House Buying / Selling Updates Thread

[carrotsmakemefat]

Mar 6, 2021 9:12:52 GMT -5 vmars said:

So I need some advice. My neighborhood is also selling quickly and for top dollar. The catch is we were on the market back in 2019 and only got one low ball offer so we took the house off the market since we were about to have our second baby. In the interim we have had ppl interested, but nothing every happened due to different circumstance.

There is nothing wrong with our house but it’s 3 bedrooms 2.5 baths in a neighborhood with mostly 4 bedroom homes. The people purchasing in our neighborhood have very large families and want bigger homes. I am hesitant that my house will sell quickly as the rest because of past experience. However my realtor suggested I sell now to maximize my profit.

One thought I had was to try and get an offer where they’d rent the house back to us so we could make a non contingent offer on our next house. The area we want to move in is also hot and low inventory. The other option would be to sell the end of summer and live in a winter rental in our preferred town (it’s a beach town) until we find something next spring. That involves moving 2x and not ideal. WWYD?

If you think you’ll stand to make excellent money off selling I would sell. Worst case you list and don’t like the offers and stay.

I would ask for the rent back as well. It’s very common right now. I offered on a home two weeks ago and even offered them FREE rent back to sweeten the deal (I didn’t get it but that’s ok. LOL). Again what’s the worst ? You figure out what to do after the spring ?

Is there a place to build out the 4th BR? Maybe the basement or garage ? Someone may buy it knowing they can expand at some point.

[vmars]

Mar 7, 2021 14:39:41 GMT -5 carrotsmakemefat said:

Mar 6, 2021 9:12:52 GMT -5 vmars said:

So I need some advice. My neighborhood is also selling quickly and for top dollar. The catch is we were on the market back in 2019 and only got one low ball offer so we took the house off the market since we were about to have our second baby. In the interim we have had ppl interested, but nothing every happened due to different circumstance.

There is nothing wrong with our house but it’s 3 bedrooms 2.5 baths in a neighborhood with mostly 4 bedroom homes. The people purchasing in our neighborhood have very large families and want bigger homes. I am hesitant that my house will sell quickly as the rest because of past experience. However my realtor suggested I sell now to maximize my profit.

One thought I had was to try and get an offer where they’d rent the house back to us so we could make a non contingent offer on our next house. The area we want to move in is also hot and low inventory. The other option would be to sell the end of summer and live in a winter rental in our preferred town (it’s a beach town) until we find something next spring. That involves moving 2x and not ideal. WWYD?

If you think you’ll stand to make excellent money off selling I would sell. Worst case you list and don’t like the offers and stay.

I would ask for the rent back as well. It’s very common right now. I offered on a home two weeks ago and even offered them FREE rent back to sweeten the deal (I didn’t get it but that’s ok. LOL). Again what’s the worst ? You figure out what to do after the spring ?

Is there a place to build out the 4th BR? Maybe the basement or garage ? Someone may buy it knowing they can expand at some point.

Yes there is we have a huge backyard and we have a 1000 sq foot finished basement. We use part of the basement as a makeshift guest room area, but legally it’s not 4 bedroom home.

[magma]

Mar 2, 2021 12:40:35 GMT -5 scm1011 said:

Mar 2, 2021 12:10:12 GMT -5 tripleshot said:

We’re thinking about doing a cash out refi or HEL in a few years to use as a down payment too. Did you tell the bank your plans for the money? When we’ve refi’d before with no cash out, the CU kept asking why we wanted to refi (lower interest).

Initially we had wanted to use the money to make improvements, so thats what we told them. When we decided that even with improvements our current space wouldn't work long term I approached them about it, because I wanted to make sure everything was above board. I was clear it was a hypothetical (because our market is insane and the likelihood of something coming on the market in our price range that meets our needs and us winning a bidding war is sadly not great), but that we're keeping this option on the table. The broker told us that at closing we have to sign a release saying we plan to keep our current home as our primary residence for the next 12 months, BUT its not binding and they understand that plans change etc. As long as we aren't currently eyeing a house and plan to immediately put the funds down as a down payment they said its fine. If that were the case, the loan would have had to change terms (with a higher interest rate). So we'll see. We're scheduled to close 3/15 and I'm hoping something pops up this spring. 

I didn’t know this was a thing, having to sign something at the closing of a refi saying you won’t move? We just started the refi process to lower our rate with zero closing costs. But we are casually looking at the market and would possibly move if the right house came up and we beat out the other 30 offers (unlikely and could take years or never happen...hence going ahead with the refi.) but should I ask whether we would have to sign something like this?

