shanendoah
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Post by shanendoah on Feb 25, 2015 19:03:44 GMT -5
sapphire12 - I don't expect any of the houses I posted to still be available by the time I get my pre-approval letter. The Reno market is also apparently moving quickly and well (thanks to the new Tesla battery shop that's been announced), but even at soonest, I'm thinking we'll have the condo under contract end of March.
What will be nice is that we'll be able to come to the table with a substantial cash down payment AND cash set aside for making improvements right away. And honestly, the longer it goes until we make an offer, the more we'll have (by about $1000/month, if I push it).
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HoneyBBQ
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Post by HoneyBBQ on Feb 25, 2015 19:07:37 GMT -5
HoneyBBQ - It went pending between when I posted it and when you looked. I did mention in my quick little notes that I expected it to be pending within the week. I apparently should have send "by the end of the day".
Yep! I figured that.
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HoneyBBQ
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Post by HoneyBBQ on Feb 25, 2015 19:09:20 GMT -5
Magnolia -- you certainly wouldn't have to worried about schooling there! That house has 0 yard though... but Magnolia has lots of parks.
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Bonny
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Post by Bonny on Feb 25, 2015 20:26:08 GMT -5
I will take our higher R/E taxes as long as we don't have to deal with those insane prices. Even in one of the best school districts around here none of those should (in my amateur opinion) top $300k-$350k. Dayummm! You ought to see what you can buy in my town for that kind of money 3/1 1000 sq.ft. 1950 fixers for $500k-$600k.
And we're not even a 1st tier suburb.
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shanendoah
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Post by shanendoah on Feb 26, 2015 0:00:08 GMT -5
Bonny - I tend to refer to the Seattle area as a High Medium COLA or a Low High COLA, because while we're not inexpensive, my Mom lives just outside Carmel/Monterey, and I have friends in the Bay Area, so I know what HIGH COLA actually is.
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muttleynfelix
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Post by muttleynfelix on Feb 26, 2015 7:49:03 GMT -5
You all are crazy with those prices.
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Bonny
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Post by Bonny on Feb 26, 2015 10:23:14 GMT -5
Bonny - I tend to refer to the Seattle area as a High Medium COLA or a Low High COLA, because while we're not inexpensive, my Mom lives just outside Carmel/Monterey, and I have friends in the Bay Area, so I know what HIGH COLA actually is. I think Seattle has earned HCOLA now.
I think of NYC, a lot of HI and the SF Bay Area as VHCOLA.
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HoneyBBQ
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Post by HoneyBBQ on Feb 26, 2015 10:38:45 GMT -5
Bonny - I tend to refer to the Seattle area as a High Medium COLA or a Low High COLA, because while we're not inexpensive, my Mom lives just outside Carmel/Monterey, and I have friends in the Bay Area, so I know what HIGH COLA actually is. I think Seattle has earned HCOLA now.
I think of NYC, a lot of HI and the SF Bay Area as VHCOLA.
Seattle's weird because there's just a region (Seattle proper, if you will) that's HCOL, and the surroundings are MCOL, so it really depends where you are. Contrast that with NY, where people have 3 hour commutes to get to 'reasonable' COL.
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Bonny
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Post by Bonny on Feb 26, 2015 10:56:52 GMT -5
I think Seattle has earned HCOLA now.
I think of NYC, a lot of HI and the SF Bay Area as VHCOLA.
Seattle's weird because there's just a region (Seattle proper, if you will) that's HCOL, and the surroundings are MCOL, so it really depends where you are. Contrast that with NY, where people have 3 hour commutes to get to 'reasonable' COL. Yeah, I think the more geographically constrained an area is the higher the prices tend to be. The City of SF is on a 7mi x 7mi tip of a peninsula. Prices may be cheaper in the East Bay but the commute is becoming more and more brutal. After living in the Washington DC area we knew we didn't want to commute over a bridge so we sucked it up and bought a beater house on the north part of the peninsula in a blue collar town with a reputation for a lot of fog. That initial 20k investment has morphed into a $1+M paid off house. Probably one of the best financial decisions we've made.
