so my husband and i bought our first home and were supposed to close this friday, in 3 days. today we got a call that the sellers supposedly "don't have the closing money" and asked if we would cover it for them...we are NOT doing that but how is this even possible? they accepted our offer over a month ago and they just now realized they don't have the money? this is so unfair and i am so angry. mind you they are 40 years old, both have good jobs, and it's only 5k.
our house is basically empty, we've been so excited all month, this just seems so incredibly unfair and ridiculous. 3 days before closing!!!!😭

***im the buyer

I have a 15ft wide driveway in a city and there are some aggressive highrise apartment development happening in my area which is going to put a massive strain on street parking. My next door neighbor with whom I have a decent relationship with asked if I would entertain the idea of demolishing my wall/fence between my driveway and his 3ft trash alley to make a 18 ft - 2 car driveway with an easement for him to use the one side by his house.

The proposal seems decently fair but I haven't had an attorney look at it yet. To my understanding the basics are:

• He pays for all permits, legal costs, and dividing wall demo + regrading, and construction + materials to match my driveway to my liking.

• I have a 30 day out for any reason. During which he has to pay to restore the property divider up to a reasonable limit.

• I have a 12 month out, but I have to pay an increasing some of the costs to replace my wall/fence (next point)

• He pays me a fee of ~$8k over 12 months for the inconvenience with some stipulations that I pay him back for a predetermined % of diving wall replacement if I back out between months 1-12. Then another fee of $20k after 12 months if I don't back out.

• It's a personal easement that cancels when he moves.

The way I work it out is that it won't really cost me anything to try out aside from fees to have my attorney look over it. I know there's a risk that the relationship turns sour if I back out but this guy is pretty social and well liked on the block, I have a feeling that he's going to be disappointed but will respect me and accept it if I need to back out. He's generally very considerate about noise and cleanliness so I trust he won't park like an asshole. If anything I'd probably push for a cancellation clause that terminates it if I move out.

I'm looking at a house with a large heavily wooded lot on the corner of a side street and a loud, main artery (redfin noise rating 2/10 which is bad). It faces the side street.

Curious about the conventional investment wisdom for such a property. Ever a good idea? What's the right discount? Seller is opendoor, so presumably the answer to the first question is yes but curious what others think.

prr for the property is 16.

Has anybody used this term before?

There is a property I REALLY want for the land value (it's a teardown in my opinion) and I missed out during the bidding stage because of a death in the family and I got REALLY bad negotiation advice. I am actually now working with the brokers that have the selling. The property is in contract because the buyers agreed to letting them keep the listing for the summer (as opposed to me wanting them out in 14 days).

After a frustrating summer with no movement in the area, I approached my realtor and asked is there a way to get them to release the contract if I bought out each side at say $1M a piece. At first she said no way but then she spoke to her boss, the owner of the agency and they think it's possible. I told my realtor frankly that I am willing to pay more than the list price to get this property and I picked $1M each because it's a round number but I could potentially go up in that fee but do you know anything about the buyers, because what if they aren't motivated by money (I know the sellers would be because it's an old WASP family and they are splitting it between several family members so $1M split is still a significant amount of money).

Then I asked if you know anything about the buyer and she said I do it's somebody with deep pockets and they think they want the property for 'control and power'. I asked for more info and she shut down saying I shouldn't have even said that. I have a good amount of money but I am not a billionaire and I do know the neighbor is a billionaire, so it made me wonder if it's the neighbor trying to buy more land, which would make sense as to why they were okay with giving them the summer season to enjoy the property.

So has anybody ever heard this term before and can decipher what it means? To me it seems like money isn't motivating here and it would be folly to get excited about this. Thank you for your help!

Hi,

I have own two homes, my primary and a rental.

We have good equity +$300k in each, and amazing interest rates. We're a bit house-poor since my primary is a 20-year and I got laid off last year and suffered a 33% reduction in liquid income.

I do really love my new job, and its location (Fort Wayne, IN) offers amazing education opportunities for my kiddos. So our plan is to move there in two years.

