<p>Phoenix got one of the largest increase of home value in the recent frenzy of house hunting. They netted close to 20%. Nationally, the increase is around 12%.</p>
<p>Insurance for vacant homes really became a headache. I was being canceled 3 times, once I “hired” a pitbull to guard the home, they canceled my policy. I was told, in order for insure the premises, you need:</p>
<ol>
<li>Have a tenant</li>
<li>No Pitbulls or some large vicious dogs on their list</li>
<li>No renovation of the exterior, no peeling paint(for older homes especially, mine is 1926 built)</li>
<li>No tree benches over hanging the roof</li>
<li>Less than 3 dogs of any kind in the house(Once I had 5 and they canceled my policy)</li>
</ol>
<p>Oh my…</p>
<p>This is my first post in this thread, and hopefully the last - at least for a while.</p>
<p>After a year on a market my house finally closed. The funny (or sad) part of it is that people who were the first to look at the house are the ones who eventually bought it. My guess is that the better half of that couple really liked the house (never underestimate the power of the beautiful kitchen full of amenities), while the other half really disliked the price. She won.</p>
<p>Congratulations!! </p>
<p>We all know they should have bought it a year ago, but at least they finally came to their senses.</p>
<p>Big investment groups are still buying up thousands existing Tampa Bay houses. It will be interesting to see how these portfolios fare over the next few years and what becomes of them. Interesting too seeing a homebuilder like Beazer buying pre-owned homes…maybe they’ve discovered it’s cheaper to buy resale instead of building new?</p>
<p>[Investors</a> still gobbling up thousands of Tampa Bay homes to rent out | Tampa Bay Times](<a href=“http://www.tampabay.com/news/business/realestate/investors-still-gobbling-up-thousands-of-tampa-bay-homes-to-rent-out/2128023]Investors”>Investors still gobbling up thousands of Tampa Bay homes to rent out)</p>
<p>Lizard, I like your link.</p>
<p>It will be interesting to see how this plays out.</p>
<p>Question for real estate gurus–daughter and husband are moving from Boston to North Carolina (he’s been accepted in a doctoral program). They own a town house that is in a great area of the city (South End). Currently, they’re torn between renting and selling. The agent who sold them the house has recommended selling. He claims that if they put it on the market at the beginning of the week–they’ll have multiple offers by the end of the week</p>
<p>Another agent advises them to rent their place–argues there is always a market for rentals in that area. Says if they sell now, they might not be able to afford to come back. They love the house and would love to come back to Boston, but it’s not a sure thing that son-in-law’s job situation will allow them to do so. They plan on renting in North Carolina.</p>
<p>I look at being an absentee landlord with much trepidation. For every great renter, there are tons of deadbeats. My view is–nothing but grief comes from rental property. However, I admit that my views are completely based on my father’s experience and I’m basically clueless when it comes to real estate. I’m not the least bit interested and am usually a bore at cocktail parties where people seem to have endless discussions about the local real estate market. My eyes glaze over and I walk away.</p>
<p>Given that there are two agents giving them different advice–whose advice do they follow? Should they seek additional advice from other agents? The agent who suggests that they sell has done a market analysis and presented it to them. Other agent has not, and keeps promising to do so. Suggestions?</p>
<p>Our house went on the market yesterday and we’ve already had nine showings. Fingers crossed that we get a good offer soon. The Dallas market is hot right now.</p>
<p>brom,</p>
<p>I would advise to sell and not being an absentee landlord. Real Estate is very local and if you found a bad tenant, you will have endless headaches.</p>
<p>My cousin who is in the habit of keep when she leaves, so she has houses in about 5 states. I cannot imagine how she can keep up with the renters.</p>
<p>Megpmom… That is great. Good luck.</p>
<p>Bromfield2, what does your daughter and her husband want to really do?
Do they really want to move back to Boston?</p>
<p>A townhouse can be a lot easier to take care of than a house. There may be other landlords in the complex. You can ask them their experiences. It is public record who owns what.</p>
<p>If I really thought there was a good chance of moving back to Boston, I would strongly consider renting even though it is a pain. </p>
<p>I am assuming there isnt a big capital gain in the townhouse. Also are property taxes capped in Massachusettes? If so, another reason to rent out the place.</p>
<p>Many people that sold their places in SF are never going to be able to afford to get back in the market there. I am assuming Boston is similar</p>
<p>I have a sister-in-law like artlovers cousin. She has 4 houses in different states and has been very lucky with her renters. </p>
<p>How long would your daughter and son be gone from Boston? Would the rental price pay for the mortgage? Rentals are quite high in Boston. Daughter’s boyfriend is a researcher at Mass. General, shares the rent in a run down 3 bedroom apartment in a home with 3 other grad students and pays over $800 a month.</p>
<p>I need to ask the experts a timing question: My parents are finally downsizing from their 4000sqft house in a suburb of Detroit. They are building a condo though and it probably won’t be ready until maybe October. But who really knows. The real estate agent is telling them they should wait until August to put their house on the market, but wouldn’t anybody wanting to buy a house of that size have kids and be looking now during the summer?</p>
<p>My knee-jerk suggestion would be to get a new agent and put the house on market this week.</p>
<p>Fordiscussion, if Detroit works like Buffalo, with its cold weather as a barrier to school-family lookabouts, then I think you’d be wise to have your folks list now. While it’s true their price might rise by October, their market of lookers may disappear into the winter woodwork for another year.</p>
<p>We put up our 4-bedroom a few weeks ago, even before we know exactly what we’ll do next, because we live in a great school district. Buyers for our house look in Spring and early Summer, to position their kids for September in a new school. Several realtors advised that if we don’t sell it this month or next, we might wait another whole year. </p>
