Is that the light at the end of the tunnel? (O.T. Thread)

[BgDawg]

2 hours ago, AkronsWitness said:

Tell me about it. We had to pay 15k over asking price PLUS bend over backwards to pay for closing costs, writing the sellers a letter about why they should accept our offer, let them stay in the house until they closed on their new one, ect, ect

And that was 2 years ago.... every other house in our neighborhood has a For Sale sign on it because people are looking to cash in.

Since we lived here, our estimated home value has already increased 25k.

We moved to Eugene, OR a few years ago for my wife's job. Eventually we bought a 3 bed, 1.5 bath condo 1047 sq. ft with a one car attached garage for $215,000 HOA 145 a month. To get that, we had to get our realtor to call their agent the day it was listed and arrange a walk through the next day (a Thursday). After walking through for 5 minutes, we were advised to put a full price offer on the table contingent upon cancelling an open house for that Saturday. The carpeting was so bad we had it cleaned just to live there one week before new carpet could be put in. The rest of the place was accordingly filthy. Was an absolute crazy process. We could not even tour quite a few places as they came on market as we were waiting for the open houses.

Flash forward, we are moving back to Ohio (wife got a job at Case Western, we both worked for UO while in Oregon, what an absolutely crap university). Over the past 6 months, our place has gone up in value to the point where we will be listing for 265 and expect multiple over asking offers after an open house. We painted the place, put in a new HVAC system (PNW does not believe in them despite the terribly humid winters, but the summers are amazing), fixed the deck, and did some other minor things. Best example of how crazy things have got, a poor condition 3 bed, 1.5 bath house in a good, not close to being the best neighborhood, bout 1300 sq. ft, went for $460,000 which was about $100,000 above asking price. A lot of people moving here from California and driving housing to insane levels right now (houses especially as they are being bought up to be converted into airbnbs or rented out). Meanwhile, I made more money at BGSU doing the exact job my wife was hired to do at UO. The median income is just over 25k for one person and just over 50k for a household.

We are really looking forward to getting back to Ohio and thankful we lucked out to be doing so in a such a crazy market.

[AkronsWitness]

1 hour ago, zelbell said:

I looked at a house on Saturday that had severe water damage on the ceiling (stains and cracks) everywhere and it went for $25k over asking befor the end of the day

Oh wow lol but yeah that's how it's going our realtor said when we looked at the house that we better decide by the end of the day to make a offer or not because it's going to be gone.

We basically had to impulse buy a house and go over asking because we were sick if being too slow or out bidded. We put a offer 15k over asking and wrote the seller a note 2 hours after we toured the house. Ended up getting it lol It's a go big or go home market in columbus.

What area are you looking in? The house that your describing sounds like a house is Upper Arlington lol

Edited May 5, 2021 by AkronsWitness

[AkronsWitness]

1 hour ago, BgDawg said:

We moved to Eugene, OR a few years ago for my wife's job. Eventually we bought a 3 bed, 1.5 bath condo 1047 sq. ft with a one car attached garage for $215,000 HOA 145 a month. To get that, we had to get our realtor to call their agent the day it was listed and arrange a walk through the next day (a Thursday). After walking through for 5 minutes, we were advised to put a full price offer on the table contingent upon cancelling an open house for that Saturday. The carpeting was so bad we had it cleaned just to live there one week before new carpet could be put in. The rest of the place was accordingly filthy. Was an absolute crazy process. We could not even tour quite a few places as they came on market as we were waiting for the open houses.

Flash forward, we are moving back to Ohio (wife got a job at Case Western, we both worked for UO while in Oregon, what an absolutely crap university). Over the past 6 months, our place has gone up in value to the point where we will be listing for 265 and expect multiple over asking offers after an open house. We painted the place, put in a new HVAC system (PNW does not believe in them despite the terribly humid winters, but the summers are amazing), fixed the deck, and did some other minor things. Best example of how crazy things have got, a poor condition 3 bed, 1.5 bath house in a good, not close to being the best neighborhood, bout 1300 sq. ft, went for $460,000 which was about $100,000 above asking price. A lot of people moving here from California and driving housing to insane levels right now (houses especially as they are being bought up to be converted into airbnbs or rented out). Meanwhile, I made more money at BGSU doing the exact job my wife was hired to do at UO. The median income is just over 25k for one person and just over 50k for a household.

