General

I have been actively looking for just over a month now. 0 for 4 on accepted offers thus far. My realtor is drafting up a fifth as I type; fingers crossed this one takes. Probably the best house I've seen thus far.

I got a new government job near Olympic national park.

Typical home there is $425-500k.

I'm still sitting on most of teh cash from my sale (haven't spent any but have invested some). But i want to get pre approved for a mortgage all the same.

there is a 7 unit multi family for a bit over $500k I want to go check out. I can't believe it is that cheap, studios are like $900-1100 over there, 1 bed are like $1000-1400, and as I understand it you can barely find an apartment over there because everything is air bnb.

Or I could get a pimp place on the ocean with an awesome view for $800k-1m.

so at least i know where to look for buying now!

Anything more than 4 units will require a commercial mortgage, which has different guidelines than a residential loan. You may want to talk with your bank about getting pre-approved for both commercial and residential.

https://www.commercialsearch.com/commercial-proper...

I could buy a bank.

If it was in the Midwest, it would make a great Baptist church or Subway.

We've had a couple bank branches close in my town over the past few years. One became a coffee shop and the other is a Jimmy Johns now!

(The coffee shop one still has the drive-up lanes where the tubes would shoot stuff back and forth, but they just them for parking. I kinda wish the Jimmy Johns ones would have kept theirs and used it to shoot subs through!)

This one doesn't have the tubes unfortunately.

Still has the vault though, so figure a jewelry store or more likely, pawn shop would go good there. It's actually an incredible location, it is like 5 blocks outside of city limits so it is county, which is much cheaper to deal with. I think a detatched coffee place in the parking lot close to the entrance would be killer. For local commuters they drive by that spot every day, and its on the right hand side going into town.

That's a really touristy area, something like 2 million people go through every year to go to Hurricane Ridge and the Olympic National Park.

I feel like some restaurants would go good there. They have some good burger places already, but they are lacking good non-chain pizza and sub shops. Do that, turn the top floor into apartments and I think it could be a good deal long term. It's super prime location, in 10-20 years it will be annexed and probably close to the start of "down town".

Have any of you that sold been getting lots of random texts and calls since you sold asking if you own your old house?

I'm averaging 2 of these per week since I sold. Didn't happen at all until house was pending. Any idea why that happens?

I think I found a place I want to put an offer in on.

Located on a hill, 5 bed, 4 bath, 2 current living units, there is a third potential living unit over the garage that currently is only a half bath.

Has ~240 degree views of water, shipping lanes, a logging plant, Canadian mountains in the background, the long sand bar ("hook").

Under $700k, really needs paint. Whoever installed the granite countertops sucked bad. Original builders were super high quality. Has 2 of the best bathrooms I've seen, one awesome one on each floor. The most beautiful staircase I've seen under like $1.2M. Deck was in great condition.

Between 3000-3500 square feet.

Biggest down side is garage doesn't open to the house. Second biggest is minimal off-street parking, though that could be remedied for not much money. Third biggest is the front door isn't where it should be. Final issue is no fence.

All but front door are easy enough to fix, just a matter of money. And even the front door issue isn't terrible, it needs like an extended deck so you don't walk down a hill just to walk up steps.

It's been on the market for a while so thinking of going like $75k under asking to see if they respond.

Mr. Big Baller over here.

No joke, @Scott! I hope you're able to close on that dream house, @Chad; I truly do. But, daaamn, son! You're clearly in a whole other tax-bracket-lifestyle than me. I felt like a million bucks last year just being able to move my wife and three kids outta a two-bedroom, one-and-a-half-bath house and into a four-bedroom, three-bath house. Diff'rent strokes for diff'rent folks, I suppose.

We're half tempted to buy land and build. Just randomly found a lot we like yesterday for $140k (1.5 acres, flat, creek in the back, no trees which really sucks). House would probably be at least $500k.

$650k was like our top we wanted to be but would prefer to be much more under. Don't want to be house poor and rob ourselves of lifestyle and vacations. Gonna chat with more builders.

I love the idea of building your own, but it also comes with more stress! Just tired of looking at houses and them not being the right one.

Good luck @chad! You pulling the trigger?

Yeah, just trying to figure out my offer. I'm thinking $653k, $50% down payment, $50k earnest money, 30 day closing would be a pretty strong offer with a decent chance to get them to accept. $653k would be a 5% price drop. They have been listed 6 months and did a 5.1% price drop around a month ago. It would also keep enough money from my previous sale to do the immediate needs (parking and fence).

