The Home-ownership Thread

[Tondas]

4 hours ago, matter2003 said:

Also some of the WORST advice people give is to pay off the mortgage early...DO NOT DO THIS!! Its a fools errand...on average the market returns 8% a year. If you take this extra money you could be investing and use it to pay down the mortgage you are giving up the difference between 8% and your mortgage rate AND the compound interest you would be earning on top of it. Your goal with money should be to maximize your long term worth and you will NEVER do this by paying off low interest things early at the expense of investing that money into higher earning interest things.

 

If you are  a younger person this is sound advice.  As you get closer to retirement, you tend to get more conservative in your investments (or at least you should).  I'm 57 and retired.  My goal is to have Social Security (at age 70) and a modest pension from the government pay for all my monthly expenses.  Both of these income sources are inflation protected.  Therefore, since I have an excess in my 401(k) now, I will use it to pay off the principle in my house to be debt free in retirement and ensure my lifestyle until I die or the Sabres win the Cup (whichever comes first).  This also eliminates the RMD hassle at 70 1/2 and keeps my social security money from becoming taxable.  My wife and I have no kids so we are not concerned about leaving anyone any money (novel concept, no?).  There is great peace of mind (OT: great Boston song) in this strategy knowing my wife and I will have financial security for life.  (And yes, I do have an HSA, Long Term care Insurance and Roth IRAs that will protect and pay for any medical expenses in retirement.

Bottom line, good advice from @matter2003 but realize that your strategy may change as you approach retirement. 

Edited April 20, 2019 by Tondas

[The Jokeman]

On 3/21/2019 at 6:46 PM, Wyldnwoody44 said:

Finally getting my travel wall together, it's been a month in the works, prolly about 250$ spent so far, I still have some things to fill out, thinking of doing an 18x18 compass decal in the bottom left with a saying, idk what yet. Then maybe 15-20 more frames and pics and I think it'll be set. 

Did you finally finish this? As it looks great! 

[Wyldnwoody44]

2 hours ago, The Jokeman said:

Did you finally finish this? As it looks great! 

Thanks! I'm still putting the finishing touches up on it 

[Doohicksie]

On 4/20/2019 at 2:58 PM, Tondas said:

If you are  a younger person this is sound advice.

Also it's only sound advice if you're going to actually invest the money.

[Sabres Fan in NS]

An update ...

You guys and gals should be watching for a news headline ...

*Mr. and Mrs. NS arrested for the murder of real estate agent*

That's all.

[Doohicksie]

Oh that sucks.

Things worked out for us, but we definitely had our doubts about the agents were were working with as we worked through the process.

[Sabres Fan in NS]

3 hours ago, Doohickie said:

Oh that sucks.

Things worked out for us, but we definitely had our doubts about the agents were were working with as we worked through the process.

We don't have time to deal with BS, especially since the Canadian tax deadline is a few days away.

There is an issue with the septic inspection that we will be able to work out with the sellers, in spite of both agents.

[Doohicksie]

[Sabres Fan in NS]

Looks like I picked the wrong time to give up smokes ...

+++++

Don't worry I have not and won't, but the stress is killing us.  Our realtor is causing undo pains in our *****.

We are almost there.

[Doohicksie]

In our case we were waiting for the other shoe to drop with the house we were selling.  I thought the buyer was going to low-ball us at the last minute (based on inspection results).  In the end, they just didn't care.

There was also a bit of a conflict of interest with the agents on the sale of our old house.  It was complicated and I didn't trust them.  My suspicions were unfounded as it turned out.

Edited April 26, 2019 by Doohickie

[Sabres Fan in NS]

Our inspector found a suspected leak at the seam of the septic tank.  Fortunately, it is believed to be slow and at the seam, which means none of the real yucky stuff would leak out.  So, no real risk of soil contamination.

