Buying your first home

[Jeff V]

I used to work for a large civil engineering company and one time I visited a small, construction services office in BFE, FL. This office was an old house, and had obvious rotting timbers and the manager mentioned her administrative assistant usually had to take breaks outside everyday because of headaches. I suggested mold was probably the issue and the manager agreed. The thing was, we had an environmental engineering office an hour away in Tampa, and mold mitigation was one of the main things that group did (after asbestos removal). When I got back to Tampa, I asked the office manager to send someone there to take care of it. I have no idea how long they were living with this issue quite needlessly since fixing it was something this company did!

[Isgrimnur]

Aaand there's the hail storm. Larger than golf ball. Here's hoping the heavier roof shingles stood up to the damage.

For those not keeping score at home, the roof was put on last August. We even upgraded to the 30-year architectural shingles.

Hail storm was a week ago Sunday. Adjuster was here today. Roof is totaled.

Roof #2 starts tomorrow.

We closed on the house 04/15/15. We moved in 06/06/15. Two new roofs in under 30 months.

[Jeff V]

Did you buy one of them fancy Elon Musk roofs? I understand they cure global warming, which will prevent further massive hurricanes from dumping on Texas.

[Isgrimnur]

I did not. Maybe after I'm making the fat dough that my Master's is sure to bring me.

[Isgrimnur]

Closing is complete. whee...

So in three years, that's a new A/C, a new oven, two new roofs, and a new furnace. The furnace was replaced this past Thursday. And the blower isn't working today, so they get to send someone out this afternoon to fix it.

[Chaz]

You sure you didn't buy my house? We did two furnaces, central air, and added runs of baseboard heat, plus then had to have someone come out and pull the blower and adjust the fan that was hitting the housing. Fortunately, that last bit was covered under the warranty, so didn't cost. The water heater is likely to go within the next year or two, so we're anticipating a new tankless water heater soon too. Plus, we want to replace the front door and a slider and possibly redo the main shower.

Home ownership is fun.

[Isgrimnur]

Isn't it, though?

Furnace guy came out and said they knocked the wire off when they put the panel back on. It hasn't blown any warm air since they left on Thursday. Of course, the weather has been good enough that we haven't needed it. If not for today's cold snap, it would have been six months before we noticed.

[coopasonic]

Closing is complete. whee...

So in three years, that's a new A/C, a new oven, two new roofs, and a new furnace. The furnace was replaced this past Thursday. And the blower isn't working today, so they get to send someone out this afternoon to fix it.

In 9 years in this house we've had one new roof. I think that covers it. I'm trying to remember if we still have the same water heater, if so we should be looking at replacing that. 9 years is a long time for a water heater.

[dbt1949]

Well, thank you for all that spam! You don't know how much we appreciate it.

[Kraken]

Took forever to click all those links, though.

[Holman]

Big news! We're moving too.

(TL;DR: Suddenly and almost unbelievably, we're planning to move into a large, lovely dream house along with my aging in-laws.)

(Predictably, there are moral, financial, and logistical issues involved.)

Background:

My wife's parents are getting old, and for a few years now she has been thinking about what will be necessary to take care of them in their sunset years. We are in Philadelphia and they have been in NYC, so visiting has not been too difficult, but we have been expecting that they would eventually need to move here to be closer to us.

That day has come. This summer my FIL (89 years old, suffering from mild but fortunately pretty mellow dementia) fell and broke his hip while he and MIL were staying at their summer place on Long Island. This sent him into the hospital for a hip replacement. Soon after, my MIL (81 but sharp as a tack) fell and cracked *her* hip while taking care of him. Both then spent months in the hospital doing physical rehab, which can only offer so much help to people their age.

Their difficulties with walking mean that the in-laws can no longer live independently in the Long Island summer place or the large Brooklyn house they bought in 1968. The options are for them to move into (a) a full-time nursing-care facility or (b) a new home with us along with occasional visiting nurse support.

