New house on market - bigger, less expensive than mine - grrrrrrr
cas66ragtop
11 years ago
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c9pilot
11 years agocas66ragtop
11 years agoRelated Discussions
25 showings in less than 1month...yet no offer
Comments (34)Now, see *I* wouldn't buy a house in a sterile, taupe-beige-ecru, homogenous neighborhood with "covenants" and "open floor plans". I would rather live in a box on the street - seriously. Those cookie cutter places make me throw up in my mouth a little. But, I also live in a college town with more than our share of, well, character. (One of the older areas of the city has victorians that look like fallout from a Crayola plant explosion.) My neighbors might hate my gargoyles, but I don't really care for the bowling ball garden or the bathtub grotto down the street, so we're even. They are, however, the nicest people you'll ever meet and when we have a blizzard, we all get together and help each other dig out. And we have great cookouts come summertime. Are your neighbors nice people? I went to an open house this weekend (just for fun, as we were walking by), and the seller had placed little signs throughout the house pointing out things and/or giving extra information e.g., "look - original hardware!", "don't forget to check out the linen closet behind the door". I thought that was really creative, as most people just lack the ability to see past the most basic things. Perhaps a little note in the house or the listing details mentioning the "eclectic character" of the neighborhood and how sad you are to leave such a great community of people or something. Or, just invest in a nice, big ol' fence. ;)...See MoreHome is on the Market Officially Now
Comments (35)First of all, I live about 30 miles away (to the east) so I am familiar with what local taste is, more so than people who aren't from here. And to my eyes, if not to my personal taste, I think many of the things that are bugging others will be non-issues for local buyers. Sure, the window treatments, general color selections, etc., might be more up to date, but they are not serious local solecisms. If anything the living room looks awkward to me because the seating is shoved down against the windows and not grouped facing the fireplace. Have you considered moving the piano to the end and getting the sofa, and chairs closer to the fireplace?. It seems a more attractive focal point. The blue swags don't seem to work, perhaps because you have already removed from the room some coordinating blue items? The swags look like color orhpans, now. Some things which can't be easily changed: for instance the island-cooktop based kitchen design and the huge soaking tub in the master bath are likely to be problematic for some buyers. But again, those items are heavily-promoted "home upgrades/improvements" in this region. (People moving to the area may boggle, but after they've toured about looking at a good batch of houses for sale, they'll get over their shock.) The bigger issue is the perennial one: location. Niskayuna used to be (in the 1970s-1980s) a really prime upscale residential suburb. But the regional economy and the local employment picture has changed considerably since then. It has lost some of its cachet, even though it has not been physically degraded. The $439K price point is not a starter home here. It's more a mid-career level home. And many of those families are eschewing the older 'burbs and instead looking for flossier houses in new Saratoga County developments or more rural areas where they can purchase more land for that kind of money. A good chunk of local demand for housing like this, where it is, may be gone now that GE is so down-sized. The quality of the pictures isn't great so the realtor could be doing better there to make the house stand out. I think this Spring is going to be a tough selling environment (but probably good for buyers) as I think there will be a pent-up backlog of sellers who have been waiting for signs of a turn around. But, Zoe52, don't fret too much about the decor at this point. Your house might look like it needed major overhaul if it was located in other areas but for here it does not. It is not at a competitive disadvantage, which is the only thing that counts. Kudos for the solar panels. We have them, too. If you find you need more info to support their value/attractiveness in the sale post back here. I may be able to suggest some ways to help emphasize that aspect. Good luck! This weekend should be good house-hunting weather. And unlike other areas, you are an early-bird in the local Realty season. People farther south can't believe the Spring hasn't already been underway for weeks. My first daffs bloomed this week, too. Liriodendron....See Morehouse from hell...new home purchase saga
Comments (26)It does sound like you have had more than your share of problems with your house. It is not always first houses where this happens, either. We were not in our first house very long before exDH was transferred out of state, but our second house had a few problems. I was giving the dog a bath in the front bathroom when I heard water running under the house. Turns out the drain pipe from this tub emptied into the crawlspace through a big hole in the trap! We later learned that the huge floor furnaces were still hooked up to the gas lines - even though the floor furnaces were now under carpet and padding and we had central heat. My next house was a fixer-upper. I knew that going in. I was single by then. I had an inspection done on the house and some of the faults were pointed out to me - the rotten windowsills and bad gutters, the original gravity furnace with