Heads up

[cute fuzzy bunny]

I'm closing on my new home in 10 days. 50% bigger than what I wanted to buy because of course. 50% larger lot than I expected to get. 10% higher than I wanted to spend.

Haven't sold my old one yet I haven't put it on the market my neighbor said he might buy it from me as is that would be sweet. But heads up I did this twice before. 2000 and 2007. And while I was heavy in California real estate and light on the stock market remember what happened?

I'm an index hold forever invest like your immortal kind of guy. But I hate having to move in like one or two days.

Act accordingly per year on internal mechanisms.

 

[COcheesehead]

We have an undeveloped lot for sale right now. Just had an update from our realtor. She said a lot of deals aren’t closing. Lot of cold feet in real estate land. The inventory of $1m+ homes in our area is at 18 months. Glad we sold earlier this year.

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

And now for the next fun part once I sell my old house the home I bought is basically a 35-year-old original as built home the only thing that was done differently is the sunroom was added on to the back... Poorly. This was this thing some crooked contractors were getting all of the Sun City residents to do at the sunroom on the back I suppose it will be nice in December and January not right now. Mostly issues around where the roof that's extends over the sunroom since it's bigger than the covered patio that was originally attached to the home which should be corrected by the seller spending about $6,000 redoing the roof at their cost.

505,000 for almost 1,600 square feet on a quarter acre and I back up to a road that has no stop signs or red lights or anything like that so all you hear is white noise from tires and I kind of like it. Pie shaped lots because it's in the back of a circle so I have two neighbors they are right up against my house like most of the homes here are you going to go out back and around the corner to look into each other's yards. Not as good as my current half acre 2400 ft mcmansion. And not one step in it and the driveway is a bare slope. My current driveway looks like a ski slope double Black diamond.

Plan is to sell the old house eventually tear apart the kitchen in the new place granite and a new sink faucet disposal etc and then hit the bathrooms one at a time new glass doors new fixtures some new appliances might happen and some new carpet. The same model home with presumably some remodeling over the last year's been selling in the 580 to 590 range. I'm looking at maybe 50 or 60 in remodel over the the whole thing and I'll probably get sick of doing it part way through maybe only do the master bath and leave the guest bath alone.


So sound the klaxons... Market crash coming. I took from the vanguard admiral s&p 500 fund. Still got some s&p 500 funds and Wellesley and Wellington psst. According to that AI thing I'm in the medium sellers market where I live.

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

We have an undeveloped lot for sale right now. Just had an update from our realtor. She said a lot of deals aren’t closing. Lot of cold feet in real estate land. The inventory of $1m+ homes in our area is at 18 months. Glad we sold earlier this year.

Zillow says 8:30 for the old house that means $830,000 not 8:30 stupid voice input. I need about seven for new carpet seven for new paint inside and I'm already putting new bark on front for a couple of grand. Neighbor said he might want to buy it as is for his sister I think the guys loaded. He has a smaller home than me on a smaller lot and he paid $800 and something thousand I think 880 just last year and four or five other homes right along the road next to mine went for the same price. Vietnamese family and it's a huge extended one you must have 25 35 people over there on the regular. Those will fit easily into my house it has two living rooms downstairs and they're both huge the front one which is a formal sitting room I think the ceilings about 30 ft up the living room in the back has 10 ft ceilings and is twice the size big kitchen in the middle sliding glass doors out to the back quarter acre and a patio. Now I just have to catch him at home cuz he's always doing something.

10 minute walk from an award-winning elementary School no need for a private school at all this one beats them all. About a 2 Mile drive to an equally good elementary School and high School. That's why I bought it I didn't want to pay for private school and I wanted to walk my kid to school every day and I did. We drove to a park down the street from the middle school and high school and walked the mile avoiding all of the traffic jams out front. Some nice hills up and down between here and all three schools so it's a nice exercise and an opportunity to walk the dog after dropping the kid off.

Sell!!

I swear to God if it crashes again for the third time I'm coming out with the newsletter!

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Looks like I'll be getting 750,000 for my old house for my neighbor cash. As is pretty good cuz I was going to have to put about 50 Grand into it and Zillow says 8:30, looking to do it without real estate agents cuz they let us do that in California now except all my legal alarm bells are going off. Has anybody done? A transaction like this? And what are the pitfalls other than the obvious ones of doing stupid things and getting sued?

 

[pacergal]

Personally, I would feel better using an agent.
I know many folks DIY without problems. I believe there are websites out there that have legal forms, etc you can use and learn from.

 

[Texas Proud]

I sold my mom's condo without an agent... it was the title company that does all the work anyhow.. you do not need an agent if you have someone that is buying... you pay an agent to get you someone to buy...

It did take me a bit to get a title company that would work with me as I was using my POA and it was old...

