Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with homes

How do you find out which areas of town are zoned for good schools?

ND¢ — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 18:50:02 -0800

So just over a year ago we had a baby, and eventually she is going to want to go to school. Are there websites with maps of cities that have information about schools? I would like my daughter to go to public school, and I know that there are ways to send your kid to a school you aren't zoned for, but we are going to need to move sometime in the next few years, and I would like to move to a home zoned for a good school. Is there a website where I can look at a map of my town (Columbia, South Carolina) and the different areas of town are labeled as to what school each area is zoned for and then the educational ranking of that school is given? Thanks in advance for your help.

What are your experiences with Richmond American Homes?

Xuff — Sat, 02 May 2009 22:53:17 -0800

What are your experiences with Richmond American Homes? We're thinking about having a home built by Richmond American Homes (specifically something in the under $200,000 range in Gilbert, AZ) and we were wondering what the company is like. Have you dealt with them in the past? What are they like over the long term? Lots of details are very welcome.

Thanks!

What happened to PMI?

GatorFan2000 — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 09:50:14 -0800

Why hasn't private mortgage insurance (PMI) softened the blow of the real estate implosion? You can't turn on the TV these days without hearing about the mortgage implosion. People are walking away from their severely depreciated homes and leaving the banks scrambling to make up for the shortfall between the remaining mortgage balance and the current home value. One thing I don't understand however, is why private mortgage insurance hasn't softened the blow. Isn't it supposed to make the lender whole if the homebuyer walks away and stops paying? I know you are no longer obligated to pay it after you have 20% equity in your home, but I'm assuming most of the subprime borrowers defaulting on their loans had exotic mortgages that did not require them to put down large down payments (if any). I'm hoping someone knowledgeable in the mortgage industry can shed some light on this.

Thoughts on REO Offer Situation?

yarrr — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 08:42:44 -0800

We've been waiting a week for a response to our offer on an REO (foreclosure) property. Today we got a bank addendum.. We have an REO property that we made an offer on a short while ago. It's been on and off the market a number of times over the last 4 months, going back to an original list date of about 100 days ago.

Last Friday we made an offer, it has returned to the market for about a week prior to our offer. Ended up in a multiple offer situation.

List price was $175,000, and we wrote at $185,000 with a home inspection contingency.

The following Monday, they came back, had 5 offers on the property, we put in $193,000 as our highest and best. Now, to expand on the highest and best offer - our offer includes 20% down, conventional mortgage, not asking for any repairs or concessions, etc. Pre-approved, proof of funds, and 2% earnest money.

That was this past Monday, and last evening the bank came back to us with an "as-is" addendum. (bank is Sovereign Bank, for reference). Our Realtor was a bit confused, as he stated he has never seen this addendum to be signed prior to a verbal acceptance on an offer (we have no acceptance yet).

He indicated that he thinks it was a ploy on the banks part for another round of bidding on the property, and we did up our offer to $195,100 and the bank accepted in the new offer.

I'm trying my best to be patient with this property, but at the same time, it is draining.

Anyone know what getting the addendum / disclosure about the property being "as-is" prior to having a verbal acceptance? I know it's standard practice for those addendums to be used, but not with this sort of time-line.

Please tell me what that likely means in a 5+ offer situation on a house! Thank you!

Levittown, NY: what gives?

Anonymous — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 20:33:30 -0800

We are thinking of moving to Levittown, NY from Brooklyn. Of course after finding the house we are considering buying, I'm now hearing from different "long islanders" who scoff at the thought of ever stepping foot in Levittown. What gives? We were there a number of times and it looked like a very nice, well kept, working-class neighborhood. Are looks deceiving? Does anyone know what the resale value is on levittown homes? we're expecting to pay around 300k for a five bedroom / two bath home on a 60x100 lot in the Levittown school district. We gave a seven month old who is the main reason that prompted us to move out of our decrepit apartment. Thanks for any suggestions/advice!!!

Teacher Next Door HUD Program

yoyoceramic — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 07:55:47 -0800

To all the teachers out there: Have you participated in, or have any experience in the "Teacher Next Door FHA" Program? How does it work?

It sounds like this could be a good investment...

Should I buy this home in a transitional neighborhood?

FlamingBore — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 09:55:42 -0800

I'm looking to buy a house. I live in Denver's Baker neighborhood and I'm a looking to stay in the area. I've been looking for about two months and I've let two places slip through my fingers that I thought were great... One went in a heartbeat and I needed to get my head around the amount of money they wanted - it was lovely, but more than I was prepared to spend at the time. The other was expensive for the location and had a few challenges, but great overall. I put in an offer of what I thought it was worth to me. On the same day (after 30 days on the market) there were two other offers presented - I was the low one.

