This Old #%&@*$ House

Is it weird that the exact square footage isn't known/listed?

Looks great. Couldn't believe the time on Zillow 20 hrs and 1500 views!

Chairman_Mao wrote:

Is it weird that the exact square footage isn't known/listed?

2200-2700. Don't think Zillow scrapes the full listings or something. That's in the list from our realtor.

Basement too. No pictures. Just concrete floor, water heater, and HVAC down there. Does have an outside entrance with stairs down to it. Be nice for storage and storm shelter mostly I think.

SallyNasty wrote:

No feedback other than that I really like it.

Same. We know bids are already over 300, so we'll see how much we like it and how much we might have to put into it still.

The bottom foot or two of the roof shingles looks disturbed. Might want to look for ice/water damage . The cap for the roofing tiles looks lifted? (Maybe. All the ones I have seen up here in Canada are flush with the rest of the tiles.)

In picture 40, the left-hand room looks like it was added afterwards. Might want to check the join/seal between the two different sections just in case.

The left-hand side of the driveway in front of the garage seems lower than the right-hand side. Maybe need to worry about water-infiltration when the snow melts?

Stele wrote:

We know bids are already over 300, so we'll see how much we like it and how much we might have to put into it still.

Oh man, $300,000 only? Prices out here in Oregon are so stupid crazy. I'm never moving. Pretty cool house!

tuffalobuffalo wrote:
Stele wrote:

We know bids are already over 300, so we'll see how much we like it and how much we might have to put into it still.

Oh man, $300,000 only? Prices out here in Oregon are so stupid crazy. I'm never moving. Pretty cool house!

the whole PNW is ridiculous. We're closing in on 3x our purchase price 8 years ago.

Thanks guys. Roof is one concern yes.

Getting another pair of eyes on it at lunch and then to bid or not. I'm sure it will be gone by end of day.

mudbunny wrote:

In picture 40, the left-hand room looks like it was added afterwards. Might want to check the join/seal between the two different sections just in case.

I'm thinking that it was a porch that was enclosed later to make a MIL suite. The bathroom was definitely added later.

If the roof is an issue, it'll cost ~$15K+ to replace. (I speak from very recent experience). But the school district is what a lot of folks there would consider good, the lot has a ton of landscaping potential and the photos show a house (finished floors, consistent paint, new fixtures) that appears to be move-in ready.

Good luck. Let us know what happens!

So removed the link just in case. We placed a bid today. Will let y'all know. But don't want you showing up at my house uninvited hehe.

They wanted bids by 5pm today so I assume we'll find out something by Monday.

Interesting bit is they don't want to leave until June. So we're shooting for last week of May closing and letting them stay 2 weeks. So that gives us a week or two to get our house on market and still line up with that late closing hopefully.

Good luck, bud.

Chairman_Mao wrote:

the whole PNW is ridiculous. We're closing in on 3x our purchase price 8 years ago.

Average home price in my neighborhood has went up by almost 10k since I moved here… 2 & 1/2 months ago.

Interest rates have really shot up high in the last 4 weeks. I think we're going to see house prices drop significantly by the end of the year.

astralplaydoh wrote:

Interest rates have really shot up high in the last 4 weeks. I think we're going to see house prices drop significantly by the end of the year.

Sure, significantly from their all-time highs, which will still be much higher than what normal real estate appreciation is.

My house has gone up $100K+ in the 3.3 years since I bought it. If it drops $50K (which is a lot), that's still a nice appreciation.

astralplaydoh wrote:

Interest rates have really shot up high in the last 4 weeks. I think we're going to see house prices drop significantly by the end of the year.

Eh, I dunno. Mortgage rates are still in the historically low 4/5 percent range -- which is where they were when I bought my house 20+ years ago.

I think the fact that people don't have money is the thing that'll bring house prices back down in most places. Or maybe not. There's some evidence that corporate purchases of homes is inflating the current bubble. When that thing pops because they can't find enough people to pay their stupidly high rents, watch out.

Yeah our first mortgage was 3.something so I was kind of shocked our pre-approval last month was 4.5. Guess it's still low but not as low as 7 years ago.

Stele wrote:

Yeah our first mortgage was 3.something so I was kind of shocked our pre-approval last month was 4.5. Guess it's still low but not as low as 7 years ago.

Yeah, but the mortgage i signed 9 months ago was still at the 3% level.

That rise didn't happen over 7 years - it happened in less than a year.

Well the 290k house we bid on this weekend apparently sold for 350. Our bid was... not that high.

There's one more "coming soon" that sounds promising but no pictures yet. Also list 290 but at least we know what that means now heh.

That 290 one wasn't as nice once we saw it so no bid. Went to 2 other houses last weekend that weren't really what we wanted.

But today our realtor sent us a perfect one. Another bid placed! Find out in a day or two.

If you don't want to go all in on a high number bid, ask your realtor to put in an escalating bid, starting at 290k up to 350k with 10k steps.

This means that your initial bid is 290k, but that you will beat any higher real offer up to 350k. So if nobody bids on it, you still get it for 290k.

Also, a caveat. Make sure your realtor checks to see if the selling realtor will accept escalating bids.

Yeah our realtor is on it. We bought our current house with him 7 years ago.

Market is just stupid right now. We saw the house and it was great, checked all out boxes. So bid 20k over list last night, right at the top of what he thinks it will appraise for. And got outbid by 25k today.

He's trying to keep us from having to pull 20k more out of pocket that the loan won't cover or end up underwater on a house in a couple years. Just a lot of dumb people out there apparently.

Patience...

Escalating bids might work in a buyer's market. In a seller's market like we have right now, they just say "have all offers in by end of the day Saturday (or whatever day)" and then weigh them against the each other and accept one. There is no real back-and-forth.

Stele, we were in the same place as you last year and after getting outbid by crazy numbers and waived-inspection cash offers on six different houses we gave up and decided to just wait longer. We had one house that we saw that had a drive up curb offer that was over list before it was even open for showings. It is stupid.

Yep, there's a lot of "all offers by 5pm on Friday/Saturday" going on lately. Our guy says most of the time it's been 3-5 bids before you end up getting accepted. We shall see.

We're cramped on space now. But our oldest won't start school until Aug 2024, so we're not under severe time pressure. Feels like we might get luckier near end of summer after people who have kids in school are done moving.

Or we may end up waiting. But there's not exactly a bunch of contractors sitting around with free time and going through any type of home addition/renovation while trying to work from home doesn't seem like a good idea for me. So we pretty much have to move at some point.

Yup, we bought last summer, only just slightly less bonkers than now, but in Seattle, so extra bonkers.

Any time there was waived inspections, we walked. Any time the bidding got out of hand, we walked.

This market needs patience. Eventually we found a house that only had one other bidder.

Can I just say installing moulding is a pain in the ass? It is not hard, (although definitely measure three times before cutting!) it is just tedious. Have to be very exact on cuts, then the sanding, multiple coats painting on both the face and the edges, then more sanding, then glue and nail it up, then more sanding on the nail holes, then fill all the holes, then caulk the edges, then paint the holes and where you sanded and where you caulked. Repeat for every piece of trim. I am doing about 100 linear feet over 11 different pieces and it just takes forever.

Can I just say that you're a legend for doing your own moulding?

F that sh*t

Moggy wrote:

Can I just say that you're a legend for doing your own moulding?

F that sh*t

I second this.

Hobear wrote:
Moggy wrote:

Can I just say that you're a legend for doing your own moulding?

F that sh*t

I second this.

Thirded! Since becoming a homeowner I have learned the value of both DIY and outsourcing certain tasks with zero hesitation.

I lucked out when I did the molding in my basement because my wife's uncle is a contractor. He had the whole thing done in about an hour or two.

I can do baseboard and shoe. That's not the issue. I hate caulking, but have gotten good at it over the years. The thing I can't wrap my head around and had to pay a finish carpenter to do for me? Casement around doors, uggh.