If you bought a house recently, tell me your story! (neighborhood, camps)

[leastprime]

Bought a rental condo last October on 5 days notice to realtor.
Condo in Eastlake, in a small unit building. 2+2. with covered parking. Move in ready. On the market for 60 days, 2nd price drop. We were the only bidders, cash from inheritance. Minor paint, new refrig, water heater, bath fans. Had tenent for Nov 1. Realtor show us 5 places (all that met our criteria), immediately placed bid, accepted on Tuesday. Original offer slightly below ask. Seller refused to lower further and we then offered original ask price. We were very Lucky.
YMMV

[cmswazey]

What a great location!

[drshang]

Originally Posted by eightbitguy

Also there are a lot of very young tech workers that don't know how to DIY or are scared to. They are what's selling those $600k box townhomes in Ballard when you can get 2x as much space in a 1950s bungalow in the same block for $100k less.

This isn't true, especially since in Seattle they count these creepy cement basements with 7 ft ceilings as "sqft." Not all sqft is the same, especially with those "2000 sqft" older homes that consist of a 1200 sqft house and an often barely usable 800sqft basement. Even if it is well done (which is very rare, frankly), it's a damp, dark, cold space that really doesn't count the same as an above ground space. To me this is a case of numbers lying to you - the newer places tend to have much better utilization of existing space and don't come with basements that in many parts of the country don't count as sqft at all. If you discount basements, SFH are almost all significantly more expensive per sqft than new construction townhomes. Not to mention harder to buy, and come with work attached.

[daberkow]

Originally Posted by drshang

This isn't true, especially since in Seattle they count these creepy cement basements with 7 ft ceilings as "sqft." Not all sqft is the same, especially with those "2000 sqft" older homes that consist of a 1200 sqft house and an often barely usable 800sqft basement. Even if it is well done (which is very rare, frankly), it's a damp, dark, cold space that really doesn't count the same as an above ground space. To me this is a case of numbers lying to you - the newer places tend to have much better utilization of existing space and don't come with basements that in many parts of the country don't count as sqft at all. If you discount basements, SFH are almost all significantly more expensive per sqft than new construction townhomes. Not to mention harder to buy, and come with work attached.

This is all absolutely true, and sometimes I would barely count the upstairs square footage! A poorly maintained old home in this climate is not a fixer upper, it's a teardown.

[cmswazey]

Our place was in very rough shape. We fixed it, room by room, project by project.

[Kayela]

This is all absolutely true, and sometimes I would barely count the upstairs square footage! A poorly maintained old home in this climate is not a fixer upper, it's a teardown.

Yep, pouring $100K into one of those old bungalows is not going to get you close to a shiny new townhouse. The ones we saw needed to be gutted, new electrical, ancient plumbing, roofs, new doors and windows, insulation, etc... That's before the cosmetic stuff or landscaping. Plus the townhouse likely has better windows, better light, more bathrooms and more useful layout.


And this is coming from someone who has done plenty of DIY. However between two stressful jobs that don't stop when the work day ends, work travel, commuting, and trying to have some family and/or friend time - we simply don't have the bandwidth to be going to hardware stores and showrooms, always needing to pick up one more thing, planning room after room, tearing and out disposing of things, buying tons of tools that we don't have room to store and don't use that frequently, and then living out of other rooms while it takes forever to get anything done in the precious hours we have left in the week. I've done it, and I'm done with that. You don't save that much $$ over having a pro do it, and it takes for freakkin ever.


If it had just been a matter of paying $100K more for something 'turn key' we would have so done it and considered it a bargain, but anything like that was going for way more, and the completion was insanely fierce.

[tommy64]

I bought a rental house last July for 70k.

It was a HUD property (gov't owned FHA foreclosure) and I paid cash so I could close on it quickly. Closed on July 10, spent less than 3K cleaning it up, and had a great tenant in there on Aug 3.

I wish I could find more of these.

[tommy64]

Originally Posted by cmswazey

Years ago, we bought a fixer upper and boy o boy, was it! We just wanted to be covered in case of a change in finances. We found that with all that was needed, we couldn't really handle the renovations ourselves. So we did it piecemeal. New roof the first year. New windows a few at a time. Gut a room, get it redone. Then a few years later, gut another. Build gazebo. Workshop. Took years. This would've driven a lot of ppl nuts but it worked out. Lived in our savage pleasant neighborhood while getting things squared away. What we found is we were better off hiring the work out to ppl who know how to roof, redo wiring, put in drywall, flooring, etc. Now it's done and done correctly.

Now that you have the skills/tools, buy another to fix up!

[benleis]

Originally Posted by Kayela

Yep, pouring $100K into one of those old bungalows is not going to get you close to a shiny new townhouse. The ones we saw needed to be gutted, new electrical, ancient plumbing, roofs, new doors and windows, insulation, etc... That's before the cosmetic stuff or landscaping. Plus the townhouse likely has better windows, better light, more bathrooms and more useful layout.


And this is coming from someone who has done plenty of DIY. However between two stressful jobs that don't stop when the work day ends, work travel, commuting, and trying to have some family and/or friend time - we simply don't have the bandwidth to be going to hardware stores and showrooms, always needing to pick up one more thing, planning room after room, tearing and out disposing of things, buying tons of tools that we don't have room to store and don't use that frequently, and then living out of other rooms while it takes forever to get anything done in the precious hours we have left in the week. I've done it, and I'm done with that. You don't save that much $$ over having a pro do it, and it takes for freakkin ever.


If it had just been a matter of paying $100K more for something 'turn key' we would have so done it and considered it a bargain, but anything like that was going for way more, and the completion was insanely fierce.

Speaking from my experience of owning a bungalow (or any old house for that matter), purchasing one is a labor of love. We're probably never going to build houses like them again, the materials and craftsmanship have changed. That said you don't have to upgrade everything at once and its not a process that is all-consuming. We've slowly over 15 years replaced and repaired pieces of the house but during that period of time we've always enjoyed living there and done plenty of other things besides work on the house. And a lot of the basics are going to happen in any house. Every 20 years you're going to replace a roof (which actually as these things go is fairly non-invasive fixup) Likewise for furnaces and hot water heaters. I've also seen a fair share of new houses that were owned by folks that didn't realize any building requires steady maintenance. New construction can get worn down shockingly quickly too in the hands of careless owners.

[modc]

I got into a bidding war over an older house in a popular neighborhood that had been beautifully updated. I don't think I could have done all these upgrades and I'm sure it would not have turned out as lovely as it did. There are too many decisions and I don't have the expertise to make the right choices. It would take a lot of research plus my spouse and I have opposite tastes in decor.

We fell in love with it and paid more than we planned to and we had to absolutely cut back on eating out, vacations, camps for kids. But, for our family ( the least diy people on the world who agonize over every decision) it was probably worth saving ourselves the stress on our relationship.