properties.

For context, it's a single-family home in a neighborhood where I know there are some rental houses that have been occupied as long as I've lived there. I also live in a college town where people come and go, so there's likely a market. Also, I'll be living about 1.5 hours from the house, so I don't really have the ability to drop in whenever I might want/need to do so.

My first question is regarding property management companies. I'm strongly leaning toward one, but does anyone have advice either way?

Secondly, I'm open to any advice people might have on making being a landlord as painless as possible.

Being a landlord is a PITA, but its paying for your house. Renters will bother you with everything because its not their house, they won't fix anything and expect quick turnaround. They'll also abuse your appliances, so don't expect them to last as long.

Don't pay any utilities except trash. Include yard maintenance... most renters do a **** job.

Specifically disalow home modifications w/o your approval in a lease.

Collect 2 mos rent in a deposit. Its not the money, its a signal they have enough disposable income which is a sign they are stable. Nothing worse than an eviction process where you're saddled with 2 mortgages.

Dont rent to under 30's, nor a group home. Look for a family w kids or better yet a married couple. No roomates/BF+GF, they split and want to move out, breaking leases is a PITA. A 2 year lease is also a sign of stability, its a good exchange for not raising rent, even incentivise a 1 year extension within the 1st year w/ no rent raise.

Avoid pets if you can.

Definitely do a credit check. Dont be afraid to check in with neighbors.

I would not use a service, personally. Its expensive. You can do it all yourself, but if you are uber busy it might make sense. If you do it yourself, use a lease that's state specific.

 

[Ataturk]

I used to help my folks manage some rental properties they had. I wouldn't recommend renting a house you plan to sell soon unless the house is in poor condition already. Your experience may differ, of course, but tenants (especially college kids) cause a lot of wear and tear. If you have to repair damage to sell the house, it's going to cost you a lot more than you'd make renting it for a short period of time. And you have to be extremely selective about who you rent to, and I wonder whether a management company is going to do that for you.

Oh, yes, don't forget that you won't be able to claim the homestead exemption on the house anymore, and when you sell it the buyer will expect you to make up the difference in taxes for the whole year. At least that's how it works in my state.

My recommendation would be to sell the house and cut your losses.

 

[Douglas]

Renting is tricky business. No great advice here, but good luck to you, G.

So this is going to sound pretty sad, but if you understand how totally not handy I am, you will understand why I am pretty proud of the sawhorses I made last night.

Or, as I have been delighting in calling them, in Baltimore shirtsleeves solidarity, my sawlhorses.