Is 30K too much to spend on builder upgrades on a 360,000 house?
Jake West
4 years ago
last modified: 4 years ago
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Comments (15)
Flo Mangan
4 years agoOne Devoted Dame
4 years agoRelated Discussions
We gross $86,000 per year, is building a $250,000 house too much?
Comments (14)cape I remember back in 1993 when I got married and my wife and I bought our first home, new construction from Toll Brothers. It was 2750 square feet, 2 levels + unfinished basement colonial. A nice house. The bill when we closed was $290K. We put 20% down so our mortgage was around 230 or so. Interest rate was 7.125%. Combined we were doing a little better than 86K per year, but not by much. When we first bought it, we were both concerned about the size of the mortgage. After 3 years, we were kicking ourselves for not buying a bigger house. Needed a larger tax right off, salaries went up. But we kept the house for another 10 years and without it, we would have never been able to build the dream house we finished last year. I think if the 2 of you have very stable jobs and an 8 month reserve fund (it used to be 3 months, but Suzzie Orman has convinced me that is no longer good enough), and you have great credit and no credit card debt - then you should be able to afford the payments and buy the house. Just remeber to factor in the TAXES and Insurance into those monthly payment calculations. The other thing to keep in mind is that when you buy a new house it won't look like the model. It will have white walls and require a lot of decorating and painting to make it look like the vision you have in your minds. Take a long view on things - maybe a 5 to 7 year plan - to make all that happen. Don't be tempted to start buying lot of stuff and run up your debt. Even though the market is in the crapper right now, owning a home is still one of the best investments you can make in the long run. It is also very satisfying to own a place of your own and shape it into your vision. It is hard work - but worth it. Good luck to you!...See MoreBuilder Upgrades Selection Help... Please!
Comments (6)did they offer any energy efficient upgrades? Or I should ask, where is the home located and what is the exterior shell construction like? Energy efficient upgrades and air sealing enhancements should be your FIRST place to spend money. It is the only place in your home to have any sort of a pay back for you. What windows are they including? As for the rest of your list, its really impossible to have any idea on costs associated with the house with seeing a plan or knowing sizes of spaces. For example, the wood flooring. If your home is 4k sqft, thats a great price. If its 1k, thats a really bad price. However just looking at the prices, nothing is really jumping out at me as way higher then it should be. I would probably not have the builder responsible for appliances. I would think that is an area you would like to have complete control on what you select. No one here can really tell you which one of those cosmetic items you should or shouldnt do since it is your home. Do it how you like it! Typically the more you can compile into the build process, the better. It MAY be possible to do it afterwards, but also consider the mess and additional time it will take to fully complete the house. Discuss with him owner-provided items and ask for install only pricing too. Sometimes they are flexible with this and give you a good install price. Just know things like this are up to you to have things ordered, on site and correct to meet the timelines. If things are delayed, they come at a cost, which is out of your pocket not his....See MoreCan you fully remodel a kitchen for under 30K
Comments (19)Ahh....I know the market well, EjbryMom, as I also live in the DC-Metro area (in Maryland, though). Unfortunately, you're correct...this is a higher cost market! It's also an area that has not been hit as hard as others for homes and remodeling, so costs have not come down all that much, if any. Why don't you go ahead and post your layout and see what people think. There may be some tweaks you hadn't thought of! As to the windows...don't replace them just yet! Wait until you have a full plan of what you are going to do in the space. You may find, for example, that you want a counter-height window rather than one raised above the counter. For the floors, you might consider doing it with the remodel. When you do the kitchen, you will need to know what flooring you're planning anyway b/c you have to be sure the cabinets and appliances are installed at the same height as the planned finished flooring height. If they're not, you run the risk of some appliances not fitting or being difficult to remove for cleaning, servicing, or replacing. If you're not putting the flooring under the cabinets & appliances, you may have to install a sub-floor to raise them to the floor's finished height. [Tip: Install the flooring at least a few inches into appliance spaces so the sub-floor doesn't show under them from a distance. This usually applies to refrigerators, ranges, DWs, and ice makers...anything that isn't installed inside a cabinet.] Your drywalled pantry sounds like our old pantry...what a waste of space! We replaced it w/a step-in corner pantry w/shelves 12" and 15" deep...floor-to-ceiling. Even though it's much smaller floor-space wise than the old one, it's much more useful and I love it!...See More20-30k for delivery and install?!!
