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I agree with AN.

Very broadly, I take monthly MR (and usually HOA as well*) and multiply by 200 and consider that a hidden amount financed (200 is tailored to current interest rates). I mentally add that to the purchase price when comparing to a house without MR/HOA. Non-scientific, doesn’t scale with changes in interest rate, but quick and easy to mentally calculate.

My concern with 4S is that there are a sufficiently large number of “owners” that have not thought through the long-term impact of the MR (and HOA) fee burden. I feel like until that area is better seasoned it may suffer from an out-sized drag on values as people weigh the fee burden vs. their enjoyment value of the infrastructure it provides.

Also, we’re probably at the worst end of the rate spectrum in terms of how good of a deal MR should be. (In theory, the MR CFD bonds are at better rates for financing the infrastructure than if the builder passed it directly to you in the purchase price and you had to finance it yourself. At current low rates, that’s not a win with respect to existing MR; as far as I’m aware, MR can’t generally be refied by the CFD.) As rates (eventually) rise, the MR-financed portion will be a better deal compared to financing the rest of the house (and in some senses could be considered an assumable mortgage at an older, by then more favorable rate).

*HOA probably never ends and probably can only go up or have special assessments. For that matter MR may never end if at the end of the term enough people succumb and vote for a new CFD bond issue to replace the (by then) crumbling infrastructure.

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For 490K with 30% down (a 343K first trust deed at 3.75%), my spreadsheet puts out $2,507 in total monthly cost of ownership (PITI + Maintenance set-aside), plus I’d need ~193K cash to close (including down, closing costs, and rainy day fund/remaining savings). So to me, that looks a little more like 30% of income going to housing.

For retirement, we’ve been maxing the 401K and Roth(s), and skimping on the college savings for now. (We plan to make up for it later, possibly by skimping on retirement; as a friend of mine says, you can take out a loan for college, but not for retirement. Also, there’s that whole higher education bubble that needs to work itself out in the next 15 years, hopefully…)

Otherwise, things seem to add up reasonably. However, discretionary is mighty small, and general, non-tax-deferred savings is missing entirely (is that accurate?). Are you comfortable skimping on the charity component if times get tough?

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[quote=desmond]Why not find a scantily clad landlord that waters your lawn for you and gets herself soaking wet in the process.[/quote]

I see where you’re going with this, but I think I’ll have to pass. Sort of for the same reason I avoid watching cooking shows.

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[quote=desmond]Why not find a scantily clad landlord that waters your lawn for you and gets herself soaking wet in the process.[/quote]

I see where you’re going with this, but I think I’ll have to pass. Sort of for the same reason I avoid watching cooking shows.

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[quote=desmond]Why not find a scantily clad landlord that waters your lawn for you and gets herself soaking wet in the process.[/quote]

I see where you’re going with this, but I think I’ll have to pass. Sort of for the same reason I avoid watching cooking shows.

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[quote=desmond]Why not find a scantily clad landlord that waters your lawn for you and gets herself soaking wet in the process.[/quote]

I see where you’re going with this, but I think I’ll have to pass. Sort of for the same reason I avoid watching cooking shows.

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[quote=desmond]Why not find a scantily clad landlord that waters your lawn for you and gets herself soaking wet in the process.[/quote]

I see where you’re going with this, but I think I’ll have to pass. Sort of for the same reason I avoid watching cooking shows.

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[quote=JBurkett19]Sounds like many of your concerns are a bit paranoid.

As far as watering the grass, wouldn’t you want to be in a place with green grass? Keep in mind that when a tenant enters a house with green grass and leaves with brown or no grass, that costs the property owner time and money. Most importantly time. Besides, the water portion of the bill is not the expensive part. The sewer and other charges make up at least 80- 90% percent of the bill.

[/quote]

This is not hypothetical. At a previous SFR, someone from the city water survey program came out and confirmed that the yard was being over-watered by a factor of 2-3 given the plant types, soil condition, climate zone, etc. The landlord ignored this information and insisted on the over-watering schedule. The yard was at greater risk of damage from over-watering than of drying out and dying from under-watering by a fair margin.

You should note that both water and sewer rates have a proportional component to metered water usage (for sewer, this is up to the first 20 HCF/mo in SD). Also, both the base rate and the per usage rates for water and sewer are quite comparable. Your claim does not seem accurate.

[quote=JBurkett19]
As far as a landlord passing by for visits, or entering without notice- I wouldn’t worry too much about that. Believe that the landlord doesn’t want to go to the house for nothing more than collecting rent. They don’t want to hear from tenants at all, unless there’s a problem.
[/quote]

Again, not hypothetical, and your claim has no supporting evidence. While as a landlord I would not visit the property unannounced and in violation of tenant’s rights, it does not mean other landlords will behave the same (even if it is the expected rational behavior).

