Real Estate Crash thread

[goldenboy]

Ya, still have the popcorn ceilings in this early '70's home. No roof leaks/ceiling stains, so it took a fresh coat of ceiling paint just fine. Might not be modern chic, but not worth my time to remove.

The only bummer with painting it is that then you can never scrape it. It's there forever now unless you cover it with drywall mud, or new sheetrock, or remove it entirely.

[BCMtnHound]

The only bummer with painting it is that then you can never scrape it. It's there forever now unless you cover it with drywall mud, or new sheetrock, or remove it entirely.

May be so, but this ceiling was painted a few times already before I moved in. I would be surprised if there are many left from that era that haven't been coated at least once.

[Foggy_Goggles]

The only bummer with painting it is that then you can never scrape it. It's there forever now unless you cover it with drywall mud, or new sheetrock, or remove it entirely.

It's a crapshoot, but even when painted, I've had good luck with the following:

Aggressively run a wallpaper perforated on the popcorn & soak with a garden sprayer. Do this multiple times over a few days. Then soak it one more time as you scrape it with a drywall knife.

I'll leave it up to ya'll to figure out the OSHA guidelines, what professional remediation looks like and the differences in concerns between a contractor and a homeowner.

[Ted Striker]

Got a lab recommendation?

Western Analytical Lab https://www.asbestostesting.com

To add to whyturn's list:

If there's a forced air furnace, turn it off. Cover all heating vents and the cold air return with plastic, and tape.

Doing one room at a time and sealing the room off from the rest of the building is a good idea. Open window with a box fan drawing outward it isn't a bad idea either (depending on what's out there). The pros have to filter it, but wet popcorn isn't going to float around much.

If you're disturbing friable material, spend the money on a good mask: https://multimedia.3m.com/mws/media/...ochure-pdf.pdf

Double bag and tape all of the removed material. If you're doing it the legal way (by taking it to a facility that accepts hazmat) it must be labeled as well.

[dan_pdx]

There it is officer, there's the house that hurt me.

https://www.redfin.com/WA/Bellingham.../home/15812749

This house is so full of WTF. We've seen some other houses in this neighborhood (Bellingham Tweed Twenties), and they were all pretty funky, like everyone in the neighborhood was raised by wolves, then came into money in their teens and decided to build a house, but this one takes the cake.

Went pending after 5 days...time to admit I have no idea what's going on with this housing market

[liv2ski]

Went pending after 5 days...time to admit I have no idea what's going on with this housing market

Nice aerial photos of the neighborhood. Some kook did you a favor in scooping that one up. I didn't like the looks of the inside at all. Lots of stuff to fix to my non expert eye.

[dan_pdx]

Nice aerial photos of the neighborhood. Some kook did you a favor in scooping that one up. I didn't like the looks of the inside at all. Lots of stuff to fix to my non expert eye.

Oh yeah, totally agree. My comment was more along the lines of "who the hell was in a hurry to jump on that pile of bad decisions?"

[RootSkier]

Got a lab recommendation? My parents' place has a stupid amount of popcorn, and they probably had it tested when they moved in, but at this point my dad's memory isn't a reliable source of info.

I was hoping to tackle removing some of it next spring, but I'm not an asbestos fan.

Also, did someone say water damage?
(See also: I really hope that doesn't have significant asbestos in it)Attachment 393979

Sent from my SM-G892A using TGR Forums mobile app

I don't see popcorn here, just an absolutely absurd amount of mud applied by a fucking idiot.

[Ted Striker]

Went pending after 5 days...time to admit I have no idea what's going on with this housing market

IMO, it's just desperation. Most of the new listings for better properties are above a lot of people's budgets, so they're fighting over the garbage.

[Whiteroom_Guardian]

I remodeled a condo this year for a client that had popcorn everywhere. Use visqueen for the floors and painter plastic to cover the walls. Spray it down with a pump sprayer of water with palmolive dish soap. Let it soak in each section for about 15 minutes. Don't do more than say 30sf at a time. Big scraper. Put on some good tunes. Embrace the suck for 3 or 4 days. Texture. Paint.

