Looking for more ideas on next neighborhood... (Pittsburgh, Washington: credit, home equity)

[Moby Hick]

Originally Posted by eschaton

They said the text of the easement technically means our neighbors need to be able to step on every square foot of our property, so even if we say installed a pond (which our neighbors couldn't walk into) we would violate it.

What if you got a bunch of rubber boots in a variety of sizes and left them out by the pond?

[ferraris]

Do other homes in Lawrenceville have these easements? I wonder if it will make it tough to sell the house, or to get as much as you're expecting to get.

[eschaton]

Originally Posted by ferraris

Do other homes in Lawrenceville have these easements? I wonder if it will make it tough to sell the house, or to get as much as you're expecting to get.

I think they are reasonably common on houses which either are near a corner or which have alley houses behind them.

Really, the easement isn't so much the problem as the combination of the easement and broke neighbors. If the other three houses in my row (which has the more sizable yards) had homeowners with money to spend, rather than two lower-income homeowners and one landlord who rents to 20somethings, something would undoubtedly be done.

[I_Like_Spam]

Originally Posted by ferraris

Do other homes in Lawrenceville have these easements? I wonder if it will make it tough to sell the house, or to get as much as you're expecting to get.

I have an easement through the neighboring properties to get through to the main street, and it was a point of positivity for me to buy this alley house in L'ville.

Its not quite the same as Eschaton's situation with multiple parties involved, but these things are right on the deed.

[Catia]

Did not read every page-so forgive me if someone alredy said this
Adding an 'inlaw' suite now--if you have the means & space, an inlaw suite can provide you the extra space now for the kids, & another bath--then later on--possibly space for her parents if/when needed.

Just seems if you got into this house on the cheap, & your home value is that good now-you are in a great position-why not take out a home equity loan-

[eschaton]

Originally Posted by Catia

Did not read every page-so forgive me if someone alredy said this
Adding an 'inlaw' suite now--if you have the means & space, an inlaw suite can provide you the extra space now for the kids, & another bath--then later on--possibly space for her parents if/when needed.

Just seems if you got into this house on the cheap, & your home value is that good now-you are in a great position-why not take out a home equity loan-

As I said upthread, I live in a rowhouse, meaning I have no space on either side. It also fronts on the street. And in the rear, the entire back yard (which is just a bit bigger than our living room) is covered by an easement, so I couldn't construct anything on it (I'm pretty sure lot coverage rules would stop me from doing so regardless.

This leaves two options. One is to finish the basement - which would be a pain, because the utilities were put in the middle of the basement. The second would be to take off our rear roof and build a third story to the ell off the back of our house. This could get us another 200-300 square feet tops.

[Goodjules]

You are in a very tough situation. Your house sounds like it would be very difficult to remodel. You have a budget that doesn't get you in the neighborhoods you really want. You have chosen a school which would require you to live in said neighborhoods or entail a long commute. From everything I've read it seems like you have to compromise on location, school, or budget to find a new home; or stay put where you are and try to add some extra space. As someone who raised two kids in a house that was way too small, if I had it to do over, I would have moved to a bigger place while the kids were still young. My advice is to either up your budget, or choose a different school in a neighborhood where you get more bang for your buck. It was really difficult living in a house where no one had enough space, especially as the kids got older. In our case, home prices skyrocketed and places that would have been a bit of a stretch financially when the kids were little became astronomically unaffordable when they were older. We were stuck in the small place. I don't think that kind of appreciation will happen in Pittsburgh, but I do know how hard it was on my nerves to live in a 2 bdr, 1 ba home that was not even 1000 s.f. for a family of four. Bottom line, if I were you I would do whatever it takes to get in a bigger house ASAP. Just my two cents based on my own personal experience.

[Hopes]

I'll join Jules in saying my biggest regret was not moving to a house that had more common rooms on various levels. (My low ceiling sandstone basement can't be refinished like modern homes.) When kids get older, they want to be off by themselves. If there are no extra common rooms that have privacy, they tend to spend their time in their rooms. It wasn't uncommon for one kid to have five or six kids over at a time. Once my son was having a friend sleep over. They went to hang out in the neighborhood and returned with a total of eight kids sleeping over. That's when you pull out every single blanket and pillow and throw them on the living room floor. The next morning, you're stepping over kids. I decorated their bedrooms like little mini family rooms complete with all sorts of seating. It was quite a challenge to make their bedrooms multipurpose spaces. You think you need space now, just wait.