They do not want to be separated, which due to dementia is the likely result of (a). Considering the costs of elder facilities that are better than just storage units, the long-term economics also favor (b), as does my wife, who is wholly dedicated to being a dutiful and caring daughter. As it happens, despite my cynicism and selfishness I too believe that younger generations are morally responsible for their elders, and I support this position sincerely. Plus, I actually like my in-laws.

Plus (and I must be honest), it means a much better house than we would be able to buy on our own.

Buying:

Philadelphia isn't New York, but East-Coast real-estate prices are fucking insane. Fortunately, the in-laws are in a position to sell two New York properties, and they are also veteran education professionals (CUNY and NY Public Library) from an era when generous pensions actually existed. They have money and will have even more after selling their current abodes. Meanwhile, my wife and I (her career is doing well, my work muddles on) had already been planning for a move into larger quarters as our kids got into their teen years--we've felt for a long time that our first place was too small. Combining our resources with the in-laws makes a lot possible.

So: about two months ago I saw a "For Sale" sign in the process of being posted at the best house in our neighborhood, the one we have always wistfully dreamed about. (The fantasy is merited. This is a large and very nice house.) That same day we contacted our realtor and the in-laws, and we pounced like wolves. We toured the house (fortunately we were the first), we made an immediate offer, it was accepted, and we had the home inspection, discovering only routine issues. This might be the easiest and quickest home buy ever made. If we had waited even a day, someone else would have snatched it up.

The Hard Part (part 1):

The deal is done. We're closing in December and moving in over Christmas vacation. The in-laws have left the hospital in NY and moved into respite care (i.e. expensive temporary Nursing Home Lite) at a community near us. They will join us in the new house just after a stairlift is installed, probably a week or so after we get in.

Logistics, though, are brutal. We're in Philadelphia, and we're emptying and preparing to sell one house in Brooklyn, one on Long Island, and our current place here. Given the in-laws' difficulties with mobility, the work falls on me and my wife. My brother-in-law can help a little, but he's a surgeon in Oregon without much travel time. A couple of friends (saints!) have helped as well, and we owe them a lot.

The funny quirky part is that the new house is only 300 yards from our current place even as we arrange for the emptying and sale of three houses, one 100 and one 200 miles away. We've already made four trips up and down to New York to get stuff ready, and there's a lot of work ahead of us.

The Hard Part (part 2):

This will be a very significant lifestyle change!

Double surgeries mean that it came more quickly than expected, but we have seen this day coming. We've done some moral, mental, and financial preparation already, including repairs and updates to our current house to prepare it for market. Still, there will be many dramatic adjustments. We will be three generations in the new house (with the in-laws having their own suite of three rooms based around the best bedroom), so there are bound to be surprises. Some of them will probably be serious adjustments, including of course care for my FIL, whose memory problems mean that interactions are as palliative as they are familial.

I believe, though, that this is the right thing to do, and this is the right time to do it. Our kids are old enough (14 and 12) to adapt and help out, and the new house is large enough for six people to live together without crowding. There will be visiting-nurse assistance when necessary, and the doctors tell us that their health issues don't preclude the in-laws living in a normal family house rather than a special facility.

FIL says his one desire in his final years is to live with his wife and to be close to family in a home with lots of light. Even with dementia, he is a people person and wants companionship. This is all that and more.

The House Itself:

Did I say the new house was "large and very nice"? I lied. It's magnificent.

It's a beautiful high stone house of 3,600+ square feet with seven bedrooms. Built in 1900, they really don't make them like this anymore. There are two staircases, so even the installation of a stairlift is no inconvenience. Modern-wise, everything (including especially the kitchen) is completely updated, and there is central air conditioning on two of three floors. Walls and doors and 10-foot ceilings are in excellent condition, and there is even a large back yard and off-street parking, both rare in the city. The house has excellent flow and perfect mantelpieces and leaded stained glass and the kind of detailing that realtors go out of their way to photograph.

