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Omphaloskepsis
Oct. 20th, 2009 12:57 pm( Look! A navel! )
Anyone have any stories about living in saugus, or even ones that might be relevent while visiting there?
I need-a the space
Oct. 18th, 2009 04:14 pmMany of you commented that with just two of us we don't need much space, but as the house hunting goes on, my sq footage number has been going up. This bothers me a little, since I realize that North American's already live in larger homes than most nations, but I think I have reasons why. Maybe I'm just rationalizing, so I thought I would voice them here:
Most listings are using an inflated number. If you actually add up the numbers they list for the actual rooms, it's usually almost half the quoted total number.
I have a lot of hobbies, and they are space consuming (woodworking and music being the most space consuming.) I would love to have enough room to feel comfortable leaving my easle set up, so maybe I would start painting again. I don't know how much of it is fear of making of a mess and just lack of inspiration. My wood working shop is WAY too small (I can't buy any more tools until I have more space and can barely move the wood around to work with the tools I do have) and I would love to have enough space for my "cello club" to meet and not bang bows. And enough space to swing a bachi would also be nice. Should I have fewer hobbies? perhaps.
Many people trade personal space for good resturants, theaters and other public spaces. Greg and I don't really do that. We spend a whole lot of time in our house. This means that we have things, like greg's exercise equpiment, that other people might use the gym for. We also don't tend to use our porch or yard, which many people use as extra living space. I feel like because we spend so much time here, it's alright to be looking for a fancier home than "just two people need."
So that's my thinking.
Most listings are using an inflated number. If you actually add up the numbers they list for the actual rooms, it's usually almost half the quoted total number.
I have a lot of hobbies, and they are space consuming (woodworking and music being the most space consuming.) I would love to have enough room to feel comfortable leaving my easle set up, so maybe I would start painting again. I don't know how much of it is fear of making of a mess and just lack of inspiration. My wood working shop is WAY too small (I can't buy any more tools until I have more space and can barely move the wood around to work with the tools I do have) and I would love to have enough space for my "cello club" to meet and not bang bows. And enough space to swing a bachi would also be nice. Should I have fewer hobbies? perhaps.
Many people trade personal space for good resturants, theaters and other public spaces. Greg and I don't really do that. We spend a whole lot of time in our house. This means that we have things, like greg's exercise equpiment, that other people might use the gym for. We also don't tend to use our porch or yard, which many people use as extra living space. I feel like because we spend so much time here, it's alright to be looking for a fancier home than "just two people need."
So that's my thinking.
$20k for what?
Oct. 11th, 2009 04:24 pmWe ran some back of the envolpe numbers and we can afford less than I was hoping in a new house, but mostly it made me mad. Every realtor I've ever met has struck me as lazy and sloppy, but as part of selling a house, they get 5-6%, which in our case would be about $20k?! for what?!
I don't know how bad the for sale by owner market is, but I feel like we're being duped here.
I don't know how bad the for sale by owner market is, but I feel like we're being duped here.
house hunting note
Oct. 2nd, 2009 10:53 amYesterday I went to see a new construction, but it was just a lot. I kind of liked the lot, but I'm not willing to buy a house that doesn't exist yet. Yah, dealing with contractors for a whole house, that's my idea of fun.
Please tell me if there are other reasons or if I'm wrong on the ones here.
Right now oil heat is a complete strike from the list, which is sad, since it is about 50% of the homes around here, even the new ones.
- Further dependance on foriegn oil: the US has natural gas reserves itself. I can only imagine our oil and gas issues will get worse as the decades advance
- Dependance on oil delivery guy: while gas lines fail and service might be intruppted, I've heard more stories about late deliveries or problems occuring because the delivery person was having a bad day
- fear of the failing oil tank: I've heard stories of the cost of a failed oil tank form the clean up of all the oil. Gas leaks happen, but you can usually clean those up by opening the windows, with the exceptions of an explotion, but things are getting better and better about preventing those.
- less basement space: those tanks are huge
Right now oil heat is a complete strike from the list, which is sad, since it is about 50% of the homes around here, even the new ones.
drive by notes
Sep. 21st, 2009 10:28 pm( drive by notes on florence street and lake house )
I am getting a better idea of what I want, so all these failures are still productive. I'm still not sure the house I want exists.
I am getting a better idea of what I want, so all these failures are still productive. I'm still not sure the house I want exists.
more house questions
Sep. 21st, 2009 04:27 pmSince you've all been super helpful on the house questions (it's been really cool getting advice, thank you!) I have another question to pose.
Does anyone know about buying new construction. Initally I thought I really didn't want to do that, so that I wasn't the one finding out all the ways that the contractor messed up, but there's this potienally awesome home in Medford which is new constructions, so I should at least learn what I can about it. Can you still haggle the price? Are they less likely to take a low ball offer than a normal home owner in this market? If they do, will they start doing crappier work? Has anyone had exerience with home warrenties? What things are different when buying new construction.