And, despite the fact that it is a violation of tenant’s rights, it is in practice very difficult to assert one’s rights as a tenant (without considerable hassle and possible legal action). Just like one may have the right-of-way at an intersection, that offers little protection if another car takes that right-of-way illegitimately. A collision would still be dangerous and severely inconvenient even to the party that had the legal right-of-way.

I think the fundamental question remains unanswered: How does one determine a good landlord from a bad/crazy one before renting the property?

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[quote=JBurkett19]Sounds like many of your concerns are a bit paranoid.

As far as watering the grass, wouldn’t you want to be in a place with green grass? Keep in mind that when a tenant enters a house with green grass and leaves with brown or no grass, that costs the property owner time and money. Most importantly time. Besides, the water portion of the bill is not the expensive part. The sewer and other charges make up at least 80- 90% percent of the bill.

[/quote]

This is not hypothetical. At a previous SFR, someone from the city water survey program came out and confirmed that the yard was being over-watered by a factor of 2-3 given the plant types, soil condition, climate zone, etc. The landlord ignored this information and insisted on the over-watering schedule. The yard was at greater risk of damage from over-watering than of drying out and dying from under-watering by a fair margin.

You should note that both water and sewer rates have a proportional component to metered water usage (for sewer, this is up to the first 20 HCF/mo in SD). Also, both the base rate and the per usage rates for water and sewer are quite comparable. Your claim does not seem accurate.

[quote=JBurkett19]
As far as a landlord passing by for visits, or entering without notice- I wouldn’t worry too much about that. Believe that the landlord doesn’t want to go to the house for nothing more than collecting rent. They don’t want to hear from tenants at all, unless there’s a problem.
[/quote]

Again, not hypothetical, and your claim has no supporting evidence. While as a landlord I would not visit the property unannounced and in violation of tenant’s rights, it does not mean other landlords will behave the same (even if it is the expected rational behavior).

And, despite the fact that it is a violation of tenant’s rights, it is in practice very difficult to assert one’s rights as a tenant (without considerable hassle and possible legal action). Just like one may have the right-of-way at an intersection, that offers little protection if another car takes that right-of-way illegitimately. A collision would still be dangerous and severely inconvenient even to the party that had the legal right-of-way.

I think the fundamental question remains unanswered: How does one determine a good landlord from a bad/crazy one before renting the property?

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[quote=JBurkett19]Sounds like many of your concerns are a bit paranoid.

As far as watering the grass, wouldn’t you want to be in a place with green grass? Keep in mind that when a tenant enters a house with green grass and leaves with brown or no grass, that costs the property owner time and money. Most importantly time. Besides, the water portion of the bill is not the expensive part. The sewer and other charges make up at least 80- 90% percent of the bill.

[/quote]

This is not hypothetical. At a previous SFR, someone from the city water survey program came out and confirmed that the yard was being over-watered by a factor of 2-3 given the plant types, soil condition, climate zone, etc. The landlord ignored this information and insisted on the over-watering schedule. The yard was at greater risk of damage from over-watering than of drying out and dying from under-watering by a fair margin.

You should note that both water and sewer rates have a proportional component to metered water usage (for sewer, this is up to the first 20 HCF/mo in SD). Also, both the base rate and the per usage rates for water and sewer are quite comparable. Your claim does not seem accurate.

[quote=JBurkett19]
As far as a landlord passing by for visits, or entering without notice- I wouldn’t worry too much about that. Believe that the landlord doesn’t want to go to the house for nothing more than collecting rent. They don’t want to hear from tenants at all, unless there’s a problem.
[/quote]

Again, not hypothetical, and your claim has no supporting evidence. While as a landlord I would not visit the property unannounced and in violation of tenant’s rights, it does not mean other landlords will behave the same (even if it is the expected rational behavior).

And, despite the fact that it is a violation of tenant’s rights, it is in practice very difficult to assert one’s rights as a tenant (without considerable hassle and possible legal action). Just like one may have the right-of-way at an intersection, that offers little protection if another car takes that right-of-way illegitimately. A collision would still be dangerous and severely inconvenient even to the party that had the legal right-of-way.

I think the fundamental question remains unanswered: How does one determine a good landlord from a bad/crazy one before renting the property?

[Cube]

[quote=JBurkett19]Sounds like many of your concerns are a bit paranoid.

As far as watering the grass, wouldn’t you want to be in a place with green grass? Keep in mind that when a tenant enters a house with green grass and leaves with brown or no grass, that costs the property owner time and money. Most importantly time. Besides, the water portion of the bill is not the expensive part. The sewer and other charges make up at least 80- 90% percent of the bill.

