I’d be curious what % of households that make over $150k live in the very HCOL cities.
Yeah that’s me. Not a sick humble income brag, I can’t afford to buy. My colleagues with well off parents can or older folks (>40), and that’s about it.
Yup.
Is it possible to just be bad at Home Ownership?
I bought an old farmhouse about 3 years, roughly in the early months of Covid. The entire sequence of events is a bit incredible to me, going from being quite content living in a small off-grid cabin to really feeling the urgent need for more resources. … Covid played a big role, most likely. Covid also probably played a role in me (a) getting a good deal; while (b) buying a house I probably wouldn’t have otherwise.
When I bought this place the market was dead. You couldn’t accompany a home inspector in New York, and the facilities for title research were closed or limited. In some ways I think all of this conspired to help me get the house. No one else was bidding, it seemed. And not being with the inspector, I probably didn’t fully understand what I was getting into.
It’s turned into a huge ball of stress. … or rather, a relatively small stress but a stress which is constant. Every noise feels like it could be a leak or plumbing problem. My sense is that I live in an old, fragile box, filled with several expensive and aging systems, all of which will eventually break and cost thousands to replace or fix.
I talked to an agent last week … it’s possible the house appreciated in that time. Of course, it’s also possible that my neglect of maintenance allowed a sinkhole to open up, making the house unsellable and exposing me to personal liability and jail time in the future.
So … thinking of selling. My girlfriend and I are planning to live together in her apartment. … it’s possible this place could be a good spot for us to live, but I think it would take 50k or more to make it really comfortable. The place needed more work than I realized and I just didn’t/don’t have the money or motivation to do it, I guess.
tl;dr: home ownership is really stressful
There really is nothing wrong with this, especially if you got a good price on the house. Buying an old house is like buying a used car–you just have to be prepared to fix/replace systems when they fail.
I would allow a realtor to inspect your home and give you their opinion on:
- Things that need to be fixed in order for someone to secure financing on your home.
- Things that need to be fixed, but you choose not to fix them and understand you may have to cut the sales price during negotiations.
- Things which may need updating, but the buyer will just have to be responsible for updating these systems themselves.
Realtor’s goals are to make money now! A good realtor will answer the above to try to maximize both of your returns in this process.
The realtor I spoke with is familiar with the property, and we did discuss selling as-is (which is how I purchased the place). This is likely what we’ll do, because as she roughly described it there’s a threshold before improvements add sufficient value for a buyer. Repairing something likely to be replaced isn’t a good use of funds.
I’m amazed at how stressful and personal it feels.
I’m not sure how the market is where you are, but I sold my condo in NH last April, which was at the peak, and I was also one of the first in my city last spring to put a 2-BR on the market.
I had replaced the refrigerator, dishwasher and kitchen faucet all within the prior 12 months out of necessity. The realtor advised me not to bother fixing, replacing or painting anything else, although she recommended that I give the place a good scrubbing, especially all of the interior doors and woodwork.
I took her advice and must’ve spent at least 15+ hours across the next couple of weeks really scrubbing and cleaning out stuff for Goodwill and the dump.
The following month she ran the listing and had the open house, and within a couple of days after the open house we accepted an all cash, no-inspection offer at 15K above asking!
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The market here in upstate NY is weird (Finger Lakes region). Not a lot of inventory on the market right now, so the hope would be for multiple offers. (except I’m probably not quite ready to sell) This place is almost 200 years old, so an inspection will almost certainly happen. Realtor advised I get an inspection done, actually, and try to make it easy for a buyer to just say yes.
I liked what the realtor had to say, generally. “Maybe you’re just done with the house and want to be rid of it,” and I was like …
What sort of stuff is actually breaking?
imo if you’re going to own a house you’ve gotta roll up your sleeves and start YouTubing to troubleshoot/fix problems yourself. Residential construction isn’t rocket science. Go to Home Depot, buy the correct tools and materials, and the jobs generally aren’t that difficult. You’ll need professional help to replace an HVAC condenser, furnace/AHU, and water heater, but otherwise most of the issues should be solvable.
And consult professional help about the sinkhole, like, now. Don’t fuck around with that.
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Everyone keeps saying this and maybe it’s true but I look at a ladder there are other ways I prefer to die.
The sinkhole was a joke, I just get really stressed about the house.
the house is shifting, the kitchen ceiling is cracked and pulling away from the walls, the porch leans, a pipe is broken, some flashing was installed incorrectly and there’s an occasional leak above a kitchen window, it may need a new roof soon, there are birds and squirrels in the attic, I don’t even know where the septic and well access are, all the plumbing is ancient, there’s water under the basement floor
Talk to multiple realtors. It has certainly appreciated since 3 years ago.
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How wide are the cracks in the ceiling?
If you’re going to buy a 200 year old house I feel like that stuff is a given. I would personally never do it because I hate doing house projects.
And yeah owning a house can definitely suck especially if the people who owned it before you did weird/stupid/incorrect shit.
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I just didn’t really get that at the time; it was probably willful overlooking on my part.
Welcome to home ownership
Before going too far in selling your home have a structural engineer or a foundation expert take a look at your foundation. Don’t call a typical home inspector becuase even in the iff chance that they know what the problem is, they will just tell you to call an engineer.
You could have massive problems or minimal problems even with what you showed. Depending on your foundation, you could get away with adding shims or building or replacing a stack but you’ll never know until someone’s able to check it out. You’re going to want someone to take a look to see how long you’ve had water down in the basement and how much rot that has caused or if there is other issues from other problems… or both. That is the costly part.
Estimates can vary widely for something like this and knowing what potential cost is going to be is going to help you anyway in selling your home for the most money.