 

[COcheesehead]

We sold without an agent. The forms are all online and state regulated. Title company does the rest.

 

[nwsteve]

If you have not done so, Suggest you do incorporate a formal purchase agreement with all terms clearing specified

 

[COcheesehead]

If you have not done so, Suggest you do incorporate a formal purchase agreement with all terms clearing specified

Should be part of the state regulated forms.

 

[athena53]

And the market always goes up when I leave the country. Well, except that time when i was in Bolivia in March, 2020.

Fingers crossed but my house is scheduled to close Wednesday, July 1. Sold in a week but there have been a ton of bumps in the road. I moved to a retirement community 3 hours away last night and will be signing the papers in the presence of a notary tomorrow and sending via Fedex. Definitely a downsizing but that was my intent- I'm in a 2 BR apartment. I thought I'd done a good job of getting rid of stuff by various means but I need to some Habitat for Humanity and Goodwill donations and just throw out some stuff. Really, I have enough wine glasses for Taylor Swift's wedding reception.

 

[More Cowbell]

OP: I think you said upthread that your neighbor was Vietnamese. Buying adjacent houses to create a multigenerational compound is something at least 2 of my young Vietnamese friends families did. In one case a child bought the house next to the parents, in the other the child bought the next door neighbor’s house for their parents. These are motivated all-cash buyers.

Do what you need to legally do in California so you can say goodbye to the big house forever and move on to your next community.

 

[pb4uski]

Looks like I'll be getting 750,000 for my old house for my neighbor cash. As is pretty good cuz I was going to have to put about 50 Grand into it and Zillow says 8:30, looking to do it without real estate agents cuz they let us do that in California now except all my legal alarm bells are going off. Has anybody done? A transaction like this? And what are the pitfalls other than the obvious ones of doing stupid things and getting sued?

We've sold a house and a waterfront lot FSBO with no problems. Both were in Vermont, where real estate lawyers are commonly used for real estate transactions. In both cases we had a one pager of deal terms that I provided to the lawyer and he drafted the purchase and sale agreement that the buyer's lawyer reviewed and then all parties signed. IIRC our lawyer held th escrow deposit and did the closing.

I suspect that in some states that perhaps it is done by an escrow agend or closing agent rather than a lawyer. I suspect that if you tell your favorite AI that you are selling your house located in California in a private transaction and ask how to proceed that it will tell you.

 

[Accidental Retiree]

And the market always goes up when I leave the country. Well, except that time when i was in Bolivia in March, 2020.

Fingers crossed but my house is scheduled to close Wednesday, July 1. Sold in a week but there have been a ton of bumps in the road. I moved to a retirement community 3 hours away last night and will be signing the papers in the presence of a notary tomorrow and sending via Fedex. Definitely a downsizing but that was my intent- I'm in a 2 BR apartment. I thought I'd done a good job of getting rid of stuff by various means but I need to some Habitat for Humanity and Goodwill donations and just throw out some stuff. Really, I have enough wine glasses for Taylor Swift's wedding reception.

Congrats on executing your plan!

 

[Lorenzo]

In the state I live in, a lawyer is required for closing. The lawyer doesn't represent either party. For the lawyer, it's an easy few bucks for a few minutes work. I don't know how many states have such a requirement. I recall in California it was done by an escrow company.

 

[audreyh1]

Good luck on your closing, Athena! Hope everything goes smooth as silk!

 

[Sanbenito1]

Looks like I'll be getting 750,000 for my old house for my neighbor cash. As is pretty good cuz I was going to have to put about 50 Grand into it and Zillow says 8:30, looking to do it without real estate agents cuz they let us do that in California now except all my legal alarm bells are going off. Has anybody done? A transaction like this? And what are the pitfalls other than the obvious ones of doing stupid things and getting sued?

Yes, we paid a realtor $5K to draw up their standard contract, then took the contract to the Title Company. They held onto his money and our title until all the money cleared

 

[joejetski]

Yes, we paid a realtor $5K to draw up their standard contract, then took the contract to the Title Company. They held onto his money and our title until all the money cleared

Easy peasy. I did it with my rental property in NOVA. Had to deal with a slimy buyers agent, but the extra money I kept in my pocket was worth the small headache.

 

[COcheesehead]

Yes, we paid a realtor $5K to draw up their standard contract, then took the contract to the Title Company. They held onto his money and our title until all the money cleared

We drew up the contract using the state regulated forms available online for free and paid a title company about $1300 to handle the rest. We saved probably $50,000.

 

[Sanbenito1]

We drew up the contract using the state regulated forms available online for free and paid a title company about $1300 to handle the rest. We saved probably $50,000.

Now that I think of it, the $5k sounds high, or it might have included Title fees, etc. But a Title company is def the way to go if you don’t have realtors involved. Realtors want a much higher cut