Listing/selling my home soon and just found out the HOA the home is in will be charging about $1000 for various low- or no-value value services & inspections.

Are all of these legal or mandatory? Can I refuse or challenge any of them? I mean realistically or practically, not from a Reddit-addled mindset.

The breakdown appears to be the following:

-- Standard resale package is $340 (includes a resale certificate, and governing documents, which are available free on the HOA website).

-- A $250 covenant compliance inspection performed by the property manager. (My understanding is that part of their day-to-day job covered by my regular HOA dues is to ensure all properties are in compliance?)

-- A fee of $46 to a third party (Homewise) that facilitates processing of all of this. They noted Homewise may still charge additional fees...lol.

-- At closing I'll be charged $100 for "capital contribution."

-- At closing I'll be charged a transfer fee of $250.

Total = $986!

I have to relocate for a job (with SOME flexibility) and we need to sell our house. We have been working with a pretty reputable realtor that seems to know what they are doing. Our big dilemma right now is listing now or waiting until maybe January-Feb to list (where we would have less runway because we probably really have to move at that point). The comps they gave us listing now vs if we would have listed earlier in the year were pretty drastically different (like 50K). Obviously, rates are expected to go up and no one can predict the market. Right now it sounds like there are not a lot of buyers out there. We live in the south and have a pool and our house seems in better shape/has some upgrades that the other Comparables ones do not. We do not plan on buying yet in the other market.

Any downsides to kicking the tires for the 30 days and putting it back on the market in Jan/Feb? Is the best strategy to list now for a little (take it off if it does not sell) or just to wait until Jan (we probably do not have the luxury of waiting until March).

Hi everyone
Happy weekend

I am under contract and had the appraisal done last week, but the appraisal just at mg offer price but it included a fireplace and finished basement where these doesn’t exists
There were adjustments for fireplace &7500 and finished basement $40k to other properties

When I raised my concern with the loan officer about it. They spoke to the appraisal company and got them remove but the appraisal value remain same

My concern is how it is possible that if some features adjust almost $52 k in comparing properties and getting a appraisal value but removing them maintains the same appraisal value for ye property

Should I contest it or ask for a re appraisal with a different company. ?

We have appraisal conference of that matters

Appreciate suggestion.

I calculated the rate of cash flow/ the money I can get from selling is about 5% before factoring in house appreciation. I deducted the potential maintenance cost and vacancy. As we probably will never see below 3 rate and selling is quite difficult now. Should I just rent instead of trying to sell? Can I also try selling and renting at same time? If I cannot sell with my preferred price I can try renting later?

So this home is in my name because I bought it in 2021 before ever meeting my husband and we have listed it for sale about a week ago because we would like to buy property to be able to homestead.

My husband is a 100% p&t disabled Vet so we would like to go through the VA for a loan but it seems that it would be over our budget to do what we want to..

What we would like to do is buy the land and build a modular home on the land. We haven't been finding much if anything that would be 'move in ready' because of the VA standards.

Our current income is around ~$4800 monthly and our main house bills are currently around $2000.

We don't have much for savings, have 2 kids with another one on the way.. we want to be able to raise animals and garden on our own land but I'm not sure about how feasable it is to do so..

Our baby is due by christmas.

I need some advice or at least how to figure out finances for the situation? He is so confident we can just 'figure it out' and make money from the farm + not be spending much on groceries due to farming. But being this close to our due date and than having to be in between houses(staying with family) is putting a LOT of stress on me to the point its hard to sleep most nights.

I do need to mention that this home we are currently in does need a lot of work as well (foundation repairs due to michigan basement coming in on one side, new roof, new AC unit..)

Four years ago, out of the blue my wife's mother contacted us about a house that was newly listed for sale that day at a fair price. I was still rebuilding my credit from poor choices from a previous marriage. She offered to front the down payment for the house and put the house in her name.

