Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes

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Whew, what a few days! Our set in stone "poor as church mice retirement plan" consisted of moving to the nice 55+ rent controlled apartments here in town, we went to visit again on Friday (haven't been since we moved to FL in '15) and found they had a change in management and now the place is dirty and smelled of urine, it was awful. Guess the old managers would meet with family members when it was time to consider a move to assisted living; the new company actively seeks out older poor seniors who aren't appropriate for independant living then ignores them and just lets people sit there, unable to care for themselves properly, for as long as they can get the rent payment. So a great big NOPE to that.

It has caused us to step back and take a long look at our future, and we've decided to put home ownership back on the table. When the condo in FL sells we could pay cash for a nice smaller house, continue working (or in my case, go back to work) until we have it fixed up the way we want and a savings account we're comfortable with, then retire for real.

It feels good, considering a home again. I didn't want to take care of one... but faced with the uncertainty of renting and being at the whim of a management company, it just makes this feel right. Things feel peaceful.

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Glad you weren't caught up in that shit.

As a homeowner, I constantly fantasize about burning the place down. Is it too much to ask to live in a house without moving parts?
I don't like to think of my self as an artist so much as someone who stares at empty spaces and imagines s--t.

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Yikes! Glad you avoided that disaster. For all the negatives about home ownership, the positives of not being beholden to a potentially shitty management company makes a difference. Good luck on the search!
“Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.”
- Maya Angelou

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To make the move back into a house I just need to fucking RELAX! My dad was a contractor and I worked for him summers until I could lifeguard (hated doing construction) and so I am hyper aware of any home issues. I fix or get things fixed when waiting would be a viable option. So, if we do this again I just need to chill and stop laying there all night when it's raining thinking "is the sump pump turning on, are the gutters overflowing...". :tongue:

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Queen wrote:To make the move back into a house I just need to fucking RELAX! My dad was a contractor and I worked for him summers until I could lifeguard (hated doing construction) and so I am hyper aware of any home issues. I fix or get things fixed when waiting would be a viable option. So, if we do this again I just need to chill and stop laying there all night when it's raining thinking "is the sump pump turning on, are the gutters overflowing...". :tongue:
:roflmao: me too
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Marlene wrote:
Queen wrote:To make the move back into a house I just need to fucking RELAX! My dad was a contractor and I worked for him summers until I could lifeguard (hated doing construction) and so I am hyper aware of any home issues. I fix or get things fixed when waiting would be a viable option. So, if we do this again I just need to chill and stop laying there all night when it's raining thinking "is the sump pump turning on, are the gutters overflowing...". :tongue:
:roflmao: me too
I swear to god, the roof could be leaking like a sieve and my wife wouldn't notice unless it dripped on her, a lot. I envy that kind of oblivion.

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Bucolic wrote:Find a happy medium between your angst and your wife's nonchalance. Welcome back to home ownership! As an owner of an 1865 house and barn with coop and stable and pond, I am envious of the thought of a small home.
Love the idea of an older home, but this time I'd probably only go as old as the 1940's.

Our list of non-negotiables this time is pretty long, things like no stairs inside, redone kitchen and bath (I am NOT remodeling again), newer mechanicals and roof... first house we bought we got screwed on the roof (it was crap but there was too much snow to tell during the inspection). Second house was beautiful and surrounded by trees, which were fast growing sugar maples, rotted to the core, only $7000 for removal. FL condo just has psychotic neighbors who enjoy suing the HOA so sales have to be cash only. Hmm, maybe I don't want to do this again. ;)

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As we get ready to close on our fourth and final house. I still like the idea of home ownership. This new one will be the retirement home. The one were in now is a two story 5 bedroom. We bought it new and over twenty years have spent more remodeling it than the original price. Realtor thinks we should get most back due to housing demand in DFW. The new one being built is one story and a little smaller. Also just at the northern edge of the metroplex.

Queen I hear your frustration with your management. When I worked home health I went to many of the retirement village type of places. Some separate housing some in high rise apartments. When they are new they are great but all but a few expensive ones seem to go downhill after a few years. Same goes for most assisted living complexes. They fast become poorly run nursing homes.

Good luck in finding a new home.
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.-Huxley
"We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both." ~ Louis Brandeis,

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Queen wrote:Really curious, this is one of the homes we'll look at, what would this cost where you live??

http://www.remax.com/realestatehomesfor ... 59612.html

If it doesn't open for you, it's a two bed, one bath, 1350 sq ft brick ranch, priced at $119,900
I like it! Nice open plan. Two car garage? Is it on a slab or is there a basement? Around here where real estate is pretty cheap, maybe $90-95k or so.


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Bucolic wrote:
I like it! Nice open plan. Two car garage? Is it on a slab or is there a basement? Around here where real estate is pretty cheap, maybe $90-95k or so.


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Yup, two car garage, on a crawl, really nicely cared for home. Of course the killer around here is taxes, in Champaign that house is around $2000, if it was in Urbana it would be $3500.

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Good to hear about the crawl space. Our house, on Maplepark in Champaign not far from the prairie farm park, was on a slab and had mold problems. The quality of construction was so poor that I swear I could have torn it down with my bare hands. We were renting it from a woman who thought it was the Taj Mahal. Nasty place.
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Don't even have to look at the picture to tell you it would cost half a million where I live.

Average home is 800k range

Double wide mobile homes. 55 to 100k

New manufacuture double wides 200 to 300k + space rent + hoa

If I wasn't here already, with a good deal on rent. I couldn't afford to live here

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Bucolic wrote:Good to hear about the crawl space. Our house, on Maplepark in Champaign not far from the prairie farm park, was on a slab and had mold problems. The quality of construction was so poor that I swear I could have torn it down with my bare hands. We were renting it from a woman who thought it was the Taj Mahal. Nasty place.
That part of town is now an absolute hell hole. They threw those houses up quickly and now the third and fourth iteration of homeowner is stuck with a falling down piece of junk, about half are rentals, the rest were bought during the bubble so the current owners are royally screwed.

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Check flood plains, topography and so on. Find out about historic floods, and so on. Never buy a house with a slab foundation. A crawl space is good. Slabs are good for garages, shops and retail spaces in my view.
Last edited by sikacz on Tue Jan 17, 2017 12:48 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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"Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated!" Loquacious of many. Texas Chapter Chief Cat Herder.

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308Scout wrote:Don't even have to look at the picture to tell you it would cost half a million where I live.

Average home is 800k range

Double wide mobile homes. 55 to 100k

New manufacuture double wides 200 to 300k + space rent + hoa

If I wasn't here already, with a good deal on rent. I couldn't afford to live here
Good god, where do you live???

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sikacz wrote:Check flood plains, topography and so on. Find out about historic floods, and so on. Never buy a house with a slab foundation. A crawl space is good. Slabs are good for garages, shops and retail spaces in my view.
If your buying a new house in most of Texas it will be a slab. I'm at the age I don't want an old home that needs remodel or just fixing up. With this new hous the only thing in my slab except for the reenforcing cables for the concrete is the access for the waste sewer lines all other lime for water and gas go through the attic. The big thing to know with a slab what soil type are you building on. We had some builder building on soil that was unstable to say the least and their are $500,000 + houses with foundation problems.
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.-Huxley
"We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both." ~ Louis Brandeis,

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