[scm1011]

Mar 8, 2021 3:33:06 GMT -5 magma said:

Mar 2, 2021 12:40:35 GMT -5 scm1011 said:

Initially we had wanted to use the money to make improvements, so thats what we told them. When we decided that even with improvements our current space wouldn't work long term I approached them about it, because I wanted to make sure everything was above board. I was clear it was a hypothetical (because our market is insane and the likelihood of something coming on the market in our price range that meets our needs and us winning a bidding war is sadly not great), but that we're keeping this option on the table. The broker told us that at closing we have to sign a release saying we plan to keep our current home as our primary residence for the next 12 months, BUT its not binding and they understand that plans change etc. As long as we aren't currently eyeing a house and plan to immediately put the funds down as a down payment they said its fine. If that were the case, the loan would have had to change terms (with a higher interest rate). So we'll see. We're scheduled to close 3/15 and I'm hoping something pops up this spring. 

I didn’t know this was a thing, having to sign something at the closing of a refi saying you won’t move? We just started the refi process to lower our rate with zero closing costs. But we are casually looking at the market and would possibly move if the right house came up and we beat out the other 30 offers (unlikely and could take years or never happen...hence going ahead with the refi.) but should I ask whether we would have to sign something like this?

I'm not sure if its standard, or its related to mine being a cash out refi (we're pulling out 6 figures). Might be worth a discussion.

[carrotsmakemefat]

My update - the offers didn’t get presented on the house we bid for. But get this. The realtor is in the same office with my REA. He let her know on the down low there is one offer specifically that went “thousands and thousands” over anyone else’s offer / sight unseen and waived everything.

I guess that’s all she wrote 🙄

[vmars]

So we spoke to a realtor in our neighborhood. He’s sold 15 homes in our neighborhood. He said he’d list it on a Thursday with open house on Sunday. He’d list it for $509k with the expectation we would get a bidding war. He said he could get 15-20 people to come to an open house. We could also do a rent back for 1-3 months so we could make a non contingent offer on the next house. My concern is buying something. Inventory is low and prices are high.

[ny96]

We have been in our house for 2 1/2 years and either have to remodel or buy another house because this house is too small. I love the house and the neighborhood, but it looks like it will be pretty impossible to compete for a new home here unless we sell first, and even if we do there aren’t many homes in our price range that are 3 bedroom and over 2000 sqft which is what we need. If we decide on the remodel it’s going to be so much to deal with. We don’t what to do.

[carrotsmakemefat]

Mar 12, 2021 21:35:01 GMT -5 ny96 said:

We have been in our house for 2 1/2 years and either have to remodel or buy another house because this house is too small. I love the house and the neighborhood, but it looks like it will be pretty impossible to compete for a new home here unless we sell first, and even if we do there aren’t many homes in our price range that are 3 bedroom and over 2000 sqft which is what we need. If we decide on the remodel it’s going to be so much to deal with. We don’t what to do.

As a buyer I’ve 100% looked at the ability to build onto my home in case I’m truly stuck for a longer time. I would 100% do it. The benefit is you can get exactly what you need and it will increase your long term home value, especially if those those over 2000 square feet homes are harder to come by

[noodleoo]

Mar 12, 2021 21:35:01 GMT -5 ny96 said:

We have been in our house for 2 1/2 years and either have to remodel or buy another house because this house is too small. I love the house and the neighborhood, but it looks like it will be pretty impossible to compete for a new home here unless we sell first, and even if we do there aren’t many homes in our price range that are 3 bedroom and over 2000 sqft which is what we need. If we decide on the remodel it’s going to be so much to deal with. We don’t what to do.

What was your plan when you bought the house? 2.5 years seems really fast to outgrow a house.

[ny96]

Mar 14, 2021 22:56:10 GMT -5 noodleoo said:

Mar 12, 2021 21:35:01 GMT -5 ny96 said:

We have been in our house for 2 1/2 years and either have to remodel or buy another house because this house is too small. I love the house and the neighborhood, but it looks like it will be pretty impossible to compete for a new home here unless we sell first, and even if we do there aren’t many homes in our price range that are 3 bedroom and over 2000 sqft which is what we need. If we decide on the remodel it’s going to be so much to deal with. We don’t what to do.

What was your plan when you bought the house? 2.5 years seems really fast to outgrow a house.

We had a totally different plan when we sold last time. We had planned to rent for 6 months and take our time finding the next house, but the short-term rental options were so dismal that we spent a weekend going to open houses, placed 2 offers, and got this house. We could not have afforded our current budget for and house back then and our value has definitely increased 100k to 150k. I love this house and the neighborhood and H was saying from the beginning that the house is too small. We could easily go on Love It or List It and be that couple.

I will add too that 3 bedroom houses in our 2 1/2 years ago budget are non existent in our area, also we are 10 to 15 min away from work and school which in Los Angeles is a big deal.