The Home Ownership Thread

[jcman311]

There was a house we liked this last time we searched. It was overpriced by about 10-15%. The market value was just below a nice round number, so I put an offer just over it, so a little more than 10% less than list knowing that the lower number would just upset them. Predictably, however, they countered, so we just told them to **** off. They ultimately sold the house 60 days later (in a market where average time on market is <10 days) for less than our asking price. Felt good.

I'm hoping this is what happens to them. We put a rather fair number into them considering about 6 years ago they undercut the previous owners. They now have it priced almost $150k more than what they paid, and did almost zero upgrades. It sounds like they may have overextended themselves building a new home.

At least just give us a "no thank you". No response is really ******.

 

[double00]

people are really ******, it's just business.

fwiw, it doesn't sound like you're chasing markets here. seems more like grabby sellers. **** em you're in the drivers seat. good luck mang.

 

[Van Veen]

There was a house we liked this last time we searched. It was overpriced by about 10-15%. The market value was just below a nice round number, so I put an offer just over it, so a little more than 10% less than list knowing that the lower number would just upset them. Predictably, however, they countered, so we just told them to **** off. They ultimately sold the house 60 days later (in a market where average time on market is <10 days) for less than our asking price. Felt good.

The market here is dumb right now. It's a little disheartening. Stuff is going for almost double what it sold for 10 years ago. I'm sure sellers are seeing dollar signs.

 

[jcman311]

people are really ******, it's just business.

fwiw, it doesn't sound like you're chasing markets here. seems more like grabby sellers. **** em you're in the drivers seat. good luck mang.

A little detective work led me to find out the owners are real estate managers. Ugh. Our agent officially just pulled our offer.

 

[Krish the Fish]

Market here is insane. A lot of low-to-mid priced homes are going for all-cash offers above ask. It's insanity. Luckily we paid 6% more for our place than the previous owners did a decade ago (insulated on price at the price point we bought at), and our condo we're getting ready to put on the market is in a neighborhood/subdivision/condo association where prices are going for 50% above what we paid 4 years ago, with <10 day time on market for the most recent sell for a unit that's similar sq ft as ours, but with lower grade appliances (we put in a Viking kitchen two years ago)/finishes (and put in new granite when we bought the place on every counter) in general and one fewer bedroom/full bath. It's on a corner though so maybe that resulted in the quick sell, but I'm saying we should price about 10% above their list price. My realtor says we should price lower than them or closer to their price, but *******, why not play the market out a bit and see what we get. Tax abated as well.

 

[Ataturk]

So, I replaced one of my T5HO fixtures (4 bulbs, 216 watts + ballast (? watts), 20,000 nominal lumens) with a T8 fixture rewired for LED T-style tubes (12 "bulbs," 216 total watts, 28,800 nominal lumens) and WOW. The light quality and distribution is far superior, and directly under the fixture it's literally twice as bright at working level (as verified by my light meter).

The LEDs plus t8 fixtures weren't cheaper (far from it; the total cost was about 2x as much as the T5HOs), but it sure is impressive. The LEDs also have the advantage of instant full brightnesss (compared to a 2-3 minute warmup for the fluorescents), and they supposedly don't suffer any harm from being switched on and off repeatedly.

I used "hyperikon" LEDs from Amazon.

 

[SkinnyGoomba]

I bought similar ones for my garage, really impressed. The lighting quality of box store LEDs has really come around in the past year or so.

 

[Ataturk]

The T8 replacement bulbs I saw at Lowes weren't quite the same as the ones I ended up getting. The Amazon T8 replacement LEDs had aluminum heat sinks on the back, were brighter, and could be used with or without a ballast. The Lowes version were dimmer and some of them didn't have heat sinks (and some might have been made of glass; I'm not sure). Some of the Lowes replacements also required a ballast, which is just plain awful.

Not that rewiring 12 tubes was fun, but it wasn't difficult since the replacements I got are dual end powered, meaning hot on one end of the tube and neutral on the other.

Some of the replacements were single end powered meaning you needed hot on one pin and neutral on the other. Just on one side, but that's a pain.

 

[SkinnyGoomba]

I bought the fixtures from Costco. They're a full fixture that look very similar to a two bulb florescent.

The second bit was something of a separate note in that I bought some LED replacements a few years back and thought the workshop was pretty dim with them in use, I recently replaced them again after debating going back to normal bulbs and ultimately finding that it is hardly even a possibility to do so and the latest round of LED replacements are very bright and good.