One of the nicest things is that my wife's family has always had a fine tradition of holiday visits and family celebrations based around the NYC house. That will continue, only now they will be at our place, and this will be a wonderful site for it. I'm really looking forward to that. (The dining room is amazing.)

Issues discovered in the home inspection were minor and unsurprising for a 118-year-old building. Here are the items that require attention sooner than later:

-installation of the stairlift ASAP,
-one of the full bathrooms needs conversion to a walk-in/sit-down shower for the in-laws,
-electrical wiring is partially very new and partially older, with the latter unfortunately in rooms where computers and TV will live,
-a few outside window frames have decayed a little and need putty and paint attention,
-a small amount of asbestos lining in the basement (insulation for the former furnace boiler) should be taken care of,
-some stone slabs on the path from the driveway have buckled, making a problem for older folks like my in-laws,
-the central air does not extend to the third floor, where my wife and I will have our bedroom and offices, but we can make do with window units up there.

That's basically it, and everything else is pretty close to perfect.

Some Guilt and High Hopes:

While my wife and I have worked hard and planned for years, more than half of the up-front money for this move is coming from the in-laws. They're making it possible via the majority of the down payment to leave us with a small mortgage (little larger than what we've been carrying already) rather than a huge one. This is twice the house we could have bought on our own, and it has everything we've ever wanted in a home.

Of course it's their house too as long as they're alive, and my wife and I (and even the kids) are going to be doing quite a lot to make them comfortable in these next years. We're paying less than half of the down payment but taking on the remainder as mortgage, and in the long run it's pretty close to 50%. I suppose I feel guilty simply because this house is *so much* nicer than places we were visiting when we thought we would be buying on our own. On the other hand, there are two full adult couples making the purchase together, and it appears that real estate purchases really do benefit from economy of scale.

While it's quite possible that my FIL doesn't have much time, my MIL could be with us for a decade or more. There's something beautiful to me in the idea of three generations living together. This will be a hub for our family and extended family as well, and of course it will be a wonderful place for our kids to visit when they're older, especially if they start families of their own.

So wish us luck. The move will be a lot of work considering the number of properties involved, but the end result should be something very comfortable and very lovely. There's a bit of melancholy in the late-stage-of-life circumstances involved, but I feel we're doing it right. My own parents are younger and more vigorous (right now), but I'm even imagining that one of them might join us in the future.

Meanwhile, we're spending the Thanksgiving holiday (again) putting the NYC house into boxes. Moving is work!

[Isgrimnur]

Sounds like a project and a half. Good luck.

Make sure that the doorknobs aren't knobs, but levers. As long as you're not in Velociraptor territory, that is. And make sure all the cabinets and drawers have sturdy, large handles.

[Kelric]

While my wife and I have worked hard and planned for years, more than half of the up-front money for this move is coming from the in-laws. They're making it possible via the majority of the down payment to leave us with a small mortgage (little larger than what we've been carrying already) rather than a huge one. This is twice the house we could have bought on our own, and it has everything we've ever wanted in a home.

Of course it's their house too as long as they're alive, and my wife and I (and even the kids) are going to be doing quite a lot to make them comfortable in these next years. We're paying less than half of the down payment but taking on the remainder as mortgage, and in the long run it's pretty close to 50%. I suppose I feel guilty simply because this house is *so much* nicer than places we were visiting when we thought we would be buying on our own. On the other hand, there are two full adult couples making the purchase together, and it appears that real estate purchases really do benefit from economy of scale.

I am not a lawyer. I am not at all educated on these things. I do not empathize well. But... without knowing the family dynamics my thoughts go to your wife and your brother-in-law and eventual inheritances from your in-laws and how that may impact your wife and yourself. If, for example, the in-laws have their estate going 50/50 to their two children then how does this home purchase change that? I'm making up numbers for easy math, but if the value of the eventual estate is $1M and it goes 50/50 to the kids but the parents put $300k into the house that you live in, is everybody cool with $500k going to the brother and $200k to your wife, or is the remaining $700k split between the siblings? That is then kind of screwing over the brother out of $150k in inheritance. Things like that unexpectedly matter some day.

