Thread: Buying a house...

I've helped build a few houses from the footers to the roof, and I highly recommend finding a person who has worked in the construction business or is in the business when buying a house. Fixing stuff that other people have "fixed" sucks.
The house my wife bought before we were married is now 109 years old. I have rewired the electric ( 2 wire ) , and insulated the walls. How the house is still standing is amazing. There may of not been any kind of building code but 109 years later the house is a little out of plumb but still standing.

Originally Posted by Jimbo

Well, another adventure in home ownership.

This current house we bought through a private sale (a friend of a friend knew this guy, ....). So no real estate agents.

Anyway, the seller was an old guy downsizing and moving on from a bad marriage breakdown. Had done a lot of the renovations on the house himself. Promised that he'd get us the plans for everything, maps of the plumbing and electricity, bore pipes etc. asap.

He dropped dead 2 months after the sale went through unfortunately, the poor bugger. So we had no plans.

Right. No problem. First task, make a retaining wall out the back with bush rock. First day on site, the guy with the digger cuts through the major bore pipe, the septic tank line and the electricity line to both the bore pump and the septic pumps. Everything went quite well after that.

Second task. Put veranda posts up into metal stirrups (termite thing). Cut through phone and internet line while hammer drilling out the concrete around one of the posts.

Third task. Concrete the back part of the house. Broke through downstairs plumbing. Happily, was not a toilet we use, but...

Fourth task. Termite barrier around house. Drilling little holes through concrete every 200mm and injecting with termite poison. Phone call at 12pm from the dude - had drilled through the main water pipe to the house from the tank.

Seriously, by the time we finish the remaining 15 tasks I'll have a perfect picture of where all the bits are around my house.

The moral to this story? Get plans, and choose tradesmen with full insurance.

James.

Bahahahaha!! That SO reads like a Kurt Vonnegut novel lol. I think you should ghost write.

I will say I like older homes as you can usually work on them with good results. I have gotten the handle on all the defects and how to keep it all running. Hate to move now.....Like the back of my hand!

By the end of this year my Dad is retiring and talking about moving south, so I'll probably be selling mine and moving one house up the street (my house is next to his). The house was built by my Uncle who was an architect, and I would like to keep the property in the family, him and his wife made a huge impact on our family, great people who knew what family was all about.
This will be my third house and hopefully last.....

The house I live in now, I've had for 14 years, it was owned by a retired NBC broadcaster apparently he was "Mr. Peepers" a show that aired before my time...

I'll say if you can hold on to family property, do it...

My grandfather, who stepped in as a father figure to me when my parents divorced and my dad left the state, bought 80 acres of land when he retired. At age 11, when his dad died, he had to quit school and start working odd jobs on ranches in Texas. As he grew, so did the scope of the jobs he did, leading him to end up a cowboy on one of the last cattle drives down the Chisholm trail. During WWII, he was a Sergent in a medical battalion. After the war, he somehow ended up in the insurance and loan business. Years later, after moving to Georgia, and with only a 6th grade education, he went on to become the president of the Georgia Industrial Loan Association. After such a diverse life, the only thing he really wanted to do was go back to raising cattle, so he bought the aforementioned land and did just that. He died in his bed, after eating a steak dinner, as he looked out over the pastures he owned and loved.

My mom eventually got the house and part of the land, but ended up taking a home equity line of credit, which led her down a path to foreclosure. At the time, SWMBO and myself weren't in a position to buy it, or I would have in a heartbeat. To this day, I still watch and wait for it to come onto the market.

Thankfully, I still get to visit, since right before his death, my grandfather sold about 5 acres to my cousin who still lives there.

It's one of my favorite places in all the world.

Originally Posted by crouton976

I'll say if you can hold on to family property, do it...

My grandfather, who stepped in as a father figure to me when my parents divorced and my dad left the state, bought 80 acres of land when he retired. At age 11, when his dad died, he had to quit school and start working odd jobs on ranches in Texas. As he grew, so did the scope of the jobs he did, leading him to end up a cowboy on one of the last cattle drives down the Chisholm trail. During WWII, he was a Sergent in a medical battalion. After the war, he somehow ended up in the insurance and loan business. Years later, after moving to Georgia, and with only a 6th grade education, he went on to become the president of the Georgia Industrial Loan Association. After such a diverse life, the only thing he really wanted to do was go back to raising cattle, so he bought the aforementioned land and did just that. He died in his bed, after eating a steak dinner, as he looked out over the pastures he owned and loved.

