A few thoughts on getting a new build (and I apologize if this scares you!). A new home doesn’t mean that it won’t have issues. A lot of recently built developer tract homes aren’t built well, or after a few years they settle and develop issues. If it were me, I’d look for a house where someone else already dealt with all the issues (but make sure it’s not because the house is a lemon and they’re fed up and ditching it).
Our house is from 1926 and the previous owners lived here for 30 years, so generally it was well cared for but needed a ton of cosmetic updates (and a new roof, some electrical upgrades, and plumbing because the original pipes were galvanized steel and corroding). The electrical panel wasn’t up to code and the owner (who had been a power engineer at the dam back in the day) was insulted that the inspector flagged his DIY fuses It’s always nerve-wracking to buy a house and not know what could be wrong, overall our house was good but there were a few issues. I would never buy a house that’s been recently flipped, no matter how nice it looks. You can hide a lot of sins behind new walls. We did some basic cosmetic updates upstairs (paint and floors) before moving in but now it’s 10 years later, and I’m glad we waited until we were in a better financial position to renovate the basement.
I’d look for good bones and potential, a place that looks like the owners cared for it. Not a fixer-upper, but a place that needs some cosmetic updates and perhaps other buyers are overlooking because it’s not all shiny! Renovations do suck but getting new paint and floors (if original wood, can refinish existing; there was wood under the carpet in our house) is not that big a deal and can really make a place feel fresh. And bathrooms and kitchens can be upgraded later when you’ve saved up for them.
I answered your survey, but I bought over 25 years ago, had no student loans, etc. I was in a less popular part of the country where people were leaving so prices were low.
I didn’t know any better at the time (and I’m not sure I would do it differently), but I put money towards paying it off. The front end of the loan is mostly interest. I had the amorization chart, and I think my initial payments included something like $50 of principal. So, I looked at paying $100 extra to the principal as taking two months off the life of my 30 year loan. That added up quickly and I was able to pay it off within a decade.
When I decided to move (and I’d purchased thinking I was staying forever), that paid off house was now a big chunk of the down payment in the higher cost of living area where I live now. So effectively, instead of paying rent and trying to save, I paid a mortgage and by paying it off aggressively early was able to build equity. Because it was a house and not invested in the market, I had no capital gains tax due to the $250K exclusion. This is where I think it might have been better to invest in the house than in the market. My interest rate was 6%, so I figured I was getting a 6% return by paying off early. I also did not have to pay 15% on the gains when I sold.
ETA: I also had no mortgage or rent for a few years after it was paid off which could accelerate savings.
I’m not sure it would work so well now. Student loans are high, “real” pay (indexed for inflation) is lower, and housing costs were higher. Interest rates are much lower now.
Total cheating. Husband was a refugee who got his first good salary job at 70k just at the tail end of o down mortgages and bought a house in the far side of then-known civilization. Huge gamble that has been leveraged as equity and by increased value (old house is now one of the most in demand areas, plus he pulled equity for condos a few times).
Time travel isn’t always a valid solution but plenty of people would pretend this was something other than time and opportunity
Not at all. Honestly I didn’t know that factually but just looking at new builds near me they look super cheap even though they are sold at high prices. I can see one from my apartment window and it sat on the market for ages, and then weeks after moving in I saw the new owners had person after person working on issues that looked not cosmetic. There have been several companies sued in our area for shoddy flipping and new construction so I do feel like a well maintained but more established place is what I want. Like, maybe a mid-century building where the previous owners lived there for 20 years, so it needs some new makeup but is basically well preserved.
I was thinking the same thing - builders / developers want to pay as little as possible to build - so they use cheaper components (thinner drywall that warps), and less components (space the studs further apart). Of course some of this is offset by new tecnology versus a much older house (wiring safety, energy efficiency).
As someone who has extensively.researched buying near @smacky…if I hadn’t gotten married I would have. And it isn’t too expensive. Yes it’s stabby murder ville, but I’m assuming it’s hard to accidentally stab me.
I’d be downgrading to a house in the condition of a student slum and gradually make it liveable.
I have disability related income challenges and I could make it work and even solo parent there.
I did get priced out of a lot of east coast cities during the pandemic. But they have better cultural reputations and attracted a lot of people who said f it.
I could still move to North Bay, Winnipeg, maybe Sudbury. There are a few smaller places I’ve looked at too, but transportation becomes a major, major issue. Some have seasonal transportation to a hub, some have had all transportation canceled
I think we’ve had our sweet spot with buying homes that are 20 to 30 years old that are in custom home suburbs. They end up better quality than builder grade, and they don’t have the value added on from being brand new. They in the point of the repair cycle were a bunch of little things need replaced, so it scares off other buyers, like the water heater, the appliances, the HVAC unit. they’re really pretty simple to replace actually. So for us, that’s been our sweet spot.