[eschaton]

I had basically the same discussion with my wife last night. I basically said a house can be boiled down to five major variables.

1. Cost
2. Amount of work needed
3. Size
4. Location
5. Character/amenities

By setting an arbitrary cost limit (which we really can go over, for reasons I'll outline below), and saying she doesn't want a house with any major home improvement projects which need to be done, she's reducing it to the last three variables. We have to go up in size, so that's that. There's been some bungalows in Regent Square she's been interested in lately, but they're all three bedroom one bath numbers which have the same or smaller square footage to our house. We can only compromise so much on location, because my wife has ruled out anywhere in the suburbs, and frankly has ruled out most of the city as well. And even if she were willing to look in genuinely undesirable areas (she's mentioned before how she wishes Hazelwood was a good neighborhood, because it would be the ideal location), you aren't going to find houses which don't need work there. Which leaves houses with crucial flaws which cannot be fixed. Horrible layouts. Butt-ugly facades, etc. Which, since she's an architect, I know she won't be amenable to.

I can really understand my wife's desire to not move into a house which needs work, given our track record. But I can't understand the cost concern, because it's not an issue. Lemme give you guys some backstory. Might be a bit personal for the forum, but I'll get all SCR on yall for a bit.

My father developed MS when he was 39. My mother had to have him put in a nursing home early as a result. But she discovered when she moved to Massachusetts for retirement that unlike Connecticut, she didn't have to pillage her own assets to pay for it. She had been putting the max into her 401(k) each year in preparation, and really lucked out because her company stock did well, and much of it was in company stock initially. So she discovered, upon early retirement, she had over a million dollars in her retirement account - money which she didn't need, as she has a defined benefit pension plan, and pays for long-term care insurance for herself, meaning there's no chance she'll need to raid her own money to pay for a nursing home.

My older brother has never been as good at controlling his spending habits as I have, and has thus been hitting up my mom for money for ages. She decided to give him the maximum gift of roughly $12,000 (before you can report it on taxes) annually. I initially tried to refuse the money, but my mother said that she had to give it to me, since my brother was taking it himself.

I didn't have access to this secondary source of income when I bought our house. But I got access to it soon after, and we've used it to pay for every single home improvement project in the house. The first year we were in the house we put in new floors and got walls repaired. The second year we redid the kitchen. And the third year we finished the attic. Then our daughter was born, and my wife didn't seem able to take on any home improvement projects any longer, and things slowed down. It's not as if nothing was done during this period - we had to have lead mitigation done on our house due to elevated lead levels in our daughter, and we did get the exterior of our house restored. But it took my wife three years to decide what she wanted to do with out bathroom. Since she's an architect, she wants to design everything out (and act as the GC ), but she didn't have time to do so. Also, she's really indecisive in general. Pile on top of that architect hours (working to midnight many days) and being a mom of a small child, and she just kept procrastinating, even though we had the most disgusting, ghetto bathroom in the world for almost the entire time we lived in the house.

Regardless, given the way she approaches home improvement projects (and the fact that she won't actually let me take charge of any) I don't blame her for not wanting a "project" house again. But we'll still be getting the $12,000 or whatever each year, even if we don't spend it on home improvements. It's effectively part of our reported income. Thus, presuming we moved into a house that needed "nothing done" but had a mortgage of $1,000 per month instead of the current $525, we'd still come out ahead financially (presuming utility costs weren't too much higher) over paying an identical mortgage to now but spending $12,000 on annual remodeling.

[jay5835]

Originally Posted by eschaton

But it took my wife three years to decide what she wanted to do with our bathroom. Since she's an architect, she wants to design everything out (and act as the GC ), but she didn't have time to do so. Also, she's really indecisive in general. Pile on top of that architect hours (working to midnight many days) and being a mom of a small child, and she just kept procrastinating, even though we had the most disgusting, ghetto bathroom in the world for almost the entire time we lived in the house.

Regardless, given the way she approaches home improvement projects (and the fact that she won't actually let me take charge of any) I don't blame her for not wanting a "project" house again.

What needs to change.

JMO, of course.