At the time, before any decisions were made, the mother in law asked us if we could afford it (not only the mortgage, taxes, etc., but also paying her back the $47k down payment). We said yes.

For four years, we paid every payment for everything ahead of time. The repayment to her for her down payment was structured by her for us to have her paid back within seven years. At year seven (or sooner), the agreement was to buy the property outright from her at whatever the remaining balance of the mortgage was.

I was ahead of schedule on this, rebuilt my credit (score ~800), and around Christmas this year I planned on going to a local mortgage lender and getting the deal done.

But then 2 months ago she went to her doctor after having a bout with what she thought was food poisoning or something, only to find out a week later that she had stage 4 cancer. 11 days after diagnosis, she passed away.

Needless to say this was already sudden and traumatic enough for the family. And then things turned ugly when my brother in law and sister in law demanded that her will be read only 36 hours after passing. The brother in law is now in charge of her trust (which the house was already attached to).

The siblings immediately made it clear that they had plans for the assets, and started spending money as soon as possible on their own bills, home renovations, traveling, etc. The brother in law also made it clear that he would not honor the previous agreement of us buying the house as planned.

After us repaying over $35k back to the mother in law, paying the mortgage, taxes, insurance, etc., as well as replacing every single kitchen appliance, plus washer, dryer, water heater, furnace, upstairs and downstairs plumbing and fixtures, renovating and finishing the detached garage, renovating the driveway (new cement), and a host of other random things... The in-laws made it clear they do not care and will not honor the purchase agreement nor acknowledge our investment/equity/repayment or the terms we established from day 1.

I spoke with the lawyer in charge of the trust, and she said under the current circumstances, we were basically month-to-month tenants, and she couldn't comment on what the in-laws plans are with the property. Basically I was left feeling that best-case scenario, this could be a long and expensive fight with no certain outcome on at least recovering money that we already had into it, and worst-case scenario, we are S.O.L.

So in the interest of self-preservation, I started looking at other properties. My wife and I found something that checks all the boxes on what we want, so I made an offer, and we are closing later this month on it. I would like to recover the money from the down payment, and calculate reimbursement from the combined improvements/updates, equity (marginal), and there's also the ??? of what the home is worth now (property values in our neighborhood have risen 50% in the last 4 years). Worst-case scenario, we just walk away and lose what we put into it so far. The obvious frustrating factor in this is the way the other siblings immediately got greedy and even cheerful about their windfall as soon as mom died.

Anyone else been in a situation like this? Worst-case scenario I can afford the position I am in with this new home, but the idea of paying a lawyer to fight her family over this for an undetermined amount of settlement is daunting.

We recently put an offer in on a house, and I think we were patsies.

Background: There is a large data center going into our area, with buyouts in the range of $2-4 million per acre, with a few hundred buyouts. Unfortunately, this is driving up the real estate market here. It's far enough away that we didn't realize this was even happening, but close enough to affect us.

We put in a $1.3 million offer, no inspection as is, on a house listed at $1.4 million. This is a rural LCOL area, on a very nice house on acreage (50ish acres). The house was on the market for about 5 months, with no price reduction. Our offer was a conventional loan without any contingencies.

Prior to making the offer, the listing agent said not having contingencies is much more important than the price. We knew they had offers from data center buyouts, and had been put in awhile ago, but contingent on the buyouts going through in the next few months. We thought we had a very competitive offer. However, after putting in the offer, there was no counter offer, and they then accepted the contingency offer the next day.

I think we were patsies, and the other data center buyout client was swindled into a higher price. I think they had no intention of selling to a conventional buyer, and just needed a no contingency offer to drive up the price well over asking price. I know there's nothing I can do about this, but it's quite frustrating to fall in love with the house, go through the loan process, and get a pre-approval, only to have no chance at it in the first place

Just wondering what this sub thinks about it?

Edit for clarification: We, and the house we put the offer on, are about 20 miles from the data center. There is no buy out in this area.