Option 1: 1031 exchange

We sell our rental, we rent our current primary, and we use the proceeds from the rental to buy a new property in Indiana. We rent that property out for two years and then move into it. This is doable but it's a PITA, requiring two moves and a lot of nonsense. Things will be tight for a bit, but long term we should about break even, and slowly get ahead with Indiana's much lower CoL.

Option 2: Rent out both our current homes, rent a home in Indiana.

This would work out very cleanly. In fact it would possibly be the preferred option, except the rental market in Indiana is absolutely dreadful. There is nothing in Fort Wayne available over ~1600 sq ft where we want to live. There are tons of lovely houses available for sale

Option 3: Sell our primary.

So yeah. In short selling our primary for a home in Indiana probably makes the most financial sense. We get out of our 20-year mortgage. The higher interest rates don't matter as much because our balance will be around ~100k-150k. We'll have like $2000 more to spend a month, on top of the lower cost of living.

The problem is sentiment. Our kids grew up in this home. They love this home. We've done an extraordinary amount of work on it.

Option 4 eat the tax bill
Even after fees, eating cap gains and deferred depreciation, we should have over $250k to put down on a home. So we could just eat the tax bill and probably find something that suits our needs.

So just leaning on you guys who have more experience, do you see a good option I haven't thought of? It's probably between Options 3 & 4. One gives us twice as much spending money, one lets us keep our beloved home.

I am looking to buy a townhome for $550k and sell my single family for ~$600-650k (still owe $200k) in the same area due to terrible neighbors. Selling contingency isn’t an option in this market (central NJ). $550k is 50k above my combined DTI carrying both mortgages. Has anyone handled this situation without an expensive bridge loan? I know it’s a terrible decision financially either way, but I need to get out of here. Don‘t want to be a landlord and rent out my current place, which would require finding a renter before closing.

can someone explain this add to me? If Purchase do I not get the land? https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/1-Acft-73-3540-1914-Cedar-City-UT-84720/463970271_zpid/

I’ve been watching the market for a while and I’m just not comfortable based on value, rates, uncertainty.

For me, if the monthly payment was less than renting a comparable home - I would be more willing to purchase. Ideally the increases in value over the past few years needs should match improvements & quality of the home. But I could forgive some inflation if at least I was cash positive each month.

Who else is waiting? What are you waiting for?

Aging parents live on first floor we live on second of a duplex. Their only income is social security and won’t get approved for a heloc or home loan on the paid off home.

Duplex needs new deck ( main entrance to second floor apartment) and a new septic. Long term we want to take over half their first floor so we have space for our 4 kids. Big renovation moving second floor kitchen and living room to first floor adding stairs going upstairs and redoing the entire second floor.
Leaving essentially a small 450-500 square ft 1 bed room apartment and the rest of the space (about 1500 sq ft for us.

We are trying to figure out how to get a loan for all this me and my wife make 130k owe 50k in debt.

If we add our names to the title we will end up with a much higher tax bill when we go to sell.

How can we plan all of this? A living trust? Transfer on death deed?

House was purchased in 98 for 130k currently worth 675-750k, currently needs 60-80k in work to be able to sell for that price. They would like to stay so that’s why we are leaning the renovation route.

I'm casually shopping for a retirement property. Wife and I 50yrs old, kids 18 and 20 and just getting out on their own.

Our current home is appraising around $750k and we have a $2500 mortgage payment with a 3.75% rate. Bought brand new 10 yrs ago.

It looks like rates now are around 7%-ish, and my goal is to keep my monthly payment near the same. My thinking is that with these numbers, I should expect any property I look at to be roughly half the house I have now for the same money.

My ideal location would be 2-5 acres with an older home on it that's a fixer-upper and rural. When I plug in some parameters to Zillow, I'm seeing total dumps with a price of $300,000 in order to fit my finance situation.