We just submitted a final amendment after a week of calls and asking and people going on site to split the cost of a septic tank replacement 50/50.  The work to be done by our contractors after closing.  That is a bit risky, but after talking with many, many pros we feel comfortable with it.  The seller has until 5:00 PM tomorrow Halifax time (they are in Germany) to sign the amendment, counter, or not sign it.  If they counter we have advice from our lawyer as to want adjustments would be acceptable.  If they do not sign it and agree to the split and terms of replacement we have the right to kill the deal.  My wife and I have decided that we have too much invested already (both time and $) to kill the deal at this point.

The realtors really made it more complicated than it needed to be with the sellers agent's septic guy (not the sellers themselves, mind you) said that it could be repaired.  He is the only one in the whole province that thought a repair would work and he was proposing to do it from the outside of the tank, which would never work.

Anyway, on a half million dollar deal (boy is that scary when you type it out) we are all going to be surprised if the seller does not sign the amendment.  Not at this point and not over $2,500.

Now I actually have some serious tax work to get to ... ha, ha!!

Edited April 26, 2019 by New Scotland (NS)
what I type never makes any sense atol ...

[Sabres Fan in NS]

Logged in during a thunderstorm to say that our deal just went ...

FIRM!!

[spndnchz]

1 hour ago, New Scotland (NS) said:

Logged in during a thunderstorm to say that our deal just went ...

FIRM!!

??

I like firm deals.

[Doohicksie]

35 minutes ago, spndnchz said:

??

I like firm deals.

That's what she said. 

[Sabres Fan in NS]

For the first time in what seems like forever we slept well and woke without knowing we had to deal with this, or that, some deadline, or other.

The sweet sleep of victory, not that this was especially adversarial.  I really believe that if we could have met the sellers at the house over coffee we would have had a deal in place on a handshake in about half an hour.  I often think that realtors are around to just muddy the waters and get paid a whole lot of $ to do nothing atol, but make problems.  Fortunately, in our case calmer heads prevailed.

Thanks for all the support and good wishes.  You guys and gals are the bestest.

[sabills]

Anyone have a suggestion for duct cleaning in WNY? Looking to get ours done.

[Sidc3000]

On ‎4‎/‎28‎/‎2019 at 11:57 AM, New Scotland (NS) said:

For the first time in what seems like forever we slept well and woke without knowing we had to deal with this, or that, some deadline, or other.

The sweet sleep of victory, not that this was especially adversarial.  I really believe that if we could have met the sellers at the house over coffee we would have had a deal in place on a handshake in about half an hour.  I often think that realtors are around to just muddy the waters and get paid a whole lot of $ to do nothing atol, but make problems.  Fortunately, in our case calmer heads prevailed.

Thanks for all the support and good wishes.  You guys and gals are the bestest.

I'm glad to hear that you were able to get the deal closed.  We're currently selling our house also here in Virginia.  It went up on the market early April and two offers (which we accepted one) were tendered before the weeks end.  Everything was going swimmingly until Friday, hours after we closed on our brand new house.  Our agent received an email, out of the blue, from a lender stating that they needed to set up an appraisal for the house we're selling.  Since one was already completed for the buyer, my agent was skeptical.  well, it turns out, that the financing that our buyers were working on fell through (I guess they were trying some sort of Fed backed product that is very finicky) and had to go with a different lender.  I guess that wasn't a big enough deal for their agent to contact ours to explain the situation and to let us know that we will not be closing this Friday.....  Now I about to have a stroke worrying about if this deal falls though and the fear of having two mortgages.   

[Sabres Fan in NS]

9 hours ago, Sidc3000 said:

I'm glad to hear that you were able to get the deal closed.  We're currently selling our house also here in Virginia.  It went up on the market early April and two offers (which we accepted one) were tendered before the weeks end.  Everything was going swimmingly until Friday, hours after we closed on our brand new house.  Our agent received an email, out of the blue, from a lender stating that they needed to set up an appraisal for the house we're selling.  Since one was already completed for the buyer, my agent was skeptical.  well, it turns out, that the financing that our buyers were working on fell through (I guess they were trying some sort of Fed backed product that is very finicky) and had to go with a different lender.  I guess that wasn't a big enough deal for their agent to contact ours to explain the situation and to let us know that we will not be closing this Friday.....  Now I about to have a stroke worrying about if this deal falls though and the fear of having two mortgages.   

