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NotCranky
ParticipantHello Cy, welcome back to a gentler& kinder Piggingtons.
“Another positive sign in North San Diego County is the median days-on-market decreased to 43 days in May 2007 from 50 days in April 2007, and the average number of days on the market fell from 74 in April 2007 to 63 in May 2007.”
That in my opinion is misrepresentation of a material fact. Additionally, for the houses that don’t sell and cancell or expire, those days disappear instead being applied to the Average DOM. Correct me if I am wrong SDR?
ParticipantYou are Welcome,
“Specifically, what makes a custom construction better than a tract house (sorry, if this is a naive question) ?”
Custom houses are overseen by a particular and discerning individual usually a female Artist/Socialite married to very well paid and anal rocket scientist:). Actually there are huge degrees of difference in custom homes. One could look just like a tract home and most do, they are just built on a lot owned by an individual. So by definition it is a custom home, or a spec. home,if it is an investor hoping to sell it. This home could still be built with a little more TLC and attention to detail than a production home. So custom construction is not always better but the best homes are usually custom homes.The variety of construction for magazine quality custom homes is way too much to go into here. They don’t use faux stuff anywhere usually.
What do you mean by “dense feel” ?
You have to get kind of physical. If you ever have been in double wide trailer or a cheap maufactured home that is the opposite of dense. Everything looks and feels like it is ready to fall apart and it will.The builder has some choice in framing standards. I frame my exterior walls above code and interior walls to the normal standard of exterior walls. I sheath the entire exterior in better grades of plywood. No OSB.(Chip Board).
You can look in the attic and see if OSB was used for the roof sheathing. If you eliminate the house based on this alone though, you will be eliminating a lot of houses. If you see plywood that might be a good sign.
Better practices would involve framing with 2×6’s instead of 2×4’s. This is more important for tall walls in my opinion.
When nobody is looking try to pull off a piece of moulding,open a door and try to yank it off the hinges :). Shut a couple of doors pretty hard and see if things shake or not. Make a fist and bang on any tiled surfaces they should feel as though they are embeded in concrete not stuck to drywall or bare plywood. Jump on the areas of wood subfloors and see if it feels solid or shakes. If possible pull up a corner of carpet and see if it was screwed down or nailed. It should be screwed and glued .The carpet should look and feel like it was stretched tightly not just flopped down. any thresholds between finish flooring types should feel solid. Try to lift the top off the counter or island it should not creak or budge.Shake any stair or balcony handrails. Do the stairs feel solid? Try to break a drawer front off the cabinets. Look for tongue and grove construction or an alterantive construction that has no give if you try to flex the drawer front. Stapled drawer boxes are indicative of cheap cabinets. Knock on the side of the cabinets they should feel solid. Dixiline actually has a grade of cabinets they call builder’s grade. They are kind of cheap. Not all builders use this grade though, some use real good stuff. (Really good cabinetry is very expensive). Better houses usually have higher window & door budgets so study the quality of windows. Just because they are big and grand doesn’t mean they are the best.
Disclaimer:
I am not a house snob. My house and the ones I have participated in building are not in magazines.Best wishes
ParticipantYou are Welcome,
“Specifically, what makes a custom construction better than a tract house (sorry, if this is a naive question) ?”
Custom houses are overseen by a particular and discerning individual usually a female Artist/Socialite married to very well paid and anal rocket scientist:). Actually there are huge degrees of difference in custom homes. One could look just like a tract home and most do, they are just built on a lot owned by an individual. So by definition it is a custom home, or a spec. home,if it is an investor hoping to sell it. This home could still be built with a little more TLC and attention to detail than a production home. So custom construction is not always better but the best homes are usually custom homes.The variety of construction for magazine quality custom homes is way too much to go into here. They don’t use faux stuff anywhere usually.
What do you mean by “dense feel” ?
You have to get kind of physical. If you ever have been in double wide trailer or a cheap maufactured home that is the opposite of dense. Everything looks and feels like it is ready to fall apart and it will.The builder has some choice in framing standards. I frame my exterior walls above code and interior walls to the normal standard of exterior walls. I sheath the entire exterior in better grades of plywood. No OSB.(Chip Board).