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HoneyBBQ
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Post by HoneyBBQ on Feb 26, 2015 10:59:35 GMT -5
Seattle's surrounded by water, too. So yeah, we got the bridge thing going on. N/S going bridges are OK, but E/W going bridges are murder. I feel like a Zax some times...
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shanendoah
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Post by shanendoah on Feb 26, 2015 11:06:10 GMT -5
I think Seattle has earned HCOLA now.
I think of NYC, a lot of HI and the SF Bay Area as VHCOLA.
Seattle's weird because there's just a region (Seattle proper, if you will) that's HCOL, and the surroundings are MCOL, so it really depends where you are. Contrast that with NY, where people have 3 hour commutes to get to 'reasonable' COL. And it's not even all of Seattle, proper. It's downtown and then north to about Northgate. Throw in West Seattle. Also houses that actually have Lake Washington frontage, even if they're down in Rainier Beach. Redmond and Kirkland across the water are also HCOLA. But Rainier Beach, Columbia City, Mt Baker are, all officially in Seattle, but south, housing prices are VERY different.
For example: 4bd/2ba, 2000sqft, as nice on the inside as most of the houses in my price range up north, $330k. Still in Seattle, just south.
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shanendoah
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Post by shanendoah on Feb 26, 2015 12:17:35 GMT -5
Okay, this house just came on the market. I'm not willing to stretch my budget for this location, and there are some other issues (listed at 3100 sqft, but the numbers for finished/unfinished space add up to under 2500sqft), but I LOVE this wrap around porch and the window seats...
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HoneyBBQ
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Post by HoneyBBQ on Feb 26, 2015 12:31:03 GMT -5
West Seattle? That's a long way from you now.
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shanendoah
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Post by shanendoah on Feb 26, 2015 13:45:10 GMT -5
West Seattle is, north/south wise, between where I live now and where I work. It is a little further west than I currently am, but the commute wouldn't be longer. It might not be shorter, but it wouldn't be longer. West Seattle schools don't have the best ratings, but they are still really decent schools. The biggest plus though, is the neighborhood. West Seattle is an area where the kids can play out front with other kids, and the West Seattle business district has a lot of great places, including my husband's game store of choice. It's a great walking community. (What Columbia City is trying to become, but hasn't made it there yet.)
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muttleynfelix
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Post by muttleynfelix on Feb 26, 2015 20:48:17 GMT -5
Well it isn't Seattle, but 3 of the 11 homes we had down to look at went pending this week. Along with a 4th last week. One house we wanted to look at doesn't want to work with a buyers agent. Probably explains why his house has been on the market for 8 months. None of our favorites ... well the house last week, but it wasn't on the market long enough for me to get attached.
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shanendoah
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Post by shanendoah on Mar 9, 2015 17:03:52 GMT -5
Went to look at a house in the neighborhood next our's this weekend. The reason - the house was nearly identical to ours in bed/bath/sq footage (if we didn't have a basement)/lot size. Pictures showed it to have similar finishes (as in not updated), and it was listed at $230k. We wanted to see how it really compared to our house, since $230-240k is what we were guessing our house is worth. (The comps that our mortgage guy had pulled recently were all for houses that were bigger/more bathrooms/nicer finishes). So the house we looked at this weekend was actually incredibly comparable to what our house would be like with a new coat of interior paint and slightly nicer floors (though my girls reported the carpet smelled a bit in this place). The real estate agent expects that the house will go for a little over asking. So talking to him about our house, he would expect it to be valued at around $250k.
Now, if our house were to get an appraisal of $250k, then we are less than $1k away from 30% equity as of our June 1 mortgage payment. (We had previously thought we would be $10-15k away from 30% equity.) Once we're at 30% equity, our buying power goes up to the higher $550k mark (from the $450k I've been targeting). AND, it still gets to be within my comfort zone because we should still have enough cash on hand to keep $10-15k in reserve.
