real estate advice?

Anyone a real estate agent or something like that? I have a decision to make and need some advice. I am a contractor and my contract runs out this Friday. I don't have anything lined up yet for after my current contract and the chances of getting an extension at my current job are slim due to budget reasons.
My wife and I have found a house that we want to put an offer down on but we are leary due to my employment situation. Our current lease in our apartment runs out on Thanksgiving so we have 2 months to move out. I don't anticipate being out of work for that long and i am also hoping to get a call on Monday about a position I interviewed for a couple weeks ago. We also have enough saved up to offset the money that I will not get from unemployment.
So, do we put an offer down on this house and hope for the best? I don't want to miss out on this house or have problems with the mortgage lender due to a break in my paychecks. (we have already been pr-approved for a mortgage)

Tough situation.

A home is an investment--so long term that helps. It seems short term is what the big worry is right now.

The only advice I can offer is don't get into something you can't be 100% sure that it is the right thing. Go with your gut feeling.

FWIW, We are working with Liz Moore and Associates, and it has been nothign but a pleasure. Helps when the real estate agent is from WI, and we all clicked immediately.

Best of luck man. Stressful times, stressful times.

My SWMBO is a real estate agent. Let me know if you want to consult with her.

Any ideas what your mortgage payment will be? If the mortgage is close to what you're paying in rent right now, then I'd say get the house--if you really want to stay in Richmond. Like Dude said, a house is an investment, but you need to live in it for two years before you sell it (otherwise you will have to pay taxes on the resale profits).

What area of town are you looking to move? Staying in the West End, or coming over to this side of the river?

As a contractor, the bank will want to see your last two years tax forms. They realize contractors have employment gaps. If you made about the same money each year, they don't care if you worked 6 months or 12. I contracted for many years and purchased three houses during that time.

Nope, we're leaving Richmond and heading to the other side of the tracks! This house is in Midlothian (Ashbrook) but we are also looking in Chester, Chesterfield.

As for the last 2 years of tax returns, my income has been fairly steady and SWMBO's is too. Our mortgage payment would double compared to our rent but we don't really pay rent anyway since SWMBO's work pays her a stipend for rent.

Sounds like you're coming over to my neck of the woods, best of luck to ya.

Well we decided to put an offer in on the house. I ended up getting another month added onto my contract so that gave us a bit more breathing room. Hopefully we can get the paperwork submitted today!

Sweet...got an MLS or pics?

Good luck to you, as I'm sure Dude can now attest, buying a house can be an extremely stressful event. Ours was actually very non-eventful, it was a friend of a friend who knew we were looking in the area and who wanted to get out - so she offered it to us without listing it for about 20% less than its appraised value.

Nice way to build some home equity... ugly-ass kitchen and all.

well, poop hit the fan today and it looks like we're walking away. I didn't want to post any pictures or anything until we agreed on a contract but the owner wouldn't budge on the price. We offered 10k less than asking price and asked for 3% of sale price toward closing costs and to have the HVAC system and fireplace serviced. They responded with "there is no wiggle room" on the price and crossed out everything that had to do with the closing costs, service, and AHS warranty.
I know we kind of lowballed him a bit but come on! You aren't going to budge one cent in a buyer's market when your house has been on the market for 2 months! Maybe that's why it's still on the market..... Oh well. There is still hope, my agent was going to tell them we are walking away and she is going to get back to me. Looks like my next weekend will be shot looking at more houses.

todd_k said:

well, poop hit the fan today and it looks like we're walking away. I didn't want to post any pictures or anything until we agreed on a contract but the owner wouldn't budge on the price. We offered 10k less than asking price and asked for 3% of sale price toward closing costs and to have the HVAC system and fireplace serviced. They responded with "there is no wiggle room" on the price and crossed out everything that had to do with the closing costs, service, and AHS warranty.
I know we kind of lowballed him a bit but come on! You aren't going to budge one cent in a buyer's market when your house has been on the market for 2 months! Maybe that's why it's still on the market..... Oh well. There is still hope, my agent was going to tell them we are walking away and she is going to get back to me. Looks like my next weekend will be shot looking at more houses.

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Sorry man. This can be a very troubling experience. Luckily for us, it has been halfway pleasant so far.

We looked at some real high priced dumps in the beginning though.

I hear that. Nothing like walking into an empty house and getting slapped in the face with the smell of cat piss.

I just heard back from my realtor, apparently the seller can't move on the price due to the money he owes either on this house or the new house, neither of which is my problem. So I guess he can keep paying a mortgage on two houses until he finds that sucker who will offer full price. A house the same size right down the street just sold for 10k less than what he's asking so I think he'll be waiting a while.