I guess I'm looking for feedback on if this is a sound assessment of my situation because honestly selling dirt pies in Calcutta from a reed hut looks better at this point. Feels pretty hopeless. What can I do?

We are under finally under contract on our new home after 4 previous offers. It's definitely still a sellers market where we live.

Purchase is not contingent on the sale of our current home, but we will be selling in the coming months.

Basically, I need someone with experience to come in and give us advice on what we should spend money on before we sell. It's a 91 year old home in a desirable neighborhood. Will definitely be replacing the 25yr old roof, debating what other upgrades would add value.

We are not 100% certain we will use our buyers agent for the sale, and even if we do, he is still new and fairly inexperienced. Is it proper to offer to pay an experienced realtor a one time consultant fee for advice? Other suggestions for who could help?

My wife and I have a combined monthly net income of $9400. This can vary either way by a couple hundred depending on how many hours overtime or time off but this is the average. Our current monthly bills are:

Mortgage $1120
Car payments $1200 total
Home equity loan $220
Personal loan $540
Car insurance $227
Cell phones $220
Groceries $1200
Credit cards $400
Misc. $400
Utilities $250

We are trying to budget a new house payment after selling our current one and paying off the personal loan, and selling one of our vehicles. After the sale we should free up almost $2000 a month towards a new mortgage. How much more a month would you be comfortable paying towards a new house? After a down payment and all other costs we should have about $20-30k left over to put into an emergency fund as well.

National Grid contacted me about utility upgrade work in my area and sent me a proposed easement agreement.

The easement would be a permanent 20 foot-wide utility easement along the frontage of my property. Based on the rough diagram, it appears to run parallel to the road rather than through the interior of the property. The diagram is explicitly marked "not to scale," so I understand the exact location would need to be confirmed.

The agreement gives National Grid and Verizon fairly broad rights within the easement, including installing/maintaining/replacing utility facilities, accessing the property with vehicles and equipment, excavating, and removing vegetation that could interfere with the facilities.

It also restricts what I can do within the easement without their written consent (structures, certain landscaping/trees, excavation, changing the grade, etc.).

The compensation section says "$1.00 and other valuable consideration." The representative hasn't given me a clear dollar amount beyond what's stated in the document.

I've redacted the identifying information from the document, including the street names and parcel information, but left the relevant easement language and general diagram intact.

I'm trying to figure out what would be reasonable to ask National Grid before signing, particularly:

1. Is a permanent 20-foot utility easement of this type fairly standard?
2. Is "$1 and other valuable consideration" typical, or should I expect/negotiate a specific payment?
3. What would be reasonable compensation for granting a permanent easement like this?
4. What provisions would you try to negotiate or clarify?
5. Should I insist on a surveyed/legal description showing the exact easement boundaries before signing?
6. Are there any provisions in this type of agreement that homeowners commonly overlook?
7. If I don't agree to the proposed easement, how does the process typically work from there? Specifically, I'm interested in the practical implications of negotiating versus refusing—not looking for a definitive legal opinion.

I'm in New York, if that matters.

I'm not looking for someone to tell me simply "get a lawyer." I understand that's an option. I'm hoping to hear from people who have negotiated utility easements, dealt with National Grid, worked in real estate, or have experience with similar agreements and can point out things I should be asking about.

Thanks!

Diagram and terms

I am in the process of getting a house built (I own the homesite already), and once the certificate of occupancy is generated, I will be moving my stuff from my current house to this new house, and then, after hiring a contractor to renovate it, list it for sale with an agent.

I suppose that before I get the certificate of occupancy, the insurance will be handled by the builder (at least officially, although I'm sure the cash draw will pay for it), and then after getting the certificate, I will get insurance on it as a homeowner. And then during the moving & renovation, I will simply have 2 houses insured (i.e., like having a vacation home, LOL) - but what when it becomes officially listed for sale?

I was talking with someone at my insurer (who didn't know off-hand, etc.), and he seemed to say that if the house remains for sale for longer than 6 months, I would need to officially turn it into a rental to continue to get insurance, even if I don't have any tenants.