When my father passed we learned that he bequeathed what we thought to be his house completely to his wife. We knew they had been dating for eight or so years, that she had sold her condo, and then learned that she had contributed money to paying off the mortgage. They were married not too long before his death and while we had all been waiting for years for that to happen (the marriage, not the death), the financials behind the scene were a surprise. He had also apparently borrowed money from her and her siblings, so my siblings and I had to pay that back out of our portion of the estate. Adding that to us unexpectedly not getting any of the value of the house has led to some very quiet resentment (my eldest sister isn't so quiet about it). We love this woman as she was great for our dad, good to us, and good to our kids, but having not known ahead of time the sizeable financial impact she brought about is always going to color things to some degree.

I hope you have a better plan in place and that everybody communicates it well to each other. Money does funny things to folk.

[Isgrimnur]

Something something chickens something hatch.

[Holman]

Oh, there has already been much discussion (with everyone in the loop) about the ramifications for the inheritance.

Essentially the parents' "share" of the house will be split between my wife and her brother, and we will buy him out of his (or, rather, the finances of inheritance will be calculated to do so up front).

It's also possible that this will be taken care of early in another transaction, as BIL and family are considering their own move in the near future.

[mori]

That does sound like a lot of work and a big adjustment for everyone involved. Good luck. My only advice is to be as transparent as you can be with the in-laws in financial matters.

[Papa Smurph]

Holman,

Stop with the guilt! Your in-laws want family and love and care. They can't take the money with them, so giving it to your family so they can have what they need is WHY they worked all those years. Be there for them and be grateful. That is all you need to do to repay their kindness.

I have always dreamed of a multigenerational home. Unfortunately, my wife's parents (really, just her dad) are jerks that we interact with rarely and my parents have no interest. Yet. (And they are also sometimes jerks!) Maybe I'll live with my kids when I'm older (unless I become a jerk). Anyway, I'm jealous of you on many fronts. Although I'm concerned that your new house sounds like a lot of house to clean and maintain.

Good luck and enjoy!

[Kraken]

After all the dust settles, you'll have a house in which you can age-in-place, meaning you shouldn't have to move when you are old and infirm. That would be nice. Wife and I are contemplating fixing up and selling our home of 30 years as we close in on retirement. We don't want to, but it's not elder-friendly and converting it would be impractical. Having to do all this in our mid- to late-60s (with no kids to help us out) is not a pleasant prospect.

[Holman]

Holman,

Stop with the guilt! Your in-laws want family and love and care. They can't take the money with them, so giving it to your family so they can have what they need is WHY they worked all those years. Be there for them and be grateful. That is all you need to do to repay their kindness.

I have always dreamed of a multigenerational home. Unfortunately, my wife's parents (really, just her dad) are jerks that we interact with rarely and my parents have no interest. Yet. (And they are also sometimes jerks!) Maybe I'll live with my kids when I'm older (unless I become a jerk). Anyway, I'm jealous of you on many fronts. Although I'm concerned that your new house sounds like a lot of house to clean and maintain.

Good luck and enjoy!

Thanks!

I fretted and fussed over the tone of my initial post because I didn't want to come off as crowing, but the truth is that everybody here wins. In the current political era it's easy to forget how nice it is when all three generations are on the same page.

Meanwhile, my wife and I have learned that our best friends are also bringing their aging parents to town. By background and interests (politics, education, theater, art, etc) the older generations should have a lot in common. It feels like multigenerational living might be possible after all despite everything we're told about postmodern isolation and atomization.

[pr0ner]

So, I am starting to get the itch to get away from condo living and finally buy a house.

My preference is to stay in Fairfax County, and be fairly close to work and/or Metro. I would prefer a shorter commute to work and a longer commute to DC for entertainment purposes than vice versa.

But, boy, are real estate prices sobering in my neck of the woods.

