The Home Ownership Thread

[Van Veen]

Is your realtor setting you up with at least a drip concurrent with your own searches on Zillow/Redfin?

Yes.

Answering my own question... I guess to me, the most important thing is a realtor that can accurately value the market. So if my guy says "I think this is overpriced/underpriced," and what he says comes true, I will trust him even more.

Edit: To add... part of it is that I think I suck at this, because I involve my own personal biases and I don't know the nuances of location. Like, "whoa there is not one room in this house that doesn't need work... I can't see anyone paying asking price for it," then it sells $25k over asking. (Of course maybe it's true that the people who bought it got in a bidding war and overpaid. I've certainly seen flip houses sit on the market for months and wind up likely going for a loss considering renovation and carrying costs.)

 

[NorCal]

Then the question is how do you know that a realtor is good, at least as a buyer's agent?

They sell a **** load of houses. They show you a **** load of houses. They find homes that fit your requirements. They show you **** that you never would have looked at but that you turn out liking.

 

[RedLantern]

Before and after a of the kitchen - my wife is supposed to make some cute half curtains for the windows, but timing is TBD:

 

[RedLantern]

The 4 door fridge was actually an integral part of the design. It is counter depth (which we needed for the design) but the lower right section can be either fridge or freezer. We use it as extra fridge space for seldom used stuff and the end result is we didn’t have to lose any fridge space switching to counter depth. We have an upright freezer in the garage as well as the freezer above the beer fridge, so still plenty of freezer storage!

 

[RSS]

I liked both our selling agent (in the Bay Area) and our buying agent (in the West Sound). I liked the selling agent for several reasons. Our personalities meshed AND she got us far above asking (100% cash and no contingencies! I still remember going in to review the nine offers. She asked us to guess the high offer. We were low. We guessed again and were low. We guessed a third time but were still low. Finally she said "I'm just going to have to thrill you with the number." We were definitely thrilled.

Our agent in the West Sound found us a place that exceeded our expectations. She also found contiguous properties to get us from the house (at an elevation of 400') to the water's edge. Our local agent and her husband have been frequent guests at our house since we bought.

 

[brokencycle]

Before and after a of the kitchen - my wife is supposed to make some cute half curtains for the windows, but timing is TBD: View attachment 1461936 View attachment 1461937 View attachment 1461938 View attachment 1461939 View attachment 1461940 View attachment 1461941 View attachment 1461942 View attachment 1461943

The counter and backsplash has a vintage diner feel to me it.

What really annoys me about the old kitchen is the upper cabinets on the exterior wall: not only is there a ton of wasted space, but there is a weird gap next to the window

 

[Gibonius]

I like the new cabinets. Details?

 

[RedLantern]

The counter and backsplash has a vintage diner feel to me it.

What really annoys me about the old kitchen is the upper cabinets on the exterior wall: not only is there a ton of wasted space, but there is a weird gap next to the window

You talking about the lack of an upper between the two windows in the old kitchen? I agree, and it was really important to get a good sized upper in there so that it’s fast and easy to unload most of our daily use dishes and glasses from the DW. There was some greasy number crunching by me to figure out what size the new windows would have to be, how much setback I could have from the cabinets to the window opening, and the size of the oven cabinet at the upper between the windows. Thankfully it all worked out!

 

[Van Veen]

I've seen some bizarre kitchen layouts from halfass renos where they try to cram in modern appliances while preserving the original cabinets. One had a modern french door fridge directly against a counter, basically blocking access to 36" of counter space.

Also saw one with new countertops and updated appliances, except a stove like this:

It was, of course, not in the pictures.

 

[RedLantern]

I like the new cabinets. Details?

They are birch (as were the old ones). When specced birch I was expecting both heartwood and sapwood in the new cabinets (I like the color contrast) but I’m pretty happy with the new ones. They will darken up a bit over time, which was also part of the plan. Local maker-I’ve found that there is great value in small custom shops.

 

[RedLantern]

I've seen some bizarre kitchen layouts from halfass renos where they try to cram in modern appliances while preserving the original cabinets. One had a modern french door fridge directly against a counter, basically blocking access to 36" of counter space.

Also saw one with new countertops and updated appliances, except a stove like this:

View attachment 1462067

It was, of course, not in the pictures.

What I think is weird about that is you can get a builder grade range for what, 3-400?

 

[Van Veen]

What I think is weird about that is you can get a builder grade range for what, 3-400?

Exactly. It's an immediate red flag to most buyers, warranted or not. (The house had plenty of legit problems, and signs of shoddy DIY renos.)

It's been on the market 50+ days with no price reductions. Does not seem like the seller is a reasonable person.

 

[Gibonius]

The house we bought sat on the market for almost nine months. The previous owners listed it themselves, and originally priced it way too high. They got a realtor, dropped the price by $50k, but left the entire house painted butter yellow which I'm convinced turned off buyers.

We repainted it and it was shocking how much of a difference it made. You'd think they would at least try fairly basic stuff like that when the house wasn't selling.

 

[Piobaire]

It’s super easy. All realtors are lying pieces of ****, so the answer is they are, literally, never good.

People like to say, “oh, my agent was great!” Nah, that’s just **** people tell themselves, because it’s the most important transaction they’ve ever made and they have to believe it went well for themselves. Real estate agents are barely necessary evils, and I look forward to the day when they become obsolete.

Must...resist...lawyer...crack.

 

[brokencycle]

You talking about the lack of an upper between the two windows in the old kitchen? I agree, and it was really important to get a good sized upper in there so that it’s fast and easy to unload most of our daily use dishes and glasses from the DW. There was some greasy number crunching by me to figure out what size the new windows would have to be, how much setback I could have from the cabinets to the window opening, and the size of the oven cabinet at the upper between the windows. Thankfully it all worked out!

I was talking about that and this:

It just screams standard size cabinets.