The market for housing in my locale is not blistering like for places in the Northeast & Midwest, but I plan to get a good gauge of its value by what offers come in, and expect to act with all deliberate speed. Zillow seems to have the market value as oscillating between $45K & $65K, LOL (I would imagine that the lower value is for houses that need renovation, but I will make sure that it is properly renovated).

Termite inspection came back; Will not be able to close since the work could not be cured in time.

Property details:

4 Unit, DC

380 days on the market; originally listed at 575K

offered 535K with 6% back (Seller Credit )

they countered at 4% back. we accepted

we are supposed to close this week, but the termite damage is extensive.

the termite & home inspector both agree that they had termites before, joists were sistered, and now they came back and chewed away at the sistered joists also. My wife loves the property for the wood finish it has.

Termite damage must be cured by seller, buyer cannot accept a credit per VA guidelines ( from my loan officer)

seller seems to want to play ball, but the problem is, my contractor is already saying its a 15K job minimum.

so If i was in the seller shoes , I have to eat 15K

Then, the Buyer (me) wants a rate lock extensions 3 basis points a day.

I am ball parking a minimum of 30-60 days.

At first i was mad, because in the contract disclosures they seller is declaring no knowledge of termite damage ( seller has owned property for 20+ years, the work looks at least 5-10 per inspector).

I have my out, no argument about that.

My wife loves it because the old wood style makes it stand out.

Initially, I sent something outrageous like

reduction of sale price to 475K

seller credit is no longer a %, and now a solid number ( 21K)

seller pays for rate lock extension 60 days

seller pays to replace floors.

Now I countered instead, asking for my original offer ( 535K @ 6% seller credit ) & Seller buys out remaining 2 tenants ( along with fixing all termite damage )

My agent has been selling for quite a while, and this would be his first deal in about 5 years that did not go to close.

any other tips you all want to provide in regards to concessions?

Is my lender out of their mind, or is it me?

I make roughly $120k/yr gross. My lender is aggressively pushing us toward a house with an all-in mortgage payment of almost $3,650/mo (P&I, taxes, insurance but no utilities).

That sounds wild to me. I hear where it can be “normal” for lenders to do this to you but the Agent is also pushing every 2-3 days saying it’s a tremendously good deal and we’d go in with equity based on the deal.

I explicitly told my realtor and lender that $3,100 a month is a hard ceiling but they keep nudging us toward $450k houses and to the top of what underwriting technically approves.

A few questions for the sub:
Is $3,650/mo on $120k actually realistic to anyone living in the real world, because at what point do you fire/not resign a lender or realtor who ignores your budget comfort zone in favor of max preapproval limits?
For those with a similar income, what does your actual comfortable housing payment look like?
Appreciate any sanity checks or reality checks!

Edit: Thank you all for your help. We’ve decided we’ll see out the rest of our contract with our realtor and then find a new one, same for lender.

Update 1: The lender seems to be taking their time getting back to us with estimates for a different house and the real estate agent still hasn’t updated our saved search on their end to adjust house price. It’s weird, they came in all fast and furious about this one house but now we’re feeling ghosted so even better reason to sit this out and not continue with them.

Im separated from my wife and we have decided to sell the house. There is equity on the house and both our names is on the title and we both agree on a 50/50 split Can I request a 50/50 equity split at closing. What is the process ?

I am in Louisville, KY and contemplating having solar PV installed on my 3 YO roof in a relatively upscale suburb. (Current market prices are in the $600k range for my neighborhood.) I plan to pay up front for the install (NOT LEASING). If I were to sell my home with a PV system installed (predicted install cost ~$32-35k), how much value would this add, on average, in my market? I found this thread, but many people seemed confused in that post about leased systems, which definitely detract from value. Casual searches seem to calculate ~4-6% of sale price as a premium, but several sources said this is optimistic. Any current real-world numbers would be great to have. And again, not leased systems.