You can look in the attic and see if OSB was used for the roof sheathing. If you eliminate the house based on this alone though, you will be eliminating a lot of houses. If you see plywood that might be a good sign.
Better practices would involve framing with 2×6’s instead of 2×4’s. This is more important for tall walls in my opinion.
When nobody is looking try to pull off a piece of moulding,open a door and try to yank it off the hinges :). Shut a couple of doors pretty hard and see if things shake or not. Make a fist and bang on any tiled surfaces they should feel as though they are embeded in concrete not stuck to drywall or bare plywood. Jump on the areas of wood subfloors and see if it feels solid or shakes. If possible pull up a corner of carpet and see if it was screwed down or nailed. It should be screwed and glued .The carpet should look and feel like it was stretched tightly not just flopped down. any thresholds between finish flooring types should feel solid. Try to lift the top off the counter or island it should not creak or budge.Shake any stair or balcony handrails. Do the stairs feel solid? Try to break a drawer front off the cabinets. Look for tongue and grove construction or an alterantive construction that has no give if you try to flex the drawer front. Stapled drawer boxes are indicative of cheap cabinets. Knock on the side of the cabinets they should feel solid. Dixiline actually has a grade of cabinets they call builder’s grade. They are kind of cheap. Not all builders use this grade though, some use real good stuff. (Really good cabinetry is very expensive). Better houses usually have higher window & door budgets so study the quality of windows. Just because they are big and grand doesn’t mean they are the best.
Disclaimer:
I am not a house snob. My house and the ones I have participated in building are not in magazines.Best wishes
Participantgn asks:
“how can one visually differentiate the between the different qualities of construction ? Can a lay person learn to do this ?”Yes…10 years after they buy it!
Just kidding gn. That is a very good question. I don’t want to make generalities about “lay people”. The topic is pretty broad if you take it from the lot through structural all the way to finish materiales. Then for every budget there are going to be quality comparision nuances just like with cars. Yes the lay person can do it if they have grown up around discerning people or search out a modest education on the subject and know how to ask about the items that can’t be seen.
Quality construction usually a more dense feel to it if you can get a good sense for that and then that is half the battle. That goes for the walls, floors, cabinets, door & window and their jambs ect. Most the houses we study on this blog are either slapped together production houses, or a little better, with different qualities of interior finishings and exterior hardscape.
The best houses are custom built for high end clients and are of the type featured in magazines. You might want to get an annual subscription to “Fine Home Building” It features a beautiful well built house now and then and the building techniques employed in various types of custom houses. The “Journal of Light Construction” is another that covers standard building practices for residential construction. Maybe you can just find a book out there for “lay people” who want to know?
Best wishesParticipantgn asks:
“how can one visually differentiate the between the different qualities of construction ? Can a lay person learn to do this ?”Yes…10 years after they buy it!
Just kidding gn. That is a very good question. I don’t want to make generalities about “lay people”. The topic is pretty broad if you take it from the lot through structural all the way to finish materiales. Then for every budget there are going to be quality comparision nuances just like with cars. Yes the lay person can do it if they have grown up around discerning people or search out a modest education on the subject and know how to ask about the items that can’t be seen.
Quality construction usually a more dense feel to it if you can get a good sense for that and then that is half the battle. That goes for the walls, floors, cabinets, door & window and their jambs ect. Most the houses we study on this blog are either slapped together production houses, or a little better, with different qualities of interior finishings and exterior hardscape.
The best houses are custom built for high end clients and are of the type featured in magazines. You might want to get an annual subscription to “Fine Home Building” It features a beautiful well built house now and then and the building techniques employed in various types of custom houses. The “Journal of Light Construction” is another that covers standard building practices for residential construction. Maybe you can just find a book out there for “lay people” who want to know?
Best wishesParticipantI am not saying you have to be sensitive about it although it is a very nice thing to do. Sharing information as you are doing is very valuable to helping people understand what is going on, after all the misleading hype, I can understand feeling justified.Your strategies are top notch and could be replicated for areas that other people are interested in. If you are using your real name and you have talked about where you live I would recommend be cautious about potential reprisals.You don’t want to be the next one to get your tires slashed :).
