Jolt Country

pinback wrote:Somebody fucking POST something.

I just bought a new house. Actually, my wife just bought a new house, but says I can come along.

This will be the thread where I talk about buying a new house. More importantly, this will be the thread where you ask me questions about: the current (old) house, the new house, the process of buying a house, the process of moving, and so forth.

Flack wrote:

pinback wrote:Somebody fucking POST something.

I just bought a new house. Actually, my wife just bought a new house, but says I can come along.

This will be the thread where I talk about buying a new house. More importantly, this will be the thread where you ask me questions about: the current (old) house, the new house, the process of buying a house, the process of moving, and so forth.

Actually this was one of the things I was going to mention to your friend Adam. Unless you cannot afford it, a house should only be owned by one of the two people, either the husband or wife. Not both, and it's a very bad financial planning decision that too many couples do.

This is for two reasons. First, if something ever goes wrong, the others credit isn't ruined. If both own it and there's a foreclosure, both of them have bad credit. With only one as owner, only that one is placed in trouble if something goes wrong.

You can conceivably get a life tenancy out of your wife so that she can't kick you out if the two of you get into a fight (or she gets one from you if you're the owner). Your tenancy has no significance if the place is foreclosed, but if the place gets paid off or sold, it has to be cleared so that you can't be tossed out if the property was declared her sole property.

Also, having this property as single owner gives an option for the other one to buy another house at some point in the future that they can rent out and use as a potential source of income / savings.

It's also important if eligibility for discounted loans such as FHA, VA or other special eligibility is involved. If only one buys the house, their eligibility is used. If both do, it counts against both of them, and if the other is also eligible, they've wasted that eligibility.

A couple in the military I did a signing for was doing this. They were buying it using her eligibility; if at some point they found a suitable place to buy as a rental property, they'd use his eligibility.

I remember because the husband had a broken foot and was resting the cast on a chair. Son of a bitch also had one of my very nice blue pens I loaned him and wouldn't give it back. I ransomed it for one of my nice black pens that I don't use much. It was at that point that I bought a package of stick pens, and when I loaned pens to the customers I used the stick pens, and I kept the good ones for myself. This way, also, if they wanted them, they could keep them.

Also, since you're buying a house, are both your wills up to date? What about life insurance (the policy, not the will, determines who gets the funds), pension plan (same as insurance).

Oklahoma apparently no longer provides for safekeeping of wills; I thought it was an excellent idea. For a few dollars ($2 in Virginia; $5 in Maryland) if a person sends them a copy of their will, the registrar of wills keeps the copy in safekeeping either forever or until someone presents them with a death certificate.

Flack wrote:This will be the thread where I talk about buying a new house. More importantly, this will be the thread where you ask me questions

1. Are you staying in Oklahoma or moving to a different state?

2. Is the financing obligation a trust deed or mortgage? (Some states favor trust deeds; some states favor mortgages. Mortgages favor the borrower; trust deeds are easier for the finance company to take the property back in case of default.)

3. How hard do you think it will be to sell your old house? Can you afford it if the old house sits for a while then you have to close on the new one? In the alternative, can you afford to own both because you plan to keep the old house and rent it out? I had a customer doing a refinance on her current house, who owned about ten houses all over the country. She was an air traffic controller and every time she moved, she kept her old house, rented it out, then bought a new one, They represent a part of her old age pension plan.

4. How far is it from new house to old? Are you doing DIY moving such as (a) renting a truck and loading it yourself; (b) renting something like a pod, loading it yourself then having the pod delivered to your new home; (c) hiring a moving van; (d) something else?

Tdarcos wrote:1. Are you staying in Oklahoma or moving to a different state?

Great question! We are staying in Oklahoma.

Tdarcos wrote:4. How far is it from new house to old? Are you doing DIY moving such as (a) renting a truck and loading it yourself; (b) renting something like a pod, loading it yourself then having the pod delivered to your new home; (c) hiring a moving van; (d) something else?

Great question! The new house is approximately 10 miles north of the old house. Last week we rented a 20x20 storage unit and are beginning to move items into it. We don't close on the new house until mid-October, so we're hoping to have at least half of our personal items in the storage unit. I own a pickup and have a 7x16 trailer which we will be using to move items back and forth.