That is terrible and stressful. 

We are carrying both houses for as little time as possible, which is scary enough, but we are extremely fortunate to not have a mortgage on our first home.

I hope it all works out for you.

[MattPie]

House settled today with no drama, I'm a 100% renter again! I'm out of here to go celebrate!

 

[Ogre]

3 hours ago, MattPie said:

House settled today with no drama, I'm a 100% renter again! I'm out of here to go celebrate!

 

I’m glad you’re so stoked. I’m also sorry it didn’t work out for you. I could use that same gif to show how happy I am with owning a home. 

Two beers for you!

[MattPie]

3 hours ago, Ogre said:

I’m glad you’re so stoked. I’m also sorry it didn’t work out for you. I could use that same gif to show how happy I am with owning a home. 

Two beers for you!

Heh, thanks! I didn't entirely hate being a homeowner, but it's really nice to walk out my door, see the weeds in the grass and think, "*so* not my problem".

[shrader]

Last year we planted 3 azaleas right around this time.  During the winter 2 out of the 3 got attacked pretty badly by I'm assuming rabbits (even though they're supposed to be toxic for rabbits).  The bounced back decently in the early spring once I put up some fencing.  10 days or so ago, right before we left for our week in Jamaica, they were all starting to flower a bit.  When we got back home on sunday, that one that went untouched was like nothing I've ever seen before.  It was essentially 100% flowers, a giant pink ball.  I hope the other two will catch up with a year of solid growth with no more rabbit massacres.  That little corner of the backyard will look amazing if they can.

[spndnchz]

3 hours ago, shrader said:

Last year we planted 3 azaleas right around this time.  During the winter 2 out of the 3 got attacked pretty badly by I'm assuming rabbits (even though they're supposed to be toxic for rabbits).  The bounced back decently in the early spring once I put up some fencing.  10 days or so ago, right before we left for our week in Jamaica, they were all starting to flower a bit.  When we got back home on sunday, that one that went untouched was like nothing I've ever seen before.  It was essentially 100% flowers, a giant pink ball.  I hope the other two will catch up with a year of solid growth with no more rabbit massacres.  That little corner of the backyard will look amazing if they can.

Win!

[Sabres Fan in NS]

We went to our banks yesterday and moved some of our money around.  Had a $115,000 draft in my pocket for the longest ever 2 minute walk to our main bank.

Then walked the even longer / longest 5 minute walk from that bank to our lawyer's office with 1 draft for $185,000 and another for $25,000 in my pocket.

Signed all the docs at our lawyer's office.

We are good for our walk through on Wednesday morning.  If all is good we call the lawyer to close the deal and send the money.

In NS every property is being 'migrated' to a new central registry system, which can be done at anytime, but must be and is usually done when a property sells.  It takes about 3 weeks for the process to run it's course and we had about 4 weeks between offer acceptance and closing.  We could not close on this deal without it being done.  As of yesterday our lawyer said that it was not finalized.  We just got word from our agent that he was told that the sellers lawyer (who did the migration) has been notified by the province that it will be completed Monday.

 

[calti]

On 4/20/2019 at 11:36 AM, New Scotland (NS) said:

In Canada we are not subject to capital gains tax when selling a principal residence, so it is always best to pay the mortgage off ASAP.

In the States, I do not think there is that same capital gain exemption, but the only reason why I would not pay off my mortgage ASAP is that the interest is tax deductible.

+++++

We are making our way through the condition process on our purchase.  Things are going well.  One thing showed up on the septic inspection and one thing on the house inspection.  Neither are deal breakers, but after talking with a neighbour who just happens to be a septic system engineer I feel a lot calmer about the whole situation.  We are going to sit down and talk about it, but we will likely make an amendment to the deal and split the repair amounts 50/50.  Our condition day is Wednesday the 24th and they will all be met.

We are getting there.

in the usa there IS capital gains exemption on primary residence...250k for single 500k for married couple