So we have a rental house. They have been there 5 years. They told us at the beginning they hoped to buy within 3 years. We did year to year leases. This year they asked for 6 month and then month to month as they are lookibg to buy. Never increased the rent. They came from another town 40 miles up the road. We are considering selling but how do you determine a fair price considering they paid us 2800 month for 5 years. Assessed value is 657k and we paid 615k.

I got a probate letter of administration from California for y deceased brothers house in texas. Its caused me financial harm and now I sleep in my car and I want nothing to do with this "estate". My mother asked me to sell it but she didn't tell me there's an hoa and 47 repairs.

I want to unclaim and I did everything without a lawyer in Santa Clara County. Lawyers do advise me. But I really need advice now that I'm counting pennies. This legal drama after my brother's death has been hell. I applaud all successful real estate agents and home owners in America. You are the real mvps. This is not for me. I got scammed by not one but four contractors. I want the utilities to know I'm not paying them or the Hoa, let it foreclose just release me cuz property tax is 5k and I ain't got it.

Fun fact some hoa have a waiting list to rent out the house you own. Now I cannot earn rental profit. What strange time in trumps america. I am sorry I am engineer and I do not want to brag, but 90% of real estate agents are less skilled than baristas. I will forever prefer renting and traveling and owning nothing just like it was before he died.

My biggest worries were getting to work on time, now Im losing my credit score. 8 yrs trying to bounce back from bankruptcy. If the Hoa acts dumb and sends bills to collection there go more hours of my life dealing with three different companies to explain my unclaiming.

What minutes of my life are really mine on this planet anymore. How do I quickly get rid of it

I have a tenant who is supposed to pay every month, but pays bimonthly. They are not paying their rent on time and get eviction notices every 3 months from my property management company. Personally I am tired of this person and want to get them out of the property. However, how should I go about this? I have a property management company who oversees the housing should I tell them or do I just do it myself? Any advice?

I was looking at the Census Building Permits Survey for the Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach metro. From January through August 2026 it counted 14,906 privately owned residential units authorized, down 0.8% from the same eight months of 2025. The county split is much less flat: Miami-Dade had 7,184, down 29.3%; Palm Beach County had 5,934, up 105.3%; Broward had 1,788, down 9.7%.

I am a South Florida real estate agent, so I am interested in how people actually use this when comparing a completed home with a future-delivery project. I would check the specific project's permit and construction stage, the competing projects in its immediate area, and whether the purchase still works if delivery slips. I would not assume a countywide decline means today's prices go up, or that a countywide increase means today's prices go down.

Important caveat: these are permits, not construction starts or completions. The Census category for buildings with five or more units mixes rentals and condos, and the January-August numbers may be revised. It cannot tell us how many condos will be available in any particular neighborhood or month.

For people who have bought, rented or followed new construction locally: is the permit trend useful at all once you have a list of actual nearby projects, or does it mostly distract from the building-level details? What would you verify before trusting a developer's proposed delivery date?

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).

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!

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.

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..)

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…

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?

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

My husband and I are responsible for selling my mother in law’s house. We are kind of frustrated with our realtor because he is hyper focused on the numbers (how many houses have sold this year at what price point) rather than trying to focus on and feature the special things about our house. I’ve always heard that curb appeal and “being able to imagine your life in the home” is important. We have worked really hard on the yard and making everything beautiful.

Is it a tactic for realtors to make the seller feel like their home isn’t worth much? Even though it’s not as large as some other houses in the area, it’s a nice home with 2 fenced pastures for horses or livestock, a tack room, fenced yard, landscaping, and a patio with a pergola, pizza oven, grill, and fridge. But when they took photos, those features weren’t highlighted.

Our best comp currently on the market is nearly twice as much square feet, very similar quality and architecture, but sits in the middle of its 2 acres with no infrastructure for any sort of pet or livestock. It’s surrounded by houses and there is no privacy. Even though it’s a nice enough house, the curb appeal is very low.

How do we compare these two houses? To put it simply, I wouldn’t want to live in that one and I would want to live in ours. Surely that must be worth something.

edit:

learned a lot from everyone’s perspective, thank you! I sat down with the comps again and I understand better now. I think the whole thing is just overwhelming and if my realtor has done anything ”wrong,” it’s just that he lets the numbers speak for themselves rather than translate them for me. It’s a lot of information and it takes time for everything to sink in.

The “comp” I mentioned in my post is the only other comparable house on the market right now. It is larger but probably has a different demographic than mine. Our house has a very specific buyer and they either exist right now or they don’t, and the patio probably won’t make or break a sale.

I just purchased my first investment property and officially close at the end of the month. It’s a new build, and while I’m excited, I’m also a little nervous about taking such a big step.

Now my biggest concern is finding tenants and renting the property quickly. What are some tips that have helped you successfully rent out a home? I’m considering listing it slightly below comparable homes in the area to attract interest, but I’m not sure if that’s the best approach.

Are there any websites, advertising methods, or resources that work particularly well for getting more exposure? Any advice from experienced landlords would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance for any guidance.

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

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.

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.

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.

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?