New York state house-selling question (Assuming that tax issues differ from state to state). I've done some googling, but maybe someone's gone through it:

My Mother-in-law's selling her house. She's been there 20+ years, bought the land and built it with her husband who passed away 3 or so years ago.

Say she bought it for $100k, put $100k in repairs/renovations and sells it for $750k - as a primary residence, what's the tax implication? What other things can be considered when looking to reduce the tax bill?

She gets a stepped-up basis for the value of her husbands half valued when he died.

Any electricians here? I am about to run all the wiring for my basement and I am curious about putting all the lights on the same 15amp circuit. Since all the lights will be LED and not use anywhere near the max wattage for the circuit, is it ok to do this? OR is the fact that someone could switch the LEDs out later for incandescent bulbs and overload it (assuming they had every damn light on at the same time) going to mean I would need more than one circuit?

I'm an electrical contractor, but don't run lights much. I'm pretty sure the code is that you have to use the rating of the fixture/can and not the bulbs. I don't think there would be any problem with running it on a 20 amp circuit if that changes things. It's likely that your fixtures will not be rated to be installed on more than 20 amp circuits (maybe not even 20, you should check. 50A is the max for lighting, but your fixtures would have to allow for that and they almost certainly won't.). Also the max draw shouldn't be more than 80% of the rating of the breaker.

I don't think this is a requirement and is based on doing load calcs for services, but 3 watts per square foot is a rule of thumb for lighting loads. You might want to comply with that as well and the city/inspector may expect you to.

That answers my question. Thanks! I knew about the 80% rule, just to be safe I will run 2 circuits. Whoever wired it the last time has some lights and some outlets all together on one 20A circuit, but he also has 14ga wire on the lights so I am going to switch that breaker and any receptacles to 15A. I think I will just throw 1/4 of the lights on that one and run a new 15A for the rest to be safe. Shouldn't be any issues with that right?

Shouldn't be. Outlets are normally counted as 1.5A per. Some places limit the number of outlets to something like 10 no matter what. If you have one circuit serving more than one bathroom you can't have both outlets and lighting on it. You can't have lighting on the outlet circuit for laundry or kitchen appliances. Pretty sure.

I used to post on an contractor forum a bit and there was a poster who had as his signature something like: "Just because its code doesn't mean its safe, and just because its not code doesnt mean its unsafe". As long as things are wired correctly, I'm sure you'll be fine. The biggest problem I've seen in electrical work and nothing else is even close, is making bad connections and I've seen human error with every type of connector. So....do that part right.

Everyone should be refinancing....

Got a 2.625% rate reduction and going to a 15yr instead of 30yr.
$950 in fees. I'll be refunded my escrow balance from the last company and that will go straight to next year's taxes and insurance which will be about what the escrow balance is when I apply for homestead in January.
Out of pocket cost was $425 for re-appraisal.

I don't think getting a reduction of 2.625% is in the cards for me. Didn't you just buy this house? Why such a god-awful rate to start?

Aren’t we ignoring that MBabs may have done something actually smart and good for her? Good for her!

I shopped rates for my refinance and I could get a 0.15% decrease, what was that rate before?

M,

Congrats on completing a quick refinance! Sounds like you likely got a great deal. Being able to afford a 15y right now is super clutch.

At least in Chicago, taxes are paid a year in arrears. For me that meant that (if we had a positive balance in our escrow) it would have been refunded to us, and then the new mortgage would have immediately asked for a deposit of basically the same size. But for some reason they can't just directly move the money from one escrow to the other?

It's possible that things are going to work exactly as nicely as you stated, and that my hesitation is colored by my situation. Our property taxes spiked huge this year, so at the time I refinanced, my escrow account was about to send me a letter saying that we owed them a medium lump sum to catch up to the new rates (since the bank had just gone out of pocket to pay the half yearly installment). On top of that, the new high rate had to be accounted for in the new escrow account for the new mortgage. So ~$7000 out of pocket at close was all tax escrow related. But it was also all money we would have had to pay regardless of old vs new mortgage.

highfive / fistbump team refi!

Jack,

If you can't do better than .15% decrease going from 30-->15 at newly historic low interest rates, you must have gotten a pretty sweet deal on your mortgage!

1 15amp circuit is plenty for lights. You can put tons of LED lights on one. If you use recessed led lights they wont change them to incandescent.

