Quote :

"we are putting out house on the market tomorrow. Not looking forward to it, but since we are a growing family and can afford to move up now seems like a good time."

Not a huge market for out houses anymore

In all seriousness though, good luck on selling it -- toss a link up here when you put it up.

7/21/2010 2:40:43 PM

I have a predicament.

A builder is building a spec house next door to me. I am thankful that construction has finally resumed, but I have one reservation to the construction.

Our HOA covenants only allow brick, stone, or hardy board on the exterior of the homes in our phase. Vinyl and metal are restricted to the eaves and overhangs. Yet the builders do not have to get Architectural Review on new construction.

The builder has the house dried in and is starting on the MEP work and the exterior finishes. When I got home from work yesterday, I noticed that they were using vinyl on the rear three sides of the house, reserving the front for stone (probably). So I called my neighbor up and asked him if he had heard anything about a vote to change the Architectural Covenants and he said he hadn't.

When I got to work this morning, I did an MLS search for the house and I found the listing. It is listed as Stone/Vinyl exterior.

Here is an excerpt from the covenants:

Quote :

"Section 3. Minimal Square Footages for Houses and Additional Requirements. *Lot Owners shall be responsible for verifying these covenants regarding the permissible square footage and building materials for teh dwelling, which is set forth below. ... (b) All Lots depicted upon Plat Book 69, Page *** (but excluding Lot 14) are subject to the following restrictions. No house plans will be approved unless the proposed house shall have a minimum heated square feet toal of 2000 square feet for the enclosed dwelling area and all houses must be entirely constructed of brick, stucco, hardy plank, or other material as approved by Declarant or ARC. Vinyl siding or metal is only permissible for the eaves or overhang areas of the house."

What is the consensus on the best way to handle this? Should I contact the builder directly? Should I let the HOA deal with it?

[Edited on July 21, 2010 at 7:50 PM. Reason : ?]

7/21/2010 7:49:31 PM

HOA.

7/21/2010 8:06:42 PM

IIRC, for most developments, the builder is the HOA (or can override or ignore the HOA) until the development is built out.

7/22/2010 2:47:48 AM

Our AC quit working yesterday. At one point it was 96 degrees in my house and I am huge pregnant. Now I'm awake (because who can sleep being this hot?) after 2 hours of sleep, waiting for the heating and cooling place to open. We have had so much trouble with our AC unit and probably need to replace it.

7/22/2010 6:06:03 AM

Good luck, I just got mine replaced for about $6700. Some tax credits will give me back about $1500 next year though.

7/22/2010 8:36:20 AM

^^^This builder is not the developer. The developer is selling the lots to individual builders (read: custom homes).

7/22/2010 9:38:56 AM

^ I would definitely try and talk to the builder and developer to see whats up. From your post it sounded like construction was stopped for a while. Is that true? just on that one house or in the neighborhood in general? I'm guessing the neighborhood in general with the downturn of the economy. I've seen builders change standard specs in a neighborhood when they wouldn't sell. I used to work for a custom builder and in one particular neighborhood there were several builders and homes were listed as starting from the mid 350's with a slew of upgraded specs that were "standard." But now they are building homes in the high 200's in the neighborhood and virtually none of the "standard" specs are anywhere to be found.

7/22/2010 12:20:14 PM

contact the HOA first

7/22/2010 4:15:19 PM

I called the HOA.

The lady there said she would look into it for me.

Yesterday afternoon, she called me back and she had talked to the developer and the vinyl does not meet the covenants. The odd thing is that the builder called her yesterday to ask about the same thing.

7/23/2010 10:13:30 AM

water heater at my house (a rental) went out yesterday. looks like i'll be replacing it today... in the scorching heat! it's in the crawl space so we won't be in direct sunlight, but it's hot as all get out in there.

anyone ever seen a water heater split open at the seam on the side? mine was leaking out of the side of the tank - i'm guessing from the heat - but i've never seen that before. honestly though, it's not like i'm a water heater connoisseur.

7/24/2010 11:17:21 AM

how old is the water heater?

7/24/2010 11:21:07 AM

the house was built in 2001 and it's the original heater. i'm told 9-10 years is about right for estimated life of an electric water heater.

7/24/2010 2:02:05 PM

Well, that can be correct. Depends on if you're lucky or not with the water heater, or if it's a cheap piece of builder grade shit.

The apartment I was living in (that my dad owned) had a water heater from back when the development was built in the 80's, and we got the water heater replaced in 2007 because I saw it was leaking water out the side and rust was starting to spread on the floor. It broke as they removed it, and it was a high quality name brand unit for its time. I think that made it about 20-24 years old (I forget when that place was built exactly).