Tdarcos wrote:2. Is the financing obligation a trust deed or mortgage? (Some states favor trust deeds; some states favor mortgages. Mortgages favor the borrower; trust deeds are easier for the finance company to take the property back in case of default.)

Great question! It's a mortgage.

Tdarcos wrote:3. How hard do you think it will be to sell your old house? Can you afford it if the old house sits for a while then you have to close on the new one? In the alternative, can you afford to own both because you plan to keep the old house and rent it out? [...]

Great question! We actually qualified for both mortgages, which will most likely push our budget to its breaking point. Will we be able to afford gasoline in order to get to work and back? Yes. Will we be able to afford to eat out almost every night like we do now? Doubtful. Will the kids be getting rocks for Christmas if the house hasn't sold by then? Probably.

Our Realt...real estate agent is very hopeful that our current home will sell quickly. We are moving up in space and price. The size of house we are currently in is selling very well right now. The size of house we are moving in to is not selling well, thus the great deal we got on it.

Here are pictures of the new house, stolen from the Realtor's website: http://www.robohara.com/photo/index.php ... Misc/House

Note that, I don't remember the house being all that yellow/brown when I was there. I have to go over for an inspection later this week, so when I do I'll take my own camera and take more pictures.

Tdarcos wrote:Also, since you're buying a house, are both your wills up to date? What about life insurance (the policy, not the will, determines who gets the funds), pension plan (same as insurance).

Bad question. We are hoping nobody dies in the moving process.

Flack wrote:

Tdarcos wrote:Also, since you're buying a house, are both your wills up to date? What about life insurance (the policy, not the will, determines who gets the funds), pension plan (same as insurance).

Bad question. We are hoping nobody dies in the moving process.

Flack, you set up a will Before you need it, presumably years before you do. I did mine back in 2009 and filed it with the Registrar of Wills for Prince George's County. I don't have very much but I still have a will.

When you're married it's not that critical since your spouse automatically gets everything if you don't have a will, it's just good planning, especially if you have gifts you want to make. And yes, it's a distasteful subject to think about, but it is something you should consider.

In fact, I have to update my will. Outside of my DVD collection and some cash, which went to my brother, I left everything to my friend Andrea. With her dead, I don't want her scumbag relatives to get my stuff; I have to redo my will to leave everything to my brother instead.

I want to hear more sub-plot about the pen thieving clients with busted feet.

But I digress....

Will room be made in the house for the arcade? And not unrelated, does more space mean more collections?


THE
NATURE ABHORS
AARDVARK

Flack wrote:Our Realt...real estate agent is very hopeful that our current home will sell quickly.

Did you consider opening an account and putting it up for sale on eBay? If it doesn't sell, all you're out is the listing fee, which is less than a dollar or so. If you don't pay the fee at the end, all eBay can do is cancel the account.

Or, run an ad on Craigslist, in the local newspapers, in which you hold an open house for two days on some specific weekend, just make sure there's nothing in the place people can steal, and just let them go through without someone watching them. As they leave, if they're interested they fill out a form saying so with their information. Best offer that can get financing wins.

If you're in a small town, make sure you cover quite a distance, perhaps every newspaper within 50 to 100 miles. Especially if your property is in the sweet spot, you'll get more viewers and more potential bidders.

Don't be thinking this is your agent's job. It's your money you're having to spend to pay the additional mortgage each month, you want it gone as fast as possible. In fact, find out if your agent can get you forms for any lender he or she knows so that the potential buyers, if they don't have their own lender, can see if they qualify.

The other possibility is if people have trouble getting financing, to sell it to them on a lease purchase. Say the house is worth $200,000, so you offer to sell it to them for $250,000, and all they have to come up with is a deposit - say $5,000 plus first and last month's rent. All of this is credited 100% to the purchase price. If, at any time in the future, they decide they don't want the place they can walk away and owe nothing. If, say, a year or two or three from now they do qualify for a loan, you credit their rent payments in the same manner as if they were financing a $250,000 house for, say, 6% interest. Even in three years, regular payments of. say $1,500 a month (or whatever your mortgage payment is) won't have reduced the amount owed by more than 3 or 4 thousand dollars. But the buyer got into a place they couldn't otherwise have gotten into.

