I'm happy to be a scratch pad! We did things slowly and patiently so that we could do them correctly, and we're not likely to be moving again for at least another ten, fifteen years, so I'm happy to pass on the knowledge so someone else can get some use out of it *G*
"Fixer-upper" is a relative term. I mean, the house we bought hadn't been touched except for basic maintenance and minor cosmetic updates once the former owner died and his kids inherited it, and the former owner had lived in it since '65. They kept up the maintenance, and the roof was new since the father's death, but there were a lot of little things (actually, if you email me -- synecdochic@dreamwidth.org will get to me -- I'll email you the copy of the home inspection, so you can see what's 'normal' for a well-maintained house that's about 60 years old to have on its inspection results and still be considered 'in great shape', and I'll also send you the inspection for the house we made an offer on and backed out after the inspection results because of serious issues, to compare).
Like, the first thing we did was replace half the pipes in the house because they were galvanized steel that had all corroded, and we're replacing the other half slowly over time; we had to rewire every outlet in the house and install a few GFCI breakers, which my dad taught us how to do ourselves to save electrician's fees and now we can pretty much handle any electrical issue that might crop up; we had to replace the gutters; we had to recaulk the bathroom (twice); we had to divert some of the downspouts -- stuff like that. All of it was incredibly minor stuff. You just have to remember to think of it as, there will always be something, so just make sure it's minor. (Like, we're going to have to replace all the windows sometime in the next five years or so, and I really want to run another electrical feed from the mains so we can get some more amperage into the house so we stop blowing circuits, and I want to convert the kitchen stove to gas, yadda. None of that's necessary, but it will be nice.)
If you don't already watch it, pick up a few seasons of Mike Holmes' show Holmes on Homes, ideally the first two, three seasons when he was doing minor jobs and before he went over the top with major projects, or his new show Holmes Inspection. He plays to the camera a lot, and he really does go over and above the call of duty, but he will teach you an amazing amount about what warning signs to look for when you're looking. (We toured about two dozen houses before picking this one, and I'd say about 80% of them got knocked off the list because of warning signs that I could notice without even looking too closely, not because the house itself didn't suit our tastes. In my case, I learned what to look for from my daddy, but Mike Holmes taught Sarah! Or rather, taught her to believe me when I said "this is not a big deal" vs "okay, this is going to be an issue".)
If you and the boy are not married, btw -- I can't remember if you are or not -- make absolutely sure to check your state's real estate law. Maryland, for instance, makes you jump through a bunch of hoops in order for the deed to be "joint tenancy with right of survivorship" (which is what you want) rather than "tenants in common" (which you don't want) -- check to make sure your state doesn't do the same.
Also check with your state to see what kind of property records are online. MD, for instance, has a ton of information online that you can use, to look up previous transfers, tax records, mortgage history, yadda, and we got a lot of use out of it when shopping around: a transfer anytime between 2005 and 2008 to someone who did not use the property as their primary residence is a warning sign that the house may have been flipped, especially if it was only held for a few months to a year or if the mortgage was an ARM. (Do not buy a house that has been flipped. Period. There were some good and ethical flippers working, even during the height of the boom between '05 and '08, but they were few and far between and you are just asking for a world of trouble. See also: death trap house. I actually helped get the death trap house condemned by the county; it was that bad.)
It also let us figure out who was trying to earn back a ridiculously high purchase price and who had been in the house for long enough/bought the house low enough that we had some room to dick around in negotiations. This is part of what let us make such a low offer: we looked it up and could see that the house transfered hands in '08 for $0 (which almost always means inherited or transfered inter familia) and previously was sold in '65 for $35k. That told us that the seller wasn't underwater, wasn't looking to recoup a large purchase price, and wasn't looking to dump the house before the ARM reset -- all of which can lead to being stubborn on what they'd accept. That plus the house being on the market for 600+ days gave us a lot of confidence that the sellers would be willing to dicker with us, and both parties walked away from the sale feeling like we'd gotten the better of it: they because they got a large fraction of the price they wanted and they got to stop paying maintenance and upkeep on the property (the two sons who owned it were both in their 60s, and from out-of-state; they just wanted the thing to go away so they could start coming to terms with their father's death and the sale of their childhood home) and us because we got a good, solid house for under the assessed value in a great neighborhood.
The reason it had been on the market for 600+ days despite being so good underneath, meanwhile, was twofold: one, it's on a very busy street (big deal, we don't have kids and that just leads to us having the best gourmet market in the world right next door) and two, the kitchen and bathrooms were cosmetically awful. Just, seriously, hideous. And a ridiculous number of sellers are incapable of looking past the cosmetics.
If I had to give you one bit of advice while looking, actually, that would be it: never fucking care about what something looks like. (Care about the architectural flowthrough of the house, like, "is this room big enough" and "is this traffic pattern going to drive me nuts", but not the paint or the finish.) You can paint, wallpaper, refinish, and rearrange just about anything. (Obviously it will cost more to do certain upgrades -- we are planning on gutting the kitchen and bathroom both down to studs in a few years when we can afford it -- but there's always minor stuff you can do to make due in the meantime.) The only dealbreakers should be architectural or structural issues, not cosmetic: you can live with ugly, but you shouldn't accept poor quality. It is astonishing how many people will bypass a solid quality home of good construction but ugly cosmetics for a piece of shit with all the latest luxury touches.
On househunting shows I have seen multiple people refuse to buy a house because they don't like the paint or the wallpaper. This is the fastest way to make me start screaming at the screen. (We got the wallpaper down in the kitchen before we even moved in. We haven't repainted/refinished the walls yet and it still turned the kitchen from "screamingly hideous" to simply "ugh". And removing wallpaper is actually really fun.)
