There were three 75 lbs beams that had to be glued and screwed together to make one large beam.

Also, I have 10' ceilings and 10" joists for the second floor. So problem one was the jacks we used were 6' tall because they would not have reached the top if they were the smaller ones.

Guides would have been a good idea. Because the joists were all a little off getting them cut in the right spots was a huge pain. Plus actually having to cut them when they were that big.

So we had it up on two jacks and were working it in. I was guiding it in on one side another guy on the other end while two guys jacked. Of course, neither one of us was watching the middle. Beam catches one of the middle joists a few inches from the others and it wobbles. Guy on the other end from me loses his balance on the ladder knocking his end off of the jack and whipping this 225 lbs beam towards me. I had to spider monkey jump across the kitchen and avoid getting clocked by it.

Fortunately, we all were ok. Got it back up and had to work it into each individual joist. Took a ton of time, got the posts in, got the hangers in. Was an all day project. Would have been easier to just put a column in the middle as part of the kitchen design.

You had a jack on top of a jack? No pics?

Lesson learned I hope. Imagine what can go wrong and make sure it doesn't cause a big problem when it happens.

Jack on top of jack does sound picture worthy. They were just tiger jacks on each end, but when you have to use the big ones it's not easy to get them on.

Whenever you are lifting something heavy there is always the chance it will fall, we thought we were past the serious fall part once we got in on the jacks.

It never ceases to amaze me how a 130+ year old house can find new ways to make you curse at your home improvement project.

Hey hOOT.

My wife and I are currently in the process of trying to buy our first home. The market here is unbalanced towards the sellers- I'm sure given the time of year, this is the case for most markets.

We have a down payment saved up to avoid PMI for our price range, have a realtor, and a home inspector (ours not our agents).

We are 0/3 on offers, 2 offers being 12 - 15k over asking and not getting them.

1. We saw the closing price of offer #1, and our offer was 2k above the closing price. Our realtor didn't provide much insight into this other than "that's strange, maybe cash"

2. It seems every house is "in multiples" - highest and best due by blah blah blah. It seems that people are making really poor decisions, i.e. escalation clauses in this environment. I have no intention of going down that road.

We want to get a house and not get boned by overpaying. We are non contingent and don't HAVE to move. Given that-

Is it smart/viable/non scummy to:
1. Attach an time limit to our "strong offers" i.e. 290k house, offer 300k with 6 hours to decide - and hopefully avoid the highest and best bull****

2. Put in a ridiculous offer 340k on a 280k and then haggle down in inspection to 290 or w/e.

I am beginning to hate this whole process as we have been looking for 3 months very aggressively. Wondering if there is any tips you could provide TIA.

Define "overpaying". The market is the market.

If I'm selling my house and I received an offer of $15k (or 5%) over my asking I am firing my agent immediately (especially if I told the agent I want to list above whatever he thinks his a reasonable price). I hate the idea of listing too low in hopes of creating a bidding war.

This is mainly due to idea that 90+% of home buyers use the same logic shamrock does in that bidding over asking equals overpaying... which likely means that getting a home under asking equals a good deal.

Do not try option 2!

Patience, grasshopper (unless you are in the San Diego area)

Realtor here.

Option 1 is perfectly fine and a good buyer's agent should do this if the opportunity presents itself (not a firm set offer date). Option 2 won't work in a hot market they'll tell you to beat it and re-list. You'll also piss everyone off in the meantime, and wait a while to get your deposit back.

We are in a similar market right now. With interest rates not going up everyone is trying to buy right now and inventory can't keep up. Just make sure you are doing your due diligence before offering and making clean offers without contingencies and strong deposits.

As someone who had to almost walk away from a house this month, my lawyer assured me that if the sellers didn't sign the release on my $$$ I could counter by not signing the release on their house. Ie, they wouldn't be able to sell it until I signed the release. My realtor conveniently did not mention this part when she was basically putting the fear of god to my wife about the possibility of us not getting our deposit back, but she did note that she wasn't a lawyer, so she wasn't completely sure how it worked.

Long story short, I trust realtors about as far as I can throw them

Option 2 is literally idiotic.

You think just because you want to lower the price the sellers have to agree? what do you think your going to haggle about that's going to drop the price 50k after inspection?

Also, have fun paying home inspector after home inspector as every deal you try that on falls to shambles.