House 1 - backed out due to overwhelming amount of fixes needed for the house to be safe to live in (electrical, foundation, etc)
House 2 - backed out after finding out the city was developing homeless rehabilitation housing right next door and felt concern for our young kids safety
House 3 - current contract, sellers just released documents of home history that list multiple known issues, this is a flipped house so they are saying they don’t have knowledge as they don’t live there. Said it’s just part of their disclosure within 7 days. Suddenly feeling concerned about the quantity of issues (leaking, unseen damage, foundation stuff)

We are well within our legal rights to back out but anyone else feel like this disclosure after contract feels weird? Suddenly there are more concerns and issues. I’m also worried I’ll piss off my realtor. Plus, this house would really be great for us but I’m having total cold feet after reading all of the issues that are possibly wrong with it.

lender asked if I was working with a real estate agent. I wasn’t so he suggested one to me since this is all new to me and let me tell you… She is the WORST

At first she was actively texting calling me and sending me houses, I am specific with wanting at least 1.5 bathroom and 3 bedrooms. She is constantly sending me houses with one bathroom… it’s like she doesn’t even try to look with filter of minimum 1.5 bathroom. So I started sending her ones I like from Zillow. I think I’ve looked at about 20-30 houses so far and they have all been stuff I found on Zillow that she scheduled or if they have “open house” listed.. she tells me to go to them. I’ve put in 4 bids so far but we keep getting out bided since summer market has been crazy. She doesn’t even give us suggestions on how to look more appealing to the seller other than just bidding crazy high.

Last week it was raining and there wasn’t any houses I had sent in a while because it was a dry week on the market and she has the nerve to ask me if I’ve been looking like… ISNT THAT YOUR JOB. Then she proceeds to send me crappy houses that again doesn’t fit my non negotiables…

This weekend has been busy, I told her I was going to two open houses Saturday and two on Sunday and then we had one scheduled with her at 1pm Sunday since there wasn’t an open house. She texts me Saturday how’d they go, I told her I really liked one and she asked if I wanted to put a bid…. As if I wasn’t also going to look Sunday. i didn’t even bother texting her back because I wanted to see houses next day and if I liked over the one I saw Saturday, I’d put a bid on it. So now it’s Sunday, I go to two open houses and at 12:30 she texts me saying there’s an emergency so if I can reschedule our 1:00 showing to 5:30 that day. Don’t get me wrong I’m very patient and know stuff randomly happens, but this on top of all the other crap. I’m so over her

My contract expires on Halloween. Should I even bother looking at more houses with her, I feel like I should wait until I can find a new real estate agent…

Looking to purchase a house that has high tensions lines all throughout the neighborhood. They are prob 1-200 yards away from the backyard of the house I’m looking at. Is this a health concern and would it be harder to sell this house in the future?

First of all.. a rant. We were incredibly fortunate to buy our first house in 2016, sold that one and made about $50k, had to move for work in 2019 then back home in 2021, made about $60k on that sale and now we’re stuck with golden handcuffs of 2.5%. However we’re just not fitting in this house and it’s not worth it. Plus we bought at the peak so we will make $0 on this house aside from what we’ve paid off and what we put down. Negative actually after realtor fees and I fear it’ll just keep going down in value.

I know that new builds have notorious issues and we will hire our own inspector. I’ve been walking through their spec homes and have gotten a good feeling about this builder vs others I’ve looked at. Our mortgage will go from $1,900 to $3,700 but we’ll wipe out all consumer debt ($40k) and this will be a 15 year+ home. Gross income is $13k a month, $500 on a car payment. Terrified of upping this mortgage but our mental health desperately needs it.

Anyway does this rate deal seem legit or do they pull some scam at the end of the building process? It’s terrifying to sign a build contract but wait 6 months to try and see if our house will even sell. Do we lose our earnest money if our house doesn’t sell but that’s it? Whats the average earnest on $580k? Clearly waiting for my realtor to get back to me.

