Forum Replies Created
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gzz
ParticipantClueless, no, you are looking for clients.
Participant“How much would it cost to build a bathroom (shower+toilet+sink) and a dry wall to separate it from the rest of the house without adding extra sq ft?”
Purchase and installation of a *cheap* shower, toilet and sink is about $1500 and drywall and electrical around it another $1500. Not expensive at all.
The bigger issues are getting the water and sewer pipes there without running them through living spaces, and getting the city permits for everything.
Maybe you should start with some less ambitious projects like repainting the outside of the house, replacing gutters and installing a rain barrel, and making the landscaping beautiful.
ParticipantAre rents really that high that people would pay $700/mo for a very small bedroom and shared bathroom in Mira Mesa? Probably not I’d guess, I know there are still 2/1 places by the beach for $1400, and then the kitchen is only shared between 2 people.
Did you save all that money so you could live in house with a kitchen shared with 3 adults and a bathroom shared with a stranger?
Get one roommate. The quality of your one roommate who has his own bathroom is also going to be higher, with less stress for you, than trying to have three of them there.
The single highest return on investment on home renovations is supposedly replacing an ugly front door with a nice new one. Is your front door already newer and nice?
Participant[quote=HLS]
Nobody should ever have a drop of 20% in their payment.
unless your rate dropped 1%-2% which would mean that you should have refinanced multiple times all the way down.Your $6000 a year savings doesn’t sound right.[/quote]
I refinanced just once from a $380,000 4% loan to a $340,000 3.375% loan. The first loan had PMI, the second did not.
[quote=HLS]What if rates go up ?[/quote]
What if, what if, what if?
The fact is he has a place he wants to buy, and only has 5% for a down payment. He’s not going to get a good mortgage with 5% down and likely imperfect but not bad credit scores.
He should pay down the imperfect mortgage he can get and save as fast as possible until he hits 20% and then he can get a good one. Right now people are getting 3.25% mortgages with no PMI. Rates could go up a 0.75% and he’d still be best off paying down the mortgage as fast as possible and removing PMI.
ParticipantNot in Ocean Beach. More and more people have them as pets now.
ParticipantLower rate but more PMI/costs is no deal.
Your goal should be to minimize all non-principal/tax costs the first three years. So add them all up and take what’s better.
Don’t eat out, don’t get new furniture, do everything you can to pay in enough to stop paying PMI. You also should not assume “I hit 20% equity, no more PMI!”
In fact it is a pain to get PMI taken off of a loan, and it is easier to refi to a new loan when you hit 20% equity.
Then, once you have your house, push hard to make extra payments to hit that 20% asap. The refi has a double benefit (1) no PMI payments (2) the rate spread over the 10 Year Treasury itself goes down because a 20% down loan is more attractive than a 5% down loan.
This is what I did, and when I finally did my refi, my monthly payment went from 2450 to 1950. That’s $6000 a year less in housing costs going forward for decades. The refi itself was no-cost, they even did the appraisal for no charge.
ParticipantAs someone else said, you should be careful and consider what your rent is versus the market. You moved in 2009 it sounds like, in the middle of a very bad economy. Rents are up like 30-40% since then. If you are paying $2100/mo for a house that rents for $2600 a month elswhere, that 500 a month savings is $6000 a year. Maybe you should keep the good deal going by spending some of that savings and making the repairs yourself.
If you don’t like the PM and want to cut her out, sounds like the best way to do that is show the landlord you can deal with repair issues yourself.
ParticipantThere was plenty of construction downtown during the bubble, as well as in Eastlake and the NE San Diego suburbs, plus infill duplexes in place of single family houses and apartment to condo conversions adding to supply everywhere.
April 11, 2016 at 9:52 PM in reply to: Removing built in barbecue/counter outdoor patio area #796626ParticipantSounds bad for resale value. Living there forever?
I suggest turning off the gas line to be safe, then using a sledge hammer. When finished, have a plumber come and redo the gas line to the new BBQ.
Slowly dispose of the debris in your garbage can every week, or else bury it.
ParticipantIf you have a budget for mission valley there are a lot of nicer places for the same money.
ParticipantWhen I shopped small business plans on the exchange, Kaiser was about 200/mo per person, the next closest was $400.
The HSA plan is pretty nice, all my preventative, co-pay, and dental expenses become pre-tax and I am saving up for inevitable future expenses. $3300 a year off my AGI means about $1400 off my taxes, so really I am paying about $230/mo for myself – 110/mo tax savings from the HSA – reduced AGI from the premium itself of 100 = $20/mo for my cheap Kaiser Bronze coverage.
It was so cheap I just decided to cover 100% of employee premium, easier to pay $1200/year per employee ($700 including lower K-1 income and lower taxes) than deal with making them pay themselves and having to figure out how to autodebit their payroll.
ParticipantI have greatly improved my dental health the past 5 years with the following:
1. Water pik. $30 on Amazon, faster than brushing or flossing and kind of fun, so I do it 4 times a day on the weekend, and 1-2 times during the week.
2. Sonic-care brush + regular toothbrush for occasional cleaning of stuck things + ultrasoft regular brush for normal manual brushing. Ultrasoft will be easier on your gums.
3. This is really key: WOVEN dental floss. It both removes far more than normal floss and is gentler. Normal wax floss it is easy to accidentally do it too hard and cause bleeding. This has never happened with woven. It is so much better than since I switched I actually do it every day. Strangely it is hard to find, some stores only have one brand out of 10 flosses, maybe 2. If I see it on sale I will buy 20+ for this reason.
4. I don’t keep any carbs at home and a COMPLETE avoidance of sticky carbs (most candy is both 50-90% sugar and sticky).
5. Unprocessed meat (steak not burgers) and raw vegetables keep the jaw strong. With the modern diet, we chew much less than our ancestors.
6. Cleaning 4 times a year for several years, now down to 3.
ParticipantNever. 20-30 over is the best I have seen, but it isn’t a rare deal to see it.
ParticipantYour low bar is 720?
Mine sometimes goes to 710 or so despite nothing negative on my report and 10+ years of regular student loan payments, solely because I churn frequent flier and cash bonus credit cards every 9 months or so.
I think you really just need the report, which the tenant can get for free and email to you. Check the “negative” section to see if there are any real problems.
People who have no loans and never got a credit card often have low credit scores.
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