 

[Ataturk]

One other thing I forgot to mention is that the Hyperikon bulbs claim very good color-rendering -- CRI is 85 for the regular ones and 92 for the "90+." They also have a better spectrum or distrubition of color -- I don't know how to explain it, exactly, but basically fluorescent achieve their final color by combining more strictly different colors of light.

Hyperikon is pretty inconsistent with claims of brightness -- it varies from 2200 to 2500 in various places on the same bulbs for no apparent reason. Still, they are very bright. There's a noticeable delay in startup from flipping the switch compared to modern T8s with electronic ballasts, but they still start faster than the T5s and at full brightness immediately.

I really don't like the fixed LED fixtures. Theoretically they could be much better because of the layout options, the extra space, the consolidation -- but in practice they don't seem to be. And if one dies in a couple years will you be able to get another matching fixture? Probably not.

 

[js4design]

I bought the fixtures from Costco. They're a full fixture that look very similar to a two bulb florescent.

The second bit was something of a separate note in that I bought some LED replacements a few years back and thought the workshop was pretty dim with them in use, I recently replaced them again after debating going back to normal bulbs and ultimately finding that it is hardly even a possibility to do so and the latest round of LED replacements are very bright and good.

One other thing I forgot to mention is that the Hyperikon bulbs claim very good color-rendering -- CRI is 85 for the regular ones and 92 for the "90+." They also have a better spectrum or distrubition of color -- I don't know how to explain it, exactly, but basically fluorescent achieve their final color by combining more strictly different colors of light.

Hyperikon is pretty inconsistent with claims of brightness -- it varies from 2200 to 2500 in various places on the same bulbs for no apparent reason. Still, they are very bright. There's a noticeable delay in startup from flipping the switch compared to modern T8s with electronic ballasts, but they still start faster than the T5s and at full brightness immediately.

I really don't like the fixed LED fixtures. Theoretically they could be much better because of the layout options, the extra space, the consolidation -- but in practice they don't seem to be. And if one dies in a couple years will you be able to get another matching fixture? Probably not.

I have some fixtures in my garage shop similar to what Skinny describes, just from Sam's Club instead. One thing I realized when I painted the walls stark white was that they use 2 different temperature LEDs alternating in the assembly, and you start to get cones of different cast light as a result. They are fine for what I'm doing but in my basement shop I'll likely get fixtures and bulbs as Ataturk describes in hopes of getting a truly uniform light.

 

[Numbernine]

So let me get this straight .With the hyperikon you just remove your ballast and replace the tombstones and you're good to go?

 

[Ataturk]

So let me get this straight .With the hyperikon you just remove your ballast and replace the tombstones and you're good to go?

They have three (or at least three, some are combinations) different kinds of bulbs. One kind is "ballast compatible" which is just a direct plug and play with a ballast. Other than ease of installation there's no reason to use these. They're less efficient and less reliable because the ballast will eventually fail.

Then you have "dual end powered" which takes hot on one end of the tube and neutral on the other. You have to cut the ballast out and directly wire the the hot and neutral to the existing tombstones.

Finally there's "single end powered," which takes hot and neutral on either side of one tombstone. You remove the ballast and (usually) replace one tombstone with a new one, which you directly wire to your line voltage and neutral. The other lampholder just holds the bulb up and isn't wired into anything.

 

[Numbernine]

They have three (or at least three, some are combinations) different kinds of bulbs. One kind is "ballast compatible" which is just a direct plug and play with a ballast. Other than ease of installation there's no reason to use these. They're less efficient and less reliable because the ballast will eventually fail.

Then you have "dual end powered" which takes hot on one end of the tube and neutral on the other. You have to cut the ballast out and directly wire the the hot and neutral to the existing tombstones.

Finally there's "single end powered," which takes hot and neutral on either side of one tombstone. The other lampholder just holds the bulb up and wired into anything. You remove the ballast and (usually) replace one tombstone with a new one, which you directly wire to your line voltage and neutral.

Got it thanks

 

[brokencycle]

On the subject of LEDs we used Amazon under cabinet lights in our last house and really liked them.

Question for you guys on the recessed lights. Has anyone actually seen the difference on various brands? The electrician normally install Cree (he didn't specify which line), but he said about $100 a can so the standard fare at Lowe's or HD.

Element and WAC also make some that I really like that are about $200/can. The question is are they incrementally any better? Not just from a light performance perspective but also from an appearance/functionality perspective.