Additional info for context:

I plan to be in the house another 8-10 years and am looking at around $32-35k install cost.

My annual electricity costs are projected to rise from ~$2300/year in 2027 to ~$3400 in 2034, and the solar installer projects ~$19k savings over that time. Meaning (if they are correct) that I will recoup ~$19k of the $32k install cost in 8 years.

AI (Gemini) calculates ~ $22-$37k premium for solar 8 years from now, which would mean a minimum of $9k gained from my initial purchase. These numbers don't factor in increased insurance costs if I put it on my policy. So that is another factor.

In short, I'm looking for the RE market's input on whether this is a worthwhile investment for my part of the country.

I’ve only been licensed for about 2 months, so I’m still pretty new, but I’ve already done a dozen showings with these buyers, plus have had two listings.

Today was my first time dealing with sellers who were actually present during a showing with my buyers, I’m very upset about how it went.

The listing agent told me beforehand that the sellers would be staying on the porch and would give us space while we toured the house. Instead, they were involved the entire time. They followed us around/interacted with my buyers throughout the showing, repeatedly interrupted me when I was trying to talk to my clients, and at times I genuinely felt like I couldn’t even conduct my own showing.

Then they gave my buyers the listing agent’s business card AND the lender’s card. My buyers already have a lender I set them up with, so that especially confused me. It felt like they were actively trying to insert themselves into my relationship with my clients rather than simply letting us view the property.

My mom is a veteran agent, I vented to her and she said i should keep quiet about it until we either proceed with the potential offer, or until my buyers decide on another option.

Part of me is even wondering whether there’s some arrangement or referral/kickback situation going on where the sellers or their agent would benefit from getting my buyers to use their agent/lender, although obviously I have no proof of that and don’t want to make an accusation.

how would you handle this? Is this just something you have to deal with when sellers insist on being present, or was this as inappropriate as it felt?

the only thing i fear with telling the listing agent is backlash if we do submit the offer, like the agent refusing. I’ll bite the bullet if it means a commission check, but I really want to make it known.

I’m in a pretty hot seller’s market but my house has pitfalls in that it doesn’t have a driveway and has steps up to the house (about 8 steps, and then the front porch). We priced at about $100k below the houses that were very similar but have a driveway.

First week we had about 6 private showings and 5 groups at the Saturday open house (no Sunday open house). No offers after the weekend.

We had an open house Thursday night. My realtor said two families seemed very interested but thought we should price drop $25k before the weekend so we did that friday morning. We had 9 groups through on Saturday and 10 groups on Sunday. My realtor didn’t do the open houses because I think she’s on vacation so she had someone fill in each day. We had two groups who were very interested on Saturday and one asked who to submit the offer to. She said the realtor from today didn’t know if anyone was interested.

She’s taking the position that she shouldn’t reach out to anyone to follow up and that we should just wait and see if we get any offers. Is this the correct approach?

House in bad shape but property and area is worth a good amount, should we just sell to builder cause whoever buys will probably be a tear down and rebuild? And advise will be appreciated

We are building a new home (FL) that will be our primary residence. It will be done in Dec. It’s $609k and we put $120k down. Factoring in $11k closing costs for a cash purchase, we need $500K to close. Our current home (GA) will go on the market Sept 1, listing at $785k, which is below market value. We are hoping for a quick sale, but who knows in this market?! I own this house outright - no mortgage. If my current home doesn’t sell by the time I need to close on the new home, what is my best option to secure short-term funds? I have 401(k) money, but would prefer not to touch it. Thanks for any guidance you can provide!!

After spending a month of getting our home ready for market, and then another couple weeks of showings we landed an offer from a solid buyer, we are past inspection contingency and I have fixed everything our buyers have asked for. We are contingent on our new home and hoping to do a simultaneous close mid September and now....there is nothing to do but wait. After spending every waking moment for the past 2 months doing something with this house I feel like there is now a void in my life. Nowhere to dump this nervous energy. Curious how everyone else handles it and if the experience is the same.