Now I've found my dream. Truly, it's stunning. It was gutted to the studs and finished amazingly well. The problem is what's next door. There are five low/small former rental units, three of which are currently on the market for sale at just $48k. They are currently sad little places with no landscaping and just generally kind of a ghetto feel to them. The rest of the block is ok, not great, not horrid. There is one other home that's clearly been recently renovated. Gentrification is slowly moving through the neighborhood - and I'm seeing positive signs of several real estate agents buying and flipping recently.

The home is at the top of what I want to pay, but it's a great deal on a per square foot basis. The reality is that my agent and I both agree that if not for the place next door this property would have been gone within the first week on the market. It's been on the market for nearly three months.

Have any of you bought into transitioning neighborhoods - how did you fair? How likely do you think these little places are to be improved? Am I stupid for falling for this place?

Have you ever seen a basement with a roof and no house?

moof — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 14:49:02 -0800

Have you ever seen a basement with a roof and no house? Many years ago, I saw a documentary about (?northern Colorado?) neighborhoods where construction stopped (presumably due to WWII or the great depression or some such) with dug out basements and they just put roofs on the basements.

I have been googling without success to find out more about these basement-only homes, with the goal of tracking down the neighborhoods in question and touring them.

Myth? Real? Can you google better than I? Pictures would be grand!

SEATTLE: Help us find a nice rental home with a soul!

Bob Dobbs — Sun, 06 Jan 2008 05:52:35 -0800

SEATTLE: I'm looking for internet resources to find rental apartments, condos, houses Hi All,

We are moving to Seattle very soon. Need online resources to find a nice rental home for the two of us. We are looking in the Ballard, Queen Anne, and West Seattle areas. I'd prefer non-mega corporate rentals, ie. one or two unit townhomes, a house, or a smallish apartment building. I'm familiar with craigslist, which I've been using a lot. Also familiar with NWapartments. The larger sites like rent.com list rentals that are just too cookie cutter and commercial for us. Please give resources to help us find a nice, unique, home with a soul. BTW, we are looking at the $1800-$2800/month rent range for a 2bedroom.

Does a cheap summer house still exist?

um_maverick — Thu, 06 Sep 2007 06:52:28 -0800

Are there any reasonably-priced summer homes left in New England? (more inside) I went whitewater rafting this past weekend in the middle of Maine, and absolutely loved the whole cabin-on-the-river idea. The problem is that we were 4 hours north of Boston - that's a bit too far. Does anybody know of any reasonably-priced areas within 90 minutes or so of Boston for waterfront (ocean, lake, river) property? Obvious places like Cape Cod are way out of the price range, but there's got to be a lake or a river *somewhere* that hasn't been discovered yet... Not looking for a specific house, but more a particular area that's still reasonable.

How to Get an MLS Map for the Wall

rush — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 12:07:49 -0800

Where can I get an on-dead-trees map of MLS areas and zip codes? We're looking for a home in Austin, TX, and we're trying to get a deeper understanding of location, location, location. I'm more than happy with the numerous online resources, but my wife wants a big on-dead-trees map of MLS areas and zip codes to put on the wall. Where can we get one?

Rural California Dreaming.

ClaudiaCenter — Thu, 19 Apr 2007 09:34:34 -0800

Northern California Dreaming -- What steps should I take to explore my dream of buying land in Mendocino or Humboldt County, creating a small energy efficient home (perhaps one of the tiny, prefab ones), all while building/finding community. My dream is to collectively (with other like-minded people) or individually secure land in rural Northern California (Mendocino or Humboldt), and create an energy efficient, cost efficient, community-based home. (My particular interest is in small prefab homes, ala those found here -- http://www.tumbleweedhouses.com/houses.htm.)

I have no idea how to start or if this is even feasible. I'm not rich -- I rent in San Francisco, have a decent to good salary as a professional. I have a retirement fund that is now over $100,000 but less than $150,000, and I'm pretty sure I can take out a loan of $50,000 secured by that fund for a downpayment. I have excellent credit.

I have a few friends in San Francisco with some interest, and I have created a yahoo listserv. But so far this hasn't gone too far.

I would like to achieve economies of scale with other others, e.g. buy one piece of land for three homes and have a TIC (tenancy in common) agreement with all participants, share a single well and driveway, etc. But I have also heard that some towns in Mendocino and Humboldt would not allow these projects because their zoning bars more than one structure on each plot of land.

I imagine that prices will only go up, so if there is a way for me to buy land now I should probably do so. But I don't know whether I would be able to swing it. I would certainly try if it was even close to do-able.