<p>Also, to stretch their timing, your folks can inquire if their region allows children to begin in the new school in September with just the contract in place, provided a parent is willing to drive the child to school for the first month. I was surprised to learn that’s an option here, although I hope we don’t have to use it. I’d rather be closing and moving in August, but it’s nice to that young families have that possibility in case it seals a deal here.</p>
<p>Do any of you knowledge people have experience or advice in this situation? H and I just got back from investigating the exact state of his father’s home. FIL is still living, but 93 and not doing well. He hasn’t live in his house for about 2 years (he’s shacked up with a younger woman of 67 :)) H is the executor of his father’s estate. His goal is to preserve value for himself and his 2 siblings. </p>
<p>House is a hoarder’s paradise – Time Magazine from 1983? We’ve got it! And FIL gets upset at the suggestion of throwing anything out. You have to step over things to get through a room.</p>
<p>H wants to clean it up, clear it out, try and list it within the next 6 months, but I don’t know if H has the time to do so (we are also trying to clean up and list our house which is 1.5 hours away from FIL’s house).</p>
<p>Does anyone have any experience with what the discount is for “as is” condition? i.e., if a realtor came in today, would she say “as is with all the junk and deferred maintenance it’s worth 80% of the fixed up value”? Or is that completely dependent on the house’s condition and the local market?</p>
<p>Because if the differential is a lot, we’ll spend the time to clean it up. If not, we’ll just sell it.</p>
<p>I just want to present H with some options so he doesn’t think he has to drive out there every day for the next 6 months.</p>
<p>To my way of thinking, as a buyer, it is so very hard to see a house full of clutter. Clutter is a different problem than structural maintenance to ready a house for sale, such as screen repairs and broken drawer hinges. It keeps people from seeing the bones of the house they might buy.</p>
<p>I would hate to have to clear out someone else’s clutter, when people do this as their living. I would say: Hire help. The cost of your husband and you doing that yourselves sounds like a big loss of time and opportunity costs for you. </p>
<p>To deal with the clutter, have you considered hiring a professional liquidator in their community to conduct an estate sale? If so, be sure there is some arrangement to clear out all that doesn’t sell, which might be just the liquidator giving you a list of trash-removal people, so that’s another contract. </p>
<p>There are also people who advertise their services to help people organize a household to downsize. </p>
<p>The problem might be how to pay these persons, whose work will occur before the house can be listed or shown. If you think his “stuff” has no value even as a garage-sale, then just hire out someone to clear the house to the dump. Perhaps if your FIL knew there might be some cash coming from selling his furniture, to be spent on his new girlfriend, that might inspire him to let it go. </p>
<p>The hardest piece might be getting your FIL’s consent. A true hoarder has to be dealt with at the psychological level, to allow anyone to dump stuff. Is there any possible reason you can think of to motivate him to want to allow you to have this done?
Would he respect statistics on house $ listings, before vs. after clutter has been removed? I can only motivate my elders by showing them financial gain. Without that, they resist most common-sense requests.</p>
<p>Cof2015, Make sure the girlfriend didn’t squeeze your husband out as executor…she might have had will changed to get her in picture!</p>
<p>lizard – OMG you’re right-- I will have to check the will. Since H has his own health issues, I want him to designate me as the back up executor. Might be time to do that.</p>
<p>paying3 – thanks for the thoughtful response – I wish FIL would respond to financial incentives – I would kick in an extra 1000 bucks or so just to make him ready to part with things. H and I tried to remove the “neutral” items (the busted clock, the ancient TV that never worked) but other, more “valuable” items like the rusted scale and broken tripod had to stay. </p>
<p>FIL is very emotional about his things (and only more so when egged on by my SIL, who uses her old room in his house as free storage space for her clothes).</p>
<p>I don’t really see a good way out until he’s gone (his will has a life tenancy provision to occupy the house).</p>
<p>I told H to see an attorney and ask if selling the house now (before more mold and deferred maintenance occur) could be in the best interests of the estate, then we put aside money for FIL to live (if he ever decides he wants to leave his GF’s warm embrace). </p>
<p>Good news – now I know where my MIL’s ashes are – in her kitchen. Eew.</p>
<p>My initial suggestion also was to hire help. However, there might be some things of value in the home that you really should know about. We had to deal with a similar, although probably not as dire, situation with my MIL’s house. If you and DH both take a week off to stay at a hotel near the house and work your tails off, it’s amazing what you’ll be able to accomplish. </p>
<p>Just another option.</p>
<p>I do NOT recommend selling the house as is. You’d be selling it at an enormous discount.</p>
<p>Your H should also see a lawyer and look at your FIL’s will to make sure the GF isn’t entitled to live in the house after his death. :eek:</p>
<p>Thanks VeryHappy – that was my initial thought – selling as is (while tempting) is just asking for lowball offers.</p>
<p>I agree – if we could both take time off from work and do nothing but move junk from Point A to Point B (dumpster), we’d be done in no time. I can’t take the time off, but in theory, with the right helpers (like S’14 and a couple of his heavy-lifting friends), it could be done quickly.</p>
<p>I think the biggest roadblock is the emotional/psychological one. FIL thinks of it as his house filled with his possessions. Even though he hasn’t lived there in years, he wants to know he could always go back there if he wanted to.</p>
<p>Good point about the GF – I have to see if she has rights to occupy. </p>
<p>What a mess. Thanks for the input and advice.</p>