In a search on Redfin, three houses have caught my eye so far. As a single guy, I don't need much space, so 1430, 1080, and 1160 square feet, you think, would be good. All nicely updated. The 1430 square foot house even has a single car garage!

But, oh, the prices. $498,000. $425,000. $434,000.

I could make the latter two work, even without a 20% down payment (no PMI through my credit union is nice). I could, in theory, buy one of those houses, move in, then get my current condo ready for sale. But, when finding out a coworker bought a house similar in size to the 1160 square foot house on an acre of land in rural PA for 1/4th of the asking price of the one in VA, you get a little bummed out.

Good grief.

[Isgrimnur]

I imagine the commute from PA might make up for the price difference.

[pr0ner]

I imagine the commute from PA might make up for the price difference.

He walks to a shed in his backyard that doubles as his office. So he wins for commute length, too.

[Isgrimnur]

Nice.

[stessier]

But, when finding out a coworker bought a house similar in size to the 1160 square foot house on an acre of land in rural PA for 1/4th of the asking price of the one in VA, you get a little bummed out.

Good grief.

Those kind of comparisons are the first steps on the path to madness unless you are willing to move.

[Carpet_pissr]

I imagine the commute from PA might make up for the price difference.

He walks to a shed in his backyard that doubles as his office. So he wins for commute length, too.

How far does he have to walk to see a decent concert or just eat at a great restaurant?

[pr0ner]

But, when finding out a coworker bought a house similar in size to the 1160 square foot house on an acre of land in rural PA for 1/4th of the asking price of the one in VA, you get a little bummed out.

Good grief.

Those kind of comparisons are the first steps on the path to madness unless you are willing to move.

Yeah, I'm done comparing outside prices to the DC area. I just need to accept what home prices cost here.

I imagine the commute from PA might make up for the price difference.

He walks to a shed in his backyard that doubles as his office. So he wins for commute length, too.

How far does he have to walk to see a decent concert or just eat at a great restaurant?

I don't think he cares too much about that!

[Fitzy]

Yeah, I'm done comparing outside prices to the DC area. I just need to accept what home prices cost here.

Maybe the Amazon HQ will drop prices!

If we were staying in the area beyond a couple years, the prices would depress me. There’s new townhouses with zero outdoor space going up across the street from our apartment building. $800k! Ugh. And our new county executive apparently doesn’t believe in density for housing so I’m sure Mongomery County housing is coming down soon.

I think your friend’s telecommute is our ultimate goal.

Good luck!

[pr0ner]

Yeah, I'm done comparing outside prices to the DC area. I just need to accept what home prices cost here.

Maybe the Amazon HQ will drop prices!

If we were staying in the area beyond a couple years, the prices would depress me. There’s new townhouses with zero outdoor space going up across the street from our apartment building. $800k! Ugh. And our new county executive apparently doesn’t believe in density for housing so I’m sure Mongomery County housing is coming down soon.

I think your friend’s telecommute is our ultimate goal.

Good luck!

Heh. The two newest townhouse developments near me (one in Alexandria city proper, another a mile and a half south in Fairfax County) are starting at $800K and $750K, respectively. There's a $1M townhouse in the Alexandria city development, according to Zillow.

I do think prices are bound to go up once Amazon starts arriving, too, which is another reason for me to start looking now.

[Holman]

Big news! We're moving too.

(TL;DR: Suddenly and almost unbelievably, we're planning to move into a large, lovely dream house along with my aging in-laws.)

(Predictably, there are moral, financial, and logistical issues involved.)

[... ... ... ... ...]

We closed on the new house yesterday! Everything went well, and the money has moved.

Logistics are beyond belief, though. My wife and I have been running up to NYC and back every weekend to get the Brooklyn house ready for the movers, and for the next two weeks we're focused on packing up our current place. Of course we're both academic types doing this at the end of the Fall semester, so our jobs are also at a fever pitch.

The schedule is nuts. Next week we'll drive to Long Island to oversee the loading of furniture from the in-laws' vacation home, then follow the moving truck to the five-decade Brooklyn home for the furniture and possessions there. The next day we'll oversee its unloading in Philly. A couple of days later we'll do it all again for a three-block move from our current place to the new one.

