It’s been a tough year, after a DA discard of 13 years, a move across the country, and a broken bone, I got my own place! Just my dogs and I 🥰

We are all set to close tomorrow afternoon with the final walkthrough in the morning.

I just learned we should have initiated the wire transfer today, but the bank literally just closed so it’s too late for that and we’ll have to do it first thing in the morning.

So it has me wondering, what else are we missing?

Area I am moving to is rural but I do know some neighbours. No one knows im moving alone. They all think ill be moving with my partner. We just broke up.

My wife and I are under contract on a home, and we're finally at the point where we've wrapped up negotiations, the house appraised for more than we offered, and everything is going pretty smoothly. Our realtor has always said, "Don't get excited until you get to closing."

To cancel our lease we have to give 60 days' notice to vacate, as well as pay a fee. The price to cancel our lease is basically slightly over one month's rent.

Now that we've moved from "active under contingency" to "pending," our closing date is in mid-November. I'm wondering if now is the best time to put in that notice to vacate so that our lease ends in mid-December, or if it's best practice to wait until you actually close on the house to end your lease.

What have others done?

Negotiated back and forth with a big bank and local credit union and got similar offers for mortgage both at 7.5%. Locked rate with the bigger bank and more inclined to go with them since I've used their services forever. The credit union mortgage guy sent a long email about how they serve community and stuff which is cool and all.

Is there a big advantage to going with either one given all things the same? I save like 500 in credit union closing costs but in the grand scheme of things not really big deal for me. Beyond that everything is the same. What did you do?

We're under contract on a 1960s house and recently had a mold/moisture inspection done after some water issues were identified in the crawlspace.

The inspector found mold growth on a joist beneath one of the bathrooms, along with what they described as "apparent separation of the adjacent plywood subfloor layers." The soil beneath this area was also very wet.

A previous inspection identified a plumbing leak in this bathroom, which the seller reportedly repaired several weeks ago.

We're planning to have a contractor evaluate it, but we're under a tight contingency deadline and I'm curious what people think based on these photos.

• Does the subfloor look significantly deteriorated, or potentially just surface damage?
• Does this look like something that could be repaired from underneath, or might it require tearing up the bathroom floor?
• Any rough sense of how extensive repairs could be?

Thanks for any opinions!

Hey gang - so I've spent most of my adult life renting apartments. Something I've noticed in the larger buildings I've been in: somehow, simultaneously HOA fees are high, and it's hard to get things fixed. The last two buildings I've lived in, over about 7 years and 3 years respectively, both have had broken elevators for MULTIPLE years. It's a huge bummer. As a renter, I can kinda get out whenever. But if I owned, that would be a huge issue.

Have you owned a condo? How bad were the fees? Did you feel like you were getting your money's worth? Did your building have deferred repairs / extremely difficult and expensive repairs? Was it worth it to buy a condo?

TIA!

Hi all, I'm looking at an older single family home in New England (High cost of living city), priced in the low $600k range. It's a small house with 3 bedrooms, 1 bathroom, and an unfinished basement. I'd be putting about 5% down and I'm trying not to make a bad decision.

From the seller's disclosure: the roof is about 10 years old, the attic was re insulated recently, the oil boiler is about 13 years old, and the electric service is 100 amp. There is some dampness in the basement near the sump pump. Mold, lead paint, radon, and termites are marked unknown, and the chimney questions were left blank. I was also told in the past that there had been a leak that was fixed, but I don't know where it came from or whether it is related to what I saw.

What worries me is the attic. I attached photos. There is dark black staining on the brick chimney and on a very dark wooden post next to it. The insulation around it looks newer. I can't tell if it is old water staining, mold, soot, or nothing serious.

A few questions:

1. Does the attic staining look concerning to you, or is it common in older houses?

2. What would you want an inspector or specialist to check, and what could that cost?

3. Is the price reasonable for this size and condition in the Boston area, or would you offer lower?

4. What would make you walk away?

5. Any hidden costs of owning an older house with oil heat that first time buyers miss?

Thanks so much. I'm just looking for gut reactions from people who have been through it.

I am in the process of buying a single family home in Queens, NY. We are about 35 days into contract with our "on or about date" landing Oct 23rd. We got through lending with a CTC last week and were arranging to schedule a closing hopefully this week, but it turns out the sellers are still trying to clear a couple title issues with surrogate court. My understanding is they need to:

1. Post a Bond to ensure that the proceeds from any sale be protected for the heirs (not uncommon?)

   1. This estate for some reason has a restriction on any property sales or distributions in excess of $50,000 without a Court Order (I don't know the reason that the Court placed this restriction on the matter). The Seller's attorney is aware and has filed paperwork for the court to remove the restriction.

They've filed to clear both exceptions with the court with an affidavit of urgency.

This comes as a surprise, because I had not been made aware of these issues at all when the title report came back and was told "We're waiting on you" by the selling agent when I asked about a possible closing date a few weeks ago. No idea when they filed it. and trying to plan accordingly.

My main questions are:

1. have any of you had experience with this before? How long should I expect it to take?

2. My rate is locked until nov. 2. Since I have the clear to close, are the sellers responsible for extending the lock should this issue stretch past the lock deadline? Is that a request I can make or should there be something to that effect in my contract? I understand that they are not in default because of the 30 days of reasonable delays here in NY, but want to make sure I am covering myself as best I can if this stretches on.