Pretty excited about this development. Of course, we still need to get the rental property in Reno on the market and sold so we know exactly how much cash we'll have toward a down payment.
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lurkyloo
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Post by lurkyloo on Mar 9, 2015 17:57:43 GMT -5
I wanna play: DH is out looking at houses right now! He reports back that the neighborhood on the first one is too hilly (we walk a LOT) and the backyard isn't private enough. I'd guessed the latter, but the interior is awfully tempting still...huge house, nice kitchen with gas range and full inlaw suite: (image removed for privacy) Also on the list to see today are a couple more moderately priced ones: (image removed for privacy) (image removed for privacy) These three are in one of the less-favored areas because there's not too much within walking distance. The elementary school is excellent but the middle and high are bleh.
Edit: Ah, that's how you get it to post the actual pic instead of the link!
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Bonny
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Post by Bonny on Mar 9, 2015 18:32:15 GMT -5
lurkyloo, what price range is this about $900k? Are you in disbelief after the SF Bay $1M shacks?
Make sure you ask to see the A/C and heating bills; that will be an adjustment!
These homes look a lot like the ones we saw being built 30 years ago when we lived in the (barely) McLean area in VA. We didn't last too long. We moved from San Diego to NoVa in 4/1987 and took a job transfer to the SF Bay Area 1/90. I remember thinking at the time I wasn't sure we could afford a house in the SF Bay Area. LOL!
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lurkyloo
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Post by lurkyloo on Mar 9, 2015 18:50:59 GMT -5
The top one is listed for 725K, the others are around 550K Yup! I'm in heaven--to me these are very nice but not extraordinary houses. (It's not that I object to paying 1M for a house, but I definitely object to paying 1M for a crapshack ) Of course, I looked a little closer to city center too. There's one on our list for 489K in our target area; closer to the city the same house without added detached garage is asking 885K Likely to make our commutes more challenging too. But the kitchen was GORGEOUS <drool> The second one is off the list too; it's got water coming into the apparently added-on garage. Plus DH doesn't like the brick wall fireplace thingy. Another one that I was drooling over (dunno if we could've justified it) came off the market because the owners concluded that they weren't going to get anywhere near their asking price and decided to rent instead. (Holy crap. I just checked; it'd been on the market for 2.5 years!) Too bad, that was the only one with a 3-car attached garage. Skeptical about the third one; the pics show so much cr@p in the house I kind of can't imagine they'd be able to pack it up by the time we'd need to move in. My personal front-runners are on the list to see tomorrow, so not too discouraged yet
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Bonny
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Post by Bonny on Mar 9, 2015 19:01:15 GMT -5
The top one is listed for 725K, the others are around 550K Yup! I'm in heaven--to me these are very nice but not extraordinary houses. (It's not that I object to paying 1M for a house, but I definitely object to paying 1M for a crapshack ) Of course, I looked a little closer to city center too. There's one on our list for 489K in our target area; closer to the city the same house without added detached garage is asking 885K Likely to make our commutes more challenging too. But the kitchen was GORGEOUS <drool> The second one is off the list too; it's got water coming into the apparently added-on garage. Plus DH doesn't like the brick wall fireplace thingy. Another one that I was drooling over (dunno if we could've justified it) came off the market because the owners concluded that they weren't going to get anywhere near their asking price and decided to rent instead. (Holy crap. I just checked; it'd been on the market for 2.5 years!) Too bad, that was the only one with a 3-car attached garage. Skeptical about the third one; the pics show so much cr@p in the house I kind of can't imagine they'd be able to pack it up by the time we'd need to move in. My personal front-runners are on the list to see tomorrow, so not too discouraged yet Oh make sure you test the commute during commute time. Even 30 years ago commuting in the DC Area was a hot mess and it's only gotten worse. Oh never mind you're coming from the greater Los Angeles area. 'Nuff said. When I drive the section of the 210 from Pasadena to the 10 and beyond to get to the cabin I wonder how people do that 2x/day 5 days a week. I would be on medication.
