My ex wife is a "successful" realtor. She got her GED and failed out of college. She had debt collectors up her ass for years until I fixed that issue.
She could sell ice to Eskimos though.
Many realtors are shady
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My ex wife is a "successful" realtor. She got her GED and failed out of college. She had debt collectors up her ass for years until I fixed that issue.
She could sell ice to Eskimos though.
Many realtors are shady
No one should shed a tear for this couple. Anyone that can walk down the path of building a custom home should have the funds and the knowledge to get the job done. This couple looks to have neither of those two characteristics.
I've read multiple stories on people suffering the same fate though. Got over their heads with the cost escalations that were and still are unprecedented in the residential construction industry.
Having just built our own custom home this past year, I have no sympathy but maybe a little empathy for those that are stuck over their head because they maybe didn't realize how things can go South in a hurry if you don't have your financial situation dialed. Fortunately we had a builder that was recommended to us by a family friend that did a very good job of staying as close to budget as was possible given how fast lumber prices, along with sub-contractor labor prices were increasing back in 2021.
Now, at least lumber prices have come down to Earth. Labor costs have only gone up though. Not to mention mortgage rates. No idea where construction loans are but would imagine they are at least 150 basis points higher than a conventional 30 year mortgage.
Toad man nailed it w a good overview
I work w people all the time extremely high priced guy i take account for every imaginable fuck up I don't hide the fact you will hate me at times but people see my price either realize they can't do the project or go w me or find someone who promises cheap that fucks their world up
Denver remodel projects are starting to slow no free cheap money or over inflated house prices to keep it going
Land for sale.
https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/f...182417614.html
Quote:
The nation is home to 735 billionaires (according to Forbes) and plenty of quasi-billionaires, and many of them are buying. (Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos has amassed 420,000 acres in Far West Texas around his Blue Origin suborbital spaceflight company, making him the nation's 24th largest landowner.) The private plane market is booming, making it easier for the wealthy to travel from one of their places to the others. Many of them like to tour prospective properties by helicopter, rented for $4,600 an hour, billed to the client. In this Gilded Age, titans want to get dirty and dusty and wade hip-deep into a stream. They're acquiring properties that require two days to traverse by horse.
In 2020, Taylor's firm completed $1 billion in sales, despite a few dead months during the initial eruption of the pandemic. Last year? Better. Revenue more than doubled, and included handling both sides of the $200 million Beaverhead Ranch sale from Koch Industries to Rupert Murdoch, 340,000 acres cascading over three mountain ranges in Southwest Montana. "The latter half of 2020 and all of 2021 have been the strongest real estate market that any of us have experienced," the firm's website notes.
"It was too much going on all the time," says Taylor's partner Tim Murphy, who represented Murdoch. "A ranch is a living thing. It takes years to understand it. It could take years to see it all."
Hall and Hall maintains 19 offices, 25 partners, all of them men. Commissions are split among partners. Its brokers estimate that a buyer will invest up to 10% of his net worth on a ranch. When the firm lands a $200 million listing, the potential pool winnows to the apex of the Forbes 400, possibly 75 potential buyers tops. At all times, brokers know who's looking and what they can realistically afford. The majority of candidates are American, but brokers do get the occasional foreign buyer. In many other countries, there is often a paucity of private land for sale because of geography, density or government control. Try picking up a vast parcel for a weekend retreat in Belgium.
there was even a Tom hanks movie in 1986
Called two builders in the MA/RI area. Established outfits as far as I can tell. Asked them the same loaded question. What is a realistic price per square foot for a mid-tier home? The answer was $400 from both. One could start in the fall. One was two years out. So, there's that.
I built some stairs today, and will be trimming out a bathroom Friday. The lumber markets, wholesale, and contractor prices might be down, but it's still up at retail.
For paying someone to do everything 300/sqft was pretty standard here before everything went crazy. I'd be surprised if you could get quality at 400 all-in right now.
Also, the market hasn't softened here above a certain price. A neighbor just got over a million all cash on a house they bought for 375 eight and a half years ago.
Depending on location you might be able to build for under $375 sq foot. (Mid-West and SE USA). Any major metro area or mtn town, You are looking at $500 sq foot easy. And that's for a mid-level quality appointed house. Mid-level appliances, and mid-grade floor and tile/countertops.
We managed to come just under $400 sq foot. (Including the cost of the lot) Couldn't do some of the things we wanted like solar panels and a metal roof. It's all about budget discipline and value engineering when you aren't a high roller dropping a big cash roll and not financing.
https://i.ibb.co/ssGNmsd/Home.jpg
Yeah, this is basically a bedroom community of Seattle at this point, and pricing reflects that.
We're also in the unique position of being at the end of the supply chain for the lower 48. Last 100k city before you're in Canada.
I know I've said this before, but your house looks great. Surprised you didn't get solar... no/not enough incentives?
I think the numbers on solar are pretty tight. But I’m probably jacked up on the math….
I was watching this old house on a place that added a pretty robust solar system and battery backup in Mass and was wondering if it made financial sense. This is what I came up with.
