Changing the balance of quality of life and financial independence

Careful Jarhead!

Remember Texas the best college team in football. My heart was with the Saints but my money stayed in my wallet. At least this year my sister didn't call about the Pats after the Indy game.

So who's the pick for March Madness:confused:

heh heh heh heh
 
Nice place CFB. Liking where you live is a huge part of being satisfied with ER - or working for that matter. DW and I could live a lot cheaper elsewhere but we really like where we are - so here we stay. You just need to adjust the numbers a bit and encourage your SO to keep working for a while.
 
Well thats part of the deal Don, we gave up a percentage of safety towards long term financial independence for a safe place and great schools for our son, and the house my wifes always wanted to live in. Her end of the bargain is more years of work before she turns in her stethoscope. Good news is that she'll change to a hospital down there and there are a couple she really has always wanted to work for and she'll get paid better too.

Jarhead* said:
But I can't turn off my damn "bull-****" detector after reading your above quote. ;)
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Hey man, I'm serious...and one handed leaves the other one to put into someones face while I take the shot.

Seven years of half hour practices...which I think puts me about.....a million hours more than Shaq!!! :)

We offered a huge cut from their asking price, and I just got word that the seller has countered for 5k more, which is a pretty dang great price. We'll take it.

But that did leave me with the lingering afterthought...was it really worth testing me as a buyer for the extra few bucks they countered with, which amounts to less than 1% of the sale?!?

Now for the next part...the guys relo company will take ownership of the property and become the 'seller' to me. Never did it this way before, I presume its a good thing as they'll be less emotional about any problems with the property. Anything to watch out for?

And the last part...metal or composition roof? House has a pretty simple square style, very little overhang, and none of the roof is particularly visible from the ground because the house sits so high up on a hill. In fact the only place you can see the main roof is if you get up on a ladder at the highest back corner of the property and use binoculars...which of course I did.

Parameters are that its frickin hot here, so anything that rejects/ventilates heat is a very good thing. Price is a high factor, and lifespan/resale is also a good thing. I hear good things about metal, but is it noisy when it rains? We get some serious rain sometimes in the winter. Its done with cedar shake right now. Whats left of it. But the good news is that the seller agreed to paying for a 2 year roof certification as part of the deal.
 
Metal roofs are great in snow country because they let the snow slide off before it pile up enough to cave in the roof. I doubt that will be a problem where your house is. We had some leaks with the metal and I am not sure I would go with it in a lower elevation house. Composition is what I have had in all my houses. Cedar is nice for a while but unless you get up there to treat it every couple of years it will decompose. Composition wears out slowly over time--2-30 years depending on climate and quality of the shingle.

How about clay tiles? They will be cooler because of the airflow under them and are designed for hot dry climates. They are costly and heavy but not sure how much heavier than composition.

Since you roof does not show from the street..cheaper might be better. I would go with a lightly colored composition.
 
A lot of the shake roofs arent engineered strong enough for clay or tile. Light 30/40 year composition is what I was thinking but all the talk a while back on metal made me wanna ask.

No snow...
 
Don't shake roofs catch on fire easily? - I believe I heard that they have been banned in some states?

Are the traditional California tile roofs expensive?
 
They're treated against fire, but fire insurance on a shake roof house is higher, regardless. So I'll save money on my insurance by changing my roof.

Tile can be pretty spendy to install as its a bitch to haul all the tiles around. But they're cheap...a buck a tile is what I've been paying to replace the ones I dropped and broke.
 
This thread has started me to thinking about being FIRE'd and downsizing.

I'm not singling out CFB, however his thread is an example of what happens when life gets in the way.

If you downsize your lifestyle so that you can FIRE, you better make sure that you can live with and enjoy your downsized lifestyle. Otherwise you may have some regrets.

So if you sell everything and move to a small house/the midwest or the south/ a foreign country, If things don't work out and you are unhappy you just may be undercapitalized for your FIRE lifestyle.

- That's something to really ponder before you pull the plug.
 
About the relo co taking over the house.

Years ago our Mega corp moved a bunch of us to another state. All of the homes were taken over by asset mgt. I never heard anyone discuss fallout from this. No buyers ever got in touch with the original owners...it didn't happen to us either. But, it's got a lot to do with the co that does take the house over.

It was a sweet deal for us. If we got the appraised value and got a contract before we moved, asset mgt would give us a bonus. We did and they did. $10k...ah those were the days.
 
Hmmmm - and then there are those that err the other way and have to spend to make up - before they get too old to bogey.

Thrust into ER via layoff without a crystal ball to see forward the 1993- 2000 market(just to pick the upswing) - hindsight and the ability to laugh at ones self - indicates a tad overkill on 'you cheap bastard!' - aka frugal.

Balance can be elusive. That and good crystal balls.

heh heh heh
 
MasterBlaster said:
I'm not singling out CFB, however his thread is an example of what happens when life gets in the way.
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Wasn't there a thread a while back in which somebody was wringing their hands about inflation, but it was pointed out that lifestyle factors usually trump inflation? :)

FWIW, we had a metal roof on our last McLodge. Leakless. Lasts forever. Pretty much maintenance free except for a power-wash once a decade or so. We liked the pitter-patter of rain.