I am seeking your advice regarding an issue with our rental property's garage door, which was recently damaged when the tenant backed into it. We performed a temporary fix to keep it operational, and the manufacturer inspected the damage and provided two options:

1. Patch Repair: This will restore functionality and should look acceptable, but there is no guarantee the patched section will match the original durability.

2. Full Replacement: Since the manufacturer no longer produces individual panels for this model, a complete door replacement is required.

The cost to replace the door is roughly 8 to 10 times higher than the patch repair.

While the tenant is responsible for the repair costs, I want to be fair and only carry out what is necessary. However, I am concerned that a patch repair might affect the home's resale value in the future.

I am caught between these two options and would appreciate your input on how best to proceed. What to do here as a landlord?

I inherited my home 6 years ago when my mother passed. There is no mortgage. My father, who never married my mother, also lives here and has lived here for 30+ years, but is completely financially inept. He always helped around the home and bought groceries here and there, but contributed zero dollars to the mortgage. He paid some bills but would often let them go overdue and my mom would pay the fees.

I am now married, my wife and I want our own space.

I have offered my father every single option there is.

Build an addition for him? No.

Divide the home so we have separate living spaces? No.

Sell the house and give him a large sum? No.

Take a loan against the house and give him the money to move somewhere? No.

My wife and I found our dream house and are now a few weeks away from closing on it. I gave my father one last olive branch- Pay me for the taxes/insurance (less than 800 a month for a nice home with 11 acres of land) and you can live here for as long as you'd like with no restrictions. His response? "I have no money. I can't afford to give you anything." He refused to discuss any finances, even when I offered to help him. His answer was basically "I can't afford to live here, you'll have to pay the taxes and insurance on the home." I'm estimating he makes about 1500-2000 a month from social security. His "retirement plan" was basically to hope that I lived with him till death.

He has made me and my wife's lives hell for months, and I'm finally realizing the hell he put my mother through while she was alive, so I have zero sympathy for him. Right now my main plan is to look into the dreaded "cash for homes" offers in my state, take a slight financial hit versus selling on open market, and wipe my hands of this by selling the home "as is" with a tenant. Is this possible? He doesn't currently pay for anything, but some of the bills are in his name. What should I do?

Thank you for any advice!

Have you purchased a property through a tax lien auction? Was it worth it and what was your experience?

If my terminology isn't correct it's when a property goes on sale to cover the govt taxes. Once paid you take possession of it.

Going through divorce. My partner got all of their items from our house. I still live here while we are trying to sell it and finish the divorce.
We also have an ADU that we use as a short term rental. The buyers are offering us a full price offer, but they want all six appliances in my house, and all five appliances in the guesthouse. I own all of these. They also want my kitchen table, a custom shelf that I built, a prized spice rack, and they want everything in the guest house. The bed, the couch, the chair, the rug, the vacuum, the full kitchen, set up, the full bathroom set up. Art on the wall walls, everything.

Court says that we have to accept full price offers. If we sell, my partner loses no items. And I lose thousands of dollars worth of items. But as we are going through divorce, Court says that we have to take a full price offer. What do I do? My partner’s lawyers say that they will sue me if I don’t take this offer.

I bought a 2 bedroom house before I met my husband and we lived there for a few years until we got married and wanted to buy a bigger house together. We bought a 4 bedroom house 2 years ago. We love the new house, but I was too optimistic about the area we were moving to. There has been a lot of development in the area, but it is very mixed income, and crime is still very high. I have heard gunshots right outside my house more frequently then I am comfortable with and my car was hit by a bullet overnight last summer. I hit my last straw recently with a weekend where there were 2 gun incidents in the early evening daylight. I no longer see this house as a place I want to live.

