Reminds me of a story... Guy has a big tree in his front yard. Real estate agent convinces him it needs to come down because it is old and an eye sore. He hires a tree cutting company and they cut it down. He comes home to find a large stump in his yard. He calls the company back to complain and they say they only cut down the tree, he will need to call a stump removal company to get the stump out. He does that and they dig it out. He comes home from work and finds the stump gone but a big hole in his front yard. He calls up the stump removal company to complain about the hole and they reply "why don't you plant a tree there?"
They're pretty easy. The hardware can be expensive. I went to tractor supply and got the hardware and spray painted them. Worked great and saved a couple hundred. You can also ask a metal worker to make some and that may be the cheapest route.
Closing on a house in a couple weeks, was planning on staining the hardwood floors and painting the walls before moving all my stuff in, but just got a shoulder injury playing softball where I am not supposed to life anything or move my shoulder at all basically, so that is really going to hamper those plans. How much would it cost to get someone in to paint the walls and stain hardwood floor? House is only about 1155 square feet, and master bedroom has carpet. Hardwood floor is in main family room, kitchen, two downstairs bedrooms. Trying to decide if I just want to hire someone to do it or do it after I move in, which would be more work moving everything around.
Are you in the Detroit area? I can send you the painter I used and the guy who refinished my floors? The painter was really reasonable and did a great job. I had about 1,350 square feet of floors done and it cost around $4,000.
Yea I might be interested. I am unsure on finishing the floors, they are actually in pretty good shape but definitely would like walls painted. I have to see how much money I am going to have to spend on stuff like that. The house doesn't have a dishwasher, and the oven is pretty old so looking to upgrade those two things. It's going to start adding up.
We met with the remodeler for a second time last Friday...his plans were much more grand than ours. x10. For our basement, we were thinking add a basic bathroom and do some cosmetic stuff. His plan for the basement included moving all of our mechanicals, taking out a wall, inserting a metal support beam, turning 4 small windows in to egress, digging out 8 inches of concrete to give us a higher ceiling (I didn't even know this was possible), installing radiant heat, etc. It would give us a huge entertaining and game area with an 80 inch tv. I actually really dig it but our only kid is 7 months old so we're years away from being able to really take advantage of something like that. When we moved in the basement was the one thing I thought could make us move when the kid(s) are teens so it is nice to know it is an option. In the meantime, I think we're likely to move some of the mechanicals in the basement, move the laundry upstairs to our master while redoing the master bath and upstairs kids bath. In the place of the laundry/mechanicals we would add a bathroom in the basement. It will add convenience to both areas and nothing would need to be redone if we do his grand plan down the road. He had a lot of ideas for our main level too but I don't want to touch that right now. We may put in an awesome kitchen down the road but for now I'd rather spend money on areas I think need more help.
Anybody ever cleaned out a refrigerator water line? went to the beach for a week, came back and water in a cup has black shit floating around. Google say disconnect waterline, flush with vinegar, then flush with water. Few questions: will vinegar kill the algae, remove filter when doing the flush, should I use bleach instead?
Might have a filter on the back. The black stuff could be charcoal or something similar. My fridge uses these ... http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00JGVM39A?psc=1
I stained a front porch with an acid stain a few years ago. Actually about to do my screened in porch here in a few weeks. It's really easy for finished concrete. Basically just paint on. I used an earthy semitransparent color that turned out nice.
Finishing up my backyard here shortly I'll try to get some pics up if I can. Anyways, we'll be tearing down an old ass fence along the back and replacing it... I was hoping a windstorm would do that for me. Laying down a 24x14 interlocking brick patio and putting up a 16 foot length privacy fence so I can bang bad bitches back there without the neighbours creeping. Should all be done by this time next month if the patio guy ever catches up to his workload and makes his way over to my place.
Hell of a deal right here. Dewalt Drill, impact, and saw with bag and a charger. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00NHBZ9AA?ref_=gbsl_img_l-1_8122_17ef22b3&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER
that's a smoking deal. I'm about to have to buy two new batteries for my Mikita drill and driver so I'll probably just order this instead
What would be the Seller's agent's incentive to negotiate with you? The Seller is paying that fee, not you, so why wouldn't they tell you to piss off. Unless that property has been on the market for like 300 days or so, and they have to dump it and you are the only option, i'd imagine they would tell you to pound sand. That doesn't sound like your situation. If the seller's agent acts as your agent, they would probably get 4% and the 2 % go back to the seller. Honestly, and no offense to you, but i'd tell you to fuck right off for even asking, if I was the seller. Also, you're not negotiating with the Seller's agent, you are negotiating with the seller because this situation is outlined in the Seller's contract with the Seller's agent.
Seller's agent's incentive is an extra percent. Either the agent's agreement with the seller prohibits working both sides of the deal or it doesn't. If the buyer is generally agreeable to the seller's terms - which can happen often in a market as seller-friendly as DC where the buyer doesn't have much choice if they want to get into the house - then what does the seller care? I'd recommend against it, but it's certainly not unheard of here.
My ac unit for upstairs isn't really working, not keeping it cool. Isn't possible it just needs some maintenance or am I about to pay out the ass?
This. 1% for an average place in DC is 6k. That's a decent incentive. Either they get that 6k or I work with a traditional agent and they don't.
Might need to be recharged, could be the fan motor. Is it blowing but the air is lukewarm? or not blowing at all?