Also, FWIW, we're in an area with some of the highest rated schools in the state. The public schools still aren't that great compared to private schools. We're still trying to decide how long we'll keep our kid in private schools.
 
Unclemick, you're my hero.

Life does occasionally get in the way, but this is a move of choice. The point is well taken though that stuff happens that may make you wanna do something other than what you originally planned. As my hero often points out: mobile, agile, hostile.

If the metal roofs do in fact 'pitter patter', my insomnia wont be particularly compatible with that.

Nords of course brought up the idea of installing solar at the same time I do the roof. Seems to me there should be some economy in doing those at the same time, providing theres a solar guy that does roofing or vice versa and it doesnt turn into (another) project management job for me to deal with that the highway department would be proud of.

Anyone ever do both a roof and solar at the same time? This house is choice for it...big south facing piece of roof up high on a hill with no tree shade and its not even visible by anyone not in an airplane. Electric box and stuff's on the north side of the house, completely opposite, but I'm sure thats not that big of a deal. We get lots of annual sun shine and have huge summer heating bills, and our 200-400 monthly electric bills could make for a faster return than the 10 years it'd have taken in the smaller house I'm in now.

Any bets that solar stuff will improve significantly enough past the 12-18 months from now that I do the roof to make it worth waiting to do the solar?
 
Hmmm - the best looking (IMO) house on our cul-de-sac has a dark green metal roof. The only one - the rest are the old fashioned composition shinges.

If an internet search doesn't turn up intergrated roof/solar - maybe a local design house is up to the challenge - maybe a young architect whose cost is livible??

heh heh heh
 
Theres a lot of "integrated solar" new home building going on, but its all concrete tile replacement stuff...nothing to 'replace' composition except the traditional panels...that i'm aware of...yet!

Of course, we could do a metal roof styled like a traditional tile roof and use those. But I think their big attraction is looks and thats irrelevant here.

Hmmm...
 
we did something similar and I have no regrets. Yes, it increased the time I spent working but this is it. You get no second chance at life. One day Gabe will be gone and on his own and what are you going to do? Sit around and play with your money?

Schools are funny, at one point we spent a couple of years in Silicon valley. Ton of money and of course kids from very smart families. My kids were behind when we moved back to the northeast. But I think the education they got at home, and the travel we did around the country helped them. Having someone pay attention to a kid and helping them explore their interests makes up for a huge amount of schooling flaws. Every night for many years the kids and DH read together (think swiss family robinson, around the world in eighty days) instead of TV watching and they got in the habit of learning and reading instead of sitting like a lump on the couch with a channel changer. Helped them immensely and they are still avid readers.
 
Amazing, I think that whatever you want, someone is making it. Those guys have a distributor about 3 hours drive from here, dropped them a note to see if they have any contractor/installers in the area.

Then its the question as to whether these newer exotica materials will become troublesome during maintenance and repair periods because they're a bit unusual.
 
Bearing in mind that this is california, so CA laws and customs apply.

In the process of inspecting the home, it was evident that the seller had a few minor roof leaks...some 3-5" water stains, all three painted over except he didnt use Killz and the stain is seeping back through it. Sheetrock seems firm, and it doesnt appear to be an active leak so I'm presuming the damaged/leaking area in the roof was sealed.

Called the sellers agent to the property, and he acknowledged that there was a leak and it was repaired.

Today I got the full owners disclosures pending our signing his counter offer.

He claims the roof has never leaked or been repaired.

That leads me to be a little concerned that he had a roofer patch up the roof, spritzed some paint on the ceilings himself, and left the wet insulation in the attic.

Our general home inspection will obviously focus on this, but its my inclination to "push the issue" before I sign the counter offer. Can we get our stories straight? Its obviously leaked and been repaired, was the wet insulation removed and replaced? Otherwise I've got potentially moldy insulation and at a minimum, reduced effectiveness since its a blown-in product.

The question is...is it better to have this showdown now, or take the counter, have the relo company take ownership of the property, and then "ah hah!" then during the inspection cycle and ask for a credit on the price to replace the insulation?
 
Cute Fuzzy Bunny said:
The question is...is it better to have this showdown now, or take the counter, have the relo company take ownership of the property, and then "ah hah!" then during the inspection cycle and ask for a credit on the price to replace the insulation?
Click to expand...

I vote wait for the relo company to take ownership. You should be in a much stronger bargaining position once you have the inspection to document the leaks. Until then the agent can always say "You must have misunderstood me. The seller says it never leaked."

The relo company may also be more flexible with a credit than the likely emotional (and lyin') seller.

EDIT: I would think you should wait for the inspection and whatever it reveals to ask for relief from the leak regardless of whether it has been turned over to the relo company. If other defects are found you will be in a much better position to get whatever credit/repairs are necessary.
 
That sure sounds good. On the other hand I was sort of hoping that revealing the lying sack of **** for what he is might result in the relo company taking my original offer to "git 'er done". I can do a lot of reinsulating for $5k...

