Is anybody else on this board house hunting?

[Susie]

If so, please join me to commiserate!  

Yesterday we went for a showing at a big old Dutch colonial built in 1914.  



It's been sitting on the market for a few months, and houses at its price point and size have been selling like crazy, so I figured there was something about it.  Still, 5 beds, 2 full + 2 half baths, 3100 sf, 1.4 acre, some reasonable looking rooms, and almost $100k under budget, I figured we should see it.   The listing photos seemed more or less reasonable.











I was... not prepared.  

The porch was lovely and gracious and I was picturing how I would landscape.  And then we went inside and it all went downhill.  There was an alarm going off, which we later found was the CO alarm in the basement.  There was a leak with water actively running from a second story ceiling all the way down to the first floor kitchen, and actively dripping from a can light in the middle of the kitchen.  The original source was snowmelt, but that happens every year!  The built-ins in the dark blue room are actually set into the old exterior wall, pre-addition, and there's a big crack in it.  Knob & tube wiring, no meaningful insulation at all on the 3rd floor, ad hoc wiring, all daisy chained together and outdated, often not grounded, etc. etc. etc.

The listing says it could be worth 2x the asking price "with the right finishing touches & Landscaping."  Sure, if you consider a dry kitchen, insulation, and safe air to be "finishing touches"?

This is THE ONLY HOUSE in our town with 4+ bedrooms, 2+ baths, 2+ garage spaces that is currently on the market within a budget that is about 2.5x what we paid for our current 4 bed/1.5 bath home.  Even if we open it up to unlimited, it only adds about 3 houses (around the $1m mark) to the available inventory.

I think we are going to rent a storage unit imminently so I don't go crazy in my existing house; we are dying with insufficient storage for a family's worth of stuff.  This is going to be a long wait, I fear.  Now I remember why I wanted to renovate in the first place.

[icedcoffee]

I'm not house hunting and I know the market is tough right now, but this is also generally the slowest part of the year for house selling. Give it a few more weeks and hopefully you'll see more on the market.

That house sounds terrible though. Such a shame too because it looks lovely.

We literally have 1 house on the market in our neighborhood right now.  And by spring I predict we'll have at least 3-5 at any given time.

[lilypad1126]

I will be house hunting soon. In a different state. During a pandemic. To say I have anxiety around this is quite the understatement. There seem to be plenty of houses in the area we will be moving to, but I am terrified that every house has some issue like those you saw. I have no desire to move twice, so I'd rather buy than rent, but it's a daunting task. I'm so sorry it's such a tough market where you are!

[Susie]

icedcoffee, it will certainly loosen up, I'm just feeling down on how much that will help.  We missed out on a house in January that had 6 offers in <48 hours, and closed in 30 days for 5% over asking.  I'd have loved to have that house, even at the selling price (vs. listing price).  This past weekend a house went on the market on Friday night and was under contract by Monday morning, I'm sure with competing offers.  I've seen a couple others pop up and immediately sell in the last 2 months as well.  

We have a realtor and a non-contingent mortgage preapproval in excess of our budget, but with little kids, jobs, and inconsistent school/daycare due to covid, it's hard to make it happen.  More houses = more chances = nominally better odds, but it's tough.

[icedcoffee]

Feb 24, 2021 16:01:30 GMT -5 Susie said:

icedcoffee , it will certainly loosen up, I'm just feeling down on how much that will help.  We missed out on a house in January that had 6 offers in <48 hours, and closed in 30 days for 5% over asking.  I'd have loved to have that house, even at the selling price (vs. listing price).  This past weekend a house went on the market on Friday night and was under contract by Monday morning, I'm sure with competing offers.  I've seen a couple others pop up and immediately sell in the last 2 months as well.  

We have a realtor and a non-contingent mortgage preapproval in excess of our budget, but with little kids, jobs, and inconsistent school/daycare due to covid, it's hard to make it happen.  More houses = more chances = nominally better odds, but it's tough.