We are really looking forward to getting back to Ohio and thankful we lucked out to be doing so in a such a crazy market.

That's sounds insane but good for you financially lol

The one crazy part about our process is that they had to stay in the house we bought a additional 2 months. I had to go into the leasing office of my apartment and beg them to let me stay in my apartment for 2 more months even though they had another person already lined up to move in.

They let me, but it took a lot of begging and please have pity on me for them to do it. They ended up charging me 1.5x my normal monthly rent payment for the 2 extended months........

So that was another kick in the balls. By the end of the process I felt like I was doing the sellers a favor by letting them sell me the house. It was chaos.

[zelbell]

39 minutes ago, AkronsWitness said:

Oh wow lol but yeah that's how it's going our realtor said when we looked at the house that we better decide by the end of the day to make a offer or not because it's going to be gone.

We basically had to impulse buy a house and go over asking because we were sick if being too slow or out bidded. We put a offer 15k over asking and wrote the seller a note 2 hours after we toured the house. Ended up getting it lol It's a go big or go home market in columbus.

What area are you looking in? The house that your describing sounds like a house is Upper Arlington lol

That one was in Hilliard but pretty much same situation

[ditchdigger]

1 hour ago, zelbell said:

That one was in Hilliard but pretty much same situation

Gahanna is the best place to live in suburban Columbus. Hilliard is a traffic nightmare. 

[DaWg_LB.]

10 minutes ago, ditchdigger said:

Gahanna is the best place to live in suburban Columbus. Hilliard is a traffic nightmare. 

Good to have you Posting again Ditch.....

[ditchdigger]

8 minutes ago, DaWg_LB. said:

Good to have you Posting again Ditch.....

Took a while to recover from Hue inexplicably being brought back after 1-31, but I'm in a much better place now.

[AkronsWitness]

33 minutes ago, ditchdigger said:

Gahanna is the best place to live in suburban Columbus. Hilliard is a traffic nightmare. 

Don't know too much about Gahanna but I've always avoided looking in the east side of columbus because it's surrounded by sketchy areas over there. Especially when your close to 270 around Easton Mall.

If I could choose to live in any part of Columbus it would be Powell. Powell to me is the perfect blend of proximity to downtown, great schools, not as expensive as Dublin yet and still a ton to do with the Zoo, golfing, shopping, ect.

 

Edited May 6, 2021 by AkronsWitness

[ditchdigger]

Powell?!?!? POWELL?!!?!

I hate that part of town. Expensive as hell, taxes through the roof and 10,000 more homes than the roads are built for. You have to go 315 or 23/270/315 to get downtown, along with thousands of others. It's a crawl every day.

I live by Easton, drive 5 minutes to get to any store imaginable, and roll 2 minutes through my neighborhood to get on 670 and 10 more minutes to get downtown where I work. 

Gahanna is a diverse community, way more than any of the other burbs. I have Albanian neighbors, Nepalese neighbors, and Ethiopian neighbors on my block. My daughter's 4th grade class is about a 50/50 mix of white/non-white, which as a child of racist parents who would only live in "safe" cities (i.e. everyone looked like them), is important to me that my kids connect with other kids who have had different experiences than what they have had.

 

 

[AkronsWitness]

17 minutes ago, ditchdigger said:

Powell?!?!? POWELL?!!?!

I hate that part of town. Expensive as hell, taxes through the roof and 10,000 more homes than the roads are built for. You have to go 315 or 23/270/315 to get downtown, along with thousands of others. It's a crawl every day.

I live by Easton, drive 5 minutes to get to any store imaginable, and roll 2 minutes through my neighborhood to get on 670 and 10 more minutes to get downtown where I work. 

Gahanna is a diverse community, way more than any of the other burbs. I have Albanian neighbors, Nepalese neighbors, and Ethiopian neighbors on my block. My daughter's 4th grade class is about a 50/50 mix of white/non-white, which as a child of racist parents who would only live in "safe" cities (i.e. everyone looked like them), is important to me that my kids connect with other kids who have had different experiences than what they have had.

