I Are Baboon said:That website is cool. It says our house is $50k more than when we bought it 1.5 years ago.I knew getting that cental air installed would help.
That site is pretty useless for my local.
Help with Townhouses
- Thread starter antimony
- Start date
That site is pretty useless for my local.
I may be just a little bit gun-shy about this, but within a week of moving into my last apartment, my 'fridge died completely and needed to be replaced - and it wasn't that old.Jeremy R said:And BV your fear of paying out for plumbing or repairing a fridge is a valid one, but in my experience that is not something that has EVER been a factor. Unless you are just unlucky, those things should not really pose a monetary problem. Fridges are quite hardy these days.
Some of the pipes under the bathtub leaked, and required a ripping up of the entire bathroom floor and installation of new pipes.
The stove was on its way out, and one of the heating elements didn't work. It was a very old stove, but still - additional expense.
When I moved into this current place, the 'fridge wasn't working to start with. The maintenance guy came and fixed it. A few months ago, it quit working again, and he came and fixed it. Again, not an old 'fridge.
At one point, our AC ceased working entirely and they needed to come in and fix it. Turned out it was an easy fix but it's not something I would have known to look for (of course, I do now).
So maybe I've had a particularly bad experience, but that's always in the back of my head. I'm pretty handy and can fix most minor issues with toilets, sinks, easy problems with appliances... but I've had more than my share of problems.
I'm sorry, did you just say you watch Celebrity Fit Club? Enough to know someone's name on it? I didn't even know what it was until I just Googled itI will be like Harvey on Celebrity Fit Club.
Yeah, there is a house on our street that recently sold for $324k and that website lists it at $320k, so I'd say it's fairly accurate.mr2monster said:
Make sure you get one without water. That's the $hit that goes south first. Also - you can get extended warranties if you need peace of mind.binary visions said:
Remember, though - landlords have a habit of putting decrepit old $hit appliances in houses. Homeowners *generally* don't put in $hit.I'm sorry, did you just say you watch Celebrity Fit Club? Enough to know someone's name on it? I didn't even know what it was until I just Googled it
binary visions said:I may be just a little bit gun-shy about this, but within a week of moving into my last apartment, my 'fridge died completely and needed to be replaced - and it wasn't that old.
Some of the pipes under the bathtub leaked, and required a ripping up of the entire bathroom floor and installation of new pipes.
The stove was on its way out, and one of the heating elements didn't work. It was a very old stove, but still - additional expense.
When I moved into this current place, the 'fridge wasn't working to start with. The maintenance guy came and fixed it. A few months ago, it quit working again, and he came and fixed it. Again, not an old 'fridge.
At one point, our AC ceased working entirely and they needed to come in and fix it. Turned out it was an easy fix but it's not something I would have known to look for (of course, I do now).
So maybe I've had a particularly bad experience, but that's always in the back of my head. I'm pretty handy and can fix most minor issues with toilets, sinks, easy problems with appliances... but I've had more than my share of problems.
I'm sorry, did you just say you watch Celebrity Fit Club? Enough to know someone's name on it? I didn't even know what it was until I just Googled it
that is why when you are buying , before signing the P&S you spend some coin on a GOOD inspector!!!
Jeez, nevermind.binary visions said:I may be just a little bit gun-shy about this, but within a week of moving into my last apartment, my 'fridge died completely and needed to be replaced - and it wasn't that old.
Some of the pipes under the bathtub leaked, and required a ripping up of the entire bathroom floor and installation of new pipes.
The stove was on its way out, and one of the heating elements didn't work. It was a very old stove, but still - additional expense.
When I moved into this current place, the 'fridge wasn't working to start with. The maintenance guy came and fixed it. A few months ago, it quit working again, and he came and fixed it. Again, not an old 'fridge.
At one point, our AC ceased working entirely and they needed to come in and fix it. Turned out it was an easy fix but it's not something I would have known to look for (of course, I do now).
So maybe I've had a particularly bad experience, but that's always in the back of my head. I'm pretty handy and can fix most minor issues with toilets, sinks, easy problems with appliances... but I've had more than my share of problems.
I'm sorry, did you just say you watch Celebrity Fit Club? Enough to know someone's name on it? I didn't even know what it was until I just Googled it
You must have peed on a nun's head or something as a child.
If luck was $hit, you would be constipated.
And yes, I watch a military drill sgt. torture fat, has-been celebs.
My favorite part is the commercial where he looks into the TV and says, you need to get up off your fat ass, quit watching TV and go excercise.
But ACTUALLY the show REALLY REALLY SUCKS!
zillow doesn't know about (and therefore take into account) any renovations unless you input them yourself.Lex said:
the other thing zillow isn't very good at is discerning individual differences from house to house (in terms of architectural details/finishes, etc); if the houses are pretty standard across the range (think N8 spec houses, for instance), zillow should give you a reliable number.
Apartments do as little maintenance as possible. Homo-ners tend to take care of things a little better to maintain value. Think of how a rental car is treated vs. one that is purchased.
because if they don't the house goes cheap as a handyman's special . which was my first house.Westy said:
So basically it's pretty useless. How do they update the site? For instance, we bought our house from a contractor who had basically flipped the house. His original purchase price was quite a bit different from our purchase price because of all of the work he had done to the place. How can a site like this ever be right? Do they update based on the property taxes every time a house is reassessed?narlus said:
i'd say it's a good ballpark generator, but i wouldn't rely on it for really accurate results. afaik, they do have a variety of factors which set their price displayed, and recent local sales of comparable houses are one of them (in this regard, i'd say the traditional real estate owner does about the same). that's just one aspect though; you could take two different 8 room/4 BR/2.5 bath colonials and get far different values from them, depending on any number of factors.