[babybear]

I don’t know how the people accomplished it, but having all the popcorn and orange peel smoothed out in my home was one of the best investments. So much of home maintenance and repair is invisible and this is instant gratification.
Anyone doing a remodel or repainting should strongly consider it.
iirc It wasn’t really that expensive relatively speaking either

[dan_pdx]

IMO, it's just desperation. Most of the new listings for better properties are above a lot of people's budgets, so they're fighting over the garbage.

Despite the great advice we've gotten on this front, we sometimes feel a little desperate ourselves, but not _that_ desperate. That house was messed up.

[Flyoverland Captive]

I talked to an agent in Waldport, OR this weekend. He said decent properties in the Waldport/ Yachats/ Seal Rock areas are going under contract in 3-5 days. Hyperbole?

[dan_pdx]

I talked to an agent in Waldport, OR this weekend. He said decent properties in the Waldport/ Yachats/ Seal Rock areas are going under contract in 3-5 days. Hyperbole?

I haven't done any looking out there, but we're definitely seeing that in Bellingham: houses hit the market on Wednesday and have offer review dates on Monday.

[liv2ski]

I haven't done any looking out there, but we're definitely seeing that in Bellingham: houses hit the market on Wednesday and have offer review dates on Monday.

I did a few RE transactions for family and friends in 2016-2018 and it seemed like it was that way back then. Now anything under $800k has gone full retard in San Diego. I can not even begin to wrap my head around market prices now and I am so glad I don't have to deal with that issue anymore. To the mags buying...vibes.

[Self Jupiter]

Been that way for years in and around Boston up to ~800k. The pandemic pushed that activity to the $1.5M range for single families (some city condos too), even ~$2m in the toniest of towns/neighborhoods got really competitive. This past spring it felt like buyers were bidding as if their life depended on it. That’s cooled down a bit on average, think selling for 4-8% over asking, maybe with a contingency, vs 10-20% over list price with no contingencies and an open closing date. Some towns/neighborhoods haven’t cooled off at all.

[Name Redacted]

We could have been under contract in a day but gave it a week to get more offers. Seems silly to accept the first offer when you could get higher ones if you give it a while. We ended up under contract for 10% over asking.

[dan_pdx]

Listed this past Saturday with an offer review date of Sunday, pending today.

https://www.redfin.com/WA/Bellingham.../home/15762903

Cause who needs more than 1 day to figure out if they want to buy a house and get their offer together?

[liv2ski]

Listed this past Saturday with an offer review date of Sunday, pending today.

https://www.redfin.com/WA/Bellingham.../home/15762903

Cause who needs more than 1 day to figure out if they want to buy a house and get their offer together?

Fuck, I know my CA is showing with this comment, but what a fuckin deal! I get why it sold fast.

[Benny Profane]

So, a new way to stage your house. Hire white people to fake it

A Black couple says an appraiser lowballed them. So, they ‘whitewashed’ their home and say the value shot up.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/natio...white-washing/

Paul Austin said he felt good as the appraiser roamed his Northern California home last year, ticking off some of the $400,000 worth of improvements he and his wife had made to the property.
The appraiser noted the new fireplace, Austin told a state reparations task force in October, mentioned a room they’d added and complimented the view from the new deck.
So Austin and his wife were shocked when the appraiser pegged the value of their Marin City home in the San Francisco Bay area at $995,000, far lower than previous appraisals.
“It was a slap in the face,” Austin told KGO-TV in February.
Austin and his wife, Tenisha Tate-Austin decided to get another opinion three weeks later, they say in a lawsuit filed Thursday in federal court in San Francisco. This time, they enlisted the help of their White friend Jan who agreed to pretend to be the homeowner for a different appraiser, the lawsuit alleges. The Austins “whitewashed” their house by removing their family photos and stripping the walls of their African-themed art. Jan helped on this front, too, by staging photos of her own family, the lawsuit states.
The new appraisal came in at $1.48 million — nearly a half-million more than the previous estimate.

[dan_pdx]

Fuck, I know my CA is showing with this comment, but what a fuckin deal! I get why it sold fast.

