Ask people you know for recommendations. Under no circumstances use a family friend, trust me. Seller’s pay the realtor fees, so that doesn’t matter for buying.
I have never sold before, I'm still living in the first house I bought, but I would definitely not use the family friend in this situation. Sorry, what I meant is I will be using the same realtor for buying as I would to sell my current home, that's why I was asking about the realtor fees/commission. I know there is no fee for buying from my side.
You need to be able to be demanding with a realtor and hold them accountable by being able to fire them and find a new one without hurting feelings. So I don't recommend using a family friend.
Unless I'm mistaken, typically when both sides are represented by agents, the buyers' and sellers' agent split the commission earned by the seller's agent on the transaction. Also, I guess you can always ask, but I think typically there's not much negotiating the fee unless one side is not represented, and thus whatever fee collected wouldn't be split by two agents. I always understood the national average to be 6% of the sales price, which again is split by both agents. Keep in mind also that most agents work for an agency they don't own, so it's not like all of that money is going directly into their pocket. Caveat: I like to do a lot of my own work when buying/selling a house, and have only had good experiences. Sound like others here may have had deadbeats. So don't be bashful about meeting a few and interviewing who you think will do the best job for you.
Here’s the advice someone gave me. Go with the realtor that has the best ass in case you end up in one of those realtor pornhub videos.
4thsies on not using family. I think I'm being shunned by my SIL for not using her as our selling agent but it's a win win cause I don't like her anyways.
I am not using a family friend, I used one last time to buy my current house. This time I am getting a realtor with a nice ass, who will sell my house for top dollar, find me a new house, and possible get me to star in a movie. Thanks.
Bad news: Water heater (7 years old) isn’t working so we had someone out yesterday. Worse news: It’s upstairs, in a tiny closet that is only big enough for it and the newer ones won’t fit in it so we’d need to have the plumbing redone. Some previous owner moved it. It is directly over the HVAC unit if we decide to fix it and hope that lasts and hope there are no leaks. Good news (I guess): We’re having a tankless water heater installed on Monday
Yeah I’m certainly excited about it, and we would’ve like to do this at some point, just not the best timing. Interested to see the impact to utility bills
Timing in owning a home is the best. I was just gifted with a $1000 new washer! Which reminds me, have a story about that later.
Had our preconstruction meeting this morning. Everything is good to go and ground should be broken in the next few weeks.
So last weekend our washer died. My appliance guy came over and said, RIP in peace to your washer. I don't know why (technically speaking), but this is a guy who saved me literally thousands of dollars over the years so I took his word. He also gave me a recommendation regarding where to order another. So Monday morning I am doing my due diligence and calling around. The place he gave me was $30-$100 cheaper along the model lines of the brand (Speed Queen) and most importantly they could get one to me on Thursday morning. Others were 3-4 weeks out for comparison. Long story short, I knew what we were getting and I didn't visit any store rooms. So I locked in the Thursday morning time slot and the woman started to try to hang up. I said hold on, how will I pay you? Her reply was don't worry about it, you can give the guys a check when they are there or we will just invoice you. No deposit, not a cent. Thursday morning comes and the washer is installed, they said they would send the invoice. Who the fuck does that? I still don't have a bill btw. Spoiler If you are still with me, I most definitely am a cac, and sound like a cac. That said, I would love to call back, or have friends call back, to see how racist they are. I'd love to know if they'd get the same treatment because I never heard of this in my life. I think this is the last business that operates in this manner that I am aware of.
Like that layout a lot, other than the oven. If anyone does much cooking at all it would be really nice to have the oven in the island facing the family room. Then they can watch tv, interact with everyone, etc.
The appliance store I worked at in college...15 years ago was like this. Mom and pop places may still do this, especially if you're buying over the phone / not going in.
I’ve never lived in anything other than having the stove with my back to everyone so I don’t know any different. I like that thought though.
Joked with my wife about walling half of it and having a secret 50 shades of grey room or my man cave. She voted for the man cave. I guess that’s a bigger win????
If you do crap work, you need to be worried about getting money up front to make sure you at least cover your cost. If you are truly a professional and have high quality standards and work ethic, you do not really have to worry about getting paid. At least in my line of work that is. There are a lot of hacks in the pool business so people have no problem writing checks to the people they can count on.
Nah, I have to disagree. The ones active on social media CAN be hustlers, or they could be on social media because they aren't busy and don't have a lot of customers because they suck. I know a LOT of part time realtors who blow up social media trying to get customers because they aren't experienced enough to have a decent amount of referrals. The best realtor I know doesn't have time to be on social media. He also doesn't need to. He is booked up constantly and doesn't need additional business from social media because he probably wouldn't have time for it. A good rule of thumb is to ask the finance people who they like using? They know the realtors who are responsible and professional to work with and those who you should stay away from.
Grill folks, i'm trying to decide on a new one. Have had a Weber for years, so my choice is to stick with them and do a Genesis II, or move to the wood pellet style with Traeger or Louisiana (or another brand if anyone has recs). I've always been a propane guy, not ready to get into charcoal yet, but the wood pellet seems like a good intermediate step. Anyone have pros/cons of either?
I love my Traeger, but I couldn't see myself grilling burgers/steaks/hot dogs etc. on it regularly. I only use it to smoke chicken/pork etc. My buddy is an instagram rep for traeger, so I got 40% off of it which made it easier to justify the cost. I'll reach out to him and see if he has any more codes if you're interested.
sure that would be awesome. Like you said, would make it easier to justify. My worry is what you said, most of what I do is burgers/steak/etc. I would certainly do a ton of smoking with a traeger style grill but i wonder about it for every day stuff.
They have a lot of recipes for every day stuff, but I'm not sure it's practical for that honestly. Let me shoot him a text and I'll let you know
Yes. Alway be sure to find a stud. If it's not where you need it to be, mount a ledger board and then mount on that
My wife got me a bidet for Christmas, it's a fancy one that the seat is heated and it warms the water. It's quite nice, I recommend it for everyone as their next project (took only a few minutes to install).
Working on setting up a subscription service, trying to find the right price point - I think $4.99 / month is fair. I'm pretty sure it's this one. It shrinks the bowl a little bit because of the water reservoir but wasn't an issue for me.
Our house being built is technically in land o lakes. We’re off 54 in the lutz, Odessa, land o lakes area.
Monday at like 1 am the pipe for the cold water to the kitchen sink came disconnected. I wake up to the sound of water violently spraying inside the cabinet under the sink. The original trip to see what was going on I didn't see anything so walked back to bed, Cassie gets up and goes in there and water is everywhere. We had some problems getting the water shut off and water went in the bedroom, kitchen, dining room and made it all the way to the living room. We got most of it up what seemed liked immediately. We file a claim and we both think its gonna be pretty minimal. Adjuster has sent ServPro out and now they have fans and dehumidifiers everywhere. Their water reader was saying max everywhere even thought you cant see water. So Monday, ServPro is suppose to comeback out and see if its drying or not. Field adjuster says we could be looking at a total of two weeks for everything to get get finished. He sad we may need to hit a hotel for some of the repair process. I don't really look forward to all of this.
Was there a braves fan or someone that had an outdoor fireplace. I remember commenting on it maybe last spring. Looking for ideas for this year.
I have a traeger and prefer burgers on it over a gas grill. Adds maybe 15 minutes to the process but worth it IMO. I got a small companion gas grill for searing steaks, but put them in the traeger after searing for the best one two punch.