Comments (18)OK, getting back to the OP's question. Mamabear, I hate to say it, but Jim Mat is right about the cost of set up/installation. It's not a simple matter of unhitching a camper from a pickup and parking it there. The permits all have to be in place in order to transport the home, or both halves if it's a DW, down the road, whether it be one mile or 1,000. They may need permits for every county they drive through because it's wide loads (often requiring an escort car to drive with them displaying wide load signs), and the weight of the load does inevitable damage to the roads. When they arrive at your site, the real work begins. They've got to set your home correctly on its foundation, whether it be piers, a slab, or whatever. These days, that involves a crane. It's super critical that the house is level when all is said and done, so your house doesn't develop problems later from being out of level. If your house is a double wide (DW), there is the not small matter of "marrying," or putting together, the two halves so your roof doesn't leak. Then they've got to correctly hook you up to electricity, well or city water, septic or sewer. All of these jobs require skilled workers who know how to do this stuff. Expensive equipment + skilled labor + three-four weeks + all the permits = $30,000 or so. It's actually not an unrealistic number. And yes, if you buy a new home in the park, you would be expected to carry that cost just as you would if you were buying somewhere else and moving it there. And think about it this way: if you were having a new site-built home built for you, you would be incurring similar costs, i.e. pulling permits, transporting materials to the site, installing and hooking up electrical wiring, plumbing, etc. They just don't present it the same way. They wouldn't say, "We'll build your home for $100,000," then tell you, "It will cost an additional $25,000 to put plumbing and electricity in your house and hook it up to city services." They'll just say, "The house will cost $125,000." So if you think of it that way, it doesn't seem so outrageous. Where I will respectfully beg to differ with Jim is on the commonness of not being able to transfer your title and keep the home on its site in the MHP. First, as you said, if you get a house under ten years old, you don't need to worry. Second, the last thing MHP owners want is the hassle of trying to get someone to move a home off the lot, combined with the loss of rent until someone comes along and puts a newer home there. Take my MHP, for example. We are a small park, just 38 homes, way out in the country. The homes range from really old (1970's) single wides to a few DWs less than ten years old. Most of the residents are elderly folks who have lived here for decades. It would be an impossible nightmare to get people to haul out these old homes. People simply wouldn't do it because it would cost them more to move it than they could sell the house for. They'd simply abandon the house and let the MHP owner incur the cost of hauling it off. My house is 37 years old and a definite fixer-upper. I bought it without any problem and it's still right here in the same space. The owner never missed a rent payment. I have lived in more than one MHP, and I have known people over the years who live in MHPs. While I'm sure that the story Jim read about is true, that is the rare exception, not the norm. Third, do the math. Fewer than 15% of MHs are ever moved, once they've been set up on their original sites. Of course, as Christopher_H, cathyyg, and I have all cautioned, read your lease and know what you are agreeing to before you sign it. In my park, the rule is that if I sell my home, the new owner must pass a credit check, a criminal background check, and have enough income to pay the rent. They also have to come up with a deposit, etc., just as if they were renting anything else. Each park has its own rules, and each state has its own laws that govern those rules. This is why I keep harping on about know the laws in your state that apply to people who own their MH but rent the land it sits on. My state, Washington, has an entire set of laws for this situation, which differ from the regular tenant-landlord act in significant ways. The same goes for the park rules wherever you decide to live. cathyyg has told us of a MHP where all residents are required to have a garage, and another MHP not far away, with the same owner (!), where residents are forbidden to have a garage! It's like HOAs for site built homes; they each differ. And, no offense taken on you wanting a newer, turn-key home. :-) Most people do. I'm the rare bird that buys a junker to fully rehab it. Most people don't want to spend years living in a construction zone while remodeling. But...you said 10-20 years old. If you want turn-key, that number should be under ten years, unless you happen upon some miracle and find someone who's replaced everything in the entire house and wants to sell it for a loss, haha! I agree with your strategy of researching and visiting places and gathering as much info as possible in advance. A knowledgeable buyer is a smart buyer. :-) Keep us posted!...See Moreroccouple
4 years agoJoseph Corlett, LLC
4 years agorwiegand
4 years agolast modified: 4 years agoljptwt7
4 years agoA Fox
4 years agolast modified: 4 years agocpartist
4 years agoFlo Mangan
4 years agoBT
4 years agoDenita
4 years agolast modified: 4 years agoMark Bischak, Architect
4 years agoMark Bischak, Architect
4 years agoMark Bischak, Architect
4 years ago
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