[/quote]

This is not hypothetical. At a previous SFR, someone from the city water survey program came out and confirmed that the yard was being over-watered by a factor of 2-3 given the plant types, soil condition, climate zone, etc. The landlord ignored this information and insisted on the over-watering schedule. The yard was at greater risk of damage from over-watering than of drying out and dying from under-watering by a fair margin.

You should note that both water and sewer rates have a proportional component to metered water usage (for sewer, this is up to the first 20 HCF/mo in SD). Also, both the base rate and the per usage rates for water and sewer are quite comparable. Your claim does not seem accurate.

[quote=JBurkett19]
As far as a landlord passing by for visits, or entering without notice- I wouldn’t worry too much about that. Believe that the landlord doesn’t want to go to the house for nothing more than collecting rent. They don’t want to hear from tenants at all, unless there’s a problem.
[/quote]

Again, not hypothetical, and your claim has no supporting evidence. While as a landlord I would not visit the property unannounced and in violation of tenant’s rights, it does not mean other landlords will behave the same (even if it is the expected rational behavior).

And, despite the fact that it is a violation of tenant’s rights, it is in practice very difficult to assert one’s rights as a tenant (without considerable hassle and possible legal action). Just like one may have the right-of-way at an intersection, that offers little protection if another car takes that right-of-way illegitimately. A collision would still be dangerous and severely inconvenient even to the party that had the legal right-of-way.

I think the fundamental question remains unanswered: How does one determine a good landlord from a bad/crazy one before renting the property?

[Cube]

[quote=JBurkett19]Sounds like many of your concerns are a bit paranoid.

As far as watering the grass, wouldn’t you want to be in a place with green grass? Keep in mind that when a tenant enters a house with green grass and leaves with brown or no grass, that costs the property owner time and money. Most importantly time. Besides, the water portion of the bill is not the expensive part. The sewer and other charges make up at least 80- 90% percent of the bill.

[/quote]

This is not hypothetical. At a previous SFR, someone from the city water survey program came out and confirmed that the yard was being over-watered by a factor of 2-3 given the plant types, soil condition, climate zone, etc. The landlord ignored this information and insisted on the over-watering schedule. The yard was at greater risk of damage from over-watering than of drying out and dying from under-watering by a fair margin.

You should note that both water and sewer rates have a proportional component to metered water usage (for sewer, this is up to the first 20 HCF/mo in SD). Also, both the base rate and the per usage rates for water and sewer are quite comparable. Your claim does not seem accurate.

[quote=JBurkett19]
As far as a landlord passing by for visits, or entering without notice- I wouldn’t worry too much about that. Believe that the landlord doesn’t want to go to the house for nothing more than collecting rent. They don’t want to hear from tenants at all, unless there’s a problem.
[/quote]

Again, not hypothetical, and your claim has no supporting evidence. While as a landlord I would not visit the property unannounced and in violation of tenant’s rights, it does not mean other landlords will behave the same (even if it is the expected rational behavior).

And, despite the fact that it is a violation of tenant’s rights, it is in practice very difficult to assert one’s rights as a tenant (without considerable hassle and possible legal action). Just like one may have the right-of-way at an intersection, that offers little protection if another car takes that right-of-way illegitimately. A collision would still be dangerous and severely inconvenient even to the party that had the legal right-of-way.

I think the fundamental question remains unanswered: How does one determine a good landlord from a bad/crazy one before renting the property?

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[quote=Fearful][quote=sreeb]I don’t think it is just efficiency. The black pigment they use (carbon black?) is the cheapest/best one for protecting the polypropylene from UV light. Your system will not only be bigger, the individual components will cost more and fail sooner.[/quote]
Bollocks – iron oxide is also a very good photostabilizer. Not quite as good as carbon black, but close. Nice rusty red brown.

Besides, there are plenty of non black plastics that hold up fine in the sun. We aren’t even talking about water that’s under pressure, after all. And it’s kept cool by the circulating water.

Furthermore, a coat of latex paint is prescribed to protect ABS or PVC that emerges in roof vents. Just paint the stupid things.

The material cost of the polypropylene is small relative to the total installed cost. It could be coated, painted, impregnated, and the total installed cost would not change by much.

I think the reason it has not been attempted is because the market is small enough in the first place – people mostly only really care about swimming where it is hot enough during the day that the pool is nice to have somewhat cool anyway – that fiddling with the colors wouldn’t grow the market much. If given a choice, most consumers would like to have roof colored solar panels, but the availability of roof colored panels would not make many more people buy them.

