The Swamp

Look at syb's little Trump hands. Aw...

Laundry on same floor as your master bedroom.

rass wrote: ↑Fri Feb 01, 2019 1:57 pm Look at syb's little Trump hands. Aw...

Almost mentioned it wasn't my feminine hand. Should have known you'd be the one to make a joke.

School district

Square footage: enough for kid, extra kid, and bonus kid.

Sidewalks, relatively level to assist with learning to bike

Main floor/bedroom level laundry. Honestly, plus extra laundry in basement/utility area, but I know that’s unreasonable.

I like ranches with bedrooms and entertaining space on opposite ends of a long layout.

If elderly relatives living with you is a possibility in the future, consider accessibility issues.

Anyone recently bought appliances? I need to get some on order for the new house. Anything you love about your fridge/gas range/washer and dryer right now? Anything to stay away from?

BSF21 wrote: ↑Tue Apr 16, 2019 10:43 am Anyone recently bought appliances? I need to get some on order for the new house. Anything you love about your fridge/gas range/washer and dryer right now? Anything to stay away from?

Just bought a new oven and dishwasher a few months ago. For the dishwasher mostly just cared about how quiet it is since our kitchen isn't separated very much from our living room. For the oven paid a little extra to make sure it was a convection oven but that was something my wife cared about more than me. Got them from Lowe's so I could get 12 months no interest.

We got a Samsung toploader efficiency blah blah. Thing is friggin awesome. Some reviews were about how long the cycles took, but it tells you right on the display how long it'll take, and I've found that with the high spin it actually takes less drying time.

BSF21 wrote: ↑Tue Apr 16, 2019 10:43 am Anyone recently bought appliances? I need to get some on order for the new house. Anything you love about your fridge/gas range/washer and dryer right now? Anything to stay away from?

We bought a GE stove with dual ovens, fridge (freezer on bottom with french doors) and dishwasher when we redid our kitchen a few years ago. The stove is top notch. The fridge is good but noisy. The dishwasher been a bit of a PITA and is much louder than I want. Kinda wish we went with a Bosch dishwasher instead.

All of our appliances have a gunmetal gray color instead of stainless steel. SS looks nice when clean, but it rarely looks clean for long.

BSF21 wrote: ↑Tue Apr 16, 2019 10:43 am Anyone recently bought appliances? I need to get some on order for the new house. Anything you love about your fridge/gas range/washer and dryer right now? Anything to stay away from?

In my experience, stay away from everything GE. So many problems, spread across two houses.

ETA: We got a Bosch dishwasher not that long ago. So quiet compared to the GE. If it's going to be near where you watch TV, etc, it's well worth the extra money.

Sabo wrote: ↑Tue Apr 16, 2019 10:54 am

BSF21 wrote: ↑Tue Apr 16, 2019 10:43 am Anyone recently bought appliances? I need to get some on order for the new house. Anything you love about your fridge/gas range/washer and dryer right now? Anything to stay away from?

We bought a GE stove with dual ovens, fridge (freezer on bottom with french doors) and dishwasher when we redid our kitchen a few years ago. The stove is top notch. The fridge is good but noisy. The dishwasher been a bit of a PITA and is much louder than I want. Kinda wish we went with a Bosch dishwasher instead.

All of our appliances have a gunmetal gray color instead of stainless steel. SS looks nice when clean, but it rarely looks clean for long.

There's a possible kitchen remodel in .our future so I'm leaning towards going affordable 5/yr plan and then splurging for a double oven/high end gas range/big fridge

Sabo wrote: ↑Tue Apr 16, 2019 10:54 am

BSF21 wrote: ↑Tue Apr 16, 2019 10:43 am Anyone recently bought appliances? I need to get some on order for the new house. Anything you love about your fridge/gas range/washer and dryer right now? Anything to stay away from?

We bought a GE stove with dual ovens, fridge (freezer on bottom with french doors) and dishwasher when we redid our kitchen a few years ago. The stove is top notch. The fridge is good but noisy. The dishwasher been a bit of a PITA and is much louder than I want. Kinda wish we went with a Bosch dishwasher instead.

All of our appliances have a gunmetal gray color instead of stainless steel. SS looks nice when clean, but it rarely looks clean for long.

