Was out of town since Friday and am just catching up. While it sounds like you are on the right track, I am hesitant to give you much advice besides being overly cautious. We don't do much abatement work. The guys I have watched do it use water, respirators, and negative pressure ventilation. I wouldn't be scared to do it myself, but you are supposed to be trained/certified to perform that work. I would also wear disposable oversuit or plan on throwing away whatever I was wearing, shower immediately, and double bagging/tying all the debris. Be safe, especially if there are kids around.
Got an interesting situation here. Been in my condo for 5 years. Bought it for $75k with $30k down. Banks wouldn’t approve me for a mortgage at the time so I got a 15 year secured loan at 3.1% with a family member’s 5 year CD as collateral. The CD matured and I don’t want family members’ financial vehicles guaranteeing my loan anymore since those interest rates are shit and they were doing me a huge favor at the time. Wife and I live humbly while she pays down her student loan debt. We owe about $32,500 right now with $300/mo loan payments on the condo. Same loan officer comes back with 2 offers for refinancing. 1) HELOC @ 6.39% fixed for 10 years (no closing costs) Payments of $367.65; adds $5,888 in interest over the life of the loan 2) Mortgage @ 5.50% for 10 years (~$750 closing costs) Payments of $361.26 Adds $4,373 in interest and $750 closing costs over the life of the loan These are both fucking awful. I know we’re going to be limited in options with such a low balance but I’m not looking to double my rate. Any advice from you guys? Shop around? Bite the bullet on one of these? We’re looking to sell in about 16 months if that influences anyone’s advice.
I think the answer is always to shop around, but even if you got some of the better rates going, what’s that? 4ish%? If the rate is a holdup, then is paying it down early not an option with the student loan debt hovering?
i doubt you're going to get a rate on that size of a loan that substantially impacts your payment. you might save like 20 bucks a month or something. if you're selling in 16 months the extra 320 bucks total would be nice but it's not huge
Weighted student loan rate is still worse than that until about 2020 so we’re putting any extra towards that. The HELOC option looks like it’s gonna leave me with more equity than any other option until at least 2021. Seems so fucking shitty to have 6.39% on paper but I guess it doesn’t really matter if we’re selling in the next 2 years. Think I’ve got my answer.
Yeah. it doesn't really matter and you don't have to waste money out of pocket right now. can still shop obviously but if it's time sensitive that doesn't seem like all that bad of a deal (this is me assuming that you two are comfortable enough with the slight uptick on relatively low monthly payments)
$300 to $367 is pretty negligible. It’d bother me if I hung onto the property for more than 3 years as that’d add up. Changes my plan to make the property rental income, though. Oh well.
Have you considered doing a larger mortgage and using the excess proceeds to pay down/off the student loan? I have no idea if that will help get you better rates but it may be worth at least asking that question.
What are your student loan rates? You might consider a mortgage and then a HELOC to pay off the student loans.
I know this isnt the appropriate thread, but outside of creating a new one I thought this might be the best place to post. Looking at purchasing a new (used) car, but am not sure where to start in regards to an Auto loan (lender, length of loan, etc) My mortgage is through First Citizens, but I know there are other options out there that each have their own perks. Any advice or recommendations would be greatly appreciated. Credit score is 780+.
Just finance it through the dealer. You’ll probably get a little better deal. Get a quote from your bank just to make sure the dealer doesn’t try to screw you
Phase 1 Replace roof and gutters: Complete Phase 2 Mudroom/Bathroom Addition: Prep is almost done, gotta remove some garage drywall this weekend Phase 3 Knock down wall and pantry: little apprehensive Phase 4 Replace all the flooring: lol my wife is nuts
this is a battle I'm fighting right now. Banks will solve the self employments issues of getting a mortgage sometime after we solve the cold fusion riddle
No joke. The shit they were counting against my income and what they were counting for it was maddening.