Maybe its a good idea to just document what I saw and what was said and file that along with the accepted counter offer. Ticking time bomb.
 
CFB said:
If the metal roofs do in fact 'pitter patter', my insomnia wont be particularly compatible with that.
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In a barn where the tin roof is supported only by rafters and stringers, then the roof would sound like a kettle drum. In your house, when you remove the shake roof, you will have to either cover or (better) replace the skip sheathing with plywood (or OSB) sheathing before installing the final roofing material. With that in place a metal roof wouldn't sound any different from any other roof. It is the unsupported metal that makes the racket in the barn.

As you know CA has some pretty strong disclosure laws in place regarding house sales. My neighbor collected $10k from the previous owner of her house six years after the sale to help pay for a septic rework after the seller had failed to disclose drainage problems. But even with those laws in place, when you buy the house from the relocation company, they are only required to disclose to you what they know....and they are likely to know very little about the condition of the house. So you should definitely get whatever you can out of the seller now. I suspect that you would have a heck of a time proving that the relo company knew anything about a leaky roof after the sale is closed.

If you go from a shake roof to a composition roof as I did a few years back, and if you end up with ridge vents (pretty common passive vent used these days), then a word of advice. Make sure that the ends of the vents at the gable ends of the house are not left open. They are small openings, only 1/2"-3/4" tall by 6" long, but they are big enough for bats to squeeze through to colonize your attic. Don't ask me how I know! :-[

If I were you I would think about waiting for a year after your roof is installed before going solar. If there are any problems with leaking, I wouldn't want the solar and roofing companies squabbling back and forth about whose fault it is while a pool is forming in your attic. It could also be much more difficult to repair a roof leak if the solar is already in place. I installed solar 5 years after installing a 40-yr composition roof. The solar people want to make sure they're not installing over an old or leaky roof. For them a 5-yr-old roof was just fine.

Good luck with the move. By the way, there's great youth soccer in that area beginning at age 4. Signups for the Fall should be in the next couple of months. See if Gabe is interested!
 
CFB....

I don't remember.. but it seems like the guy is relo'ing and his company is going to take over... I don't know about where you are, but I bought a relo house. First, the relo company never took ownership, they just took over payments and sold the house. They did go through it and updated all paint and carpet to make it better...

It was on the market for over 9 months... they just wanted to get rid of it (back in the 80s when Houston only was selling repos...)... the 'old owner' was the ones who had to sign all the papers so disclosure might still be stuck on him... but, you might be able to make a better deal with the relo guys as it is just product to move and not a 'home' like it is for the current seller... the question is if anybody else is eyeing it also...
 
Nice pics! Is that carpet in the bathroom? They did that in our house, too. I found out that "missing" has much greater consequences with it. I've since tiled the most frequently used bathroom....
 
Get a metal roof. In my experience it's only noisy, as Scrinch writes, when it's unsupported (overhangs or car ports). I only notice it from the car port when hail is falling.

You can also get a tax rebate this year for metal roofs and solar systems. And insulation.

http://www.energy.gov/taxbreaks.htm
 
No carpet in the little room with the toilet, so I can miss all I want. I have Gabe standing up on his potty chair and peeing in the toilet now as well...well...mostly. Good news is I can blame him for any overspray. ;)

We filed the paperwork responding to their counter. All they wanted was a slightly higher price than my offer and they didnt want arbitration but the right to a full day in court. Fine with me I guess. We also made notes on the disclosures to reference a two page document I sent in advising of conditions I observed.

When we called the selling agent who told us that the water stains were from a repaired roof, he now claims that the leaks were from the prior owner...which would be pre-1998 when the roof was less than 8 years old.

How many of you folks would buy an 8 year old mcmansion with water stains on the ceiling of the master suite, never investigate it, not have the prior owner fix it, and never paint them yourself? Yeah, its not washing with me either.

So at this point, once the relo company receives and acknowledges the paperwork, the relo company owns it and i've advised that there is an apparent roof leak that the prior owner did not disclose to them.

So he knows it, they know it, and I know it.

Whole house inspection tomorrow AM. Best guy in the area, he finds everything. I anticipate finding some previously moistened and not replaced insulation in the attic and some other odds and ends, go back and ask the relo company to revise the price back to my original offer and have a nice day! :)

Pretty good deal so far...house was originally offered at $559, I offered $509 and we're at $510 now. Probably get us back to $505 by the time its over.

Pest/rot inspection next wednesday, then any repairs and drive the title company to wrap up the paperwork, I should have the keys within 2 weeks.

The guy a couple of lots up with the same house/floorplan and the same size lot that paid $579 for his six months ago is gonna be pissed... :) I could throw the kitchen sink into this place and still be under that.

Good info on the metal roofs and tax breaks...I knew about the solar ones and the heating system ones, which I might also be able to take advantage of. We took about 80k in capital gains this year and I'd like a few credits very much.

Still going to see if I can find a solar outfit with a roofing subcontractor that can do the whole shebang and own it as a single item. If the price is right vs a roof and solar as separate items.
 
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