[Edited on July 24, 2010 at 2:06 PM. Reason : Since it's not in conditioned space, it's reasonable to think that weather cycles shortened its life]

7/24/2010 2:06:32 PM

yeah, i was thinking that maybe the weather cylces could have had something to do with it, but i don't know for sure. i am quite sure it's builder grade garbage though, so maybe 9 years was a long life for it.

any recommendations on new heaters? i was just going to go to lowes and see what they have. is that a bad idea? i need to get it fixed today though since it's a rental.

[Edited on July 24, 2010 at 2:53 PM. Reason : k]

7/24/2010 2:52:25 PM

my sandbag scheme finally failed (on this side) and it sploded into my flowerbed. WOE IS ME.

im gonng give it one more shot, but its a ton of shoveling thats for sure.

7/24/2010 4:56:41 PM

how's this for government intelligence?


I was denied the first-time home buyer's credit.

The reason? I paid interest on a mortgage in 2009. The year i fucking bought the house.

7/26/2010 8:28:50 PM

haha wtf. are you going to appeal i assume?

7/26/2010 9:00:25 PM

uhhh, fuck yeah. lol.

7/26/2010 9:02:26 PM

My house is going on the market next week. Whoever gets this home is going to be getting a bargain. I added up all the renovations in the last 3 years, and its over 30k of work. I just got done this week refinishing the floors, and the painter is coming in tomorrow to do the entire house. The only thing that wont be new will be the living room and master bedroom carpet. Everything else is new. Getting it to sell, and making it look really good almost makes me regret wanting to put it on the market...

7/27/2010 1:21:39 PM

^does this mean that you got the foreclosed home?

7/27/2010 1:37:06 PM

No. I made one offer and it was not accepted. I countered. In that time, it began to sink in that I could be facing a scarey amount of mortgages if my house does not sell quickly. I withdrew the offer before it was formally accepted. There are several homes in the neighborhood or comparable value (not as nice as the one we really like), so if that one becomes unavailable, we'll offer on something else. My wife and I REALLY want this one, however. I have looked at homes that cost more than 300k more than this one that I dont like as much.

I decided to get my house ready to sell quickly, and that would give me the best shot at the new house. If I get the house on the market and get a lot of traffic, I will feel more confident on a non contigent offer, but hopefully wont need to do that.

7/27/2010 2:40:02 PM

They took down the vinyl yesterday...it went straight in the dumpster.

I feel like a douche.

[Edited on July 27, 2010 at 5:27 PM. Reason : .]

7/27/2010 5:27:37 PM

why do you feel like a douche? you are maintaining your property value.

7/27/2010 5:41:03 PM

I know, but I also realize that his mistake...that I called him on...cost him upwards of $15k.

7/28/2010 9:29:38 AM

Eh, it's better that he spend $15k now while he is still building it than a bunch of people pay that much later on after they follow his lead to cut costs and end up having to do the same thing. Or even worse, it costs you that much when they change the covenants to fit all the new homes.

7/28/2010 10:20:13 AM

FINALLY closing today.

After an initial closing date of June 10th (in my opinion, ridiculously ambitious and unattainable), then a contract extension to June 30th, then a very uneasy month of July...finally closing today.

The sellers were nice and let me move in this weekend...albeit at the expense of a nonrefundable earnest money check (that doesn't even make sense). House looks AMAZING...I'll get some pictures up once I've finally cleaned up all the clutter. I am about to have one last meeting with the contractor (also seller)...because he did a really shitty job on the cabinets. I'm going to ask him to either re-do them or write me a check so I can pay somebody else to do them. Should be a fun conversation. It sucks, because the cabinets are really not allowing me to fully enjoy this new home.

7/28/2010 10:58:21 AM

who put them in and when did they do it? if he contracted it out then Im sure he hasn't fully paid them yet. i would assume he has about half of what they cost him in it.

what is wrong with them?

7/28/2010 12:21:50 PM

yay, my gutters are finally flowing cleanly. woot!

7/28/2010 9:53:11 PM

^^^good luck trying to get money from the seller after closing.

7/29/2010 12:20:27 AM

^^^He put them in...or his workers put them in. It was the last thing he did. I know he was trying to get done with that job to get started on another and I think he was running low on money as well.

We had a great discussion yesterday and he's going to get started on them tomorrow and do a few other things around the house.

^No money..he's going to finish the cabinets. His mom lives directly across the street from me so we're both trying to finish this house up on good terms.

7/29/2010 11:05:22 AM

Quote :

"They took down the vinyl yesterday...it went straight in the dumpster."

Is anybody else wondering if they could have salvaged that vinyl for their own house?
I'm planning to paint this fall, but I'm keeping vinyl open as an option.

7/29/2010 11:50:57 AM

I have already asked the builder and he said anything in the dumpster is fair game...PM me for the address.