My payment on the new house is marginally more than my current house. I make almost twice what I was making when I bought the original house 5 years ago. Somehow this is an issue despite 800+ credit scores and zero debt.
Well I built me an 18x18 deck the past two weeks. Lots of room for activities on that bitch. Gotta add posts, rails and stairs and baby we got a stew going. Summer plans are to lay cement around it for entertaining area. I’ve never done that, but I figured that I’m fully capable of doing it. Thoughts?
Will be doing something similar in the next few week. Deck will be more like 30x13. What type of deck boards did you go with. We are contemplating a trex type vs natural wood. Also have no idea for rails at this point.
Concrete? How much? Call your local concrete plant and get a price for how much you need from a truck. Then go to home depot and get some guys from out front and take them to your house to set it up and ask them to be back the next day when you have the concrete coming.
As for concrete....make sure you pour it thick enough. Builders at our last house did only 4 inches. It cracked right in half as the land settled. They dicked me on it and tore it out but never paid me to replace it. My dad grew up doing masonry work and we more than doubled the size and did it right.
I put in a trex deck a few years ago and wouldn’t consider real wood and all the annual staining tasks again. :two cents:
You poured an 8 inch slab for a house? :lol holy shit You realize concrete is only as strong as the reinforcement steel embedded in it? I have a 4 inch slab I park and drive a 20,000 pound motorhome and other trucks and trailers on and off of all the time and it has zero cracks Proper installation of the rear and proper placement of the concrete and proper mix of the concrete is all very important
Demo crew came today and removed my back deck. Really weird walking around back there and it not being there. Gotta live a few days without it, going in and out the front door with the dog and around to the back, but I hope the new one will be worth it
I did natural wood. Trex seems like it would have been 3-4 times the cost. I’m allocating money around for me to do a kitchen and master bathroom remodel in the next 12-18 mos
The deck boards aren’t that much more expensive. It’s the railing that is an absurd cost. If you choose trex and don’t have it now they will probably need to rebuild your substructure since the supports need to be no farther than 18” apart.
That’s pretty typical for a trex or composite deck construction. Using pressure treated wood as the substructure to support the Trex boards.
Concrete is incredibly simple. Poured a 20x40' slab for my boss' hangar at his cabin and a 14x40' landing pad in front of it a couple falls ago.
Trex decking has a 25 year warranty. Pressure treated lumber typically lasts 35-40 years. A pressure treated wood base with trex on top is pretty standard.
Yea I’ll be doing some research on it soon to see if it’s something I want to tackle. Anybody know what it costs per sq yard roughly?
No. I don’t think the original 8’x8’ pad was even 4 inches. We definitely didn’t pour 8” but we did make the size of it under the deck around 20’ x 10’. I meant that we more than doubled the surface area.
Anybody ever done of the closet systems like customs closets or ikea closets? We have a walk in closet right now that is just the wire shelves but I want something that looks a little nicer. Any suggestions or experiences?
I bought a dethatcher and used it last weekend. My yard doesn’t look terribly great right now as it looks like a balding guy trying desperately to hold onto what’s left. I had no idea most of my yard was filler. Filled up a ton of lawn bags with debris. I never would’ve guessed I had that much crap in between my grass. The reviews and before and after pics really sold me. I’ll post mine in a week or two.
I'd be interested in this as well, house being built and all the little extras like stop and drop, laundry room storage, and closets is expensive to do with builder so they suggested we don't after finishing
At my old condo I put in a closet from a local company but it was basically California Closet. It was 10 years ago and I think about $5k. Our current house has California closet stuff installed. It’s nice. Reconfiguring things was far more expensive than I would have guessed.
Are there certain times of the year when dethatching works the best? Right now my yard is a damn swamp.
I’m a first time dethatcher but the best time as I understand it is early spring. The dethatcher definitely disturbs the lawn but in early spring the grass is growing and the temps are usually not severe. It can easily recover from whatever mild injury it receives.