Not sure what you're wanting to spend, but I did this to our patio and love it. I didn't have the stencils so we had to hand tape everything, which can take a while depending on how detailed a design you go with. I couldn't be happier with it. http://www.kolorstone.com/gallery.asp It's pretty expensive to have hired done, around $20 sq/ft, so if you're confident you can do it yourself I would suggest it. Adds a different finished look to concrete that not many people have seen.
Could be as simple as a recharge, freon is expensive as shit right now so still not totally cheap, could be as bad as needing a new compressor. Mine just did something similar the other day, valve went out in the compressor, was blowing air but was about 75 degrees, only about a $40 part.
I bought without an agent. Seller's agents generally love you when you tell them you're not represented because they think they're keeping the full commission, then they HATE you when you when they realize that you're not an idiot. First I asked the seller's agent for cash payment of 3 percent to me at closing. They'd normally tell me that they couldn't do that because they couldn't share their fee with a non-agent. Fair enough. Then I'd explain that they could re-negotiate their fee arrangement with their client. They'd laugh at that. (In retrospect, I'd just skip to step 3). Finally, I'd submit an offer (with numbered pages (1 of 12, not just -1-) so they agent couldn't be a douchebag and only give their client one offer) with two proposed deals. The first was a full offer with a purchase price reduction allocated to me and the second was a reduced offer. I ALWAYS put the full offer first. I also included a schedule showing cash flows in both offers and a brief cover letter describing the situation. For example - say you want to offer 100 for a house and get your 3 of the 6 commission. You offer 100 with a condition that you get 3 back as a purchase price adjustment (so seller gets 97, agent gets 3, and you get 3). Second offer is 97 (seller gets 91.2, agent gets 5.8, you save 3 in the offer). This will absolutely infuriate the agent, but it will work because they have an obligation to present all offers to their client.
We had the same symptoms last year on ours. I can't remember what it was but it cost like $200 to have it fixed but most of that was because it happened on a Sunday and had to pay off hours rates to have it fixed.
That isn't what I said. He was asking for 2% to be given directly to him, beyond the 4% for the seller's agent.. Why would the seller do that? There is no reason whatsoever to do that.
Who do you guys use for insurance? Fiance and I are with state farm for home and auto. I personally think we pay too much for our stuff.
AHebrewToo showed the mechanics of it. The agents' 6% (typically split in half between the seller's agent and the buyer's agent) comes from the seller. Thus, it doesn't cost the seller anything and the seller's agent can still make more than he/she would if the buyer had an agent. And, if the seller says no, it costs the buyer nothing to go and get an agent, so the seller is going to pay the full 6% no matter what.
They're geographically limited so I'm not sure if you can get them, but I've had great rates and great service from Erie for car and home insurance. Haven't made a claim yet, though.
If the seller's agent represents both parties, it is generally in the contract at 4%. He was asking for an additional 2% to go to him directly, which would then come from the seller directly, not the agent.
Been redoing my house myself a little at a time. It is a newer house but the previous owners that built it did not splurge for any nicer extras when they built it. I will eventually put down granite countertops when I find some my wife and I can agree on, but in the meantime I painted the old countertops and also painted the cabinets to a distressed antique look and changed out the hardware. I added in the backsplash and redid the flooring too. I am in the process now of redoing the back yard. The people that lived there before got a divorce and the woman let the yard go to shit, so it has been a two year process getting the yard back looking good. I will post some pics of my progress with it this evening.
Those are painted counter tops? They look fantastic and I love the wine shelving. My landlord/seller backed out of selling me my rental house. I was planning to resurface the counters with the epoxy (similiar to garage floors) that we are using in apartments nowadays as it was going to become my first rental house in 6-12 months.
How did everyone address closing costs? I'm expecting ballpark 3% and attempting to structure the seller paying most, if not all. I don't want to dump all my money into fees, I'd rather keep my liquidity for the next house, improvements, and finance everything I can since money is cheap.
Thank you. Yes, I used the Giani Countertop stuff. It works really well and pretty easy to use. Comes all in a kit for like $70.00. The wine rack is just from a pallet that I cut.
I'm not in real estate and have no idea what the industry standard is, but that's not the case in standard DC area contracts. It's 6 (or occasionally 5) percent no matter what the representation situation is. Either way, the buyer can go get an agent for free and kick the fee up to 6%, so it still doesn't cost the seller anything to agree to have the agent represent both.
It's 4% standard in Arizona contracts. but the bolded part wouldn't do the buyer any benefit anyway as he wouldn't get his 2% regardless. The original scenario was for him to be dual represented and try to get the 2%"difference." Either way he goes, he isn't getting 2%. As I originally said, if he asked for 2% i'd tell him to pound sand and if he sought another agent and cost me the 2% (up to 6% from 4% dual rep) then I would reject his offer out of spite (i'm a hard-headed asshole anyway.)
It is cost-neutral to the seller and eliminates the chance the seller has to put up with a shitty buyer's agent. That's a weird thing to get spiteful over. Why on earth would you turn down a higher net offer just because of the way the buyer wants to structure the offer?
Well, #1 because the buyer is causing you to pay 2% more. and #2, see #1. Again, it's not cost Neutral. But whatever. He's not getting his 2% anyway, so i'm done lol.
You're clearly not understanding. AHebrewToo laid it out clearly. If they aren't able to pay you the 2% directly then you just reduce your offer by that amount. It's a net win for everyone, including the srller's agent that initially thought he was walking into a huge windfall.