Yeah---unfortunately it is a competitive market.  I don't envy people who need to house hunt now.  I hope you guys find something you love!

[penguingrrl]

That house is gorgeous! Honestly, if it’s almost $100K below your budget, would you consider buying it and doing those upgrades before you moved in? It might still come in under or at budget with those repairs. I know you want move in ready, but this may be a way to get an amazing house within what you’re willing to pay.

[krystee]

I kind of love it!! Is there time to get an estimate of repairs from an inspector, and if it’s $150K, show the sellers the numbers and ask for $50K more off the price?

It would be so beautiful in good condition!

That said, I have kids close in age to yours, and I would only do that if we could carry the house while it was being fixed.

[Susie]

Feb 24, 2021 16:46:48 GMT -5 penguingrrl said:

That house is gorgeous! Honestly, if it’s almost $100K below your budget, would you consider buying it and doing those upgrades before you moved in? It might still come in under or at budget with those repairs. I know you want move in ready, but this may be a way to get an amazing house within what you’re willing to pay.

Honestly, no.  We went to see it thinking that could be the case, but we were thoroughly disabused of that notion.  We thought, oh, offer 10% under asking... have a cushion for HVAC, windows, insulation... deal with cosmetic stuff later.  But then we saw what I mentioned in the OP.

In terms of immediate needs, there's:
- fixing the roof/leak issue
- remediating whatever is emitting CO in the basement
- insulating a 3100 sf house so that heat bills in the winter are not astronomical
- re-wiring (again, a 3100 sf house) so it's safe
- fixing foundation/structure issues

Then there are the near-needs, like:
- installing ducts so we could transition from radiators to forced air heat, and adding an air conditioner.  Then fixing the water damage to the HW floors around the radiators.
- demoing the 3 car-sized barn/garage immediately behind the house so we could have a useable backyard for dogs/kids 
- replacing windows, many of which are custom-sized, and of which there are many

Then there are the other considerations that aren't solved by the above:
- lead paint all over, some of which is peeling
- asbestos
- the house desperately needs a horseshoe drive added in front, so you don't have to back onto a busy street
- The bedrooms are BEAT. Even they would take a lot of work to be usable for the kids.

Even after all that, there's the stuff that can't really be fixed.
- the floor plan is tight and winding and not level.  For example, in the pic of the tan living room (with fireplace) -- the set of 3 stairs goes up 3 steps and then immediately down 3 steps and comes into the kitchen at the banister that you see in the 2nd pic.  Why?  Not friendly to age in place.  
- the kitchen layout is bad too.  From the work area in the kitchen to the door in the eating area, the nearest door is a bathroom, then laundry room, then pantry is nearest to the exterior door. 
- Cabinets to the ceilings is great.  Cabinets to 10 foot ceilings is not very usable.  And if you don't use those, the kitchen is actually pretty small.
- All bedrooms are on the 2nd & 3rd floors, which is unfriendly for my dad who may move in with us, and us in the future.
- Lots of narrow stairs.
- The lot is fairly narrow and really deep, so it doesn't feel as big as 1.4 acre.  With the barn, there's no backyard adjacent the house at all.
- It's on a rural road, not in a neighborhood like I was hoping for.

It's listed for $439k, and I think with a budget of more like $700-800k, it could be absolutely beautiful.  But it may even take more than that to fix the structural/systemic issues properly and then dead with cosmetic issues for that square footage.  It would be a HUGE undertaking, and would basically be a gut job.  We are preapproved for $535k but really want to stay below $500k.  There's no reasonable offer that we could make that would allow us to buy the house and get it to where I'd be comfortable moving in with my 1 and 5 year olds, remotely near our budget.

I've learned from looking at old houses that a few gorgeous pictures has no real bearing on whether a house is a good choice.  This one is definitely just too much.