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lurkyloo
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Post by lurkyloo on Mar 9, 2015 19:16:20 GMT -5
The close-to-city house would have required using I270 for me and I495 for DH. Going against traffic, but still not a setup I'm very happy about. I checked sigalert for evening rush hour for our projected commutes; it didn't look bad at all. DH has two very reasonable orthogonal routes he can take; I have mostly just the one but my soon to be supervisor and his wife have the same geographic split and live in one of the areas we're looking at and he said the commute wasn't too bad. Been a while since I had to deal with 210, but the months long closure of PCH made the 101 seriously painful. What should take 40 min took DH more than 1.5 h a couple of months ago. I'm obsessive about details and getting everything optimally setup for maximum enjoyment of life--not sure anyone would believe how long and self-contradictory my mental list of things to look for in a house is--and crappy commutes are an awful energy suck. So non-crappy commute is definitely factored into the list
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lurkyloo
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Post by lurkyloo on Mar 11, 2015 1:35:12 GMT -5
Okay, we wound up with one possible (#3) from yesterday, but it fell off the list after today's round. Shortlist after day 2 of 4: (image deleted) Gorgeous house on 3 acres, which is more than I want; oil heating and hot water (but a propane gas stove, so I can live with that, and my parents would love the backup wood burning stove ) DH thought the interior was beautiful. Plus, asparagus raspberries and blueberries growing outside! Dunno what we'd do with the figs. (image deleted) Slightly outdated house in a residential neighborhood, awesome schools all the way through and (healthy) walking distance to downtown. More manageable lot, but the garage is a good size (the one across the street fell off the list because the garage was too small) Still four-five more on the list for tomorrow, plus this beauty just popped up: (image deleted) I'm almost afraid to hope for this one--same neighborhood as #2 but the interior looks really nice and it's a 1.2 acre lot--if the garage sucks we can add another one! In other news, having the exterior of the house painted and the contractors are driving me nuts. They started hammering before 7:30 this morning (right outside the room with the sleeping baby); disconnected the garage door before I had a chance to finish unloading (from across the street because they'd blocked access to my parking spot); and finally trapped me outside the house entirely. I'm really hoping they finish tomorrow. Edited to remove identifiable details
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shanendoah
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Post by shanendoah on Mar 11, 2015 11:49:25 GMT -5
lurkyloo - loving the pictures. Your new beauty reminds me of my grandparents' house in NC. I'm a big fan of the colonial type exteriors and LOVE painted shutters (even if they're only decorative). We don't see too many houses that look like that here in the PNW.
We may have solved one of our housing dilemma issues. There's a small private school that a friend of mine does some part time work at. They are located very near where I work. K-8 tuition is $10k/year, but they mention they have scholarships for typically developing students and breaks for multiple kids. This is a full inclusion school for kids from typically developing to majorly on the autism spectrum disorder. Because of that, EVERY child gets an individualized education plan - not like an IEP in a public school, but an actual, sit down with kid and parents, figure out goals and strengths and create an educational plan that works for your student (and meets state requirements). Their high school is more expensive.
$20k a year is a stretch, but should be doable. With scholarship/multi-kid break, it might even be reasonable.
This would also let us focus less on school district and more on getting a house we love in a neighborhood we like for a reasonable price, without stretching anything.
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lurkyloo
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Post by lurkyloo on Mar 11, 2015 14:23:28 GMT -5
I would have so much more to choose from if we didn't have to worry about school district! As it is, we're focusing on good elementary schools. I figure there's a fairly good chance we'll move elsewhere by middle school or that the school ratings would change. Private school for a few years wouldn't be the end of the world anyway. (But that's one reason I'm so high on #s 2 and 3; they have 8/10/8 rankings for E/M/H ) I love that the houses in this area look "normal" to me...it took a long time to get used to the prevalent Spanish architecture around here, and you never ever see red brick. Back to painting the baseboards! Thank goodness the laundry room is done.