Also, you're 'selling' them the place, it's not really a lease, the payments are just treated that way. They're responsible for all the expenses including taxes and utilities, and when something goes wrong, they call the plumber or the electrician, not you. The only difference between you and a bank is you're letting them get in the place for very little money. Plus the deposit you charged covers any damages as well as eviction costs if they try to stiff you. Since it is technically a lease eviction is much easier than when someone has to foreclose.

AArdvark wrote:I want to hear more sub-plot about the pen thieving clients with busted feet.

Back then, which would be sometime during 2003-2006, in order to be in eating money, I was doing mobile notary, basically during the height of the refinancing boom. A mobile notary gets the forms from the finance company by next-day courier (UPS or FedEx), brings them over to the client at a pre-established appointment time, usually the next day, either at the customer's home or office, watches the client sign the documents, notarizes the ones that require a notary's counter-signature, leaves one copy with the client, then returns the signed copy to the finance company by its provided next-day courier envelope.

The finance company pays the shipping, and pays the notary a fee, anywhere from $40 to $75 with it usually being around $50. Actually, the finance company uses a signing service, and the signing service calls the notary and has the finance company send them the paperwork, then they pay the notary after the finance company paid them.

The Notary gets a check about four to six weeks after the loan has been funded. In fact, the HUD-1 form (Flack, you'll see this in your financing package) will have a space for notary fees, and typically they billed the customer about $150 for them.

It wasn't too bad, I probably got one or two a week, and if I could have gotten a couple a day I would have been doing fantastic, I'd actually have been making more money than I did when I worked as a programmer.

Well, I had a job in Woodbridge, VA with a husband and wife where the wife was the signatory, and the husband only had to sign a couple of documents waiving any right over the property. So I go over there, I have the paperwork, I give them each a pen, and I have one, and after I finish I go to collect my pens back, the wife gives me hers, and the husband, in a cast, won't give my pen back.

Well, I was thinking, what do I do? I didn't feel like beating the shit out of a cripple, and those pens are expensive. They're Expresso, which come in a package of two black, one red, and one blue and cost $5. Meaning each blue pen cost me $5 since I didn't care about the red or the black, and while you can buy 4-packs of Expresso black, you can only get a blue one in the 4 pack with the other colors. Well, since I don't care about the black one, I said that if he'd give me my blue one, I'd give him a black one in exchange, or I might have offered two. So I got it back.

That was the last time I let clients use my expensive pens, from then on, they got cheap disposable ball points (like the kind you can buy in Staples right now, 20 for $4.)

Flack wrote:This will be the thread where I talk about buying a new house. More importantly, this will be the thread where you ask me questions about: the current (old) house, the new house, the process of buying a house, the process of moving, and so forth.

More questions. (1) Are you going to use the same insurance company for your new house as your old one? (2) is your area subject to earthquakes and/or are you required to carry earthquake insurance? (3) is your area subject to flooding and/or are you required to carry flood insurance?

Be aware that standard homeowner policies exclude two perils: (1) earthquake and (2) flood. The first I'm very familiar with as I worked for a real estate broker in California, and one of the requirements was your earthquake insurance does not go into effect until there's been no earthquake in the state for either 60 days or 6 months, I forget. Also, because earthquakes are common in California, earthquake insurance is expensive but very important.

Flood insurance may be useful even if not required, because your homeowner's insurance won't cover water damage if, for example, your basement washing machine overflows and the drain can't handle it. But your flood insurance will.

Also, what's your liability coverage for personal injury on your house (like slip and fall)? If it's less than $500,000 I'd seriously consider raising it because the extra protection isn't usually very expensive.

About ten years ago I was getting insurance on my sports car, a ten year old Ford Taurus SHO stick. The quote for liability insurance for state minimum, 50/50/100 (50,000 in property damage, 50,000 for personal injury and damage involving an accident with one vehicle, 100,000 for injury and damage in an accident involving multiple vehicles) was something like $165 for six months. I asked what was the maximum they would write me and what did that cost. The maximum I could get was 100/100/300, and it would cost $185.

I said I thought that was pretty good, but doubling my rate was a little too stiff. No, she said, that's not the increase, that was the price. To double my coverage would add $20 every six months.

AArdvark wrote:Will room be made in the house for the arcade? And not unrelated, does more space mean more collections?