If I were ever to achieve this, maybe in the next 5 to 8 years, I have enough contacts in my field that I could probably telecommute and earn a decent portion of my current salary, which would presumably go farther in a rural setting.

So ...

How do I/we find a realtor that would cater to this kind of project or would at least give me the information?

Is it feasible for a middle-income person to buy land in Northern California or is the land now as sky high as everything else in California?

How do I find other people who share this dream?

How do I ensure or try to ensure that I will find community? Do I try to bring people along with me as part of the project? Do I try to find a location that already has a cool community?

Am I underestimating the transition from city life to rural life?

Will we ever be homeowners?

starbaby — Mon, 26 Feb 2007 10:20:35 -0800

Help me find resources to help me figure out when I might be able to buy a house. My fiance and I are trying to figure out when we might be ready to buy a house. We know without a doubt that we want to do this long before we could possibly save the 20% we'd need for a regular loan. That's about all we know. I have tried and tried and tried to find books or websites that might help me understand low- and no-down payment loans, PMI, closing costs, etc, but they all seem to go over my head. I need something geared toward first-time home buyers with pretty much no knowledge of real estate and no large amounts of money who don't feel ready to contact a realtor just yet. [I don't want to contact a realtor because I don't feel I understand any of this well enough to even know when we might be able to make the jump from renting to buying, when we will be able to afford it.]

Basically, this is what I am trying to figure out:

Based on a down payment of $X, an assumed interest rate, and an assumed finance period, how much house could we afford if we want our TOTAL monthly house-related costs [mortgage, PMI, taxes, homeowner's insurance, EVERYTHING] to be $X or less? Until I know the answer to this question, a realtor is far beyond my league, as I won't know if I can afford anything at all.

If any of you can explain this me, with as much dumbing-down as possible, great. If you can't, I would really prefer a book I can ILL or a website that would explain this to me.

How to remove paint from a parquet floor?

huskerdont — Wed, 08 Nov 2006 08:14:10 -0800

How to remove paint from parquet floors? I recently moved into a new apartment that was painted over in a quickie job by the landlord before I came in. As a result, there are small splotches of latex paint all over the parquet floor in the apartment.

Unfortunately, the landlord has shown little interest in fixing it so I'm stuck with the task. We're talking around two dozen small splotches of paint on the parquet floor. Out of all the traditional methods (scraping off with a razor, sanding, using remover in conjunction with either of the two) what would be the quickest and most painless way to remove them?

What now?

andywolf — Sun, 08 Oct 2006 09:50:30 -0800

I've always wondered what happens after people are on shows like Extreme Makeover Home edition or Pimp My Ride. These people get amazing homes or cars, but now they have to pay for insurance/tabs? What's the likely hood of being able to afford that when all you could handle prior was a shack or beater car? Anyone ever looked into this? I've looked for articles on this and haven't found anything. I realize in some instances people will get the mortgage paid off or insurance covered for some period of time on Ext. Makeover. But I would also think there's other consequences of having some beautiful custom home/car smack dab in the middle of a crappy neighborhood. Vandalism, jealous friends, theft?

Buildig a tiny house in a big city?

dobbs — Fri, 21 Jul 2006 11:28:12 -0800

Perhaps a ridiculous question: is it possible in a major city (I'm in Toronto) to buy a small piece of land and build a tiny house (like the B-52 on this page) on it? What's involved? If possible, what are the pros and cons? Is it pointless, financially? So, the houses in my city have ridiculous prices on them that I'll never be able to afford without getting a real job. Plus, I don't need tons of space.

I'm curious if it's legal, feasable (financially), "simple" (I know that's relative) to buy a small piece of land and build something like the tiny house linked.

As someone who knows absolutely nothing about real estate, what do I have to know to do this? Where can I go to find out? How does one find a small piece of land that can be built on? Is there someone that can be hired to do everything (but build the house)--ie, a lawyer specializing in real estate, a real estate agent?

If buying a piece of land is out of the question, what about buying a condemned house and tearing it down to put a tiny house in its place? I assume this eliminates the cost savings, but thought I'd throw it out there.

If you know anything about real estate or building homes, I'd appreciate any info.

How many homes/condos did you go and see before deciding on the home/condo you bought?

chunking express — Wed, 21 Jun 2006 12:01:23 -0800

How many homes/condos did you go and see before deciding on the home/condo you bought?

Dupont and Lansdowne

chunking express — Fri, 09 Jun 2006 11:19:30 -0800

Living in Toronto: Anyone here ever lived around Dupont and Lansdowne? During the 80s and 90s it wasn't the nicest place to live. Has that changed? I'm thinking about moving to the area. Anyone have any personal experiences about the area that they can relate?