I feel I should repect peoples privacy more because with my experience and the MLS advantage,I am supposed to be more astute at coming up with this stuff (not that I always am). I also meet many people who are in big trouble over these losses and they are really hurting.Wether they deserve it or not doesn’t matter to me. Just as many people are not exhibitionists even when they are making a killing. They don’t want their business talked about so I figure, why do it , if it is not pertinent to a transaction?ParticipantI am not saying you have to be sensitive about it although it is a very nice thing to do. Sharing information as you are doing is very valuable to helping people understand what is going on, after all the misleading hype, I can understand feeling justified.Your strategies are top notch and could be replicated for areas that other people are interested in. If you are using your real name and you have talked about where you live I would recommend be cautious about potential reprisals.You don’t want to be the next one to get your tires slashed :).
I feel I should repect peoples privacy more because with my experience and the MLS advantage,I am supposed to be more astute at coming up with this stuff (not that I always am). I also meet many people who are in big trouble over these losses and they are really hurting.Wether they deserve it or not doesn’t matter to me. Just as many people are not exhibitionists even when they are making a killing. They don’t want their business talked about so I figure, why do it , if it is not pertinent to a transaction?July 22, 2007 at 10:19 PM in reply to: Could this be the beginning or the end for good un-employment numbers? #67089ParticipantDo you all know how these numbers account for Realtor job loses? I doubt they figure in anything except the very few wage earning w-2 office people. Realtors don’t get laid off or anything they just fade away. I don’t know if independent mortage brokers would figure in or not. The same for licensed(and unlicensed) contractors . When there is less work a contractor doesn’t weigh in on these statistics they just work and earn much less and say “adios” to lots of cash paid labor as well . Do these types of things get figured into the weakening of the job market? It certainly affects the economy in a big way, especially after a major housing boom and national fixation with “house beautiful.”
July 22, 2007 at 10:19 PM in reply to: Could this be the beginning or the end for good un-employment numbers? #67154ParticipantDo you all know how these numbers account for Realtor job loses? I doubt they figure in anything except the very few wage earning w-2 office people. Realtors don’t get laid off or anything they just fade away. I don’t know if independent mortage brokers would figure in or not. The same for licensed(and unlicensed) contractors . When there is less work a contractor doesn’t weigh in on these statistics they just work and earn much less and say “adios” to lots of cash paid labor as well . Do these types of things get figured into the weakening of the job market? It certainly affects the economy in a big way, especially after a major housing boom and national fixation with “house beautiful.”
ParticipantGary,
To start off the units of similiar description for rooms and baths are similiar with the exception of the number of patios. Some have two and some have one or maybe none. I didn’t research it completely. In condo complexes people sometimes give a litle value to corner units tucked away or most convenient parking stuff like that. Right now it isn’t worht worrying about stuff like that. The repairs the devloper did are cheesy. These are your basic apartments.Your link to the tax assessor is a pretty good one. We do obviously get a better look into the details and the current activity using the MLS.
About my 40k to 90k statement. You are going to have to give my hunches a little bit of credit to accept the 90k part but I will explain. You have comps up to the middle 280’s for the 2/2 unit and you have a January 2007 comp for the same unit for 236k. I could research that and it would probably show seller paid closing costs and such . Plus you have commissions. Lets say 6k for closing and 10-12k for commissions. So net is down around 220k. So you have 65k for loss from highest to that comp for same unit. So now I go hypothetical. There have been 10-13 units listed continuously at least since January. None have sold but last I checked there was a unit in escrow I think it was the 3 bedroom. Anyway the point is next to nothing is selling there and that is no surprise. So I took the luxury of deciding that it is unlikely that another similiar unit is going to sell for more 220K gross(If it soes it will be a fluke). Subtract the possibility of closing costs and commission for that and you are getting pretty close to an 80k(not 90K)loss from the highest to the lowest. So sorry I didn’t let you know that there was a small non -data derived opinion on my part. It makes so much sense that if I had to tell a buyer what was going on there that I would feel comfortable telling the buyer not to touch it with a ten foot pole the next same unit sale or two down the road might be around 200k gross. That will be a forclosure most likely. BTW the list prices are all over the place and most much higher than the January comp. Those are very bad signs.
