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Home Buying Help Thread


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On 7/19/2020 at 5:19 PM, holt_bruce81 said:

Man we just saw a house that was gorgeous but alittle on the smaller side (980 sq ft upstairs) but a really nice finished basement. Is well under our budget so we wouldn’t be house poor and is in a really nice location, and a very good school district. 

Only hesitation I have Is how small the rooms are. There are 3 bedrooms upstairs but I dont Think the Master is any bigger than 10x9. I just Don’t know if I can Do that. GF says she can and she’s actually the one 100% wanting to put an offer down. But my goodness we’ll be lucky to get our king size bed in there and 1 dresser lol 

 

I have more room tailgating under a tent. Just show her that and she will change her mind pretty quick.

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On 7/8/2020 at 9:59 AM, Tyty said:

Another thing is while I make ~$40k a year I can’t prove it all entirely due to a lot of it being cash tips 

Back when I was in the mortgage business, we did a lot of loans that were called "Stated Income" loans.  What this means is that the borrower stated how much money they make, but they didn't have to prove it with traditional methods such as pay stubs and W-2s.  This type of loan was perfect for people like yourself who make tip income, or for people who are self-employed.  I got out of the business in 2010 after the whole system melted down, so it has been a while and things may very well have changed.  It might be worth asking your loan officer if they can do a stated income loan for you though.  You will more than likely need very good credit and probably some money down.  It's worth a try though, because it would make things a lot easier for you if they can do it.  Good luck!  

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Took for freaking ever, but our realtor finally heard back from the buyer and we have both our closings on the same date now. Was a chance there'd have been a weekend in between the closings, but now I feel like I can really start planning movers and packing and getting everything ready.

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On 7/17/2020 at 2:43 PM, holt_bruce81 said:

Do Realtors not get as much Commission if you build? Few night ago my GF and I were talking about possibly looking into the new Constructions but when we mentioned it to our realtor he seemed like he was trying pretty hard to steer us in another direction. 

Can't speak for others, but when my GF and I started building our house we didn't use a realtor.  The builder we were going through with pretty much has the models, and let's you build from that point forward.  Think it's less negotiating involved.

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On 7/17/2020 at 3:43 PM, holt_bruce81 said:

Do Realtors not get as much Commission if you build? Few night ago my GF and I were talking about possibly looking into the new Constructions but when we mentioned it to our realtor he seemed like he was trying pretty hard to steer us in another direction. 

 

No builders generally pay 1%.

If the home is listed on MLS they pay 3-3.5% generally.

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On 7/29/2020 at 12:28 PM, CWood21 said:

Can't speak for others, but when my GF and I started building our house we didn't use a realtor.  The builder we were going through with pretty much has the models, and let's you build from that point forward.  Think it's less negotiating involved.

Wife and I have been discussing building a house recently. Just curious, what are all the added costs associated with building a house vs buying an existing one? And how much more are you paying in terms of those added costs?

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18 hours ago, RavensTillIDie said:

Wife and I have been discussing building a house recently. Just curious, what are all the added costs associated with building a house vs buying an existing one? And how much more are you paying in terms of those added costs?

Never done it myself, but talking to a few others that have it's usually 10-20% additional per sq ft. to build rather than buy used.  I couldn't say what specifically drives that though.

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2 hours ago, theJ said:

Never done it myself, but talking to a few others that have it's usually 10-20% additional per sq ft. to build rather than buy used.  I couldn't say what specifically drives that though.

A contractor told me the first 12" out of the ground are the most expensive of the entire home build.
Grading the land, creating drainage, setting the foundation, sewer/septic plus other utility connections, permits etc.
For an existing home, those are already taken care of and that saves a ton of time/cash.

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21 hours ago, RavensTillIDie said:

Wife and I have been discussing building a house recently. Just curious, what are all the added costs associated with building a house vs buying an existing one? And how much more are you paying in terms of those added costs?

I think there's too many variables to say that there are more costs.  We're building in our neighborhood and it came to a bit over 281k I believe after all the add-ons we did.  There's a house that just went up in our neighborhood that's been there roughly a year and it's listed at 305k.  That house is 2140 square feet, which comes out to $142/sqft.  I believe ours is 1938 square feet came out to $145 sq/ft.  I would there's a natural depreciation involved with selling  something that has been there for a year.

I think the biggest drawback of building vs. buying is that you're not really getting a concrete idea of when you'll be move-in ready.  We got told back in May we were looking at 4-6 months, which would have put us in mid-September at the earliest and mid-November at the latest.  We're in the beginning of the August, and they haven't done anything besides pour the foundation.  It's been about 3 weeks, so we're expecting the framing to go up this week.

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21 hours ago, RavensTillIDie said:

Wife and I have been discussing building a house recently. Just curious, what are all the added costs associated with building a house vs buying an existing one? And how much more are you paying in terms of those added costs?

When you say "building a house", do you mean you're going to a builder and telling them what you want or you're going to buy a plot of land yourself and be the general contractor yourself?  

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26 minutes ago, Shanedorf said:

A contractor told me the first 12" out of the ground are the most expensive of the entire home build.
Grading the land, creating drainage, setting the foundation, sewer/septic plus other utility connections, permits etc.
For an existing home, those are already taken care of and that saves a ton of time/cash.

A general rule of thumb is that the cost of the lot is 33%, the site development is 33%, and the cost to build the house is 33%.  So with the site development initial foundation you could be at 40ish % of total cost, so you're right that first 12" as you call it is a big portion of it.  

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23 hours ago, CWood21 said:

I think there's too many variables to say that there are more costs.  We're building in our neighborhood and it came to a bit over 281k I believe after all the add-ons we did.  There's a house that just went up in our neighborhood that's been there roughly a year and it's listed at 305k.  That house is 2140 square feet, which comes out to $142/sqft.  I believe ours is 1938 square feet came out to $145 sq/ft.  I would there's a natural depreciation involved with selling  something that has been there for a year.

I think the biggest drawback of building vs. buying is that you're not really getting a concrete idea of when you'll be move-in ready.  We got told back in May we were looking at 4-6 months, which would have put us in mid-September at the earliest and mid-November at the latest.  We're in the beginning of the August, and they haven't done anything besides pour the foundation.  It's been about 3 weeks, so we're expecting the framing to go up this week.

How does the plot of land work? Do you have to find that separately and purchase it before going to a builder or do they already have plots of land they can build on?

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