Calling all homeowners - have some questions

[Jeff Wrangler]

My ex-husband and my stepfather could never understand each other.  My ex-husband could never understand why my stepfather would pay somebody to do what he could do himself.  My stepfather could never understand why my ex-husband would do something himself he could pay someone else to do. 

   This made me smile because it reminded me of how I once shocked my grandfather, who couldn't comprehend why I wouldn't want to spend my weekends mowing lawns, trimming shrubbery, scraping and painting shutters, and so forth and so on. 

[delalluvia]

When it's appropriate and feasible, sell the house and buy a condominium. While you will have a monthly fee, you will also have the advantages of home ownership plus there will be maintenance people to take care of things like holes in window screens.

Alas, last I checked, I needed to be working at a single job for 2 years before anyone would even think to give me a long-term loan.    I just started this job 5 months ago.  It will be some time before I can even try to get a home loan.

I should have bought a condo during the boom when they handing out home loans like free candy.  But of course coming from the mortgage industry, one of the reasons I didn't was because I knew better than to take one of those "creative finance" loans.

[serious crayons]

Alas, last I checked, I needed to be working at a single job for 2 years before anyone would even think to give me a long-term loan.    I just started this job 5 months ago.  It will be some time before I can even try to get a home loan.

I should have bought a condo during the boom when they handing out home loans like free candy.  But of course coming from the mortgage industry, one of the reasons I didn't was because I knew better than to take one of those "creative finance" loans.

Could you buy a condo in cash with the proceeds from the house?

[delalluvia]

Could you buy a condo in cash with the proceeds from the house?

Depends on how much we get for the house - if we even decide to sell.  The house isn't worth much, it's the land it's sitting on that's valuable.

Right now, the house looks like a money-pit.

The house is a 1930's cottage, basically, two bedrooms. one bath.  My parents added on another room and a bathroom.  I've been wondering why I have a plethora of pictures with no room on the walls for them to go even though my apartment was smaller than my parent's home square-footage wise - then realized that my 2 bedroom apartment had hallways - the house does not.  All the rooms interconnect.

Don't think - 1930's cottage, charming - think, 1930's cottage, run-down.

It needs:

1)  a new roof
2)  a paint job
3)  a front door
4)  the wood sills on the windows have warped and need to be replaced
5)  many of the window frames are rotting and the glass panes cracked and need to be replaced
6)  the front porch has detached from the house, so there is this little 'chasm' between the front stoop and porch - I have no idea how to fix that.
7)  the back staircase is detached from the house and needs to be replaced
8 ) the plumbing is so poor, you cannot throw toilet paper in the toilet because after a few times of doing this, the pipes will back up, so you have to throw used tissue in a trashcan, so the bathroom perpetually smells
9)  there is no bathroom window - literally.  There is an opening for a bathroom window but for some reason, after putting in bars, my parents decided putting in a window screen and window was too much of a bother or too expensive.  So right now, the bathroom in plunged in darkness because the one opening is covered in cardboard.  Needless to say, the room is blazing hot in the summer and terribly cold in the winter.
10)  bathtub needs to be replaced - the drainhole is lined with some sort of filler.
11)  there is no hood/ventilator to the stove, so grease from cooking settles a residue on everything within the kitchen.
12)  the house has carpenter ants and termites
13)  why houses made of asbestos siding have not all been condemned worries me - yes, the house is made of asbestos siding on a wood frame, yet some of the siding is cracked or in pieces and needs to be replaced.  I have a funny feeling I will have a hard time finding replacement siding and I guess we'll either just leave it be or decide to spring for all new siding, though whether there will have to be some sort of hazmat special treatment to get it replaced is unknown.
14)  the back fence has fallen and needs to be replaced
15)  there is fucking poison ivy somewhere in the backyard that needs to be rooted out and destroyed by a competent landscaper

And that doesn't cover the problems with the cosmetic, stuff that people look for when they buy a home:

The ill-treated hardwood floors, the horrible tile, carpet and linoleum that is in pieces and needs to be pulled up or replaced, the newish kitchen counter top that sticks out much much farther than the cabinets beneath it - one of which has no doors and have been painted over so many times that they don't shut, the interior doors that have no latches, no central air or heat, no garbage disposal, no dishwasher, no pantry (this may not sound like a big deal, but it is, when you realize that you used the shelving for storage and the pantry for food, but now you have to use the shelving for food and have little to no storage).

*sigh*

[Marge_Innavera]

This is exactly the situation we're in. We have a c. 1924 house that needs just about everything, literally from foundation to roof, but it sits one of the most desirable tracts of land (23 acres) in this part of our rural county.  We're what people used to call "land poor," and we're trying to hang in there for another year or two before selling.

I don't know any details about what your land is worth, but if that's what's valuable, you probably need to market it that way if you decide to sell; i.e., look for people who would be interested in the property the house sits on.  If you do go the route of getting a condo or another house with the proceeds, two possibilities would be foreclosure sales or people looking for someone to assume a mortgage.  Just make sure it isn't one of those underwater situations!  You were wise to resist the lure of low-interest loans during the real estate bubble.

[Front-Ranger]

This may seem like an insurmountable problem, della, but things may be better than you think!

Because of generous tax breaks and incentives for first-time homebuyers, modest houses such as yours are enjoying more popularity than before. Also, you may be able to get help from HUD, the department of housing, or Habitat for Humanity, or other agencies. I just sold a house last fall that was in terrible disrepair. In fact, I regarded it as uninhabitable. I consulted a good realtor who told me not to do anything to the house but to sell it as-is. I put it on the market at a low price and had lots of people interested in viewing it. In just a day or two, there was a handful of interested buyers who bid up the price amongst themselves. Within the month, the house was sold. Although I ended up losing about $20,000 over the investment's lifetime, I would have lost that in the stock market crash anyway. And I didn't have to spend countless hours arranging for all sorts of repairs to be done. It felt so good to be walking away from that money pit for the last time! And buyers, who are generally young families, single people, gays who are legendary in their home improvement skills, and people buying houses for investment and renting purposes, are happy to take on your headaches and get them off your shoulders!

BTW, the couple who bought this house had an FHA loan. There's a myth out there that you can't buy a house "as-is" with an FHA loan, but I found out that's not true!

[Jeff Wrangler]

Oi. 

Sell it as a fixer-upper/"handyman special" for what you can get, and get out of there and back into an apartment. 

Seems to me the only real remedy for this place is either a bulldozer or a match. 

[ifyoucantfixit]

       My best suggestion would be to see if there is such a thing as a neighborhood
improvement mortgage program.  Have a realtor check into it for you.  If the house
is truly eaten up by termites or carpenter ants, the best route may be to raze the plac e and use that money if they will give it to you.  To tear it all down and build new on
the already paid for property.  The cost of a house with land that is already owned is
not at much by half or less than a house on land you have to pay for.  I know that
there are such loans available to certain areas and to certain people.  We sold our
last house that way.  The guy lost his job while we were trying to clear the deal.  Then all we had to do was wait for him to get another job.  He did not have to be on the
job for two years at all.  But in our case, there was nothing wrong with the house at all. 

[Mandy21]

Seems to me the only real remedy for this place is either a bulldozer or a match. 

 

[Shakesthecoffecan]

Here is my suggestion: Sell the place! It sounds like more trouble than it is worth. Then, use the money to buy a condo. If your lucky you'll make enough off the sale to buy one outright, and then all you would have is your taxes, insurance and monthly maintenance fee and you'll have a much better living situation.