Yeah, stainless steel streaks very easily. We did the same thing.

phxgators wrote: ↑Tue Apr 16, 2019 10:54 am

BSF21 wrote: ↑Tue Apr 16, 2019 10:43 am Anyone recently bought appliances? I need to get some on order for the new house. Anything you love about your fridge/gas range/washer and dryer right now? Anything to stay away from?

In my experience, stay away from everything GE. So many problems, spread across two houses.

ETA: We got a Bosch dishwasher not that long ago. So quiet compared to the GE. If it's going to be near where you watch TV, etc, it's well worth the extra money.

Get a bosch dishwasher. Don't consider other brands.

brian wrote: ↑Tue Apr 16, 2019 11:00 am

Sabo wrote: ↑Tue Apr 16, 2019 10:54 am

BSF21 wrote: ↑Tue Apr 16, 2019 10:43 am Anyone recently bought appliances? I need to get some on order for the new house. Anything you love about your fridge/gas range/washer and dryer right now? Anything to stay away from?

We bought a GE stove with dual ovens, fridge (freezer on bottom with french doors) and dishwasher when we redid our kitchen a few years ago. The stove is top notch. The fridge is good but noisy. The dishwasher been a bit of a PITA and is much louder than I want. Kinda wish we went with a Bosch dishwasher instead.

All of our appliances have a gunmetal gray color instead of stainless steel. SS looks nice when clean, but it rarely looks clean for long.

Yeah, stainless steel streaks very easily. We did the same thing.

Letting my wife talk me into stainless is my only regret. Very annoying to keep clean. We went all GE. Costs kept rising on the kitchen reno, so we went value appliances. Happy with everything, except the dishwasher doesn't seem to get the top rack dry, even on the heated dry setting. Super quiet, to the point that my wife thinks she sets it, and it isn't even on. I read the manual, and it suggests leaving the door open to air dry after running a cycle. This works, but it's annoying to leave the door open for 30-60 minutes before putting dishes away. Very happy with the fridge, stove and microwave.

Bought a washer/dryer a year or 2 ago. I think Samsung, but can't even remember. Absolutely love them. All sensor timing, an it really adjusts itself to proper amount of water, and timing dry cycles. Only issue is on larger loads, jeans aren't completely dry. If you run another drying load with everything, it'll shut itself before jeans are fully dry. Easy solution is setting timed dry cycle, or removing all but jeans, then the sensors get it right. Not home right now, so don't have info on models.

BSF21 wrote: ↑Tue Apr 16, 2019 10:43 am Anyone recently bought appliances? I need to get some on order for the new house. Anything you love about your fridge/gas range/washer and dryer right now? Anything to stay away from?

I've run the gamut on brands in three different houses over the past 10 years. Here is what can tell you:

Despite however many brands that exist there are really only four main manufacturers: LG, Samsung, Whirlpool & Electrolux. Everything I'm about to mention I've owned and had multiple discussions with repair guys about. For reference I put all Kenmore stainless steel in my house in the fall of 2014.

Stay away from LG & Samsung refrigerators. The Kenmore fridge (which is LG) compressor went out in January. Replaced it with a Whirlpool for 2 weeks (nothing wrong; didn't like the water/ice dispenser and it seemed cheap to me) and replaced it with a GE Profile which has been great although one thing I have noticed is that when the freezer runs it's defrost cycle the fridge warms to ~50 degrees briefly but then cools right back down (I need to investigate this...just haven't gotten around to it yet). For refrigerators pay attention to storage design/layout and what kinds of stuff you buy & where you like to put it...for example we don't buy gallons of milk so we don't need space for that; we do buy lots of packaged vegetables so are the crisper drawers big enough; or how much frozen stuff do you usually have on hand? The main reason we tried the Whirlpool first was because the freezer section had three drawers instead of just two so it made for better organization.

My requirement for a stove/oven (we have the traditional single-unit slide in) was it had to be dual fuel...electric oven with gas cooktop. Only people that made those at the time were GE/Electrolux and Kenmore. Had GE in our prior house from 2010-2013 and loved it. The Kenmore is OK.

I had a 2010 Bosch dishwasher in that same house and while it was super quiet it did not do as good of a job at cleaning the dishes as our 2002 GE or our current Kenmore. I used the recommended detergent (I've forgotten the name but it's the one with the red dot/ball thing) and it made no difference.