I am generalizing,in part, because I don’t feel comfortable bringing specific MLS data over here. I feel too much like it would be publically tossing around the story of the actual people going through this.If you are set on living out this way and if you consider a little better area , down Jamacha road, the area is actually Rancho San Diego, there are some nice complexes. They are usually accessed from the 94 coming from downtown, not the 8, but they are on the border with El cajon. The area has real nice ammenities and an improving quantity of them. I have never seen a thug around them. I doubt there is so much distress yet, but there might be, or maybe down the road there will be.
ParticipantGary,
To start off the units of similiar description for rooms and baths are similiar with the exception of the number of patios. Some have two and some have one or maybe none. I didn’t research it completely. In condo complexes people sometimes give a litle value to corner units tucked away or most convenient parking stuff like that. Right now it isn’t worht worrying about stuff like that. The repairs the devloper did are cheesy. These are your basic apartments.Your link to the tax assessor is a pretty good one. We do obviously get a better look into the details and the current activity using the MLS.
About my 40k to 90k statement. You are going to have to give my hunches a little bit of credit to accept the 90k part but I will explain. You have comps up to the middle 280’s for the 2/2 unit and you have a January 2007 comp for the same unit for 236k. I could research that and it would probably show seller paid closing costs and such . Plus you have commissions. Lets say 6k for closing and 10-12k for commissions. So net is down around 220k. So you have 65k for loss from highest to that comp for same unit. So now I go hypothetical. There have been 10-13 units listed continuously at least since January. None have sold but last I checked there was a unit in escrow I think it was the 3 bedroom. Anyway the point is next to nothing is selling there and that is no surprise. So I took the luxury of deciding that it is unlikely that another similiar unit is going to sell for more 220K gross(If it soes it will be a fluke). Subtract the possibility of closing costs and commission for that and you are getting pretty close to an 80k(not 90K)loss from the highest to the lowest. So sorry I didn’t let you know that there was a small non -data derived opinion on my part. It makes so much sense that if I had to tell a buyer what was going on there that I would feel comfortable telling the buyer not to touch it with a ten foot pole the next same unit sale or two down the road might be around 200k gross. That will be a forclosure most likely. BTW the list prices are all over the place and most much higher than the January comp. Those are very bad signs.
I am generalizing,in part, because I don’t feel comfortable bringing specific MLS data over here. I feel too much like it would be publically tossing around the story of the actual people going through this.If you are set on living out this way and if you consider a little better area , down Jamacha road, the area is actually Rancho San Diego, there are some nice complexes. They are usually accessed from the 94 coming from downtown, not the 8, but they are on the border with El cajon. The area has real nice ammenities and an improving quantity of them. I have never seen a thug around them. I doubt there is so much distress yet, but there might be, or maybe down the road there will be.
ParticipantFearing getting mugged gets old IMO. Fearing that someone you love is going to get mugged is worse.I tried to be non-chalant about repeated break-ins but that gets old too. I am still glad I chose a questionable neighborhood to start my real estate ownership history when I could have borrowed more to go to a better place. Being young and single and helped.
Speculating that the neighborhood would improve was part of the motivation and it did to a large degree. I would have stayed there if I was single still.
It is hard to talk about neighborhoods and housing stock without sounding like a snob or sounding insensitive or competetive or getting defensive. I commend you Gary for being able to talk candidly about your aspirations for lower priced areas. Again, you seem very smart to me. I hope you will enjoy the feed back you get here toward helping you make your eventual choice.
ParticipantFearing getting mugged gets old IMO. Fearing that someone you love is going to get mugged is worse.I tried to be non-chalant about repeated break-ins but that gets old too. I am still glad I chose a questionable neighborhood to start my real estate ownership history when I could have borrowed more to go to a better place. Being young and single and helped.
Speculating that the neighborhood would improve was part of the motivation and it did to a large degree. I would have stayed there if I was single still.
It is hard to talk about neighborhoods and housing stock without sounding like a snob or sounding insensitive or competetive or getting defensive. I commend you Gary for being able to talk candidly about your aspirations for lower priced areas. Again, you seem very smart to me. I hope you will enjoy the feed back you get here toward helping you make your eventual choice.
ParticipantSpring Valley is one of my least favorite places in SD. All of these locations have some desirable aspects relative to peoples different personalities and values and the costs and benefits of living there,except National City :).
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