Contacted my agent to put in an offer. Supposedly another party is interested and is going to be putting in an offer. If so, I'm guessing they are at least looking for partial investment as well, given the property. So I am assuming they will low ball. I went $660k. At $660k I'm comfortable on the mortgage even if I don't rent anything out, if I do start renting then its just gravy.

I'm ok if I don't get it, but will be really happy at the price if I do get it. Especially if in 3 or 4 years I can refinance at 4%.

If the other party is like multi-generational living, they might get in a bidding war. But in that case, no thanks.

Good luck, Chad!

Offer was accepted. I suspect the competing offer was a lie or came in really low. Still very happy with this price. Especially since this is only first round of negotiations, like I mentioned, I think more will come off from inspection.

Yeah, so, in my experience buying rentals that have been on the market for a while -- there ALWAYS suddenly seems to be another party that is interested and they therefore need us to make our "highest and best" offer. We usually say "Yup, already did. Thanks." and see how it goes. Usually we get it -- which, like you said, makes me think there was never anyone else.

But congrats, certainly! 👍

Badass, congrats @Chad ! Hopefully you've started a wave of momentum here ...

Chad wrote:

Congrats. Did you post any pictures that I may have missed? I understand not wanting to display the address but curious what the place looks like. Tease me.

https://imgur.com/a/CmnvXxB

let me know if that works.

and 3 of the trees partially blocking the view are on this property. though i dont know if i will cut anything down, even with part of the view blocked, there is a good view from all floors.

and it definitely needs a coat of paint. i want to do something kind of bold. like a red or green or or something as the primary color.

Congrats man! That looks really nice.

Chad wrote:

Chad wrote:

Dream house right there! Hope it goes thru for you! Good luck!

Looks great!

Chad wrote:

Legit thought you were going to clownpenis.fart me.

I forgot to include the back up generator in my bid, and apparently all the stuff I thought was staging (furniture, art, rugs) is being offered for additional. We will see.

It'll go well over asking, but... Hoping to see this tomorrow. Checks lots of boxes but definitely not all. Soooo much wood, not as open of a floor plan as I'd like, roof probably needs replaced, no pool, hoa, blah blah.

Problem is, everything is 550+ around here and offers less. This market is such a kick in the balls. Inventory is starting to improve but everything is still overpriced and selling over ask. It amazes me that $600k these days and you are ultimately settling.

https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/78-Taylor-James...

that looks really nice. but HOAs terrify me.

Inspection is over. Inspector seemed really good. Surprisingly few things to note. There will be some deck work like I expected, but super minimal. Some handrails needed, deck should be screwed in rather than nailed, a few support brackets needed for existing hand rails.

Getting a few contractors out and quotes for things, but I don't think I'll be able to even go in for a $20k price job. Maybe not even $10k. Meanwhile I think I am going to be asking for like 20-30k in generators, rugs, and art....

Their (sellers) realtor sure kind of fudgeed them on the sale with this listing IMO. The pictures are so bad compared to how it looks in real life. My inspector said he normally checks every place that has opportunity to be a multi-family but skipped by this one based on the pictures.

Oh and confirmed radiant ceiling heat. He said its super reliable, lasts a long time, but once it dies, not worth trying to repair. Was able to show it on the infrared camera which was cool.

Inspector and realtor were guessing main floor would rent for $2000-2200, bottom floor $1600-1800, and if I do the above garage unit up, $900-1200 for that. I think I might end up living on the bottom floor and renting out the top and eventually the studio.

MrBean wrote:

Part of the issue is you've got corporate buyers out there looking to pick up properties to add to their rental portfolio, and until/unless that backs off, people are going to feel the need to go over asking price to even have a shot to land a house in some markets.

Some of it is that interest rates have been abnormally low since 9/11, and the 5s and 6s we're seeing now might even still be on the low side compared to the 70s and 80s.

So it's a question of "will they continue to rise" and "how much?" The more they rise, the bigger a squeeze it puts on buying power, and so some buyers may be feeling incentivized to pay more for the house while they can lock in a relatively lower rate. Be interesting to see how long that double whammy lasts.

(We bought last fall at 5.25%, but we were also in the shallow end of the pricing pool, so we ended up not having to go over asking much at all; thank God in retrospect given some of the crap we've had to deal with since getting the keys.)

