Our mortgage guy at the bank is a good guy. We never really talk about prequalifying amount, it was always in relation to our existing financial situation and monthly payments - which I was cool with. If he’d had us going with the full amount the whole time, we’d have closed on something we really couldn’t afford, and be miserable. Now we’re miserable for other reasons, but at least we’re not homeless. Seriously I’m just joking because I’m annoyed. This is me every time I come back to the apartment and fucking assholes who don’t live there have taken up all the parking:
DD, you're in the DC area, I suggest having a very honest conversation with yourself about ehat you can afford vs. what you want. That goes for location as well as the actual house/townhome/condo. Be prepared to lower your expectations as to what you can afford.
This is an excellent list of advice. I had the pleasure of buying two houses in 6 months and I learned a boatload, much of what Juice noted especially. Houses are indeed money pits. I’ve put 75-80k in my current house, which we’ve been in for 21 years, but we’ve done the following: Replaced the roof twice Replaced a 50x8 ft retaining wall. Replaced the furnace Replaced the water heater twice Replaced the water softener twice Replaced the deck Replaced almost all of the windows and interior doors Replaced the sliding glass door to the deck twice Replaced all of the kitchen appliances Had a new sidewalk put in Umpteen coats of paint And we added a whole house generator God I’m sweating just writing all that.
I almost forgot: Replaced the garage door Replaced the garage door opener twice Replaced the sink in the garage Partially renovated the kitchen Had the sewer grinder pump replaced twice And the cost of removing 6 trees
Yeah, my next year's list is getting longer and longer... Driveway replacement (bigger driveway, replacing interlocking brick with a concrete slab that runs around the house and includes a patio out back, tinted, imprinted) New furnace and AC that actually works properly. Additional AC for the home office. New front door and jams (old door and frames are rotting out). New garage door and frames (again, framing is starting to rot out) Garage floor epoxy. Some landscaping and irrigation work. I'm also doing a bunch of interior woodworking over the winter, assuming I don't knock out the rest of my teeth. (some kitchen remodelling to facilitate a larger oven/range/stove, bigger fridge, and a full-size wine fridge)
Oh... and I need a new attic fan and want to put in a much better range hood and ducting (upgrade to a serious 8" from the 4" bullshit with too many 90° bends I have now)
Yeah we also replaced the front door. But I epoxyed the garage floor myself. If we replace the driveway it will be heated - our driveway is fairly steep. Which was one factor in my broken leg last winter.
I do the apartment inspection for the new construction tomorrow. Marble(s), levels, masking tape, measuring tape, all at the ready The new home warranty with this build is pretty good, and the builder has a good reputation for taking care of issues, but it will always be a fight. I agree in a lot of ways with what was said here New built materials are of a general higher quality if like-for-like. The wallboards have more consistency across the board, MDF production quality is generally higher, floors have better fit and finish (to a point), etc. Decisions around what to use, speed of construction, weight and handling ability, all that jazz have made things feel more flimsy. Things are also thinner because of better manufacturing, but it feels (and may perform) worse. Kind of like the MBA who saves a few million by cutting down on the sesame seeds on a bun, cutting down on your ABS thickness can do that.
I think the problem she's referring to is more about the "build it faster, not better" mentality of a lot of new home builders... I've seen some shit that would fail inspection on a single house that gets passed due to the builder convincing the inspector "all the rest of like this one, so only inspect this one". Good luck with the inspection tomorrow... looking forward to hearing how it went!
I've got a bunch of weird ideas for a house, and so it's never struck me as useful to buy an existing house just to tear it down and start over. Does anyone know how to approach just getting an empty lot with the idea of building something from scratch on it? And do you just google "local architect" and then start peppering one with your stupid ideas?
Little of column A, little of column B. There's a lot more vinyl, MDF, hollow core, thinner drywall, etc used in builds these days as the baseline standard. It makes things feel cheap and age badly. We visited some newer neighborhoods that were already starting to look shitty. And like what Nett said, the quality of the construction itself can be problematic with poor attention to detail when whole neighborhoods are being thrown up all at once by the same developer. My sister built her nice, big house in a new neighborhood in Texas and was lucky our uncle lived nearby since she was out of state at the time. He got a copy of the building plans and checked in on construction after phases of work were done and caught at least a couple mistakes that had to be fixed. Shit that would not have been seen once the drywall was up.
You just find land you want to buy. If it is through a realtor, they will handle just about everything, just like a house. If it's FSBO, and you're paying cash. You simply agree on a price, have an attorney do a title search and draw up the deed, hand over the cash, attorney records deed in the register of deeds.
Just buy a plot of land through a realtor, hire a reputable GC or a contracting/construction company and line of all of the bureaucratic red tape (surveyors, inspectors, etc.). …What is it that you want to build?