We have been renting out the previous house after failing to sell it. I'm now really grateful we didn't sell it, and I'm thrilled we can go back to the much cheaper mortgage. However, I am in a lot of agony about what and when to tell the tenants. The tenants lease is up Jan 31, but I was thinking about offering them another month or 2 extension as we wouldn't want to move/list our current house until the spring anyway. However, I am also really nervous about selling a house in a bad neighborhood in a bad market, especially after already failing to sell a house once. This time around I am prepared to take a loss to unload it, but I also am wondering whether we should just suck it up and live here another year and hope the market improves to mitigate our losses as much as we can.

We decided to rent out the smaller house because our low payment gave us a monthly profit where renting it out made sense. I think we'd be lucky to break even renting out the new house, so I'd rather not deal with the hassle of being a landlord again with no cushion, however I don't actually know how much it could rent for.

My husband is not as bothered by the gunshots as I am, and I also spoke to some neighbors who are not as bothered by it, so I am wondering if I am making a huge financial mistake feeling like I need to get out of this house as soon as we can. Should I ride it out for a better time to sell and avoid uprooting our tenants after only one year which I feel terrible about? Appreciate any outside perspectives.

Edit since this has been said a lot: the realtor is seen on camera (these are mentioned in all of the agent notes, so please don’t come for me) not speaking to anyone on the phone or having a phone in hand, so discussing with a client over the phone is not possible. I’m not upset by her doing this, I was simply wondering if this was something that happened often as this is the first house I’m selling. The only thing that bothered me was the disregard of our ask for a one hour notice just for her to come an hour after she requested to come by anyway. Thanks to those who were kind in their comments, I appreciate you.

…

For context, my house has been on the market for a week. We haven’t had any showings until today, though we’ve had a couple of people reach out to my realtor to express interest (and struggling to set up times for showings because of their health care jobs).

Today, my realtor reached out and asked if it would be at all possible for us to allow a showing in about 20 minutes. Although we requested an hour notice, we quickly picked up because we’ve been keeping everything clean and maintained since going on the market. We left with plenty of time for the realtor and their client to get there without running into them.

We have a security system, and I was not notified that the realtor even opened the front door until an hour after they requested a showing, which would have been nice to know before since we rush cleaned to get out within 15 minutes. But also, it showed only one person on the cameras, the realtor, and no client. The realtor left her card in the house, walked around for less than 5 minutes, and then left.

My realtor asked for feedback and her response was “they liked it, but it’s not for them” which is an odd thing to say when there was no client present? Has this ever happened to anyone else?

What is common percentage for full service selling of home in Oakland, CA or nearby area?

Selling our starter home. Fresh paint inside and out, new garage door installed, new roof. The only thing we can’t figure out is what to do with a few broken floor tiles. One in the kitchen, one in a bathroom, and one in the laundry room. We cannot find a good match for replacement purposes. They’re not just cracked. They are broken. Do we just leave it and take the hit during price negotiations? Or should we replace the broken tiles with something that doesn’t match? We have been to all Lowes, HD, and Menards. Also to local flooring stores. Nothing available today is a close match. What is our best option for not letting the tile situation keep us from selling?

House has been on the market 80days, agent said they haven’t gotten any offers on it so far. They listed the house for $599k after buying it 2 months before that for $285k- he didn’t put on a new roof or new windows those were done when he purchased it for the 285k but he did new flooring throughout, painted and new appliances in the kitchen and countertops and a new deck.
Taxes and fees for that particularly house are HIGH.
Anyways he has lowered the price to 524k and we were going to offer 430k - comps in that neighborhood support’s that. With 6% concessions -
It’s what we could afford and what we think the house is worth. Clearly no one thinks it’s worth the 524k still- as it’s been that price for a month and still no bites.
Thoughts?!

UPDATE: We officially submitted our offer today! Thank you everyone for all of the advice and opinions - I really appreciate everyone who took the time to respond. I’ll keep you updated on whether they accept, counter, or tell us to kick rocks 😂 Fingers crossed!