I just went back and looked the values of the surrounding homes and even zoomed out to see the wider area. I've come to the conclusion that the site is useless. They tack a similar number on every house in the whole area despite there being a huge array of different sizes and styles of house. Way too generic to be accurate.narlus said:
for recent sales, though, it's as accurate as it can get. if house X sold for 469,000 four weeks ago, that's a pretty good assessment as to what it's worth. saves you the trip to registry of deeds to find out the same info.
i agree w/ you that it sounds out of whack that different sized houses in the same general area would be the same value.
i agree w/ you that it sounds out of whack that different sized houses in the same general area would be the same value.
BV Antimony, home ownership rocks! The little stuff tends to work itself out. When you buy make sure there is a decent home warranty in place (typically $3-400 for one year) and read the fine print. Watch out for HOA fees cause sometimes they can be high enough to justify buying a more expensive Single Family Home instead.
I agree with Douglas, I dont think the market is going to crash. There may be a few locals that are going to readjust lower than they are now but nothing significant, and in 4 or 5 years the cycle will have changed.
BV's concern is justified and quite frankly if one of you didnt feel this way then the decision to buy a home was too hasty, and you are more likely to become a statistic.
Edit: Zwillow sucks you are better off picking up a local paper and looking at the current listings. Just my $.02
I agree with Douglas, I dont think the market is going to crash. There may be a few locals that are going to readjust lower than they are now but nothing significant, and in 4 or 5 years the cycle will have changed.
BV's concern is justified and quite frankly if one of you didnt feel this way then the decision to buy a home was too hasty, and you are more likely to become a statistic.
Edit: Zwillow sucks you are better off picking up a local paper and looking at the current listings. Just my $.02
Seriously look into buying something if you can afford it. Interest rates are still very reasonable. If you're stressing now about home prices, it will only continue to climb. North Carolina is starting to become quite popular and appears to be growing. Jump in now while it's still affordable. Trust me on this one.
The problem is that I know what some houses in our area have sold for and this site doesn't even have those right. We've been in our house less than a year and it's showing the value as considerably lower than we paid for it, so even for recent sales it isn't very accurate. I know our property hasn't lost value in the last 6 months.narlus said:
Like I pointed out earlier - its accuracy appears to be very location dependent.Lex said:
Lex said:
one way to find that out: put it up for sale! :evil:
i think in general the NE housing market is definitely softening, so that trend is probably worked into how they got to the value assigned to your house. as i said, they don't know about any renovation or other work you may have put in after the sale. as for why other house prices aren't reflecting recent sales, all i can say is that the stuff i checked on seemed legit, and i'm not gonna audit zillow's data.
Thanks for all of your input! It's so helpful to read everything! I was actually just chatting with a girl at work who is my age, is going to dental school in the fall, and just bought a house with her boyfriend. Her situation sounds very similar to BV's and mine, and she told me to keep looking into houses, in addition to townhomes. She got a good 1st time home buyer thing, and has good credit, and it's not significantly more expensive than her rent. That seems to be giving me hope. I figure if I have an inspector to look at the home with me, we may even be able to buy a real house. I too understand why bv is worried; I just feel that if it's possible for so many others (who don't even have close to what I have saved), then it shouldn't be impossible for me.
I was actually just chatting with a girl at work who is my age, is going to dental school in the fall, and just bought a house with her boyfriend. Her situation sounds very similar to BV's and mine, and she told me to keep looking into houses, in addition to townhomes. She got a good 1st time home buyer thing, and has good credit, and it's not significantly more expensive than her rent. That seems to be giving me hope. I figure if I have an inspector to look at the home with me, we may even be able to buy a real house. I too understand why bv is worried; I just feel that if it's possible for so many others (who don't even have close to what I have saved), then it shouldn't be impossible for me. I agree that the housing market is softening a bit here, and I'm not really concerned about the value since we don't have any intentions of leaving. It just strikes me as odd that this site claims to know about home values, but then just tacks on numbers for a whole area that have no basis in reality.narlus said:one way to find that out: put it up for sale! :evil:
i think in general the NE housing market is definitely softening, so that trend is probably worked into how they got to the value assigned to your house. as i said, they don't know about any renovation or other work you may have put in after the sale. as for why other house prices aren't reflecting recent sales, all i can say is that the stuff i checked on seemed legit, and i'm not gonna audit zillow's data.
They have our house listed at less than we paid for it, but the house behind us, which just sold, is valued higher than it sold for. Keep in mind that our house had been completely redone by a contractor and sold the first week on the market where the house behind us was on the market for almost a year and had no major renovations. I think they're only going by square footage and such and don't have any reliable way to take condition/updates into account. Very misleading to someone looking in an area like our.
The market has definitely softened, but it's usually short term (1-4 years). If you're not planing on moving anytime soon you'll be fine.narlus said:one way to find that out: put it up for sale! :evil:
i think in general the NE housing market is definitely softening, so that trend is probably worked into how they got to the value assigned to your house. as i said, they don't know about any renovation or other work you may have put in after the sale. as for why other house prices aren't reflecting recent sales, all i can say is that the stuff i checked on seemed legit, and i'm not gonna audit zillow's data.
Dude you got jacked, today a 2bdrm 2bath 1100-1300sq. ft. townhouse is in the mid 400s to 525 and sold within a week of listing.N8 said:
Try living on Cape Cod!splat said:
I have got to get out of this state!
Up here that wouldn't even buy you a out house
good god ...binary visions said: