Scholarship table
Glad to see you're predictions played out to your benefit. Can I borrow a buck?
Sure.
Ah hell. Keep this up and people will start expecting to be able to access Scoop for free!
Yep. My daughter and her husband have a couple of rental properties, and they say some of the best value they get is in the tax treatment of the properties.
I bought a house in 2007 - just before the real estate crash. When I sold it 11 years later, I made a very modest gain. About 1.5% annual return if you include the commission. I likely would have had to sell at a loss if I had sold it any time within the first five or six years of ownership. But we loved the house. If I had it all over, I wouldn’t have changed a thing. (I did make a killing on the house I sold to buy the one back in 2007. So that eases the pain a little.)
You gotta live somewhere. I never thought of my house as primarily an investment. It was primarily a place to live. If it grew in value, great. If it didn't, NBD.
Maybe we could use housing not as an investment vehicle?
The market by us has cooled, but inventory is still quite low. At least buyers generally aren’t going over 20-50K over ask, with waiving inspection…I think buyers have more leverage than they did a few months back, and if houses sit more than 2-3 weeks you’ll see price reductions.
If you are open to the idea of buying an older home that has not been updated in a very long time, you may find a really good deal, even in this market. Many buyers lack the imagination to see beyond dated and often ugly paint colors, wallpaper, flooring, cabinets etc. in older homes. Other buyers simply do not want to deal with major remodeling. It is not for the faint of heart. If you are up to the challenge, the end result after a remodel would be having a home just the way you want it. You mentioned being in a month-to-month rental. You and your family could stick it out 2-3 more months while you remodel or have it done by a contractor. Your kids could decide what they want their rooms to look like. Of course, you would need to act fast to beat out the flippers.
If you are going to go this route, you had better be capable of doing a lot of the upgrades yourself, or in a lot of places, be willing to either wait or pay a premium. Hiring contractors is a bitch right now. In my area, you can't even get contractors to come out and give a quote. A neighbor of mine has given up on local companies and is paying a premium to bring in contractors from 100 miles away.
I assume you've looked into this, but remember to depreciate your rental property.https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/060815/how-rental-property-depreciation-works.asp
What are the thoughts on waiving the inspection for newer builds?
TAMUI do know, Newsie is right on you knowing ball.
The house we're renting has an atrocious driveway, it needs to be torn up and repaved. My landlords agreed to do something about it but were having trouble finding someone who could do it for a reasonable price and in a reasonable timeframe. Eventually, they got a referral from their handyman and found a guy who said he could do it for cheap and right away. We told our landlords that this sounded too good to be true. They put 50% down and now it's been three weeks since they were supposed to start and they haven't been able to get ahold of the guy or the handyman who referred them. Now they're out a few thousand and we have to deal with an atrocious driveway
We sold our Illinois home yesterday (second sale since April) and now own but one house in Florida. Some thoughts on the sale process:1) Know your real estate agent well. You are going to have to live with him/her for up to a year. Make sure there is a trust factor. Above all, listen to them on price but verify using Realtor.Com, Zillow.com and Redfin.com.2) Make sure your buyers understand they're buying a used house. There will be issues. In our case, our Chicago home was 38 years old. The buyer, after a bid was accepted, came back with $13,000 of changes. We said "no" but threw something at them to grease the transaction. In short, we're not paying for your renovations.3) I hate HGTV. I hate the concept that everyone has to have a white or gray kitchen and I hate the idea that anything not white is garbage. It's a fad and it too will go away, like avocado colored toilets and earth tones.4) Radon is a scam. Period. End of discussion. Don't trust anyone who uses instrumentation to measure radon. Ask for a calibration report before you allow it into your basement. Remediation is not expensive but a nusiance. Radon is an emotionally charged issue especially for an element that's everywhere.5) Be realistic about pricing. As a seller, we reached for the stars on the Realtor's private network and when that didn't work, we went for the public market at her recommended price. Our's sold and most of the competition around us is still on the market.6) Track comparable homes that go on the market when your's does. We had a spreadsheet and tracked days on market for 15 comparable homes in our area, when they reduced price and how we compared on a price per square foot to all our competition. Due it independent of the real estate agent, so you know before he/she recommends a price reduction.7) Final thought: Because our primary residence is in Florida, we have to pay capital gains on our Illinois sale. Save every receipt you can, just in case. We're not going much, if anything, in capital gains because of that factor. That does not speak well of the Chicago suburban housing market, but it is reality.
We've gone through three sale processes in the past year. A few thoughts on some of these:4) There's a lot of radon in the midwest, but it's a few hundred dollars for the mitigation system. Suck it up, buttercup. We put in a mitigation system, moved into another property that already had one, and purchased a third that didn't need it.