asbestos ducts. I had the furnace replaced before moving in. In cleaning the bathroom, I learned that the shower enclosure was not firmly attached to the walls, and behind it it was very moldy. I pulled it down myself and then had to hire someone to sister new boards into rotten wall framing, kill the mold, and put new walls in the tub surround. I used a cheap wall board as a finish product there because I could not afford ceramic tile at the time. This was all before I moved in. Some of the more obvious problems were noted in the city inspection done before the sale, and the sellers were required to have them fixed. The drip-edge molding where the sill met the foundation was gone, and the fascia boards at the foundation were rotten. They were replaced before the sale. My home inspector said the roof was new. He was right. The shingles were all new, but they were laid on top of the bare roof deck on the back side of the house and on top of two older layers of shingles on the front side of the house. The flashing in the back leaked. We did not find out about that for a few years. I knew the gutters were bad, but not until it rained did I learn that the holes in the gutter were mostly above the front porch. The original concrete porch had been removed at some point and a big wooden porch put on. I did not realize that the old concrete porch was not under the wooden one, or that the concrete porch had been the roof of the root cellar. So when it rained, the gutters leaked onto the porch, where the rain flowed down into the root cellar in the basement, across the basement floor, and into the basement drain! I think it was two years before we (I had remarried) had the money for a new porch. Next we got windows and doors, the year after the porch. The back door going from the garage to the back yard had a crack in it big enough to let the snow in. The window sills on one side of the home were rotted (which I knew going in), and when the new windows were installed, we were able to have the contractor fix the rotted wood in the outer walls there, too. I had some boric acid put into the wall before he closed it up, to kill the carpenter ants there. It helped, but we still saw occasional ants for years. Once the old dying apple tree out back was removed, the ants were gone on that side of the house. I had to replace some rotting wood on the garage before they left for good. I went into this house knowing about some of these problems. My home inspector was really pretty useless in finding these other problems. I have never had a home inspector be THAT helpful with a house. We took about five years to get the house structurally sound, watertight, and comfortable. Our house was 50 years old, though, and I know you did not expect your problems with your newer house. The thing I learned hanging out at the Building a Home and Buying and Selling forums is that the building industry hires people who do not know what they are doing. A ten year-old house should not have the problems yours did, but sometimes they do. If the guy who installed your door knew nothing about proper flashing, it would all rot out, just as you saw. Housekeeping is right in the reply above about not having to fix everything right away. I was up nights worried about the proper sequence for fixing things. It is no fun at all to have more projects to do on your house than you can do or can afford. Eventually, though, you get things done and you begin to like the house. Keep focused on what you liked about it in the first place. Even buyers of new houses have some of these problems. There is one poster on Building a Home who had to have her unfinished home demolished because it rotted to the point of being unfix-able before she even moved in. Just looking at things, no one would ever know to expect these problems. And the home inspectors really don't do enough to ferret them out. You CAN't see some of these problems without tearing off molding or getting into walls. Talk to a lawyer if you want to think about suing. Watch DYI network and subscribe to Handyman magazine. You will learn a lot, I did. We ended up loving our house. I hope you get that back with yours, too....See MoreWhy are slide in options so less common than freestanding?
Comments (19)When I bought a new range and refrigerator about a year and a half ago for my unremodeled kitchen, I decided to switch from a free standing to a slide in. I have a rather temporary black piece of metal behind the range to cover the gap, but it blends in perfectly with the black top. At the time I decided a smooth top electric was the best option for us since I was not ready to convert to gas without proper ventilation and a full remodel. I too was disappointed with the number of options for a lower-mid priced slide in range. I think as others have stated that most builder-grade and older homes have space for free standing ranges. The average homeowner seems mostly interested in gas vs electric and stainless vs black or white rather than free standing vs slide in. I think perhaps the average homeowner may not even know or care about the differences between a slide in and a free standing range. I too liked the easy cleaning factor I assumed I would have with the slide in. To an extent I avoid the crumbs and grime between the countertop and range, but I do still have a slight gap under the lip of the slide in that I must clean. I also like the sleek look of the slide in range without the lip / backsplash on the back of the range. I wish there were more slide in options available, but I imagine manufacturers are targeting the majority of the market....See Moreturtleshope
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