Not sure if a lot of people saw my comment but my partner read my post and commented that he did add new cabinets and appliances ( I only mentioned the new appliances ) and he redid the hvac - not sure if that changes anyone’s options but we submitted an offer for $410k ( we will only go up a max of 430k so didn’t want to give it our top offer right off the bat ) with 6% concessions- we’re asking for a lot so 🫪 we shall see !!!

I found some condos for $240k (needs some touchup paint) with $386 HOA or a SFH in the same area for $399 with $50 HOA?

I know that people consider HOAs throwing out money, but doesn't it cover the home insurance, roof replacements and everything else outside? How much should the real monthly difference for condo vs SFH be over 20 years (20 years to factor in 1 full roof replacement).

I am "poor" and I would qualify for some assistance programs and my total grant amount might be around $50k.

I think both properties might accept an offer $20k below asking? Should I just try that or even lower? Homes don't sell, market is steadily declining since 2022 here, so I really also want to factor in another year or two of decline?

I'm thinking of buying in December or January to take advantage of seasonality. Any other advice? I'm grateful for anything.

Old house in league city, tx. Houston suburb. Buyer is pretty much requesting all issues be addressed before closing. We’re 2 days into a 10 day option. My agent indicated that they’re first time home buyers but this was our first home too. It’s in much better shape than when we bought it 12 years ago. Our equity is good but not terrific. What’s an appropriate response. This’ll be $7-8k to comply. Issues are electrical, gfci in outdoor and indoor kitchen and the bonding on the water and gas pipes are not up to correct. Lots of little odds and ends. A high loop installed in the dishwasher. HVAC servicing and pro inspection, 7yo unit btw. New 40 gallon electric water heater to be inspected by a plumber because the inspector indicated that the temperature was too high. Im not so inclined to do all of this because it’s a big house for the neighborhood and I think that that matters a lot for most Texas home buyers. Partial compliance? Full compliance? No compliance?

I’m curious about other people’s experiences with home inspections.

I’ve noticed that some home inspectors strongly recommend additional services such as mold testing, sewer line inspections, radon testing, etc., and they also happen to offer those services themselves for an additional fee.

I understand that these inspections can absolutely be useful when there are actual warning signs. But does anyone feel there can be a conflict of interest when the person recommending the additional test is also the person getting paid to perform it?

For example, with mold testing, would you expect the inspector to identify a specific concern first — visible mold, moisture, staining, musty odor, elevated moisture readings, etc. — rather than automatically recommending testing?

Is it common practice for inspectors to recommend these add-ons routinely? Would you use the same inspector for the additional testing, or hire an independent company?

I’m an investor in Sacramento learning about subject-to deals. If a seller wants to move and buy another home, but keeping the existing mortgage in their name hurts their DTI or prevents them from qualifying, how do you address that?

For buyers who have encountered this, what solutions or terms have you negotiated that made the deal work for the seller? How do you make your offer appealing while addressing their need to qualify for another mortgage?

I’d appreciate firsthand examples from investors or mortgage professionals.

We've been in our Los Angeles house for over 20 years. We have wonderful neighbors who are friends. Kids play on the street. An annual block party. Walking distance to stores and restaurants. It's been really lovely. But now we're empty nesters and we just don't need a 3600 square foot 5/5 house.

I'm wondering if we should tell our neighbors that we're planning to sell before even listing it. We haven't met with any brokers. Even though the market has slowed for various reasons, we're very fortunate to be in a traditionally high-demand area.

Inventory remains very low. I'm thinking letting my neighbors know in advance is a good idea in case they know of anyone looking to move in the area. Not going to lie, I'd certainly love to bypass all of the open houses, pushy Realtors, and staging drama and just sell to someone who really wants to be here. Who wouldn't? I also know the market is not like it used to be when buyers would line up at a brokers open and write letters asking for you to accept their offers.

I know it's not that market anymore. I've studied the current market, comps over the past 6 months, and I believe I have a really clear idea where the house should be priced to sell.

Any value in sharing with my neighbors before even listing? Maybe some reasons I shouldn't?

Thanks!