[penguingrrl]

Feb 24, 2021 17:12:51 GMT -5 Susie said:

Feb 24, 2021 16:46:48 GMT -5 penguingrrl said:

That house is gorgeous! Honestly, if it’s almost $100K below your budget, would you consider buying it and doing those upgrades before you moved in? It might still come in under or at budget with those repairs. I know you want move in ready, but this may be a way to get an amazing house within what you’re willing to pay.

Honestly, no.  We went to see it thinking that could be the case, but we were thoroughly disabused of that notion.  We thought, oh, offer 10% under asking... have a cushion for HVAC, windows, insulation... deal with cosmetic stuff later.  But then we saw what I mentioned in the OP.

In terms of immediate needs, there's:
- fixing the roof/leak issue
- remediating whatever is emitting CO in the basement
- insulating a 3100 sf house so that heat bills in the winter are not astronomical
- re-wiring (again, a 3100 sf house) so it's safe
- fixing foundation/structure issues

Then there are the near-needs, like:
- installing ducts so we could transition from radiators to forced air heat, and adding an air conditioner.  Then fixing the water damage to the HW floors around the radiators.
- demoing the 3 car-sized barn/garage immediately behind the house so we could have a useable backyard for dogs/kids 
- replacing windows, many of which are custom-sized, and of which there are many

Then there are the other considerations that aren't solved by the above:
- lead paint all over, some of which is peeling
- asbestos
- the house desperately needs a horseshoe drive added in front, so you don't have to back onto a busy street
- The bedrooms are BEAT. Even they would take a lot of work to be usable for the kids.

Even after all that, there's the stuff that can't really be fixed.
- the floor plan is tight and winding and not level.  For example, in the pic of the tan living room (with fireplace) -- the set of 3 stairs goes up 3 steps and then immediately down 3 steps and comes into the kitchen at the banister that you see in the 2nd pic.  Why?  Not friendly to age in place.  
- the kitchen layout is bad too.  From the work area in the kitchen to the door in the eating area, the nearest door is a bathroom, then laundry room, then pantry is nearest to the exterior door. 
- Cabinets to the ceilings is great.  Cabinets to 10 foot ceilings is not very usable.  And if you don't use those, the kitchen is actually pretty small.
- All bedrooms are on the 2nd & 3rd floors, which is unfriendly for my dad who may move in with us, and us in the future.
- Lots of narrow stairs.
- The lot is fairly narrow and really deep, so it doesn't feel as big as 1.4 acre.  With the barn, there's no backyard adjacent the house at all.
- It's on a rural road, not in a neighborhood like I was hoping for.

It's listed for $439k, and I think with a budget of more like $700-800k, it could be absolutely beautiful.  But it may even take more than that to fix the structural/systemic issues properly and then dead with cosmetic issues for that square footage.  It would be a HUGE undertaking, and would basically be a gut job.  We are preapproved for $535k but really want to stay below $500k.  There's no reasonable offer that we could make that would allow us to buy the house and get it to where I'd be comfortable moving in with my 1 and 5 year olds, remotely near our budget.

I've learned from looking at old houses that a few gorgeous pictures has no real bearing on whether a house is a good choice.  This one is definitely just too much.

Gotcha, that is a lot! Damn LOL! My house is from 1926 but was very well maintained so didn’t have those issues or anywhere near that level. We’ve had a few pricey surprises in the 4 years we’ve been here, but nothing on that scale (we knew it needed a roof and that was $20K). We may eventually put in ducts and a new heating system to add a/c (we have a serious issue emerging with our radiant system, but my allergies have been fantastic living without ducts and forced hot air so I hate to switch).

[expectantsteelerfan]

I'm house hunting right now, and I'm so discouraged at the moment. I'd been watching the market for a while as we saved for a downpayment (dh got a promotion that involves a major change in salary, so we are hoping to upgrade from a starter home to a larger and newer home in the same school district). There had been several houses on the market over the summer that I LOVED, but unfortunately we just weren't ready. We knew it would likely be Jan. before we had the downpayment saved, and that winter would likely be slow, but the market here is just insane right now and not looking like it's going to change any time soon.