That's too bad. It takes people a while to adjust to the changing housing market, they don't realize that it isn't about what they NEED to get for the house or what they feel they OUGHT to get based on what the market was like last year - but what the market is today. I have a strong feeling this will work out for you in the end, it's a much better market to be buying in today. Somewhere out there is someone with a home you'll love that's been sitting on it for four or five months, this isn't the time to act rashly.

todd_k said:

I hear that. Nothing like walking into an empty house and getting slapped in the face with the smell of cat piss.

I just heard back from my realtor, apparently the seller can't move on the price due to the money he owes either on this house or the new house, neither of which is my problem. So I guess he can keep paying a mortgage on two houses until he finds that sucker who will offer full price. A house the same size right down the street just sold for 10k less than what he's asking so I think he'll be waiting a while.

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I'd definitely let that dude know that. Maybe he'll budge.

BUT....plenty of other stuff out there, keep looking!

I'm assuming that you folks in the market for real estate these days know about zillow.com, right?

I don't know if the seller knows that but the seller's agent was notified yesterday. I'm afraid he's going to realize he needs to come down after we've decided on another house. We're on a bit of a timeline here as our lease expires on Thanksgiving. Right now it's not a big deal but in another a few weeks it's gonna start to cut it close. We can go month to month but it's another 100 bucks a month which we don't want to do.
It's also strange because I don't think anyone else has put any offers in. We went to see the house a 2nd time last weekend and the only business card on the counter was from our agent. No one else is even looking at the house. That should tell him something.

EDIT: yeah, we know about zillow. according to 2 agents, it's not accurate because of the databases they pull their data from are not always accurate.

todd_k said:

well, poop hit the fan today and it looks like we're walking away. I didn't want to post any pictures or anything until we agreed on a contract but the owner wouldn't budge on the price. We offered 10k less than asking price and asked for 3% of sale price toward closing costs and to have the HVAC system and fireplace serviced. They responded with "there is no wiggle room" on the price and crossed out everything that had to do with the closing costs, service, and AHS warranty.
I know we kind of lowballed him a bit but come on! You aren't going to budge one cent in a buyer's market when your house has been on the market for 2 months! Maybe that's why it's still on the market..... Oh well. There is still hope, my agent was going to tell them we are walking away and she is going to get back to me. Looks like my next weekend will be shot looking at more houses.

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Be thankful that your real estate agent isn't out to push you into a house you don't want. The first house that we put an offer on turned out to be a pain working with the sellers--they wouldn't budge on any thing. Our real estate agent told us we couldn't back out of the deal because we had made an offer (first time buyers) and we didn't know any better so we more or less got screwed.

You definitely want to go with your gut instincts on buying a house, if it doesn't feel right walk away, and know that you can.

Good luck, it's out there.

Our agent is cool as hell. She doesn't hold anything back, she will tell you exactly what she thinks of the house you're looking at (unless the sellers are there too, then she waits until we get back in the car). The only think she did that was kind of annoying was one day she suggested going to look at a few houses that were 20-25k over our price range which we said no way and she was fine with that.

We just spoke to a realtor the other day and she did the same thing, suggesting houses that are slightly higher than our price range (it was at an open house, we really aren't looking to move anyway). The justification she had was for every 1,000 you go up in price on a house, your monthly payment increases $7. So $10k really only changes your payment by $70, and there is the possibility of getting them to drop the price into your range.

Flyin' Lion said:

We just spoke to a realtor the other day and she did the same thing, suggesting houses that are slightly higher than our price range (it was at an open house, we really aren't looking to move anyway). The justification she had was for every 1,000 you go up in price on a house, your monthly payment increases $7. So $10k really only changes your payment by $70, and there is the possibility of getting them to drop the price into your range.

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I agree with that which is why we were looking at this house to begin with, it's 4500 over our max. We looked at a few that were about 5k over our max but when you start talking about 20-25k over the max, then it's not worth it. We would prefer not to pay our max anyway.

The market's changing into a BUYER's market, so I've heard today...if you can hold out a bit it'll be to YOUR advantage. Place some of your stuff in storage before you HAVE to move. At least it'll be out of there.

Our house was WAY overpriced when I started looking at it, but the seller came down to a price I preferred. I later found out she really had the price jacked up way high (many, many months before I ever saw it). Some people (the relative neighbors) say she was just trying to get back at the family.

She offered to sell it to them for 240K. I got it for 138K and paid it off in 2 years, 2 months. I could have paid cash, but wanted to keep some of my funds. Now I have to rebuild the nest egg...at least I'm earning interest now instead of giving it away...

homebrewer_99 said:

The market's changing into a BUYER's market, so I've heard today...if you can hold out a bit it'll be to YOUR advantage. Place some of your stuff in storage before you HAVE to move. At least it'll be out of there.

Our house was WAY overpriced when I started looking at it, but the seller came down to a price I preferred. I later found out she really had the price jacked up way high (many, many months before I ever saw it). Some people (the relative neighbors) say she was just trying to get back at the family.