Volkswagen bought my home for cash a few years ago to house an employee.

Feeb wrote:

Different flavor of corporate. What I mean is mass landlord situations, where one buyer (usually incorporated to minimize personal liability) or possibly a group are buying up the affordable homes to turn around and rent them out to generate "passive" income.

VW was trying to unfudge crap for one of their employees. Good on them. Different beast than the sort looking to exploit the situation to make things actively worse for would-be homebuyers.

MrBean wrote:

Well, the 90's wood trim is ... not the best, it's largely a hill, but everything else is quite awesome. One of the best school systems in Ohio, nearby some kickass cities, neighboord is crazy nice, near family ... nearly 6k sq ft (with the potential to add quite a bit more via a closed off cedar closet).

We're feeling it. They shut off bids at 5pm today, and we were bidder #4 at 4pm, so there may be another two last minute, we'll see.

Put in the offer at $620k, with escalation to $650k. More than we want to be at, but it checks too many boxes to keep waiting for the perfect house.

Oh, we also talked to a builder after we found a lot of land, haha ... SO much more expensive. Realistically, to come even 2/3 as close to this house, it'd be well over $800k, soooo, yeah, no.

Fudge this crap, we lost it. gosh darnit.

Only in this modern fudgeed up world do you lose out by overbidding $20k with only 4 bidders.

I give up.

sorry to hear that. and yeah, building is ridiculous. You have to take on large portions of it yourself to not get completely fudgeed.

MrBean wrote:

I still dont understand how people are paying that much over asking price. And it is every single time! 20k and you still didnt get it? This market is insane!

I actually made an offer on a house yesterday. Definitely have 0% chance of getting it but I thought Id try.

Congratulations, @Chad! I look forward to reading more of your updates as the journey continues. Remember, in the words of the great Yogi Berra, "It ain't over 'til it's over."

That super-sucks, @MrBean. But, don't lose hope. My wife and I had to deal with at least four other competing offers when we bought our house early last year. It was listed right at 300K and, to the shock and surprise of both my wife and our realtor (who's also my cousin's husband and one of my best friends), I decided to go super-nuts and make the power-play of 325K. Well, long story short, we won the house and, right now, online realty sites such as Redfin and Zillow estimate the property value at just under 350K. Mind you, that's excluding all the equity we pumped into the place before moving in like refinishing original hardwood floors, tearing out linoleum floors, installing and finishing new hardwood floors, installing new tiled floors, tearing out linoleum countertops and backsplashes, installing quartz countertops and tile backsplashes, and painting each and every room.

So, the next time you step up to the plate, @MrBean, go for the brass ring. Make your next offer a stupid amount. Not only will you finally win, you'll also find that you'll recoup your "losses" way faster than you may think.

It's been will they or wont they for 2 months.

Originally blown out of the water by a +35k plus asking. Winning buyer had an as-is clause, and then there was a little bit of trouble with the inspection the buyer balked. Sellers lawyers said "no dice, you presented an as-is offer" and by some stroke of luck, we were next in line.
We inspected, found the issue to be something that could be fixed for around ~10k, Since there were other bidders still in line, came up 2.5k on bid, then based on inspection asked for a 7.5k concession. They came back with 3.5k in concession. Then when the appraisal came in value on property was10k above asking.

To Noid's point, I'm actualizing that value elsewhere. You're in the long-haul now.

MrBean wrote:

Man, that house would go for at least $1 million in NJ..

shadyfozzie wrote:

Yeah, even though the market is still bat crap here, it's still better here than elsewhere. We were considered under-valued for years ... and now we 180'd and are over-valued. Still, one of my friends in Florida said this would sell for ~$2m there!

We'll never find that big of a house in that range again, it was a crazy listing. That size is typically ~$750k+. Sure it needed some work, but that price was crazy given all the other factors.

We should have bid more, but it's over. Sucks, but ... what can ya do. You have to set a cut off at some point, and while we can afford more, we don't want to be house poor. We came to alignment that $650k is our max so if we don't get the next one either ... is what it is.

Still, salty ... been a crapty day

What's crazy is that you could buy that house here for likely well under $400k.

Like, if you're in a $350k house here, you're in a REALLY nice house...

John wrote:

Same here. Depending on school zone. That would be anywhere from 300-600k