How is the house selling season going?

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541

<p>dstark, I don’t do home loans, besides, you need another license now to do home loans, effective July 2011. But I heard that it is difficult even to do conforming loans, you will have to have at least 20% down, more if you are on the edge. Full disclosure, full qualification, no more non-income verification loans.</p>

<p>toblin, I feel for you. I came from NJ and those contractors are all theives. I had to digup the 14’ deep underground sewer pipe for a repair, the quote I got ranging from 15K to 2K and it took me 6 mo to find that 2K guy to finish the job.</p>

542

<p>^^ re # 538 that’s about right. I expect well located homes will start to go back up again as soon as Facebook’s IPO happens. lots of young $$ chasing too little inventory.</p>

543

<p>My mortgage broker is telling me that things have eased a bit this year and that there’s no problem getting jumbo loans. Plus there are a lot of all-cash buyers. The end of LinkedIn’s lockup period might give the local market a boost, along with Facebook’s IPO.</p>

<p>Inventory is quite low in my town with sellers waiting until after Labor Day to put their houses on the market. Many houses are getting multiple offers although the days on market number is much higher than during the various bubbles.</p>

<p>I’ve interviewed 4 agents, settled on one, and am aiming for the weekend of Sept 23 for the first tour & open house. I excluded 3 prospective buyers from the listing agreement but am not too optimistic that any of them will come through with an offer. Still, to get 7 qualified buyers touring the house as a result of putting out 15 flyers in the neighborhood seemed to be a worthwhile exercise. </p>

<p>The stager came this morning and loved the lime green paint in my son’s bedroom, so we don’t need to repaint that after all. The Realtor had insisted it needed to be painted, but to his credit he backed down immediately in the face of the stager’s enthusiasm. We’re only staging the living room, with some accessories added and stuff rearranged a bit in the rest of the house.</p>

<p>This is the last week before S2 goes off to college, so we spent some time packing up his school stuff and all other stuff to store. Trophies, toys, games, books, high school photos, baseball caps…the whole room packed. It hit him for the first time that he wouldn’t be coming back to this house once he leaves for school this weekend - a bittersweet moment.</p>

544

<p>vballmom, good luck.</p>

545

<p>“toblin, I feel for you. I came from NJ and those contractors are all theives.”</p>

<p>Again I’m going to comment on this comment (the second) about all contractors being thieves. When you are doing work that involves regulated environmental or EPA cleanup, it is highly unlikely you are going to be ripped off. The work is monitored and inspected by an independent party. You also need to get multiple estimates of the work, a written contract and references. Don’t give the contractor any more money than the cost of materials, or be sure that you agree in writing to upfront money. I think it is smart to give as little as possible.</p>

546

<p>We are just finishing 10K of yard work, and the abandoned house on the left of us is starting to get some looks. As I was watering the lawn last night, a potential buyer stopped to talk to me about the neighborhood. I talked it up, of course, what a safe neighborhood it was, many families, excellent schools. I also noted that the previous owners had had many children, and it was a good house for a growing family.</p>

<p>They were concerned about the maintenance in the area, as we have sinking ground, and how much it costs to keep up the yards, trees. I was not shy about letting them know it was a lot of work, but the houses were much lower priced than those in lower maintenance areas.</p>

<p>They then proceeded to tell me that the house would be for their single, 23 year old son, who would perhaps bring in roommates and maybe even his sister. They said he was very handy, and wanted to know if it was difficult to resell the houses in our area. </p>

<p>It became clear to me then that this was someone who was looking to purchase an inexpensive house, live in it and perhaps upgrade it themselves, and then flip it. </p>

<p>I went on to tell them about smaller houses in the neighborhood, and even pointed them to my mom’s old neighborhood, where the houses were lower maintenance, but perhaps more expensive, although now was the time to get a good deal.</p>

<p>When I went in to tell my husband about this encounter, he about flipped. While doing our yard, when we had leftover sod, we placed it on both our neighbors bordering areas, to improve their (and our) curb appeal, but also, it was neighborly thing to do. The single mother next door had wanted to place sod, but couldn’t afford it, so we gave her the excess. </p>

<p>Are others of you concerned that with the bad housing market, the houses for sale in your area will become rental and flip houses, and the “neighborhood” you live in will become nothing more than a turnkey community?</p>

547

<p>Rentals are problematic, as they are very rarely maintained as well as owner-occupied homes. Even when yards are mowed weekly and other basic work is current, you rarely see planting beds, etc., that greatly improve the appearance of the house.</p>

<p>On the other hand, an occupied rental is likely a better neighbor (in most cases) than an empty foreclosure that is deteriorating by the day.</p>

<p>For years, I lived in a small city that had an unusually high rental population - over 40% for the city, higher in some areas. There were a lot of moderately priced single-family homes that enabled landlords to buy low and rent fairly cheaply. Although there were some bad landlords and bad tenants, the majority weren’t directly problematic. The high rental percentage, though, impacted community involvement (most renters don’t bother), schools (lots of flux in students, with new arrivals not at same level as classmates), and other areas.</p>

<p>Housing seems stronger in Texas. In my neighborhood, a few owners chose to lease their home because of the difficulty of selling a couple of years ago, but we’ve got four new homes under construction right now.</p>

548

<p>Need to know, Montegut.</p>

549

<p>Our neighbor had house vacant for nearly 2 years. He just sold it without listing it on the market for his list price, which is comparable to others in the area. No broker, no haggling. He had another interested party who wanted to rent to own but the original buyer paid list price so he wouldn’t rent to the other folks who were interested. Our area never experienced any noticable drop in home prices. In fact, there have been bidding wars on houses that were priced moderately on our area & they sell above list.</p>