Seriously, we saw a house a few weeks ago that was similar to your experience except for the ending. What was pictured on the listing looked great. House was listed on Friday. We had an appointment to see it Saturday before the open house on Sunday. And yes, the parts that were pictured (kitchen, living room, office, basement, 2 of the 5 bedrooms, and 2 of the 4 bathrooms) were great. And then upstairs, the rest of the bedrooms were a maze of doors all connected to each other through closets and weird hallways, all with random carpets and horrible wallpaper. We could have dealt with that though. But THEN...off the living room on the main floor, they an area where there was once an indoor, inground pool (I think it was a swimspa type thing). But the pool had stopped working, and instead of fixing it, the sellers decided to start the process to have the pool removed. They went so far as to have an architect draw up plans to turn that area into a main floor master suite, and had the plans posted/available. But as is, it was basically an un-insulated room with a huge hole in the ground.
And they got so many offers on Saturday that they accepted the highest one (above asking, and asking was about what it was worth), and cancelled the open house for Sunday.

We are currently looking into the possibility of building, but running into issues with that as well (basically our dream location is available, but only if you use a specific builder that has a horrible reputation and has testimonials from several people I know IRL who were unhappy with them). I also hate the idea of waiting another year to move.

[froggy76]

What a shame, that's a beautiful house! The cosmetic updates alone would cost over $100k... I can't even imagine what fixing the "behind-the-scenes" stuff would take. It's probably a $250-300k project!

There is no inventory where I live. I can't imagine trying to house hunt right now. We're renovating instead, and everything costs 3x what I think it should cost.

[Susie]

expectantsteelerfan , omg at the weird pool room.

We were in a sort of similar position.  We had been saving up in the "reno or move" fund, and then in late 2016/early 2017 I got the opportunity to buy into my firm and become an equity partner.  It was a great professional opportunity that I couldn't turn down, but the down payment on my buy-in wiped out the house fund.  So we started from scratch, had another kid, spent 13 months paying for double daycare, and weren't in a position to do anything.  All the while I was watching real estate, trying to decide whether to renovate or move in the future, what renos would be in line with our neighborhood, etc. 

DD graduated out of daycare and started public school in the fall, and we finally saved up enough to talk seriously about making a move one way or the other.  We came to the surprising (to us) conclusion that the reno we were planning wasn't going to be enough to make our house what we wanted.  There were too many other pain points that it wouldn't fix.  So moving made more sense, and here we are.

I never dreamed we'd try to buy/sell during a pandemic, but my dad has some health challenges and is starting to talk about moving in with us.  Conceptually we're good with that, but our house is feeling cramped with 4 people and 1 dog.  If he moves in we'll have 5 people and 3 dogs.  There's no amount of optimizing our house that will make that work.

[boiler717]

I feel like everything here is selling pre-market which is so hard as a buyer. At this point I would consider spamming FB groups for leads or even mailing letters to houses you like that aren’t on market.

[sonrisa]

Feb 25, 2021 9:47:45 GMT -5 Susie said:

We were in a sort of similar position.  We had been saving up in the "reno or move" fund, and then in late 2016/early  We came to the surprising (to us) conclusion that the reno we were planning wasn't going to be enough to make our house what we wanted.  There were too many other pain points that it wouldn't fix.  So moving made more sense, and here we are.

We are sort of here. We are also weighing a teardown rebuild. But all options are pricey.

I'm up for kvetching about the process.

(We found something that seemed great - very different than what you found, but amazing location set in redwoods. But it's being held together by termite spit so back to searching).

[Susie]

This morning the house in the OP dropped another $2k, from $439k to $437k.  I was joking with H, was that $2k supposed to represent the water issue or the CO issue?  Lol.