For us it might work out better because then we would have a time frame to sell our house in, even after closing. We'd of course, leave some wiggle room for the project to be behind schedule.
My gut feeling is I'd still rather buy something I can see right now than something that might be cool in the future (but my understanding is you still get it inspected, so there must be some part of the contract that allows you to back out if they mess up) but no reason I shouldn't learn more.
Does anyone know about buying new construction. Initally I thought I really didn't want to do that, so that I wasn't the one finding out all the ways that the contractor messed up, but there's this potienally awesome home in Medford which is new constructions, so I should at least learn what I can about it. Can you still haggle the price? Are they less likely to take a low ball offer than a normal home owner in this market? If they do, will they start doing crappier work? Has anyone had exerience with home warrenties? What things are different when buying new construction.
For us it might work out better because then we would have a time frame to sell our house in, even after closing. We'd of course, leave some wiggle room for the project to be behind schedule.
My gut feeling is I'd still rather buy something I can see right now than something that might be cool in the future (but my understanding is you still get it inspected, so there must be some part of the contract that allows you to back out if they mess up) but no reason I shouldn't learn more.
Crime statistics
Sep. 21st, 2009 10:44 amOne of the things that's important to me is I feel safe in my home, so I've written a few of the towns off for bad grime statitics, which feels silly when there is a house on the town line or other approximation. I really wish I had a map of WHERE the crimes happen. I found this one map, but it only had data for the town with the lower crime statitics. Now, part of this might be that the town has better police department or that the town just has a really bad downtown area or alike (the town in question is lynn, and if you look at the maps, lynn is composed of a very dense area and then the more suburban area around the reservations.)
The houses in lynn are asking for about 100k less than in Saugus, the neighboring town, so this would be a very important thing to figure out. The Lynn police department does seem to be less participator, which means they have less data on the web (Saugus has their crime log up, for instance.)
Anyone know of any good crime mapping sights that might have data mined things not on the internet?
The houses in lynn are asking for about 100k less than in Saugus, the neighboring town, so this would be a very important thing to figure out. The Lynn police department does seem to be less participator, which means they have less data on the web (Saugus has their crime log up, for instance.)
Anyone know of any good crime mapping sights that might have data mined things not on the internet?
real estate auctions
Sep. 20th, 2009 06:27 pmDoes anyone know anything about real estate auctions? Are they good places to get deals. It seems like a really scary concept to me, especially since you have to get the home inspected BEFORE bidding, which costs money.
How much space is too much space?
Sep. 12th, 2009 11:33 amI've always hoped to move out of this house into something newer, better laid out and larger. I've begun looking, though we still have no clue what we could sell this house for, so it's all still a lot of window shopping.
One of the hits in my search is 3,920 sq. ft. of living space. I think this is too much. That rooms would just collect clutter and our heating would be more of an issue (it also has two kitchens, which I don't really want any more.) But I was wondering what other people thought. The way the pictures show it, they have kind of a party area with a bar and pool table. (This house is still extremely tempting, since it's with in walking distance of a lake which I believe has swimming!!!)
On one hand, I collect a lot of stuff and would love a library, music room, craft room and shop, but on the other hand, Greg and I tend to spend most of our time in one or two rooms. Part of wanting to upgrade is to reduce our heating costs and get rid of some of the problems of owning house which has a lot of maintence issues.
Anyone have any sage advice. Part of the problem is I don't have a good feel for square footage. We were recently shocked to learn we'd been lied to when we bought this house. They had told us ~1,800 sq. ft. when we're actually ~1,500.
On the other hand, I'm trying to decide if 1,900 sq. ft. would be enough for us. We really hope that this will be our one and only move, as long as Greg's work stays in the area, so we want to plan for a house that will suit us for a long time (but with still no plans of kids.)
One of the hits in my search is 3,920 sq. ft. of living space. I think this is too much. That rooms would just collect clutter and our heating would be more of an issue (it also has two kitchens, which I don't really want any more.) But I was wondering what other people thought. The way the pictures show it, they have kind of a party area with a bar and pool table. (This house is still extremely tempting, since it's with in walking distance of a lake which I believe has swimming!!!)
On one hand, I collect a lot of stuff and would love a library, music room, craft room and shop, but on the other hand, Greg and I tend to spend most of our time in one or two rooms. Part of wanting to upgrade is to reduce our heating costs and get rid of some of the problems of owning house which has a lot of maintence issues.
Anyone have any sage advice. Part of the problem is I don't have a good feel for square footage. We were recently shocked to learn we'd been lied to when we bought this house. They had told us ~1,800 sq. ft. when we're actually ~1,500.
On the other hand, I'm trying to decide if 1,900 sq. ft. would be enough for us. We really hope that this will be our one and only move, as long as Greg's work stays in the area, so we want to plan for a house that will suit us for a long time (but with still no plans of kids.)
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