The Home Ownership Thread

[otc]

Why not get the Chicago home and rent it out? Seems like there might be a lot of long term upside.

Well, at the moment...good luck renting it out for the same reasons that they are selling for cheap. And while I a do agree that it *seems* tempting, I'm not a proponent of treating personal real estate as investments.

Combined with...I don't desire to be a landlord right now (especially from a distance), who is to say that we would come back and/or that we would want the same kind of place at that time, and it would eat up capital and credit that would be needed to secure the place we will actually live.

Also, the IL/Chi budget crises don't seem to be getting any better with COVID and the failure to pass a progressive income tax, and while I'm not as doom and gloom as some (I don't think its going to cause a mass exodus of people and businesses), I can't see property taxes not going up further.

 

[gettoasty]

One positive of SFH and living by yourself is the freedom to yell and scream at the bane of life.

 

[Joffrey]

You know, the normal in NC is becoming the de facto standard in other markets. A lot of markets you now have to waive appraisal and inspection contingencies to get your offer even considered, meaning you'd lose earnest money if you walk from the deal.

So all these people complaining about waiving contingencies now know what it's like all the time in NC.

Waiving the inspection contingency is pretty easy when you realize you can just have an inspector come in ahead of placing an offer. Appraisal is no big deal either since your lender will do one on their own. The big issue is competing with people who are paying with cash.

 

[brokencycle]

One positive of SFH and living by yourself is the freedom to yell and scream at the bane of life.

If you're living alone, you don't have a bane of your life yet.

 

[Van Veen]

Waiving the inspection contingency is pretty easy when you realize you can just have an inspector come in ahead of placing an offer. Appraisal is no big deal either since your lender will do one on their own. The big issue is competing with people who are paying with cash.

Good luck getting an inspector to come in on short notice. Desirable houses are selling the first weekend on the market. The inspector we got couldn't come for almost a week, and he was the 3rd string guy. Also good luck convincing sellers to block off 4 hours for inspection while the house is on the market.

The appraisal contingency gives you an out when your lender's appraisal comes in under the sales price. If the house doesn't appraise, you either have to bring more cash to the table or break the contract and lose your earnest money.

 

[Omega Male]

Not recommended. Omega will just steal from his wife's purse to balance the books.

Don't fight the Fed.

 

[cross22]

 

[brokencycle]

So question. You have a rental that you have to close the mortgage on, and you want to buy a new house soon. You have enough cash to pay off the rental and also cover the down payment for the new primary (given the low rates probably no more than 20%). You will still have a sizable stock portfolio and not eager to save cash for investments. Do you refinance the rental or do you pay it off? Do the low rates justify the transaction and interest costs of refinancing the rental and investing that money? Asking for a friend...

You can use a calculator like Nerd wallet to see how much interest you'll pay extra over the life of the refinance. If you have enough saved and aren't interested in holding more cash or investing it, then just pay it off and be done. No point in paying interest for no reason.

 

[venividivicibj]

Not recommended. Omega will just steal from his wife's purse to balance the books.

 

[Omega Male]

That's hot.

The day drinking is the point. I am very disappointed by your apparent lack of vision.

This is approximately how it would go.

 

[PhilKenSebben]

That's hot.



This is approximately how it would go.

What the hell whas that!?!? ******* hilarious

 

[cross22]

You can use a calculator like Nerd wallet to see how much interest you'll pay extra over the life of the refinance. If you have enough saved and aren't interested in holding more cash or investing it, then just pay it off and be done. No point in paying interest for no reason.

Thanks. Yeah I am well aware of the costs but knowing them is useless unless you have a POV on what the opportunity cost is. Paying it off last year would have been a dumb thing in retrospect given the stock market performance. I was really just asking for people's gut feeling on where things go from here.

 

[brokencycle]

Thanks. Yeah I am well aware of the costs but knowing them is useless unless you have a POV on what the opportunity cost is. Paying it off last year would have been a dumb thing in retrospect given the stock market performance. I was really just asking for people's gut feeling on where things go from here.

My gut is: if you have the choice of investing money or paying off a loan at <4%, I would invest it. The market may be up or down over the next year, but over the next 5? Or 10? My money is on up more than the interest on the loan.

 

[gettoasty]

 

[emptym]

We just had our back deck rebuilt, or mostly rebuilt. You're allowed to redo up to half the deck at a time w/o permits. We had half done about 4 yrs ago, and the other half was rotting away. You could pick chunks of it off with your finger. Most of the substructure is from 4 yrs ago, but they replaced all of the visible boards and switched a ramp to steps. Pretty happy with the result:

The guys were fun too. At first, they didn't like the idea of making the end posts shorter than the ones by the steps, and when I came out one time, one of them had done this as a joke:

It still makes me laugh. Next up is to replace the 70 yr old, broken up concrete walk with some kind of irregular stone pavers with grass in between, something like this: