The Home Ownership Thread

[Douglas]



If $400-$600 is in your range, CB2 has some stuff that has that relatively modern Scandinavian look.

Perfect. Thank you.

 

[RedLantern]



You're both echoing the competing thoughts in my head. We are still under the time period for the inspection contingency in our contract, so we're not "stuck" yet by any means. I am not totally surprised by the reaction, nobody wants to get bad news. Like I said, if the roof really is as bad as the inspector seemed to think, they are going to limit themselves to cash buyers if they really refuse to do anything about it, and frankly, this is not the type of neighborhood I would expect a lot of cash buyers to be looking.

Thanks for all the advice and well-wishes, fellas. I'll keep you posted!

Update:

We're splitting the cost of a new roof and selected a bid today. Hopefully closing won't be delayed.

 

[imatlas]

Sounds like a fair compromise. Good luck!

It's been two years in the making but today is demo day for our kitchen & bathroom project...wish us luck!

 

[RedLantern]



Sounds like a fair compromise. Good luck!

It's been two years in the making but today is demo day for our kitchen & bathroom project...wish us luck!

Yeah, I figured that we weren't expecting a brand new roof when we bought the place, so it's fair to split the cost. We're just going to increase our offer by half the price of the new roof, which will effect he monthly payment by a small amount, but worth it, IMO to not have to worry about the roof at all for a decade or two. Plus with the new roof they are installing an external gutter system (rather than the old-built in style) which should handle all the Seattle rain much better and be much easier to clean and maintain.

I will be really glad when this thing closes though, the seller is cumbersome to deal with, being a committee and all. The point person with the church keeps bristling about how they don't want to delay closing, yet will not answer the phone, or return calls or emails.

 

[RedLantern]

Update:

Cons - still haven't gotten a signed around roofing contact done. I took the newest draft over to the seller to approve, and she wanted it sent back to make a change so they could save . . . $70. I can't make this stuff up. We're getting closer and closer to closing and we need to amend our P&S ASAP, and she raised an issue over $70. 350k house, 15k roof. But $70 is enough of an issue to warrant a re-draft? SMH.

Pros - Looks like the property taxes are going to be $1200 less than what I budgeted for, and the homeowners insurance is going to be like $750 less than I budgeted for. ALSO got the appraisal back and it came back 30K higher than our contract price. maybe that means that our PMI premium will be reduced as our LTV just got a lot better. Even if not, its still nice to hear!

Ironically, all the good news makes me more livid with the bad news - I really don't want to lose this deal.

 

[VLSI]

Just give her $70

 

[RedLantern]

If I could have just put the cash in my wallet on her desk I would have. Would have been pretty offensive to her though.

 

[VLSI]

Well I don't know the details of the change, but you couldn't just saying something like "Hey, I don't mind covering the difference. I'll just take care of it"?

 

[RedLantern]



Well I don't know the details of the change, but you couldn't just saying something like "Hey, I don't mind covering the difference. I'll just take care of it"?

No, because the roofer is being paid out of the sale proceeds at escrow. Our P&S contract has an addendum about the roofing contract stating that we will increase our purchase price to reflect half the cost of the roofing. Furthermore, the seller is a corporate entity (a church) so all the numbers from thier minutes need to match up with whats coming in/going out. So for those reasons I couldn't really just hand her cash and be done with it. Not to mention it would be rude to point out her myopia, and I'm going to have an ongoing relationship with these people, though thankfully it will be to a lesser extent than it has been trying to iron out this deal.

 

[Gus]

Hey RL, good luck in the "home stretch". I'm sure you will all work it out. As frustrating as it is when working with a committee like a church they won't want the deal to fall apart either. Sounds like you are handling it well. Hope to hear good news from you soon.

 

[RedLantern]



Hey RL, good luck in the "home stretch". I'm sure you will all work it out. As frustrating as it is when working with a committee like a church they won't want the deal to fall apart either. Sounds like you are handling it well. Hope to hear good news from you soon.

Thanks, I have been trying to tell myself the same thing, but it's nice to hear that coming from a more objective source.

 

[RedLantern]

Still hopefully closing on Monday . . .

Made my first homeowner purchases over the weekend - house numbers! Also needed tools to install them so I decided to invest in a nice DeWalt 20v drill/driver and some drill bits/driver heads etc.

Went over to the house today to put up the house numbers - weird I know, because we haven't closed yet, but the seller asked me to so that the various tradespeople could find the house. Roofers showed up and started the tear-off!

Also, REALLY weird as we haven't closed yet, but the seller gave me a set of keys. So things are looking good! Loan officer called to tell me that rates are down a bit so we moved from 4.625 to 4.5, which is nice.

Looks like our Landlord is pretty on top of getting a new tenant lined up for the middle of october, which is great. I was counting on losing our 1250 deposit and paying the full month of october in rent, but instead we will just pay a 750 fee to break the lease, then get most of our deposit back, and hopefully get refunded for half a month's rent.

 

[SkinnyGoomba]

Cool, congrats. I think SF seriously needs a tool thread.

 

[FtRoyalty]



Cool, congrats. I think SF seriously needs a tool thread.

Isn't Dumb Threads full of them?

 

[SkinnyGoomba]

Well done.