Feel free to pick my brain anytime you want. I don't mind being the scratch pad!
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Date: 2011-12-08 03:44 am (UTC)"Fixer-upper" is a relative term. I mean, the house we bought hadn't been touched except for basic maintenance and minor cosmetic updates once the former owner died and his kids inherited it, and the former owner had lived in it since '65. They kept up the maintenance, and the roof was new since the father's death, but there were a lot of little things (actually, if you email me -- synecdochic@dreamwidth.org will get to me -- I'll email you the copy of the home inspection, so you can see what's 'normal' for a well-maintained house that's about 60 years old to have on its inspection results and still be considered 'in great shape', and I'll also send you the inspection for the house we made an offer on and backed out after the inspection results because of serious issues, to compare).
Like, the first thing we did was replace half the pipes in the house because they were galvanized steel that had all corroded, and we're replacing the other half slowly over time; we had to rewire every outlet in the house and install a few GFCI breakers, which my dad taught us how to do ourselves to save electrician's fees and now we can pretty much handle any electrical issue that might crop up; we had to replace the gutters; we had to recaulk the bathroom (twice); we had to divert some of the downspouts -- stuff like that. All of it was incredibly minor stuff. You just have to remember to think of it as, there will always be something, so just make sure it's minor. (Like, we're going to have to replace all the windows sometime in the next five years or so, and I really want to run another electrical feed from the mains so we can get some more amperage into the house so we stop blowing circuits, and I want to convert the kitchen stove to gas, yadda. None of that's necessary, but it will be nice.)
If you don't already watch it, pick up a few seasons of Mike Holmes' show Holmes on Homes, ideally the first two, three seasons when he was doing minor jobs and before he went over the top with major projects, or his new show Holmes Inspection. He plays to the camera a lot, and he really does go over and above the call of duty, but he will teach you an amazing amount about what warning signs to look for when you're looking. (We toured about two dozen houses before picking this one, and I'd say about 80% of them got knocked off the list because of warning signs that I could notice without even looking too closely, not because the house itself didn't suit our tastes. In my case, I learned what to look for from my daddy, but Mike Holmes taught Sarah! Or rather, taught her to believe me when I said "this is not a big deal" vs "okay, this is going to be an issue".)
If you and the boy are not married, btw -- I can't remember if you are or not -- make absolutely sure to check your state's real estate law. Maryland, for instance, makes you jump through a bunch of hoops in order for the deed to be "joint tenancy with right of survivorship" (which is what you want) rather than "tenants in common" (which you don't want) -- check to make sure your state doesn't do the same.
Also check with your state to see what kind of property records are online. MD, for instance, has a ton of information online that you can use, to look up previous transfers, tax records, mortgage history, yadda, and we got a lot of use out of it when shopping around: a transfer anytime between 2005 and 2008 to someone who did not use the property as their primary residence is a warning sign that the house may have been flipped, especially if it was only held for a few months to a year or if the mortgage was an ARM. (Do not buy a house that has been flipped. Period. There were some good and ethical flippers working, even during the height of the boom between '05 and '08, but they were few and far between and you are just asking for a world of trouble. See also: death trap house. I actually helped get the death trap house condemned by the county; it was that bad.)
It also let us figure out who was trying to earn back a ridiculously high purchase price and who had been in the house for long enough/bought the house low enough that we had some room to dick around in negotiations. This is part of what let us make such a low offer: we looked it up and could see that the house transfered hands in '08 for $0 (which almost always means inherited or transfered inter familia) and previously was sold in '65 for $35k. That told us that the seller wasn't underwater, wasn't looking to recoup a large purchase price, and wasn't looking to dump the house before the ARM reset -- all of which can lead to being stubborn on what they'd accept. That plus the house being on the market for 600+ days gave us a lot of confidence that the sellers would be willing to dicker with us, and both parties walked away from the sale feeling like we'd gotten the better of it: they because they got a large fraction of the price they wanted and they got to stop paying maintenance and upkeep on the property (the two sons who owned it were both in their 60s, and from out-of-state; they just wanted the thing to go away so they could start coming to terms with their father's death and the sale of their childhood home) and us because we got a good, solid house for under the assessed value in a great neighborhood.
The reason it had been on the market for 600+ days despite being so good underneath, meanwhile, was twofold: one, it's on a very busy street (big deal, we don't have kids and that just leads to us having the best gourmet market in the world right next door) and two, the kitchen and bathrooms were cosmetically awful. Just, seriously, hideous. And a ridiculous number of sellers are incapable of looking past the cosmetics.
If I had to give you one bit of advice while looking, actually, that would be it: never fucking care about what something looks like. (Care about the architectural flowthrough of the house, like, "is this room big enough" and "is this traffic pattern going to drive me nuts", but not the paint or the finish.) You can paint, wallpaper, refinish, and rearrange just about anything. (Obviously it will cost more to do certain upgrades -- we are planning on gutting the kitchen and bathroom both down to studs in a few years when we can afford it -- but there's always minor stuff you can do to make due in the meantime.) The only dealbreakers should be architectural or structural issues, not cosmetic: you can live with ugly, but you shouldn't accept poor quality. It is astonishing how many people will bypass a solid quality home of good construction but ugly cosmetics for a piece of shit with all the latest luxury touches.
On househunting shows I have seen multiple people refuse to buy a house because they don't like the paint or the wallpaper. This is the fastest way to make me start screaming at the screen. (We got the wallpaper down in the kitchen before we even moved in. We haven't repainted/refinished the walls yet and it still turned the kitchen from "screamingly hideous" to simply "ugh". And removing wallpaper is actually really fun.)
Feel free to pick my brain anytime you want. I don't mind being the scratch pad!