[scm1011]

A $2k drop?! lol

[penguingrrl]

Mar 2, 2021 19:23:32 GMT -5 Susie said:

This morning the house in the OP dropped another $2k, from $439k to $437k.  I was joking with H, was that $2k supposed to represent the water issue or the CO issue?  Lol.

They sure sound like highly motivated sellers to me lol!

[expectantsteelerfan]

We met with builders this week, and now we're trying to decide if we want to build or keep looking for the diamond in the rough of this crazy market.

Of course, the lot we fell in love with is owned by a builder we absolutely 100% don't want to use, and now that we found a builder we like and trust, we can't find a lot available that makes us want to pull the trigger.

[icedcoffee]

Why even bother with a $2k drop? $2k drop to me sounds like "these sellers will be a pain in the ass to negotiate with so don't bother". I've never seen anything drop so little. I feel like it's normally a $5k minimum when adjusting prices.

[scm1011]

Mar 4, 2021 9:47:35 GMT -5 icedcoffee said:

Why even bother with a $2k drop? $2k drop to me sounds like "these sellers will be a pain in the ass to negotiate with so don't bother". I've never seen anything drop so little. I feel like it's normally a $5k minimum when adjusting prices.

I've been told that a drop puts a house back in the spot light if its been on the market for a while. So if someone is on mailing lists for properties it will send out an alert that its a reduced price. Puts a property back on the radar. 

[Susie]

Mar 4, 2021 9:47:35 GMT -5 icedcoffee said:

Why even bother with a $2k drop? $2k drop to me sounds like "these sellers will be a pain in the ass to negotiate with so don't bother". I've never seen anything drop so little. I feel like it's normally a $5k minimum when adjusting prices.

The previous drop was $1k, from $440k to $439k.  lol.

I mean, I guess it worked, it showed up in my emails and we finally decided to go see it after knowing about the listing for months.  But now from the perspective of knowing all the house's issues, it makes me agree that yes, these sellers would be a total nightmare to work with.  I'm glad I didn't fall in love with the house.

[acr]

Shockingly we found a house & had an offer accepted our first time making an offer. It's bananas here - home prices have increased roughly 10% since the start of the year.

We had to offer a bunch over asking & waive appraisal contingency. We don't even love this home! But the location is good, the lot is good, the bones of the house are good...and if we waited home prices would keep going up and up.

[scm1011]

We're considering staying put and renovating again. I'm in a local homebuying facebook group and all I hear are stories about people bidding on houses we'd be interested in and even their $400k downpayments, $100K+ over asking offers, and waiving inspection who are getting denied in favor of all cash buyers. We just don't have $900k+ laying around to outright buy a fixer upper. Its so discouraging.

[Susie]

scm1011, have you guys decided on a timeframe to commit one way or the other? We're not in a hurry to renovate because building supplies are so inflated right now and contractors so unavailable, so we're going to sit tight through 2021 I think, maybe spring 2022 listing season. If the logjam hasn't broken by then, I we'll look at building as a 3rd option. It is frustrating though. As a consolation prize I keep telling myself the longer it takes, the larger our budget grows for whatever we ultimately do.

[mrsukyankee]

I can commiserate based on our search a bit over a year ago - we found a similar house that needed huge amounts of work, put in a decent offer and they rejected it (even though we were cash buyers and their estate agent said it was an amazing offer).They then pulled it off the market because they got feedback that it needed work to make it worthwhile, after putting our final offer on hold for a few weeks.

We then went to see a house, I loved it, wanted to show it to my H and the people pulled it off the market again -the estate agent (who we saw later) told us he thought that they just wanted to get a sense of what it was worth and weren't actually serious about selling.

We put in an offer on another house that needed a lot of work. They declined. And then sat on the market for almost 6 months (unheard of in the area). They sold for less than our offer. Ugh.

