did you or your boss get inspections done?
we needed money when moving in, but mostly on little stuff. We didn’t have to fix any utilities or structural stuff.
My loan required an inspection. My house was bought for a low price because it needed work. HONESTLY, my home inspector was mostly a bullshitter. A bullshitter with a badge that said certified home inspector. I could have gone into the house and said all the same stuff that he told me.
If you want to INSPECT a house the right way, then get 3 PROFESSIONALS to look at it, and pay them each for an hour of their time.
You want a licensed plumber, a licensed electrician, and a general structure guy who does roofing, structure, and foundations. Between those three guys, and your own two eyes, you should have a pretty good idea of the condition of the house.
BUT, even if you “know” the condition, plan on spending 5k on bullshit that the wife wants, and emergencies will happen.
The guy I had come out spit out a fancy report, and collected the money, but he missed a lot of stuff. I knew I was in trouble when he looked at the roof with binoculars instead of bringing a ladder.
I have no idea what my boss had for a home inspection, I would assume he had one done also.
So you knew the house needed work. That’s a different story. You’re giving the dude advice, trying to tell him he’s gonna need to recondition half of his utilities when that’s not the case. If he finds a GOOD inspector (nobody’s fault but your own that you had a shitty inspector) and knows what he is buying, then it shouldn’t be a problem.
Who is to say his wife is gonna want to spend $5k…be a man and reel that bitch in.
Emergency money should definitely be set aside though, no argument there.
Agreed. I don’t want to be rolling change to get a down payment covered. As I’ve said earlier, I don’t mind a house that needs a little updating. I have plenty of family and friends who can assist in areas that I’d need help in.
Yeah its just a matter of what kind of place you are buying. I have had my house for over a year and the only money I spent was about $2k on a bathroom remodel cause i wanted a really nice bathroom.
But iof Freek wants a 4 unit in the 150k range I am sure that will require allllll types of fixeruppers.
I was at my job 6 months when I got my house…They just want to see you were employed in a similar field for X amount of time.
Yeah I’m not afraid of the work. I can pretty much do it almost all myself. We don’t all get walk into a completely rebuilt house with top of the line everything for 5k less than what was offered 
I’m with Josh.
I always scratch my head when people tell me they have to save up for a 3.5% down payment (even more egregious if its only a 100k house) but are sure they want to buy. Home ownership isn’t a right, or something that everyone needs to do either. I’d do more research on the programs and incentives that you can make use of, but if you need them to be able to pull the trigger, then you should probably wait a bit longer. You don’t want your purchase to wipe out your savings, your safety net needs to be bigger when you own your house, not smaller.
You can deff find other turn key 2-units for what I paid. Just not always for less then what was offered haha.
We stretched ourselves SORT OF thin when we bought. It’s a little bit of a gamble, but we knew that we could save back up to our safety net pretty quickly. Sometimes you need to take risks in order to get the big reward. This means you need to know what you’re getting yourself into though. If you are buying a brand new house, theres not a whole lot to worry about. If you’re buying a 100 year old fixer-upper, you have a lot to worry about.
Things to pay attention to are obvious, but I’ll list a few:
- Roof; Get into the attic and have a good look around, water stains are easy to spot with a flashlight.
- HVAC; check their age. Old furnaces/water heaters/ ac compressors/etc… can be costly to replace. If they’re on the new side, you’re probably in good shape.
- Appliances; again, age tells you a lot. also check how nicely the owners keep them though. Like anything, abuse will cause failures.
- Crawlspace/basement; check for foundation cracks and ANY signs of moisture. Check the exposed pipes in these areas!! Take a close look at anything that looks out of the ordinary.
These things will be the most expensive to replace, and they are also the most critical to your ability to live in the house. Other shit like crappy floors, busted doorknobs, shitty windows, etc… can be lived with until funds are available.
So, if you’re gonna stretch yourself thin, MAKE SURE they house has good bones and solid core utilities.
Excellent point, I watch these Property Virgins shows and most of the people are worried about the color of paint or the carpet choices. You know things that can’t be changed. I definitely want to be out of the house by next year, so I’d probably be cutting it close as far as money. First I think I gotta get approved for a loan (tomorrow is my 1 year at work) and then see what I’m paying. I will make sure I have money in reserve for everything that WILL go wrong.
You want to buy a house, and sell it within a year? Uh…
maybe he meant out of his parent’s house?
Sounded like he was implying he was going to flip the house?
:cough:5yearstoolate:cough:
But now that I re-read it, your assumption may be more accurate and is far more hilarious.
haha
Nah…I’d like a starter house that I can live in for a while…I’m not handy enough to flip a house really.
I am no sure if this has been discussed but I pretty told told my g/f what I was planning to do and the possible future result from this.
I bought a double in Kenmore, I benefited from the tax credit and awesome interest. Bought this all on my own and only my name is on the deed. I plan on making this house into an income property within the next 5 - 6 years. So I have been paying additional principal every month so when I need to refiance within the next 5 to 6 years. I plan on buying a nicer house within the next 5 to 6 years as in I have been saving money every week.
The benefit of a double besides finding good tenant(s) is paying less than what you would on rent and at the same time owning the house.
In the end, my g/f finally sees the benefit.
My 2 cents
Put down as much as you can, but you also need to remember that you’ll need funds left over after you buy to fix things with the house that you may not have noticed at the time. For example, my wife and I bought our second house in the spring of 2009 and we put down a decent downpayment of about $25K. We had some left in savings, but not a ton. Soon afterwards, we noticed that the windows on the house leaked terribly bad and needed to spend another $11K on new windows for the entire house. Just something to think about. You may feel like you can afford the home (downpayment, closing costs, etc), but you need to take large maintenance items into consideration too (windows, HVAC, roof, etc.)