7/29/2010 12:20:39 PM

took a little longer than expected but finally got our house on the market. 2 showings tomorrow.
http://www.remax.com/property/84364177-60470108/3819-Kirby-Dr-Greensboro-NC-27403/

7/29/2010 1:05:17 PM

http://www.allentate.com/DesktopDefault.aspx?pageid=11&pagealias=ListingDetail&ListingID=1837410&Region=&ListingPosition=3&From=QuickSearch

think the other link was bad hope this one works

7/29/2010 8:39:26 PM

Our house has been on the market for 3 weeks................
We haven't even had a showing

http://1231selwynlane.epropertysites.com/

We put so much money into the house. It is basically brand new. New floors, new paint, new granite, freshly painted deck.....etc. Sad part is, if this continues this way, we will need to get renters and with me having a baby in the near future I hoping this would be sold.

Good luck to you guys

7/30/2010 12:33:06 AM

You might want to think about renting some furniture and filling that one main room. Currently it's a big space that most people won't know what to do with. Good luck, looks really nice.

7/30/2010 8:09:17 AM

Quote :

"what is wrong with them?"

Missed this...

First, I was under contract on the house before he put the cabinets in. He told me what kind of cabinets he was getting, that they were inexpensive, but he was going to do a good job on the painting and finishing so that they would look great. Pretty much said he was going to put a coat on, then primer, sand them down, then finish off with another coat.

It almost looks like he just put the primer on...but in reality is just one coat of paint. It was suppose to be a solid white (not even really the color I wanted), but it looks like an off-white because it's so thin that you can see the wood coming through. It's not sanded down and there are white drippings all over the insides of the cabinets. They just really look like shit. Everyone who has come into the house has just been floored on how good everything looks, then they look at the cabinets and they are like..."ommm...what happened? is he finished?"

7/30/2010 9:06:19 AM

...

[Edited on July 30, 2010 at 10:05 AM. Reason : wrong thread]

7/30/2010 10:04:57 AM

Came home today to a leaky roof in the middle of a thunderstorm. Its appears to be at the outside seam of an attic bumpout and the rest of the roof. Doesn't look like anything some flashing can't take care of, just not sure how to fit it up and not look ghettofied.

FML

if i'm seriously thinking about listing this place for what i paid for it. buying this house was a serious mistake. its too big for my needs and too much of a project. i bought at what appeared to be the bottom of the crash, hoping to hold on to it for 5 or 10 years. the market is slightly up in my neighborhood, but there's two other houses on my street that have been for sale since i've been here (right at 11 months). i'd still be willing to take a few thousand dollar's loss to be out from under a mortgage. shit's expensive.

[Edited on August 6, 2010 at 6:36 PM. Reason : .]

8/6/2010 6:27:04 PM

I've got several patches in the yard that need some sod laid down. Is it too late to lay down zoysia sod in these patches? I'm getting a mixed yes/no...

8/6/2010 9:52:12 PM

1 year home walk-through coming up. I hope I don't miss anything!

8/6/2010 10:10:20 PM

washer leaks water everywhere. FML

8/8/2010 2:29:26 AM

^^Just had mine the other day

Yesterday the smoke detectors went off for five seconds and then stopped. I ran around like a mad man to see if there was a fire. Nothing. It was weird, but at least it didn't happen at night.

8/8/2010 11:47:31 AM

I need to build a retaining wall. It will be roughly 35' long and 2' high. I am contemplating doing a dry stack wall but am open to other ideas such as landscape timbers. Do any of you have experience or any pointers to share in doing something like this?

Also, any recommendations on places to get the material?

8/8/2010 9:47:48 PM

^^I'm having an inspection before the walk-through so hopefully someone will catch something if I don't.

8/9/2010 12:02:31 AM

^^ Dry stack <5' tall is an easy DIY'er. Oldcastle in Morrisville is a plant where they make the stuff. It is really cheap (comparatively) there if you can transport it yourself.

I have done dry stack walls before and as long as you get your foundation stable and level, it is really easy.

There are several design calculators scattered around the web.

8/9/2010 8:24:52 AM

OK great, thanks for the info.

I am leaning towards a natural stone wall if I were to do stone. Do you know of any places to get natural stone at a good price? I saw that Mulch Masters has 1 ton palates for $200 but they are usually more expensive than most.

8/9/2010 11:37:01 AM

This really is a crummy market. Put the house on the market on Friday. Place is spotless. Everything is new inside (paint and floors), and the house looks more beautiful that it ever has. Competitively prices for the neighborhood, and not a single showing this past weekend...

8/9/2010 1:24:48 PM

Page 34

I wouldn't look into it too far. It's right before school starts at the end of the summer.

8/9/2010 2:09:13 PM