She offered to sell it to them for 240K. I got it for 138K and paid it off in 2 years, 2 months. I could have paid cash, but wanted to keep some of my funds. Now I have to rebuild the nest egg...at least I'm earning interest now instead of giving it away...

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We're already in a buyers market! Ever since interest rates started climbing and all of these people with ARM's started saying, Oh crap!, it has been a buyers market. This d-bag needs to realize it and take a loss on whatever it is he probably overpaid for!

There's a HUGE amount of supply on the market, from everything that the homebuilders have been churning out, to everybody and his mother trying to sell their properties, to speculators who have no interest in holding properties long term. It's going to take a while for all of this to settle out, if he's not budging there ought to be lots of people around who will. And, with mortgage rates coming back down over the past month (yet the housing numbers staying weak), you really are in a very good situation these days.

the_bird said:

There's a HUGE amount of supply on the market, from everything that the homebuilders have been churning out, to everybody and his mother trying to sell their properties, to speculators who have no interest in holding properties long term. It's going to take a while for all of this to settle out, if he's not budging there ought to be lots of people around who will. And, with mortgage rates coming back down over the past month (yet the housing numbers staying weak), you really are in a very good situation these days.

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I agree. Just last month, similar houses that we just bought were going for almost 20-25K higher. Personally, they didn't have near the possibilities this one does. I feel like we schooled the current owners for what this is really worth. It is just in superb shape. Plus that garage!

Well, strike that, I'll know for sure after the inspection Thursday.

A good webpage for finding house values is http://www.zillow.com. They compile their data based upon county tax records and recent home sales in the area.

Around here, it’s a little on the low side.

I know there are other houses, we've looked at about 20 or so. The problem here in Richmond is no one has a basement which means I HAVE to have a garage but even garages aren't that common. Then you get into older houses, and houses with no privacy from the neighbors, and houses that you have to paint the exterior and blah blah blah..... I just want this to be over with.

todd_k said:

I know there are other houses, we've looked at about 20 or so. The problem here in Richmond is no one has a basement which means I HAVE to have a garage but even garages aren't that common. Then you get into older houses, and houses with no privacy from the neighbors, and houses that you have to paint the exterior and blah blah blah..... I just want this to be over with.

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Preaching to the choir, Back home the house I grew up in had a basement AND a two car garage, SWMBO's house was the same (in Jersey). They just throw the houses up here so quick, I'm lucky to have a garage but there is a lot of shoddy construction in our house too.

Well, here it is! Offer was made and accepted today! Looks like the inspection should be this Saturday but I need to schedule that tomorrow and get a complete copy of the contract.

Looks good Todd. Hard to tell from the picture but it looks like you'll have a pretty big yard too.

Are you going to wait until everything is finalized before saying were it's located?

Congrats, I hope all goes well.

That's great news, Todd. Looks like a real nice house. How big's the lot?

And do you get full claim to that garage space?

thanks guys. The lot is about 1/2 acre, I don't have the exact number yet but it extends another 30-40 feet back into those woods. There is a somewhat busy road behind the trees so it's nice to have that buffer. We are going to have to fence the back yard for Floyd and I'd like to get the driveway paved but that will be a little down the road.
And yes, I have claimed the garage and one of the bedrooms will be the Man Room.

todd_k said:

thanks guys. The lot is about 1/2 acre, I don't have the exact number yet but it extends another 30-40 feet back into those woods. There is a somewhat busy road behind the trees so it's nice to have that buffer. We are going to have to fence the back yard for Floyd and I'd like to get the driveway paved but that will be a little down the road.
And yes, I have claimed the garage and one of the bedrooms will be the Man Room.

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Very nice! Got my fingers crossed for you and A.

home inspection was today. no major issues were found but there were 4 or 5 minor issues. garbage disposal is ceased up, there is 1 shingle missing off the roof, master bath sink leaks a little underneath, a little wood rot on the front porch railing and on the trim on the back door to the garage. hopefully the seller fixes all of them, I'm more concerned about the roof, disposal, and bathroom sink. Guess I'll find out Tuesday or Wednesday.
Now to get these mortgage guys to cut the BS and give me a better deal!

Sweet!!!!!!!!!!!!! Looks great man! When's the first brew day?

Dude said:

Sweet!!!!!!!!!!!!! Looks great man! When's the first brew day?

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I've already thought about that! I bottling the SNPA the week before we're suppose to close so my first brew in the new house will be the Hop Whompus. Depending on if we close on time or not, the 1st brew will be around Thanksgiving, maybe a week after.

Are we all invited to the housewarming?

When you register the agreement you sign says if you register any member is welcomed to come to your home at their leisure.

All are welcome, except Red Sox fans (just don't tell SWMBO I said that!). Hopefully this all works out, I really don't want to stay in this apartment any longer than we have to.

The deal is done! We closed this afternoon and the place is ours! :rockin: !!!!!!!!!!