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lurkyloo
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Post by lurkyloo on Mar 12, 2015 1:24:18 GMT -5
DH had a good night tonight; he said he'd be happy with any of the four houses he saw One of them is a little too HOA-ey for our taste (not enough parking space or backyard); another is nice but not quite as nice as the last two. Here are the two finalists: (image deleted) This one lived up to expectations! It'll need some gas lines plumbed for a gas range, possibly gas dryer, and the natural-gas grill we're dragging along. Also, part of the subfloor in the upper level needs to be replaced, which worries me a bit at least until we get an explanation. But the lot is nice (1 acre), decent privacy in the backyard, huge garage, long driveway with extra parking, and a downstairs that's just begging to be elaborated to an inlaw suite. It'll work in its current configuration just fine though. I'm really excited because except for the gas range it's got just about all the important and not-easily-changeable stuff. (image deleted) Gorgeous house, although a little less square footage than I might like for the price--it's 125K more than the previous one, and about 1000 less sq ft (I think it doesn't include the finished basement though? But it's a no-daylight basement so a little dark). The big issues with this one, besides the knotty pine paneling in two rooms , are that it's in an area without natural gas so we'd have to put in a propane tank and plumbing in order to have a gas range. The other is that it's on a pond. I love that it's on a pond but I don't love the combination of a toddler and easy access to deeper water. Actually both houses apparently have streams running through the property; how cool is that! Anyway, this one has a much more upscale interior than the first. One more on the list for tomorrow and repeat visits to each of these, and after that I finally get DH back Edited to remove pics, but it's late and I missed--hence the like
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shanendoah
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Post by shanendoah on Mar 12, 2015 10:34:29 GMT -5
Good luck lurkyloo! Based on your descriptions, I'd totally go with the first one. It works both as is and you can see the fun things you could do to make it even better, plus, it's got SPACE.
Need to talk to C (Wednesdays we basically only see each other for about 20 minutes), but it looks like the private school we were interested in can be a full go. The scholarship for neuro-typical kids is full tuition waiver, only fees are for activities and materials, so a little over $5k total for both kids. We have missed the priority application deadline, so we'd need to get the applications filled out and go for a school visit, etc, but if we decide to do this, it really opens up our housing search.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 12, 2015 11:20:01 GMT -5
lurkyloo - I like the second one way better...I'm not a fan of the style of the first one. are you moving to MD?
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lurkyloo
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Post by lurkyloo on Mar 12, 2015 15:14:16 GMT -5
Thanks shanendoah! And big score--I'd totally go for private school if it's only 5K each. singlemom: Yup! There's no question that #2 is a nicer place, but I think #1 probably works a little better for us--location, better inlaw suite potential, etc. I'll probably let DH make the final decision; he's seen them in person. #2 is also a little problematic in that our agent thinks it's priced 25-50K over FMV. I don't mind negotiating but we're already under a time crunch and it hasn't been on the market very long so I don't know how flexible the sellers are going to be.
Final viewing today and I imagine we'll make a decision which one to go after tomorrow...there's also a new property on today's list.
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shanendoah
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Post by shanendoah on Mar 13, 2015 9:44:23 GMT -5
emember when I posted this house? I just got the notification today that it sold for $607k, that's $142k OVER asking price. Yikes!
$465k, 4bd/2ba, 2480sqft (though about 1000 are unfinished). It's just over my ideal comfort price, but it is in the heart of the area we are targeting. However, given it's condition, price, and location, I expect it will be under contract in the next week, and sell for more than asking.
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shanendoah
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Post by shanendoah on Mar 13, 2015 9:47:59 GMT -5
lurkyloo - not $5k each, $5,750 TOTAL, for both. Really, $2,500 for the younger one and $3,250 for the older one. If the current policy of full tuition waiver for neuro-typical students continues, my price (activities and materials) will go up by another $1,500 when the oldest is in high school and the youngest is in middle school. They are far enough in part that the oldest will be out of high school by the time the youngest starts.
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