I have Maytag W/D front loaders stacked and they are subpar. Both have needed a repair since new in 2014 and I'm noticing our clothes are wearing out faster than before although that is probably because we are using too much detergent. Repair guy I talked to a couple months ago said the front loaders are still better at cleaning clothes than the new top loads without the agitators.

Regarding surfaces the smudge-less stainless steel like Whirlpool or Frigidaire use work pretty well to reduce the surface looking dirty.

Regardless the one thing I've learned is that the "they don't make 'em like the used to" adage is true in terms of quality. Nothing you buy is intended to last 20 years anymore.

We went all GE 3 years ago (bundle pricing + OCD) and they've all been fine to quite fine. No repairs needed, although the water is so hard here its fucked up the detergent door on the dishwasher. Beyond paying up for convection or a specialty burner, I honestly don't get expensive as hell ranges unless you believe oven temps and price are correlated. If you have gas, you have a flame and you're cooking on that flame.

The new range we bought was GE and it's been fine but it has only been about four months so far. More notably, we had bought a GE fridge about eight years ago and it's been great as well.

Oh, and we got a GE washer and dryer too and the dryer computer fried twice on me and they fixed it without any cost or hassle. Which is what the warranty said, but still, it was nice to not fight.

We have used the shit out of our double oven.

Sorry, that should have been included in the convection/burner feature list. My question was more how a range could be worth double the price or more better than a perfectly functioning $800 version with the same features.

A_B wrote: ↑Tue Apr 16, 2019 12:48 pm We have used the shit out of our double oven.

Same here. I figured I would only use it during Thanksgiving but that has not been the case.

mister d wrote:We went all GE 3 years ago (bundle pricing + OCD) and they've all been fine to quite fine. No repairs needed, although the water is so hard here its fucked up the detergent door on the dishwasher.

We've had issues with the detergent door on ours, too. It wouldn't fully open all the time, and we had it replaced at one point. That didn't fix the issue. What fixed it was making sure we didn't have anything tall in the front of the dishwasher. I guess tall items blocked the water jet enough so it couldn't open the door fully.

Small update. We accepted an offer on our home on Friday night. There's a lot of crazy details if anyone wants to hear but essentially the basics were: 27 showings in 36 hours, 6 offers, 1 low, 1 full asking 1 full asking with escalation, 3 over asking. We accepted 10k over with an AS IS clause so no inspection items need addressed.

Now we wait to see if it appraises...

Good lord, wow, on being on the right side of a bidding war. Congrats.

BSF21 wrote: ↑Mon Jun 03, 2019 10:35 am Small update. We accepted an offer on our home on Friday night. There's a lot of crazy details if anyone wants to hear but essentially the basics were: 27 showings in 36 hours, 6 offers, 1 low, 1 full asking 1 full asking with escalation, 3 over asking. We accepted 10k over with an AS IS clause so no inspection items need addressed.

Now we wait to see if it appraises...

BSF...if I did not know where you lived I would have sworn you were in DC, San Fran, Seattle, or New York.

The house next door to me sold for 79k more than the previous people had bought it for, and a full 115k over my house, which is slighty smaller, but nearly two years newer. Then the house across the street sold in less than a weekend on the market but I don't know the details of that sale just yet. We are thinking very hard about if we should move.

BSF21 wrote: ↑Mon Jun 03, 2019 10:35 am Small update. We accepted an offer on our home on Friday night. There's a lot of crazy details if anyone wants to hear but essentially the basics were: 27 showings in 36 hours, 6 offers, 1 low, 1 full asking 1 full asking with escalation, 3 over asking. We accepted 10k over with an AS IS clause so no inspection items need addressed.

Now we wait to see if it appraises...

Wow, that's crazy. Our only home sales were in AZ in 2008 and 2015. Our experiences were completely opposite from this.

Yeah, we’re specialists in covering our realtor fees and maybe a little more, although two of those times we were probably lucky to land there looking back. The third time I’d rather not speak about the post-sale appreciation.

I bought in 2013 and sold this week. Owned for just under 6 years. Depending on how this shakes out we will end up about 40K or so on the plus side.

I can't imagine the mindset that could handle as-is unless someone is an inspector themselves or unofficially brought one through.

mister d wrote: ↑Mon Jun 03, 2019 11:49 am I can't imagine the mindset that could handle as-is unless someone is an inspector themselves or unofficially brought one through.

We did that with our first house and lived to regret it when we sold it 4 years later.