Great question! Room will not be made in the house for the entire arcade. The house is two stories, and most of my "play room" so-to-speak is upstairs. To date, I have been unable to sell the idea of putting an arcade machine in our living room. I'm still working on it.

The catch in all of this is that we qualified for our loan before they dropped the price another $15k, meaning if we take the full price of the loan, we might have $15k to play around with. I think you can get a pretty decent building put up for that, so we'll see. The real problem becomes timing. I don't know how quickly you can throw up one of those buildings, but we don't own the property until mid-October, so at that point it would be a race to see if I could get a building thrown up without paying more months on a storage unit. Theoretically I can keep the unit for 3 months at $100/month. After that it doubles in price and no longer makes sense.

Changing gears, does more room mean more room for more collections? Yes and no. I have a huge, huge collection of Star Wars toys, and for the past 9 years they've been in storage (in the garage). So right now I'm looking forward to setting up some shelves and making a place to display all of the things I already have! But yes, there will be plenty of room for old things and new things.

And maybe even the wife's things.

Tdarcos wrote:Did you consider opening an account and putting it up for sale on eBay? If it doesn't sell, all you're out is the listing fee, which is less than a dollar or so. If you don't pay the fee at the end, all eBay can do is cancel the account.

Or, run an ad on Craigslist, in the local newspapers, in which you hold an open house for two days on some specific weekend, just make sure there's nothing in the place people can steal, and just let them go through without someone watching them. As they leave, if they're interested they fill out a form saying so with their information. Best offer that can get financing wins.

Good question! No, I did not consider selling my house on eBay or Craigslist. Right now I am trying to sell a bunch of old computers on Craigslist and was stood up 3 times over the weekend, so I don't have a lot of faith in selling the house using that method. Then again I have bought and sold many high dollar items including cars and motorcycles using those methods, so you never know.

I like the idea of listing the open house on Craigslist.

I should mention that our Realtor is one of the top in the area, and an old family friend. Everyone in town knows who she is, and almost everyone in this area who has either bought or sold a house has dealt with her at some point. I have great faith in her ability to sell our house quickly and get us top dollar (she's helped us buy and sell houses multiple times before). Still, I like the CL idea of bringing in more people. Couldn't hurt, right?

Tdarcos wrote:More questions. (1) Are you going to use the same insurance company for your new house as your old one? (2) is your area subject to earthquakes and/or are you required to carry earthquake insurance? (3) is your area subject to flooding and/or are you required to carry flood insurance? [...] Also, what's your liability coverage for personal injury on your house (like slip and fall)? If it's less than $500,000 I'd seriously consider raising it because the extra protection isn't usually very expensive.

Great questions that I don't know the answers to, but I will ask my wife.

Our area is not prone to earthquakes or flooding, or locusts. The new house does back up to a pond, so flood insurance might be a smart addition to our policy.

I do not know what our liability coverage is, but I just updated my will so if someone slips and falls I will just kill myself now that I am prepared.

Also I forgot to mention that even though my wife is a notary, she cannot notarize anything with her own signature on it. However, as a member of the credit union, we can have things notarized for free there.

So, based on the other thread (that I didn't get to until after I posted my earlier questions here) You are planning to keep some of the cabinets in the house. I presume they will be 'the good ones' and the rest will reside in the outbuilding.

Seeing that you have had a whole summer filled with triple digit temperatures and knowing that age and heat are silicon chips' worst enemies, Are you planning on cooling the outbuilding?

If so, how will this affect your budgetary envelope?


THE
PRESS CONFERENCE
AARDVARK
THE

Flack wrote:Also I forgot to mention that even though my wife is a notary, she cannot notarize anything with her own signature on it. However, as a member of the credit union, we can have things notarized for free there.

Oh I know that. There are generally two people a notary cannot authenticate the signature of (1) themselves; and (2) in many places, their spouse. #1 is universal, a notary is never able to authenticate their own signature. When I need something notarized I either go to my credit uniion or I have my brother do it. (Generally, we notarize each other's applications to become a notary, since I am licensed in both Maryland and Virginia.)

Flack wrote:Our area is not prone to earthquakes or flooding, or locusts.