I think that’s a great plan! I read somewhere once that the 50’s and 60’s still had good quality construction, and then in the 70’s it started going downhill.
For us, this was the sellers’ retirement home and they were around 90 years old! The husband had hip problems and they needed to move to a place with no stairs. Estate homes are also a great option, often the kids just want to quickly sell and move on.
That being said, assume electrical issues (60s and earlier esp), lead (1972 ish depending on your state) and asbestos (50s) in homes before the 70s, unless they’ve been fixed. Those can be very involved fixes.
We still have knob and tube wiring in some of our walls. We had it replaced in the attic when we moved in, so that we could insulate, but for the rest of the walls the electrician said it’s very stable as long as you don’t touch it. At least electrical can easily be inspected!
You need a lead certified contractor to deal with stuff like sanding old paint if you test positive for lead paint. But I think it’s a much bigger concern if you have or are planning to have kids?
Asbestos is only a problem if you need to disturb it. If you do, then need asbestos remediation people to remove it (I think it was $4000 for our basement, it was very annoying because it was inert asbestos floor paneling under the carpet, and we had to get guys in space suits to take it out). Another reason to get a place that just needs cosmetic updates, once you break into walls you never know what you might have to deal with!
Voted, but I’m probably not that useful because I got a signing bonus when I joined my current company, and after a year to confirm that I was good with the location/company that’s what I used to cover my down payment (plus I was also a first-time homebuyer so that got me some credits too, although at that point they were the kind of credits that had to be paid back at 0% over time).
So with the electrical, it’s super depends on the house. It’s one thing if you’re looking at a single story with all the electrical run in the basement so you actually can inspect all the knob and tube. But so often it’s run in walls, or people have had blown in insulation. So you’ve got a couple things going on. One is that the insulation (jacket) is rubber and natural rubber breaks down over time and we’re increasingly seeing that rubber being broken down which leaves you with an unshielded wire. Add in modern blown in insulation which holds heat, which isn’t what knob and tube was designed to work with, and you’ve got an overheating problem. Add to that also that modern appliances put a lot higher draw on what is essentially 20 gauge wire when we now use 12 routinely and you have a lot more load which leads to a lot more heat. It’s a compounding issue. And this is why SirB visits a pre 1950s house at least once a month that has burned down, often due to knob and tube. Obviously my bias is that I constantly see photos of burned down houses, lol.
This strategy worked really well for us too. Our kitchen is actually pretty high quality build, but the backsplash is hideous and we have to use a lighter on the stove but overall it’s actually pretty high end and it good shape. There’s beautiful wood floors that are in quite good (but not excellent condition) but there’s slightly stained ugly grey carpet in the bedrooms. It feels like a nicer high end place that I want to live and I can overlook these small things until we’re in a place to do some renovations. Nothing is urgent, it’s just cosmetic.
Eeeeek yeah, we were told we couldn’t blow in insulation in our walls because of the knob and tube. Scary that so many irresponsible contractors didn’t check for that and it’s causing fires!!
Thanks to everyone for all the responses! I feel quite a bit better now. I think I got too stressed out about this because of other things going on with me that aren’t related but are highly stressful. Also, I sent some listings of places I liked to a friend who was super nasty in her critiques (I don’t think she realized I was serious about them and thought I was just sharing to mock). She has lots of family money and has lived very much in a bubble in that one way, and I knew that, but I think it just made me feel bad on top of it all. I should probably just stop trying to make a decision about things now and just, keep on saving and shooting for $1k a month but being ok if some months I don’t hit that. And then when the lease is closer to ending I reassess.
So, it appears I’m going to be doing a series of programs at the local library in Feb-March. I said I would back when things looked better, and while I could back out now, the library would lose a big grant and, probably, any good change at winning grants from that funder for a while. So, given that my husband is teaching in person anyway, it seems like it would do more harm than good.
With that background, does anyone know where I can get cloth covers for KN95 masks? It’s kids’ programming, so I’d like something cute, or something reading-oriented, that sort of thing. I could make them, but 1) I’d need cute fabric, which wound mean a long drive, 2) I’d rather have several different ones, and 3) I don’t wanna.
It’s always nerve-wracking to buy a house and not know what could be wrong, overall our house was good but there were a few issues. I would never buy a house that’s been recently flipped, no matter how nice it looks. You can hide a lot of sins behind new walls. We did some basic cosmetic updates upstairs (paint and floors) before moving in but now it’s 10 years later, and I’m glad we waited until we were in a better financial position to renovate the basement.
And I’ll take it!