It's not that you won't get it back (at least here in Canada), it just that it could take an extra week or two, which could put a damper in the future buying process. It's a huge pain in the ass for buyer clients sometimes. It takes time to process bank drafts/certified cheques and re-issue them, especially if the sellers are bitter about the process. For some people their deposit is pretty much their entire savings (here a regular amount is 20-30k).

75% of realtors are unqualified, uneducated scumbags. This much is true.

Wow, big deposits in Canadia. Normal here is a few grand.

$5k each for the house i'm selling and buying


when we were in final negotiations for the last item on the list (roof was shot), i told my realtor flat out if they don't sign the release on my $5k, i don't care if it's locked up in perpetuity, i won't sign the release on their house because i can buy a house without $5k. i knew my realtor would tell the other realtor this because both realtors work for same company, different branches and were pretty friendly with each other. $30k would probably be a little different story.


ultimately we got the full price of the roof, which i was talking about a few weeks ago.

Sigh - that is the thought in the back of my mind. I want a house, the market conditions I cannot control, I am trying to find the best line given the conditions. Buying a house went from fun to a chore, very quickly.

IYO, the listing price is just a number - as the buyer, I am to determine what price I want it for regardless of listing price. How do you compete in that market then?

Thanks.

Ya - we are a "strong buyer" it's nice to hear but seems like it isn't worth much in a real competitive market.

Anyone heard about solar with "no investment for the homeowner?" Scam or trap?

Here the way contingencies work is that they expire if nobody does anything. The buyer doesn't need to "release" the seller from the deal. If he doesn't fulfill his conditions in 5 business days (or however many it is) the deal is automatically dead and the release is only needed for the deposit. This release must be signed in a "timely fashion", but the difference between 5 days of processing and 3 weeks is pretty much based on how pissed the seller is about it.

It's a scam over here. Basically they are renting your roof and paying you a small amount every year ($500 or so). Good luck when you have to change your shingles or sell your house.

That could possibly refer to leasing the equipment, a Power Purchase Agreement (ppa) where you agree to buy the power, or maybe even just straight financing. None of these things are always scams or traps and lots of people have reroofed or sold their houses with these deals. A minor specialty of mine, since I'm an extremely small and flexible operation/person, is removing a system, reroofing (either my sub or their roofer) and then putting it back on.

But...I've never been an advocate of such arrangements unless it's the best you can get.

Buying cash is obviously going to get you the best deal

A home equity loan crushes pretty much all other financing

There didn't used to be, but now there are some other financing options generally available which are better than lease or ppa and they have seriously eaten into the lease/ppa market.

Lease/ppa is generally going to get you the lowest return on investment, but people who do this generally have positive cash flow from day one, so for people without money or who don't want to or can't borrow (though credit requirements for leasing are about the same as finance - maybe more strict), one of those options can make sense.

You can almost count on the companies that aggressively market solar to be awful though and I think that goes for any kind of home improvement. I have been inside the bowels of these companies and "bowels" is a perfect metaphor.

1). Your realtor seems lazy. There are a number of reasons you may have lost. Cash is one. Contingencies are another. Terms are another. If the offer you lost to didn’t require financing or was a quicker turn around time you could have lost. The offer could have also had other rules that made their offer as a whole better.

What city/state are you in? The best time for buyers is normally in the winter when inventory doesn’t flip as much and worse now because many people prefer moving in the summer.

Tips are don’t rush things. If you put a time cap on the offer, odds are that’s a huge negative on your complete offer so expect rejections more often.

Real estate reddit is pretty good if you want a large number of opinions on what to do.

So apparently this solar thing is something called a PPP, which the company is telling my dad is better than a PPA because "there's no tax credit with a PPA."

Sounds like this could lead to trouble selling, yes?

I don't know what a PPP is. If it's a lease or a purchase agreement then you should not get the tax credit. The tax credit goes to the owner of the solar equipment.

It is something that comes up in selling I'm sure, but for years the biggest solar companies (SolarCity, SunRun, Sungevity) were all doing leases and they did tens of thousands of them. I haven't followed any of these deals through escrow or anything, but I've done work (like remove and reinstall for reroofing) for new owners who bought a house with a solar lease and it all worked out for them.

"You get the tax credit" is often a consideration in how to buy or finance, but it's a red flag really because it's something stupid sleazy salespeople harp on a lot.

Feel free to PM me, exchange email and I'll be happy to look at proposals. I don't know how old and capable your dad is, but the sleaziest companies really prey on the elderly.

Thanks, I really appreciate it. I'll definitely PM. Especially since I'm the owner of my dad's house.

my roof is coming off today and 4-season room being built. pics later