How much furniture? There are *nine* beds in play, and you can extrapolate from there.

Below the level of furniture, we're estimating at least 200 boxes of kitchen and appliances and books and crap and stuff.

Hoo boy.

[The Meal]

Crazy. You may win the prize for the toughest mOOve of 2018. (We bought our house six weeks after our landlord told us he was selling what-had-been our current domicile and three weeks after MHS had an extra kidney installed.)

Best luck with the insanity!

[Smoove_B]

Crazy. You may win the prize for the toughest mOOve of 2018.

Hey, there's a solid 3+ weeks left this year. Anything can happen!

I can't even imagine what's being described. Good luck to you and yours, sir.

[Holman]

Oh, this would be soooooo much harder if we were trying to arrange a move to a distant town. Getting the NY stuff to here is the hard part, but even so we don't have to prep those houses for sale yet. We can go back and do all that in January.

Meanwhile, our current house is three blocks from the new one, and we also won't be selling it until Spring. That means we can do a lot of this in stages. For example, we'll be in the new house before Christmas, but I probably won't clean out the old basement before mid-January.

[naednek]

We moved in October, and the worst part of the move we experienced was our movers were MIA for about 2 hours on the day of our move. Wouldn't answer the phone or answer emails. I had to scramble for a while in hopes to find someone who can move me with no advance notice. I moved on a Tuesday, so asking friends wasn't going to happen.

Luckily they showed up, he had phone issues. Still doesn't explain why they were 2 hours late.

[$iljanus]

I imagine the commute from PA might make up for the price difference.

He walks to a shed in his backyard that doubles as his office. So he wins for commute length, too.

How far does he have to walk to see a decent concert or just eat at a great restaurant?

Are you saying that Scrapple is not part of a gourmet meal?

[Jaymann]

Crazy. You may win the prize for the toughest mOOve of 2018. (We bought our house six weeks after our landlord told us he was selling what-had-been our current domicile and three weeks after MHS had an extra kidney installed.)

I claim the easiest mOOve of 2008. The house two doors down from where I was renting went up for sale, so I borrowed a dolly and moved it on over. Even sweeter is my mortgage is about what I was paying for rent.

[em2nought]

-the central air does not extend to the third floor, where my wife and I will have our bedroom and offices, but we can make do with window units up there.

I would suggest you look into mini-split air conditioning units. They are so much more comfortable than window AC and they are much more energy efficient too.





Financial "costs" in lost wages to caregivers https://www.aarp.org/caregiving/financi ... ws-fd.html

Make sure you've got all the appropriate working smoke detectors on all floors.

Are you saying that Scrapple is not part of a gourmet meal?

My dad loved that "stuff".

[Holman]

I imagine the commute from PA might make up for the price difference.

He walks to a shed in his backyard that doubles as his office. So he wins for commute length, too.

How far does he have to walk to see a decent concert or just eat at a great restaurant?

Are you saying that Scrapple is not part of a gourmet meal?

True fact: my grandfather was born and raised in Tennessee/Alabama, then drafted in 1942 and sent to basic training in Pennsylvania. He served in Tunisia, France, Belgium, and Germany.

When I knew him 1970s/80s, he had a dog named "Scrapple."

[TheMix]

"Scraaappppiiiieeee! Where are ya, Scrappie?"

[Holman]

"Scraaappppiiiieeee! Where are ya, Scrappie?"

Scrapple's nickname was just "Scrap," which to me has always been the perfect dog name.

[mori]

How much furniture? There are *nine* beds in play, and you can extrapolate from there.

Below the level of furniture, we're estimating at least 200 boxes of kitchen and appliances and books and crap and stuff.

Hoo boy.

I hope you did not bring all that "stuff" to your new home. As I always tell people, put it on the curb with a for sale sign for $50 and it will magically disappear overnight. Save yourself the trouble of disposing of it later.