Having said that, becoming a home inspector in Ontario seems to be as easy as filling out a form. Not the most trustworthy bunch.

ETA: Meaning the way it was here 15 years ago. It could be different where you guys live.

mister d wrote: ↑Mon Jun 03, 2019 11:49 am I can't imagine the mindset that could handle as-is unless someone is an inspector themselves or unofficially brought one through.

Yeah, that seems hard to fathom.

Steve of phpBB wrote: ↑Mon Jun 03, 2019 12:40 pm

mister d wrote: ↑Mon Jun 03, 2019 11:49 am I can't imagine the mindset that could handle as-is unless someone is an inspector themselves or unofficially brought one through.

Yeah, that seems hard to fathom.

They have the option for inspection, they just can't force us to fix anything or walk away from the deal unless they find major issues, which as I understand it is needs to be structural or mold/water damage related. They can't come back and say "drywall is bad in garage, pay us 800$ or we walk".

That's most deals around here except a 5 or 10 day walk away period. Do they do deals where seller is forced to repair?

Here almost every sale (I know of) has money going back from the buyer to the seller for post-inspection issues.

mister d wrote: ↑Mon Jun 03, 2019 2:08 pm Here almost every sale (I know of) has money going back from the buyer to the seller for post-inspection issues.

This is my experience, but the home inspections in NJ (and probably most places), are superficial. Just about everything in my house was done wrong, and the inspection doesn't look for things like roof shingles and skylights improperly installed, or plumbing done wrong, or the support structure on the deck was woefully insufficient. The inspector noted the code violation that our front steps didn't have a railing, and the electric outlets had reversed polarity which the sellers paid to repair. I think he also noted the 1000s of dead bees in our chimney and fireplace, but I may have found that after we moved in.

We still laugh to this day at the buyers of our old house demanding us put a cover over the breaker box in the garage...which already had a cover. It was basically like a random cabinet door over the metal box itself. The guy who put it in had no idea if that's what they were wanting because it was such a weird request. Especially out of all the other things that was on the inspection.

The Sybian wrote: ↑Mon Jun 03, 2019 2:24 pm

mister d wrote: ↑Mon Jun 03, 2019 2:08 pm Here almost every sale (I know of) has money going back from the buyer to the seller for post-inspection issues.

This is my experience, but the home inspections in NJ (and probably most places), are superficial. Just about everything in my house was done wrong, and the inspection doesn't look for things like roof shingles and skylights improperly installed, or plumbing done wrong, or the support structure on the deck was woefully insufficient. The inspector noted the code violation that our front steps didn't have a railing, and the electric outlets had reversed polarity which the sellers paid to repair. I think he also noted the 1000s of dead bees in our chimney and fireplace, but I may have found that after we moved in.

I've only bought two houses, but both times the inspection led to a discount on the purchase price.

mister d wrote: ↑Mon Jun 03, 2019 11:49 am I can't imagine the mindset that could handle as-is unless someone is an inspector themselves or unofficially brought one through.

Where we live, every house is sold as-is, because there is a bidding war for every house and agreeing to waive an inspection is just table stakes for making a bid. It's been that way here since the 1990s.

BSF21 wrote: ↑Mon Jun 03, 2019 11:47 am I bought in 2013 and sold this week. Owned for just under 6 years. Depending on how this shakes out we will end up about 40K or so on the plus side.

I'm looking at that ballpark based on home prices in my area -- I'm in the sweet spot where houses similar to mine are going for ~$40K more than I paid for mine.

hopefully the small house housing bubble stays like it is when we are potentially making a decision on living together early next year. we're looking in the neighborhood of 3x what I paid for my house if/when we make the move and fingers crossed that the money I'll make on my house will cover a very significant portion of that down payment

eta: my house was stupid cheap, what we're looking at for a spacious 4BR is what y'all coasters would pay for a tiny 2BR apt. go midwest!

Brontoburglar wrote: ↑Tue Jun 04, 2019 5:44 pm

eta: my house was stupid cheap, what we're looking at for a spacious 4BR is what y'all coasters would pay for a tiny 2BR apt. go midwest!

You are paying $2 million for a house?

More important, who are you moving in with? I don't think you have a mentioned a new woman in your life since you broke up with the woman with the weird vacation house situation.

I have 4 br 3.5 baths and 2933 sq feet. 8.7 million.