Well...very central location, the inside of the house was not bad, but small lot and kind of ugly from the outside, with a mirror image ugly house next door. But yeah, with your CA glasses on, I guess it looks pretty good.

We thought things would slow down as we get into the holidays, but in fact, I think the # of listings dropped more than the # of buyers, so there are actually now more buyers per house than in the summer / fall. Oh well, if worst comes to worst, our house in PDX is pretty nice and more or less done.

[Ted Striker]

Listed this past Saturday with an offer review date of Sunday, pending today.

https://www.redfin.com/WA/Bellingham.../home/15762903

Cause who needs more than 1 day to figure out if they want to buy a house and get their offer together?

They already had the buyer, and it's near certain that they're represented by the same office.

The NWMLS requires that listings must be public. Otherwise, if you listed with Prevaricating Pete's Properties, he'd only share them with his clients and associates - and get both sides of the deal. So to get around this Pete puts it on the MLS with an unreasonably short time frame.

And if somehow an offer comes out of the woodwork, now they have a bidding war. Win/win! (except for the buyer)

[dan_pdx]

They already had the buyer, and it's near certain that they're represented by the same office.

The NWMLS requires that listings must be public. Otherwise, if you listed with Prevaricating Pete's Properties, he'd only share them with his clients and associates - and get both sides of the deal. So to get around this Pete puts it on the MLS with an unreasonably short time frame.

And if somehow an offer comes out of the woodwork, now they have a bidding war. Win/win! (except for the buyer)

Thanks Ted, makes sense. It actually crossed my mind to throw an offer at it due to the location, but it got a solid "hell no" from Mrs. PDX due to the lack of curb appeal, and I couldn't really argue with that.

[oftpiste]

Appraisals are worth about the price of the paper they're printed on. It's not unusual for values to wildly vary on appraisal depending on what the specific purpose of the appraisal is.

Purchase (loan)? pro tip, they almost always come in exactly at the purchase price! Go figure!
Estate evaluation?
Pre-listing appraisal?

The proof will be in what that house actually sells for. That said, I have little doubt that racial bias comes in to the process more often than we'd like to admit.

So, a new way to stage your house. Hire white people to fake it

A Black couple says an appraiser lowballed them. So, they ‘whitewashed’ their home and say the value shot up.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/natio...white-washing/

Paul Austin said he felt good as the appraiser roamed his Northern California home last year, ticking off some of the $400,000 worth of improvements he and his wife had made to the property.
The appraiser noted the new fireplace, Austin told a state reparations task force in October, mentioned a room they’d added and complimented the view from the new deck.
So Austin and his wife were shocked when the appraiser pegged the value of their Marin City home in the San Francisco Bay area at $995,000, far lower than previous appraisals.
“It was a slap in the face,” Austin told KGO-TV in February.
Austin and his wife, Tenisha Tate-Austin decided to get another opinion three weeks later, they say in a lawsuit filed Thursday in federal court in San Francisco. This time, they enlisted the help of their White friend Jan who agreed to pretend to be the homeowner for a different appraiser, the lawsuit alleges. The Austins “whitewashed” their house by removing their family photos and stripping the walls of their African-themed art. Jan helped on this front, too, by staging photos of her own family, the lawsuit states.
The new appraisal came in at $1.48 million — nearly a half-million more than the previous estimate.

[oftpiste]

This. And those fucking brokers are screwing their sellers. I fucking hate seeing that shit. And it's illegal as fuck (violation of the fiduciary obligation to the client). Tough one to prove in court though. Gotta expose it to the marketplace for a reasonable amount if time, especially in this market. Don't EVER let your broker tell you selling it like that is the right thing to do.

They already had the buyer, and it's near certain that they're represented by the same office.

The NWMLS requires that listings must be public. Otherwise, if you listed with Prevaricating Pete's Properties, he'd only share them with his clients and associates - and get both sides of the deal. So to get around this Pete puts it on the MLS with an unreasonably short time frame.

And if somehow an offer comes out of the woodwork, now they have a bidding war. Win/win! (except for the buyer)