That and the fact that people who make or buy them are thinking in terms of getting as much free energy from the sun as possible, aesthetics be damned.[/quote]

Not entirely accurate on the cooling and pressure arguments.

The system is only being cooled when water is flowing through it, and there are two reasons for water to not be flowing through it. One is when the pump system is off (lower duty-cycle, off-season, etc.). The other is when the solar system is isolated from the pool for being too hot. If the solar would take the pool to higher than the thermostat setting, then it is removed from the loop (allowing the water and pipes up there to get significantly hotter than when the system is running).

With respect to pressure, the system requires positive pressure to force water through the small pipes on the roof at the desired rate. I’ve seen some pretty spectacular failure on roofs where the system finally springs a small leak, and pressure forces the pool water out fairly forcefully (up into the air, onto the neighbors roof, etc.).

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[quote=Fearful][quote=sreeb]I don’t think it is just efficiency. The black pigment they use (carbon black?) is the cheapest/best one for protecting the polypropylene from UV light. Your system will not only be bigger, the individual components will cost more and fail sooner.[/quote]
Bollocks – iron oxide is also a very good photostabilizer. Not quite as good as carbon black, but close. Nice rusty red brown.

Besides, there are plenty of non black plastics that hold up fine in the sun. We aren’t even talking about water that’s under pressure, after all. And it’s kept cool by the circulating water.

Furthermore, a coat of latex paint is prescribed to protect ABS or PVC that emerges in roof vents. Just paint the stupid things.

The material cost of the polypropylene is small relative to the total installed cost. It could be coated, painted, impregnated, and the total installed cost would not change by much.

I think the reason it has not been attempted is because the market is small enough in the first place – people mostly only really care about swimming where it is hot enough during the day that the pool is nice to have somewhat cool anyway – that fiddling with the colors wouldn’t grow the market much. If given a choice, most consumers would like to have roof colored solar panels, but the availability of roof colored panels would not make many more people buy them.

That and the fact that people who make or buy them are thinking in terms of getting as much free energy from the sun as possible, aesthetics be damned.[/quote]

Not entirely accurate on the cooling and pressure arguments.

The system is only being cooled when water is flowing through it, and there are two reasons for water to not be flowing through it. One is when the pump system is off (lower duty-cycle, off-season, etc.). The other is when the solar system is isolated from the pool for being too hot. If the solar would take the pool to higher than the thermostat setting, then it is removed from the loop (allowing the water and pipes up there to get significantly hotter than when the system is running).

With respect to pressure, the system requires positive pressure to force water through the small pipes on the roof at the desired rate. I’ve seen some pretty spectacular failure on roofs where the system finally springs a small leak, and pressure forces the pool water out fairly forcefully (up into the air, onto the neighbors roof, etc.).

[Cube]

[quote=Fearful][quote=sreeb]I don’t think it is just efficiency. The black pigment they use (carbon black?) is the cheapest/best one for protecting the polypropylene from UV light. Your system will not only be bigger, the individual components will cost more and fail sooner.[/quote]
Bollocks – iron oxide is also a very good photostabilizer. Not quite as good as carbon black, but close. Nice rusty red brown.

Besides, there are plenty of non black plastics that hold up fine in the sun. We aren’t even talking about water that’s under pressure, after all. And it’s kept cool by the circulating water.

Furthermore, a coat of latex paint is prescribed to protect ABS or PVC that emerges in roof vents. Just paint the stupid things.

The material cost of the polypropylene is small relative to the total installed cost. It could be coated, painted, impregnated, and the total installed cost would not change by much.

I think the reason it has not been attempted is because the market is small enough in the first place – people mostly only really care about swimming where it is hot enough during the day that the pool is nice to have somewhat cool anyway – that fiddling with the colors wouldn’t grow the market much. If given a choice, most consumers would like to have roof colored solar panels, but the availability of roof colored panels would not make many more people buy them.

That and the fact that people who make or buy them are thinking in terms of getting as much free energy from the sun as possible, aesthetics be damned.[/quote]

Not entirely accurate on the cooling and pressure arguments.

The system is only being cooled when water is flowing through it, and there are two reasons for water to not be flowing through it. One is when the pump system is off (lower duty-cycle, off-season, etc.). The other is when the solar system is isolated from the pool for being too hot. If the solar would take the pool to higher than the thermostat setting, then it is removed from the loop (allowing the water and pipes up there to get significantly hotter than when the system is running).

With respect to pressure, the system requires positive pressure to force water through the small pipes on the roof at the desired rate. I’ve seen some pretty spectacular failure on roofs where the system finally springs a small leak, and pressure forces the pool water out fairly forcefully (up into the air, onto the neighbors roof, etc.).

[Author]

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