Locusts you don't have to worry about; those you're covered under general perils same as hail or lightning. It's earthquake and flood that are specifically excluded in the standard HO-3 insurance form. I just looked it up, it is HO-3, "Standard Homeowners Insurance Policy."

It's like with trust deeds and mortgages, there is a standard form used across the USA with minor changes to comply with state law.

I used to mention to customers how my favorite paragraph in the standard trust deed document was Paragraph 21, in which you (as the borrower) agree not to open a hazardous waste processing facility on the property. One guy thought I was kidding, he read the paragraph and was surprised to find out I was right. Another customer said, "Darn, I was planning to do that this weekend."

You have to wonder what kind of things people have done when one of the standard clauses in the common trust deed form is a requirement you don't have hazardous waste on your property in more than small quantities typically kept in a home, e.g. a few gallons of paint or gasoline, paint thinner or kerosene (some people go camping and have lamps) and similar items.

AArdvark wrote:So, based on the other thread (that I didn't get to until after I posted my earlier questions here) You are planning to keep some of the cabinets in the house. I presume they will be 'the good ones' and the rest will reside in the outbuilding.

Great question! This would be ideal, yes. The problem I have at the moment is that my garage is a long ass trek across the grass from my arcade. That means if I were to (in theory) move a machine from point A to point B, it would take a Herculean effort. There are other factors involved to, like moving them up 3 concrete steps to get them into the building, and the fact that my yard isn't perfectly level so getting a dolly across it with a 300lb machine strapped to it ought to be an event on MxC, and yeah, it's a hassle. In the new house what I would like is a building with a sidewalk that leads up to the driveway. That way, boom, I could move machines back and forth, work on them out in the building, and bring two or three nice ones into the house.

AArdvark wrote:Seeing that you have had a whole summer filled with triple digit temperatures and knowing that age and heat are silicon chips' worst enemies, Are you planning on cooling the outbuilding? If so, how will this affect your budgetary envelope?

Great question! The current building is currently cooled on a demand basis. In other words, a couple of hours before I go out there or know that company is coming, I'll fire up the A/C (which is a window unit). As ICJ can attest to, if I forget to do this, especially during this past summer, the building is literally sweltering. I have no doubt that I have caused at least some damage by leaving my machines out there to cook.

The future plan is probably not to cool an outside building 24/7, so I'm not sure what that means. Maybe the new building will have two windows and a fan and a draft will help cool the place down. I'm also hoping I never again experience a blistering summer like the one we just had.

I'm curious. What's with the floor plate in the garage? Is it an access to utility controls, a crawlspace to use for fixing underneath cars, a basement, a direct access to the house, a weapons cache (ala Sarah Connor's Mexican under the desert hideaway in Terminator 2), a lime pit for disposing the bodies, or something more sinister?

Tdarcos wrote:I'm curious. What's with the floor plate in the garage? Is it an access to utility controls, a crawlspace to use for fixing underneath cars, a basement, a direct access to the house, a weapons cache (ala Sarah Connor's Mexican under the desert hideaway in Terminator 2), a lime pit for disposing the bodies, or something more sinister?

Great question! It's a tornado/storm shelter.

Historically, up until about 10 years ago I'd guess, most people built their storm shelters outside of their home. The downside to this is, when there's a storm, you have to go outside in the rain/hail/tornado and go to the storm shelter.

About 10 years ago, again I'm estimating, several companies around here started offering the option to have them installed inside people's garages. It's basically a big metal coffin with some stairs leading down to it. The downside to putting it in one's home is, if there's a tornado, it's quite possible your house will fall down on top of your shelter, potentially trapping you inside.

Because of this, all storm shelters are now registered with the city. If a tornado hits your area, the fire department goes and checks its list and checks every storm shelter. So you might be in there for a couple of hours, especially if there's no cell coverage which, after a tornado, is typical.

There are 3 kinds of doors on these things. There's the normal sliding door, then there's one with a winch (so you can ratchet yourself out), and a third one with a pneumatic shaft to lift the door in case there's debris on top of it. I've not been inside this one so I don't know anything about the door yet.

I have never owned a home with a storm shelter before and have lived in tornado alley all my life, so I doubt I will ever get inside this one. But it makes the wife and kids feel safer.

http://www.groundzeroshelters.com/flattop.html