<p>Our neighborhood hasn’t had folks “flipping” and reselling. Most live in the area for decades.</p>

550

<p>I toured a flip last weekend in the town I want to move to. It sold in May for around $640K and is currently listed at around $840K. It’s 2 bedroom, 1 bath, 1000 square feet on a 3600 square foot lot. I’m pretty sure the flipper didn’t spend anywhere near $200K on fixing up the house. They put in new cabinets, slapped some (gorgeous) granite on the counters, added stainless appliances, landscaped, painted all rooms, put in a new vanity & sink in the bathroom, and tiled the front walk & porch. What’s sad is that they didn’t fix the terrible kitchen layout, so a new owner is going to have to rip everything out and start over. This is exactly the kind of house I’d love to buy and renovate myself, before a flipper gets his hands on it. I’d add an upstairs master suite, create a functional kitchen, and keep the molding and wood floors that give it character. </p>

<p>It’s pretty rare to find a flip that’s been thoughtfully renovated, especially when it comes to creating kitchens for people who actually cook.</p>

551

<p>So true. When we renovated my mom’s Katrina damaged house, we weren’t willing to spend the extra money to put in stainless and all the other perks that were selling at the time. It cost us plenty in time and money.</p>

<p>My neighbor’s children, who renovated the house to sell it since they’re deceased, slightly renovated the kitchen, and when they invited us to tour, I noticed that it was not a practical kitchen. I think this will keep it on the market longer, too.</p>

<p>I agree that a flipper is not going to spend the money on a nice kitchen. I guess we and our neighbors were, in a sort, flipping the house, though not for profit, as most do. </p>

<p>Dooley makes a good point, though, about renter versus empty. Our neighbor on the other side will put her house up for sale in March, as it’s part of the divorce decree, so we will probably have two houses for sale on either side of us if the empty house does not sell before then.</p>

552

<p>Well not everyone wants a practical kitchen. Some people are impressed by the granite and the stainless (or insert the latest trend here), and don’t care if the kitchen is functional or not. I’d be happy buying a house that needed its 40-year-old kitchen updated; in my mind it’s a waste to buy a renovated house with a brand new but poorly planned kitchen. I think this was discussed on another thread here at some point.</p>

<p>I’m just remembering that the kitchen in the flip came with its original fold-down ironing board - very cute! A lot of houses from the 30s and 40s have them. But an impractical use of the wall space.</p>

553

<p>Yea, money can be made in “flips,” but can also be lost. It is nice when YOU can make the renovations you want because you didn’t have to pay top dollar on someone else’s idea of appropriate renovations. Sadly, many folks try to do things to make it more salable that just raise the price & aren’t really in the taste of whomever eventually ends up with the place.</p>

554

<p>H and I “toured” the house that went on sale on our street last spring. It was obviously a flip of someone’s inherited property. For weeks prior to it going on the market there was a constant traffic of contractors’ trucks and Mexican guys walking down the street every morning. The flippers did a horrible kitchen remodel job - they put a granite countertop on the existing dark stained plywood cabinets! The floorplan was also left “as is”. Both H and I felt that we would never buy such a house - too much money was invested into something that needed to be ripped out. However, the house sold rather quickly, and a family with several kids moved in. It is so nice to hear children laughing and playing in the neighborhood. :)</p>

<p>It would be interesting to see what kinds of effects the new Google center will have on the real estate in the area. Those 850 employees and their families will add 7-10% to the town’s population.</p>

555

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<p>vballmom, we’re in the midst of a big reno at the moment and in my new laundry room, I’m having one of those installed. They’re very popular these days and are made by a company called IronAway.</p>

556

<p>I remember first seeing those when we were looking at old bungalows in SoCal back in the 80s. Typically they were in the kitchen and often they had been turned into spice cabinets. I have one in the master bath of my ca. 1961 house. That works for me as most of the ironing I do is touch uping and then I can hang things right in the closet. (I also have a nice view out the window if there is more than a little touching up to do. :))</p>

557

<p>I have a small ironing board installed on the back of door to the walk-in closet of my bedroom. It was part of the previous owner’s custom closet installation. To use it I have to close the door completely and navigate a relatively narrow space inside the closet. I drag my big ironing board out of the closet and set it up in the bathroom on those (very rare) occasions I actually iron something ;)</p>

558

<p>You guys should read this:</p>

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559

<p>Nothing new. Once houses are in the hands of institutions rather than self interested owners, all sorts of stuff happens. </p>

<p>I tried to buy a house during the recession of the early 90’s and put a bid in. Supposedly declined. About 7 months later I saw the house under contract for 50K less than I’d offered, and called the CFO at the company that the prior owner had worked for, and asked about it. (It was a relocation firm deal, but the company that hires the relo firm is on the hook for the shortfall if they guaranteed their relocatee a price.) The CFO said that he wasn’t aware of any such offer. So its clear the the realtor simply never informed the ultimate owner of my offer.</p>

<p>This stuff could be killed off if we went to some sort of transparent electronic offer system that people could see. Not sure I’d love that, but it would remove the bs about having 3 other offers, etc etc.</p>

<p>Both my experiences at selling houses have been less than satisfactory. I felt the realtors in both cases advantaged themselves to my disadvantage, and in both cases they were friends.</p>

560

<p>I drag my iron and board into the kitchen and watch sports. :)</p>