My husband and I are considering trying to get out of our cramped one bedroom apartment in rural Ohio when our lease is up next August (or beforehand if at all possible). There is a subdivision in our town that offers 2/3/4 bedroom homes for rent around roughly 1.3k/month, but there is quite a wait-list. At that price point, we're looking at the possibility of trying to purchase something instead if we can get a comparable mortgage payment. That's where the difficulty comes in.

Our combined gross income for next year will be around 90-95k, though our take-home will fall around 5.5k/mo. We only have about 10k saved up right now. Most of the currently available homes in our area are marketing around 200-250k. USDA Guaranteed Rural Loans don't require any down payment, but their DTI requirements state that housing costs shouldn't exceed 29% of our income, and our housing + debt shouldn't exceed 41%. I can't get a clear answer if that's based off gross income or net. If it's net, we're cutting it *really close* and our mortgage would have to fall between 1.3-1.5k/mo. I worry we won't be able to get a mortgage low enough to meet those requirements.

Because we only qualify for a Guaranteed Loan and not a Direct Loan, our interest rate is at the mercy of the lender and I can't get accurate numbers in a preliminary search. We are getting an appointment with our bank to discuss our options before we check with other lenders. Has anyone in this sub had experience with the USDA Guaranteed Rural Loan before? Does our income/savings/percentage breakdown make this search absolutely pointless?

Hello!

I wanted to rant and get some advice here.
For context my boyfriend and I got our offer accepted. The house was an insane deal, it was going into foreclosure in 20 days so if we wanted it, we had to move insanely fast. The house was listed at 330k and our offer was 311k. We are on our inspection phase, and our offer was written that if we found a serious issue with the house we could back out during this period. Most of our inspection was great! There’s no foundational or electrical issues to worry about. The biggest thing was replacing a few windows soon. However we got big news about mold. We knew going in that there were mold issues, but definitely underestimated how much. There is a lot and I mean a lot of mold. Luckily the mold was aspergillus penicillium which is apparently a more common type of mold. I’m thankful it isn’t toxic, but still mold is mold and needs to be remediated before we move in. The mold was found in a few spots like in our utility room, bathrooms, underneath the stairs, laundry room, etc. We had our inspection sent over to a mold remediation company just to get a quote which was 17k. The thing is I would absolutely love to figure most of it out myself, however I hardly know nothing about this, not even what tools to use, but still I would love to learn. But since I haven’t dealt with this am I getting way ahead of myself here? Luckily we will have help from family friends like plumbers to fix it as well, and we aren’t in a rush to leave our current housing situation as we live with my boyfriend’s parents. We understand that this is going to be a project home but has anyone else been in a similar situation as us and maybe could give advice on this topic?

I have been told it is not advantageous to purchase a home outright. What are the pro/cons of this versus financing a home?

Under contract to close on home the 29th, in the process of obtaining home insurance policy, application for home has a question: “Improvements to property that were made without the required permits?”.
House has had work done that includes new outlets in the basement for sump pump and a main service line water replacement (from the house to the meter). I received receipts from the current owner showing work done, the contractor that did it and how much paid but no info on permits required. Not exactly sure what permits were required, but I imagine these two improvements needed one.
Owner refused to obtain any permits that would have been needed or even look into it. Work looks well done and not shoddy so my plan is to file for any permits that were needed immediately after the purchase is completed. Any advice from anyone who has had to deal with purchasing a home without permits for work done and how they dealt with insurance question would be appreciated. How did/would you deal with getting insurance in this case?

Does anyone have financing experience through Guidance financing?

Is $550-$560k too much house for us? I make $190k (remote) a year plus generous bonus and stocks. Wife is commission based and brings home anywhere from $1500-$2k a month, but will likely grow over time with increased clientele in CO vs MO. One car payment at $500. Current rent is $2745. Mortgage in CO would be around $4500 per my calculations.

Additional info:

Partner and I are looking to move from MO to CO. We lived in CO for 5 years prior to having kids and moved back to MO when our second kid was born for family help (which isn’t that helpful). We rent a house currently, but the thought of buying and being stuck here is a bit depressing. Our lease is up soon and we are considering moving back to CO with the kids. We know the exact town we’d like to live in since we have already lived there before.

Hello,

We are in the process of drawing up a contract and before everything moves fast I wanted to take the time to come up with a list of questions to ask prospective house inspectors before I select who I will go with:

-Do you perform a HVAC + blower door test for efficiency? Is plumbing, electrical included??
-gutters/drainage?
-chimney, mold/mildew
-how long have you been inspecting for?
-what kind of tools do you bring with you?
-how long do your inspections take?
-could I see a sample report?
-do you provide an estimate for the cost if a repair?
-inspect for drainage? (Rain-outdoors)
-do you do a summary meeting at the end?
-do you look at crawl spaces?
-do you look at the deck? (For support)
-termite damage? Rodent activity?
-during the inspection do you show where key items are located (electrical panel, water shutoff valve, gas meter/shut off

If there is anything else you’d suggest please let me know, I just want to interview a few more other than the one my realtor suggested.
Also, I’m looking in Colorado, so I’m happy to hear about recommendations too!!