My mom eventually got the house and part of the land, but ended up taking a home equity line of credit, which led her down a path to foreclosure. At the time, SWMBO and myself weren't in a position to buy it, or I would have in a heartbeat. To this day, I still watch and wait for it to come onto the market.

Thankfully, I still get to visit, since right before his death, my grandfather sold about 5 acres to my cousin who still lives there.

It's one of my favorite places in all the world.

That's almost... heartbreaking. No! That is heartbreaking.

Great story!

Well, here's the update: The seller decided to go with another (though not necessarily higher) offer. Either way, I'm not too disappointed, though the house was exactly what we wanted. It's kinda like wanting that NOS razor on eBay that just calls to you, but there's no way you're going to pay the Buy It Now price of $300... so instead, you bid $250 and hope it's good enough. If you win it, you win it, but if you don't, there's always the next one.

Don't let the thread die because of this... We're still on the hunt, so I'll update when something comes up. In the meantime, keep your own stories coming!

Originally Posted by Trimmy72

By the end of this year my Dad is retiring and talking about moving south, so I'll probably be selling mine and moving one house up the street (my house is next to his). The house was built by my Uncle who was an architect, and I would like to keep the property in the family, him and his wife made a huge impact on our family, great people who knew what family was all about.
This will be my third house and hopefully last.....

The house I live in now, I've had for 14 years, it was owned by a retired NBC broadcaster apparently he was "Mr. Peepers" a show that aired before my time...

If it was the star that would be Wally Cox, kind of a mousy looking guy. it was a very popular show probably in the early 60s.

I'll never forget moving to KS... we came down a few times and did a little house hunting. Ultimately we finalized on a house, bla, bla, bla. We had one day to get things settled before heading back home and ultimately get ready for the move. Hence, we had to put down our down payment on that last day.

Sitting in "rinky-dink bank KS" trying to transfer money down from the home country to pay our down payment, we were having nothing but problems. I don't think I had ever spent more than half an hour at any given bank in my life up until that point, but after an hour of trying to transfer funds... I was starting to lose my sense of humor.

Finally after an hour and a half I did lose my cool. I stood up and started to pace. When the manager got off the phone yet again and shock her head indicating that they couldn't transfer the money in I just blurted out, "For the love of Pete, how hard is it to transfer money for a down payment!!"

That's when buddy in his cowboy shirt looked over to me head cocked, with a confused look and said, "You mean earnest money?" I asked what that was and he informed me that earnest money was all you needed in KS to "seal the deal." So I said, "Yeah, I guess how hard is it to get this bank to accept earnest money from a foreign bank."

"Well shucks" he said. "All the earnest money you'll need will surely be under $500."

I nearly died!! I didn't need to put down the 20% or whatever we agreed to put down I thought I did... I just needed $500 dang dollars!! I threw down my credit card and was out in five minutes!

I tell you - I don't know if they changed the laws or not here in KS, but imagine if someone hated you here and you were in a panic to move. Said person, were they inclined, and were they to say be inclined $10,000 enough... well they could have friends buy and renege on the sale 20 times lol!! Were each sale to be within a month of each other - that would be a min of almost two years of pure hell!!

Kansas - you got to love it here .

Originally Posted by thebigspendur

If it was the star that would be Wally Cox, kind of a mousy looking guy. it was a very popular show probably in the early 60s.

Hmmmm........according to his obit he was , if I'm remembering correctly.... but his name was Dick Dudley (He was from Kentucky) maybe he was on the show instead and I got it wrong and Not Mr Peepers. I'll have to see what else I can find out about him.

Straight from Wikipedia so not my information: they don't list anything about Mr Peepers, not sure where I would have gotten that information from other then his obit. I'm not even old enough to ever heard of "Mr. Peepers"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Dudley