 

 

I get it lol It's definitely more expensive but it has its perks. It's one of the few suburbs that I have driven around that actually has land/sizeable yards which is a plus. The school district is as good as it gets in columbus for raising a family and it's the perfect blend of being 'out there' but still a reasonable drive downtown and your right next to Polaris AND Dublin to use all of their crap.

It's still nowhere close to as expensive as Dublin, UA, New Albany or Grandview. It's in that second tier of affordability.

You are spot on about the traffic though.....trust me. I live in Lewis Center. If you want to do ANYTHING from 4:30pm-6pm forget about it. It will take you 45min to drive anywhere. The population is diverse but that's Columbus in general. The majority of people in my neighborhood are Indian or Asian.

In general Columbus infrastructure is crap. It was a city that was built and then grew at such a rapid pace recently that the city couldn't keep up. They just kept building outwards into the farmlands but the population/roadways still are too much for the current construction to handle.

The Northern part of 270 is my worst nightmare where it intersects with 23/71/315 area, not to mention Sawmill Rd during rush hour. Whoever designed the intersection of 270 and 71 should be fired.

Edited May 6, 2021 by AkronsWitness

[ditchdigger]

New builds in Powell are the most recent converted farmland available and that is why I hate it so much. Also, my neighbors whose daughter was my daughter's best friend moved there this year. And yes, their home buying story was insane. So glad I am not on the market right now.

The schools up there are excellent, I will give you that, but that is beyond expected with taxes like that. It does afford your kids a better education and scholarship opportunities, but I will not sit in traffic every day for my kids. 

 

[bruceb]

I feel for you guys that have to deal with traffic/time and such.

My office is .8 miles from my house.

The spa that my wife works at is 1.0 miles from the house.

Between us, we put less than 2,500 miles/year on our cars.

Hell, when the weather is nice I walk.

[NateDawg]

I sold a house in Hilliard last year, and yes, the market is hot in the Columbus area. We bought 45 minutes from the city on a fixer upper with some land but it probably would have run $100k more in a Columbus suburb. To be frank, the further from Columbus the better these days, crime and bureaucracy are out of control, and I am happy to have my kids in a nice, smaller school district with the first in Kindergarten next year. I also hate traffic. 

I had looked to redo the deck but I’ll be holding off until something happens with the lumber cost. I did put the stimulus money towards building farm fencing around the property with stim money but that was kind of necessity. Strangely the cost of lumber went up since the winter when I did it, I almost held off thinking it could go down at the time. Eventually we could be looking at a pole barn or a small guest house on the property but not even entertaining that right now. I have also heard that the housing market could go down here soon, so an investment property when that happens to rent out could be a decent way to go. Profit and then sell when the market goes back up.

[MWil23]

23 hours ago, MWil23 said:

Also (Warning, rant incoming)

I am currently boycotting lumber, which is outrageous at over a 300% increase, and am gathering an army of intelligent like minded individuals who will also vow to do the same. As long as people keep buying and enabling these distributors, the prices are going to stay put and us as consumers will continue to get absolutely crushed and gouged. I'm officially putting my foot down. Who is with me?!?!?!?!

 

21 hours ago, ditchdigger said:

I had three projects planned for this year, including a deck. I have inadvertently joined your boycott because I'm cheap.

 

9 hours ago, NateDawg said:

I had looked to redo the deck but I’ll be holding off until something happens with the lumber cost.

Current status of my boycott:

 

 

 

[LETSGOBROWNIES]

11 hours ago, bruceb said:

I feel for you guys that have to deal with traffic/time and such.

My office is .8 miles from my house.

The spa that my wife works at is 1.0 miles from the house.

Between us, we put less than 2,500 miles/year on our cars.

Hell, when the weather is nice I walk.

I work from home and still manage to put 7500-10k on per year not including any longer road trips.  
 

Are you just a hermit or what?

Edited May 6, 2021 by LETSGOBROWNIES