20 x 400w panels on roof = 8 kW generated per hour
X 5 hours a day on average of generation = 40 kWh (not sure on the 5 hrs avg but that is what google solar web says where I live)
I pay 13 cents for kWh…..40 x .13 = $5.20 per day saved with solar.
X 30 days = $150 month
X 12 months = $1800
X 20 years = $36,000
Not sure return on investment is there. I’d like to do solar but not sure if my numbers are right. How much for a system and install?
Last month running HVAC 24/7 I used 2,700 kw. It is hot where I live.
I’ve done two commercial solar builds.
The 30% tax credit helped. My 30% down came back immediately. The rest was financed at five years. Was supposed to be neutral cash flow, but it’s a bit negative. Even so, I’m looking forward to 15 more years under warranty and free money.
I’m not sure it’s worth it to get battery storage now unless you’re off grid. Just do net metering.
PS. I also get xtra credits from my state, so that factors in.
Up side of economy fucking the housing market is my buddy who does home inspections for property transfers now has more time to go paddle board surfing. Yay!
Let's just say before we started the build and closed on the construction loan back in March of 2021 that we were at about $350 sq ft. So we could have done the solar panels, and as things went bonkers with lumber, we ended up digging into our contingency funds to cover the added costs for lumber, electrical, plumbing, roofing, siding, etc. For those not familiar with how a construction loan works, your builder provides you the estimated build cost and they pad that number by about 10%-15% for any unforeseen cost overruns. Our contract was a cost plus model. No one in their right mind would offer a fixed cost quote with how volatile prices were back in 2021. When they started excavating our lot in late March lumber was about $600 per 1,000' of random length lumber. When our builder ordered the trusses and framing lumber it was at $1,200. There went our contingency funds. So now we were on the hook for the cost over runs. You don't go to the bank and ask to increase the construction loan amount. You are locked in on the amount you closed on. So, that money now comes out of your savings account. Or, if you have a wife with big boobs, you pimp her out on the internet to make up the difference.
For us, going in our builder padded our costs for all those afore mentioned build items, so it would have been a lot worse out of pocket had he not done that. And, he was up front about it. If the build cost turned out to come in below the construction loan, you get that cash out at the turn over date when you get the COO and keys to your brand new home.
We know at least one couple building on the street above us that didn't have the funds to cover the extra costs of building. They started 6 months before us, and they are maybe 50% done. They basically are self contracting and building in stages as they get funds.
In regards to solar, we just received a quote for $30k for 24 panels. With the newly available federal and state gov't energy credits, that quote drops down to $22,884. What we did do, is we had the house wired for solar and also had a 240V line put into the garage with the thought that one day there might be an EV in the garage. We most likely will pull the trigger on the solar panels as a way to defray the ever increasing cost of electricity. It was just not in our budget last year. But a promotion and a massive year end bonus this spring has made it possible to add solar. We were told by our builder and RE friend that it would add around 8%-10% resale value to our house.
I also keep hearing and seeing in the news that people are pulling out of new construction loans, so that might free up some builders. All I can say is we went with First Interstate bank and locked in our loan at time of build, so that it would transfer over to a 30 year conventional. It was about 1% more for the construction loan than where 30 year fixed were at. We just felt that with inflation ramping up, that those rates would be gone by the time we closed on the house. And to refi would have been a risk we didn't want to take. The rates were about 4% when we moved into the house. Our construction loan was 3.75%, which historically was very low. I would imagine construction loans now would be somewhere in the neighborhood of 6.25% or so.
A lot of people don't realize how underinsured their home is these days due to rising costs. People should increase their coverage significantly.
In Mass. it makes more financial sense than most places despite low solar potential because of reverse metering and the marketplace for renewable energy credits. I put in about 9,000 sq ft in 2016, it cost about $18K, it's been completely paid for since last year. I'm still getting the money from the energy credit sales, which spins off about $2500/yr. depending on what the credits are selling for at the time. Definitely a win financially for me.
Our installation was more expensive than typical because part was on our house and part was on the guest house, which has a separate address, needed to be kept separate for legal reasons so all the controllers and inverters and whatnot needed to be done twice.
There's only a few states that participate in the energy credit marketplace, can't remember which other ones off the top of my head, but it's a good deal.
Important to remember your not insuring your house, your insuring $XXX,XXX of house. Outside of just cost of construction and materials rising, if you’ve done any improvements, you should look at increasing your coverage…
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Mine (and friends I've checked with) get it bumped by insurance company automatically yearly so may be happening and folks don't know it. I know mine went up by a lot this year due to coverage increases and I've never instructed them to do so. But I've always understood why.
True, but... Figure out the square footage of your house and quality of finishes in your house (low, medium, or high end) and compare to the cost per square foot for new construction in your area for those same finishes. Trust me, it's gone way up. In my case, even with the insurance co. yearly automatic bumps up in coverage, we were at least 20 percent underinsured by my calculations. I live in the wildland-urban-interface (WUE) so I'm hypersensitive to total loss by wildfire.
Just saying people should give it some thought, given the crazy escalation in build costs these days. I don't think insurance has kept up. I believe the Marshall Fire near Boulder last year showed this to be true, from what I've read. Lots of people who thought they had adequate coverage did not, due to rapid recent price escalations.