We then put an offer in that was accepted to an acceptable house that needed work - they then put off finalizing the sale for a month (you can do that here). In the meanwhile, we found another house which we eventually purchased, though that was a palaver as well.

I wish you the very best in this journey!

[expectantsteelerfan]

Mar 10, 2021 15:40:16 GMT -5 Susie said:

scm1011 , have you guys decided on a timeframe to commit one way or the other? We're not in a hurry to renovate because building supplies are so inflated right now and contractors so unavailable, so we're going to sit tight through 2021 I think, maybe spring 2022 listing season. If the logjam hasn't broken by then, I we'll look at building as a 3rd option. It is frustrating though. As a consolation prize I keep telling myself the longer it takes, the larger our budget grows for whatever we ultimately do.

I'm not scm, but we aren't willing to wait that long.  We gave ourselves and August 2021 deadline.  If we haven't found a house by then, we're going to move ahead with building.  I had a goal to be in a new house before Christmas 2021, and this would not accomplish that goal, but it's what we came up with.  I feel like I need a zillowaddicts annonymous.  It is the only ap on my phone that I allow to give me actual real time notifications, and I also check morning and night to see which houses have gone under contract as well.  There were 2 new houses today, but neither are any bigger than our current house unfortunately.  They are like nicer, more updated versions of our current house, and they make me wish we didn't need more space, but we do.  I'm sure they'll be sold by the weekend at the longest.  One house was listed last Wed. and we planned to go to the open house Sunday because we didn't think we liked the area, but our agent called thurs. to say they already had an offer, so if we wanted to see it to go that day, and they did go under contract by friday and cancelled the open house.

[scm1011]

Mar 10, 2021 15:40:16 GMT -5 Susie said:

scm1011 , have you guys decided on a timeframe to commit one way or the other? We're not in a hurry to renovate because building supplies are so inflated right now and contractors so unavailable, so we're going to sit tight through 2021 I think, maybe spring 2022 listing season. If the logjam hasn't broken by then, I we'll look at building as a 3rd option. It is frustrating though. As a consolation prize I keep telling myself the longer it takes, the larger our budget grows for whatever we ultimately do.

This is a good reminder that its not now or never, so thank you. There is one aspect of our house that needs immediate fixing. We have ZERO soundproofing in our upper floor, where the bedrooms are. Even with noise machines blaring in all 3 of our bedrooms I cannot cough without waking DD in the next room and I can hear everytime her pacifier falls out of the crib.  Also neither kids room has a closet, which is increasingly aggravating (our house has 1 closet total, in the master bedroom. We have bins and piles of crap everywhere). I feel like if we're going to fix that we might as well fix everything at the same time, so it feels like we need to make a decision one way or another now soon, but I guess its not that dire. 

The main problem is I just don't see the market letting up here anytime soon, prices are only going to get higher and higher. I live in a very unique market where demand is never going to waiver because of close proximity to Harvard and Tufts. Its a miracle we ever were able to buy here in the first place, and only could because we bought during the housing crisis in 2009.  

[Susie]

scm1011, I salute your patience, that sounds really frustrating.

Our area is obviously vastly lower COL, but we have a similar "consistent demand" type of scenario. We're in a near-in burb of the state capital, in a big government state. We have several separate state agency campuses, plus a flagship state university campus in our county. It keeps demand, at least to a certain price point, extremely consistent. We struggled with a hot market when we bought this house, and we're struggling again, now, but in between it's been a comfort that we've always felt we could sell if we needed or wanted to.

[scm1011]

Thanks, Susie. I hope we both find solutions soon.

[maudefindlay]

We are looking for lots ideally, so that we can build exactly what we want, but are also keeping our eyes out for existing homes we can remodel if they are on a good amount of land. I'd like 5 acres, DH says 10, but I think he'd love 20 acres. Land and homes are very low in inventory here right now. No urgent need to move, so we just keep watching and waiting. We are able to purchase without first selling our current house, so that definitely helps.