"100% of people who do not save money do not have any!"--Dave Ramsey

[Xist]

What about the buying agent?

[Xist]

The house that we went to see, onto which I photochopped a garage, dropped another $5,000.

It is curious how they dropped $14,000, $10,000, and $5,000. It seems like if they stay on the market for long enough they would go down another $3,000, and then $2,000.

Thus far a rather uninspiring thing...

The vast majority of the front yard is gravel. It is just a place to park trucks and 5th wheels. Dawn said that you can put in a lawn, but how much would it cost to haul off gravel and put in sod?

Would renters want grass or gravel?

I am waiting to be impressed with the living room:


This is the one that just came on the market I love how it looks!

The lot is about 60% bigger, but the other one did not look large in-person.
This house is technically larger since the square footage of the insulated and finished garage isn't counted.

I am not saying the living room looks any better, though:

My future office?

Or maybe up here:


Mom might want to move into and stay in a larger and nicer house. Hey, maybe our neighbor knows someone looking for a place to rent.

The drawbacks are propane and septic.

What do you guys know about geothermal heating?

[redpoint5]

Buying agent has the same motivation as sellers. When I bought my Vancouver house, my agent suggested a much higher offer than I made. I don't necessarily think their motivation is to make more money on the sale, but instead skip the back and forth negotiation process to quickly complete the deal.

I ended up getting the house at my asking price with all of the contingent fixes. That was after my agent told me the price sounded too low to be serioisly considered and said I risked loosing the house". I'm glad I had a buyers agent considering it's free to me, but she was really pushy to have me put in an offer quickly and tried to talk up every property she showed me.

I'm sure there's better agents out there, but both the buyers and sellers agents have the same motivation; to quickly sell the most expensive house they can.

[Xist]

My sister liked her first realtor and told me to use him. He was the one that should have known the asking price for the townhouse was particularly high, which would never work with a VA loan. When the valuation came in 16% low he insisted on talkng to them. I knew they would never come down and they didn't.

They didn't need to, they sold for about 4% below their asking price.

When I found another place he said that he was out-of-town, but referred me to his wife, who was also a realtor.

I really wonder how it would go if he were the buying agent and she were the selling one.

"Okay! Let's look at this tomorrow!"

`I am never getting that home...'

We looked at the place and she asked what I was studying in college.

"I would like to make an offer on the house."
"Oh, why don't we wait for my husband to come back into town tomorrow?"

`Whatever chance I had is now gone.'

"You waited too long."

I waited on them!

She used him again when she decided to move to Oregon. He told her that she needed to lower her price $100,000. She fired him and sold for the asking price.

It is hard to find good help nowadays.

I understand Dawn's motivations, but really? She said this house was okay:

but this one was way nicer?

In commission-land?

Trees. The trees are nicer, but isn't grass better?

[redpoint5]

Mature trees can't be added, but a lawn can.

[Fat Charlie]

OTOH, "Don't worry about that unsightly gravel pit, you can just have it hauled away and get a lawn put in" isn't a great way to talk up the place.

[Piotrsko]

My daughter had a gravel back yard. Cost them couple $ grand to rent the equipment to remove it using their own labor. Nobody wants used gravel either. If you want grass it's a deal killer.

Apparently competent realtors are rare as unobtainium

[nemo]

Originally Posted by Fat Charlie

OTOH, "Don't worry about that unsightly gravel pit, you can just have it hauled away and get a lawn put in" isn't a great way to talk up the place.

Could be a price negotiation point.

[Xist]

The garage could be a negotiation point, too.

Hey, how much gravel would you need to pour a concrete pad for a driveway and garage?

I would just need to have them pour a pad for a garage and then build a carport, because I would need concrete footers to support the weight of walls, although I am pretty sure that a roof would be heavier.

When I went to look up geothermal the first site said they switched to heat pumps because of how efficient the new ones are.

Then I found this:

Is this data averaged for the entire country? Electricity, natural gas, and propane costs vary throughout the country and so do heating and cooling needs, but if a heat pump costs significantly less to use than an electric or propane furnace, I might want to calculate the ROI.

[Xist]

I went to see if the beautiful house on half an acre listed VA loans as an option.

They took it off the market yesterday.

Two days and they changed their mind.

Just minutes ago Mom said "I bet you could find a wife if you had a house like that!"
"Now you want me to buy a house?!"
"No, I want you to buy a car!"