UK property bubble to burst?

wackybrit — Fri, 19 May 2006 16:40:18 -0800

Is the UK property market bubble ever likely to burst? The average UK house price is now about £184,924. I remember it topping £100,000 in 2002, and even that was considered amazing at the time. So, 84% increase in 4 years. Furthermore, I live in a (rented) house which cost £32,000 10 years ago (our neighbour told us, as he moved in then), but which is now worth about £120,000. An increase of 3.75 times in 10 years(!)

The only homes we can afford in this (job devoid, highly rural and remote) area are at the absolute low end of the market, whereas we can afford to rent the best the area has to offer (though we've stuck to a small house because we're sensible) as the rents are tiny compared to mortgages.

I've looked at graphs of UK house prices over time, and something doesn't add up. Even in the early 90s' recession, house prices didn't fall much (a few percent), they mostly flattened out for several years as confidence returned. But is an average house price of 4-5 times the average national household income sustainable in the same way? In my head it makes no sense that property prices can go up by 3.75 times in 10 years and still be sustainable.

Even our older relatives admit it makes no sense to them as even though they struggled, their income to 'first property' ratio was significantly smaller than today's requirements... and our household income is in the top 25% for this area.

Should we wait until the 'catastrophic' crash occurs and buy on the cheap.. or are we pretty much resigned to trying to hit it rich and/or buy into the market at present no matter how crummy the place is? Or is it ultimately better to rent forever?

Too late for a buyer's agent/

GregW — Thu, 04 May 2006 15:31:44 -0800

Is it too late for me to get a buyer's agent involved before bidding on a house? (more) I have been idly looking at houses for a few months, not through an agent really just by driving by houses and calling the listing agent or whatever. Last week, I found a place through a search on the internets (realtor.com) that I really really like. We've been to see it twice, and both times were shown around by the listing agent. We are seriously thinking of putting an offer on it.

I hadn't planned on using an agent, I guess, but now that its coming down to brass tacks I'm hit with the realization that I don't really know the questions to ask. Is it too late in the process to get a buyer's agent involved? I know it may be weird, but I have this fear of offending the listing agent by bringing in a buyer's agent at this point. My other worry is how long will it take the new buyer's agent to get up to speed to help us put in an offer?

Yes, I'm a little nervous about making the biggest purchase of my life...

Canadian real estate stats?

stavrosthewonderchicken — Tue, 11 Oct 2005 23:12:52 -0800

How/where can one find average home-sale prices (and other related data) for regions or towns or neighbourhoods in cities, in Canada? Is it even possible? Is there a free way to do so? And more importantly, could I do it from outside the country ('cause that's where I live)?

How do you remove sap from a deck?

agropyron — Sat, 10 Sep 2005 17:44:10 -0800

We have an enormous [pine|spruce] tree dripping sap all over our deck. What's the best way to get the sap off? I googled a bit and some people recommended mineral spirits. That got a bit off, but not much. Hopefully someone here knows the magic secret.

(I noticed that the previous owners actually painted over some old sap! Apparently they didn't know the secret either.)

Splitting home ownership with brother

jclovebrew — Sat, 07 May 2005 13:04:33 -0800

My brother and I are considering buying a two or three family house. Each of us would live in our own unit, and if we end up with a three-family, then we would rent out the third. What are we in for here? Is this a bad idea? Any advice from anyone out there who was done a similar thing?

Finding a dynamite Seattle home inspector

agropyron — Sun, 01 May 2005 20:03:13 -0800

General question: How do you find a really dynamite home inspector? Specific question: Does anyone know a great home inspector in the Seattle area, or a more specific way to find one here? I'm house hunting in Bellevue. I've read other AskMe questions that advise finding a great home inspector. I figure, maybe I'll even get two home inspections... they're fairly cheap. I'd just like to find a really sharp inspector or two.

Any advice other than 'word of mouth'? Failing that, anyone got some word of mouth?

How do you build a house?

spacewrench — Thu, 10 Feb 2005 21:52:33 -0800

How do you build a house? [+] I'd like to live somewhere nice, after years and years and years in glorified boxes. I'm sick of doors that don't fit quite right, electrical systems installed by certifiable moroons, cheap-ass plumbing fixtures, poorly-installed carpet, and a thousand other annoyances, to say nothing of larger issues like bathrooms that are too small to enter and close the door without an elaborate dance around the toilet.

I can afford a modest-to-moderate amount (depending on location), and I have about an 18-month timeframe that would be especially easy to move at the end of.

How do I find a lot, an architect, contractor, financing, and everything else I need to move into my dream home? What are the big tasks, and how should they be scheduled? How do I figure out how much this is likely to cost? What else do I have to think about?