I closed in January, but locked my rate in last November and I think those were the highest rates last year, Wells Fargo and Bank of America were offering around the same rate that I got at the time. My credit hasn't changed much. Dunno why it was so high.
Going to a 15yr, the value of the house going up, and going back and forth/countering with a couple of companies helped. I would get off the phone with one and call the other going back and forth for a few days. The mortgage guy actually came back to me and said he reviewed it with management and my rate should be 0.625 higher.....nope, I had already gotten him to do the lock and voice record the terms lol.
My current company was trying to get me to do it without a re-appraisal and said they couldn't go as low as the other companies because my debt to income ratio was too high (I'm at around 28% DTI). They were counting 1% of my student loan debt as monthly debt instead of my actual terms and what I pay. I dropped them and just worked with the other two until I got it the lowest I thought I possibly could.


Cit,
I paid this year's taxes and insurance up front in January....around $5k, my escrow was for next year's. I get refunded my current escrow and will pay next years with it. It is dumb that they can't just transfer the escrow balance though.

None of this sounds right. Not saying it can't be so, but I'd check very carefully.

I think my mortgage is something like 4.15% or 4.25%.

Assuming this is 30 year? I got one in April that is 4%. Big difference when you step up to 15 year.

Refi rates for 30 year are only around 3.5%-3.625%.

yeah a 30 year, bought back in 2015

Can you expand on this? The last company was requiring the years taxes and insurance be paid in full for the year as the new company is requiring. My mom was telling me that I could pay taxes and insurance separately from the mortgage company, paying insurance throughout the year and taxes at the end of the year directly to the county and they couldn't dictate they be paid in full.

Baaah, I had also applied with BOA but didn't bother with them because of the initial interest rates they were offering. I was monitoring everyones rates daily for a couple of weeks and theirs never budged much. They called today and offered 2.75%, but I would have to submit documents for my student loans or they would use 1.25% of the total balances of monthly debt. That was fine, but they also said I had to pay off the unpaid debt on my credit report where an apartment complex charged me 2 months rent after I moved out and gave the 30days notice required in the contract. I have tried and tried to get that removed because it clearly shows the notice requirements in the contract. I'm finally just going to have to sue them because there is no way in hell I'm paying something that isn't legit. Has anyone ever sued for something like this to be removed and maybe gotten some damages added to the suit?

Pretty sure your Mom isn’t the best person to be taking advice from on anything MBabs

Trust the professionals you pay to do their jobs, first. Hick family second

ETA: WTF are you even talking about in the last sentence? Damages added to a suit where you are trying to get something removed from your credit report? Why did you have to go all crazy at the end you were doing great?!?!

After I moved out I paid two appartment application fees and got denied because they put that on my credit. I then "stupidly" spent money for someone else to work on getting it off of my credit report after I had tried. And, the damages to my credit score and the resulting higher interest rates.

I just don't understand how it hasn't been removed yet. I have my entire payment history with the apartments. My lease was up and it clearly shows I was moved to month to month the last month there. I gave the required 30days notice. They also charged me water, gas, trash, sewer, and renters insurance in addition to the rent after I moved out. I have disputed this and the collection companies have all the information. I filled a complaint with the BBB and the response was that I didn't give 60days notice. Like what in the **** do I have to do?
I want to sue them for it to be removed, my app fees reimbursed, and the cost of trying to get it removed before.

Stupidly shouldn’t be in quotes sweetheart

Thanks Josie

So I'm learning fast that this house flipping business is a very physically demanding job. It makes me feel my age every day when I try to get out of bed. Hopefully it will just get me in better physical shape. At this point I'm almost glad I still have a full time job so that I get a break from working my hinny off.

Working on a ranch and the main floor is basically done except for some finishing touches. I have moved to the basement and gutted the entire thing. Will be completely finished when I'm done with an added bedroom and full bath. I have framed it completely and ran 750' of wire for lights/outlets/dryer/etc. Will be busting up the concrete floor to run the shower/toilet/sink drains next and then sheetrock the whole thing. Can't wait for drywall to be up so it will look like something is finally getting done. Several days worth of work and it hardly "looks" like anything has been done. I wanna slap the wife when she comes to see it and says it looks the same. It is a solo mission so things take a long time when you have no help. Will be quite satisfying when done though! I'll post pics here when complete.

Anyone have an environmentally friendly solution for outdoor spiders?

Lately it seems like when I walk outside in the mornings, I walk into spider lines coming down from the trees in front. Not full webs just strands. I would like to not have that problem.

On another subject, how do people leave their heating and air conditioning when going on a trip? Do you turn it up, off, or leave it the same? We just got back from a long weekend trip which made me think of this.

heat to 55
cool to 80

about 12-24 hours before we're due back, turn it on to comfortable temp