Hey all.  I am very pleased to announce that I have a contract on my first solo house purchase!  I was a homeowner once before with my ex wife, but I suspect owning on my own will be a much different experience.  I'm working on a deal to get a two level townhouse in Haymarket, VA.  I love that the mountains are visible from town, and yes, I will be facing one of the area's most notorious commutes on I-66 into the district.  A small price to pay, in my opinion, for the fresh air and open spaces.  At least the ZZR should save me somewhere in the neighborhood of 200 bucks a month on gas and parking!

I will be sure to post pics when (and if) the place actually becomes mine.  I'm sending in the final set of documents to complete the mortgage app today.  Wish me luck everybody!

Got pics of the mountains ? Seems the best way I've found to commute is on tiny two lane roads.

Houses are over rated ... especially one in a sub division with a HOA ... garbage ...

You cannot imagine people who buy 1/2 million dollar houses will default on sheite ... but they do, and worse yet, not just they default on the HOA crap, they also shaft the bank and taxes ... the house if it stays the same in value or even depreciates, they will stop paying on it ... everything.

In the mean time, they will hold cocaine parties by the pool ... dont get me wrong, I am all for that ... but pay the Freaking 300 bucks you owe us dammit.

The best part is, banks dont take the house back, cos they know when the house appreciates, they will instantly catch up ... they wait ... 3-18 months. If they finally do take the house back ... the HOA gets nothing ...
They pay the tax lein, but HOA gets shafted.

Buy one in a non sub division with no HOA and get yourself a nice open tract of land ...
Cool.
Buddha.

Buddha, thanks for wizzing in my cheerios.  If it were anyone else, I would be surprised.

I'm still stoked

lol i disliek HOA's as well, but still grats amn

HOA's can be ok, you just have to read the rules before you buy.

Don't like HOAs myself either. When I lived at my BF house his wife got real sick at work he drove the ten minutes to pick  her up left the car on the lawn to get the other vehicle he wasn't working on out to pick her up. Came back within 15 minutes had a $100 fine! Can't park next to the house which sucked when I lived there because there was three cars or each night could have been $100 fine! Thank goodness the snowbirds let me park there during the summer!

Yick, but congrats on the house!

Mary

maybe i missed it, but i didn't see where the OP said anything about HOA.   

Quote from: jserio on August 05, 2009, 12:47:47 AM
maybe i missed it, but i didn't see where the OP said anything about HOA.   

Thanks.  I was thinking the same thing.  Maybe they're just assuming that most developments with Condos and Townhouses do have an HOA.  That being said, I know people that have had both good and bad experiences w/ HOA's. 

VTlion -- CONGRATS on your "first" house!  It's definitely different owning it on your own.  It's a lot of work.  But hopefully, like me, you have a nice teenage  boy next door to do some grunt work for you for next to nothing 

Vtlion - sorry man, not meant to wiz in your cheerios - but they have a salty taste right ... maybe at the factory someone does ... 

But still, I think TH's and the HOA's that go with them are more trouble than they're worth.

Cool.
Buddha.

To each their own.  I have to admit, if I were my age (26) and living by myself, I'd definitely be in a townhouse/condo BECAUSE of the HOA.  Lawn work takes up a lot of time that I don't have....hence why I pay my neighbor to mow when we have a race/track weekend   Thankfully, there's 2 of us to share the duties.

Its a wee bit different for women. Its still bad, but its less bad than it is for a man.

You think its hard to find help with maintenance as a woman. In a way it may be, so with a HOA you're only getting ripped off 200%.

A man who now gets real respect (no we dont) from the home maintenance Industrial complex, is getting ripped off 300% maximum.

1. You can always find maintenance folks for the 100 bucks the monthly HOA TH's costs in my sub ...
2. You can mow every 3 weeks in summer and every 3 months in winter and still never cause a ticket or even a letter from the HOA.
3. If you had a large acreage you would only clear the part you want and leave the rest as it used to be ... trees and so on. Those dont need mowing. You can get yourself a house built, with a driveway with almost no mowing needed. I am pretty sure werase643 is close to that from the ones I have seen.

4. Large yards are easier, you use a fat ass riding mower ... and your track day is experienced right at home ...

5. HOA's biggest expenses are people who dont pay, the chasing of the people who dont pay with lawyers, the subsequent foreclosure on the house with  people who dont pay, the receipt of the letter from the primary vendor (house belongs to the bank that forecloses ... and you dont think people who aren't paying the $100 HOA dues are actually paying the $1500 mortgage do you ... ) where they cancel your little piddly junior loan, and the subsequent legal actions against the bank that wrote off your loan, and the next step where after you pay several 1000's in lawyers fees and court costs where the judge tells you, you are not entitled to a settlement.

The banks send 1 clerk to the courthouse with 1000's of documents to be all heard that day. Like a cop who says "you was speeding" 1000's of times where all his defendents try and claim the speedo was wrong or his laser pointer was wrong, all he has to say is ... "you was speeding." The trials are on the bank's schedule.

Anyway, so unless you plan to incur several 1000's a year chasing your own neighbors and the banks they got a loan from to "buy" the house, you will come out ahead without a HOA even with a TH.

Our HOA has been running in negative for a few years now. We have had abrupt cancellation of mowing etc etc, water has been shut off a few times, street lights and repairs too, etc etc and here is the whopper. There is a couple of houses thatare comming up on 8 years old, and they are starting to have frayed roof shingles. It needs to be replaced now, over 5K per house and its going to bankrupt this freaking BS.

BTW if your HOA president is a woman, and taht is a 50% possibility ... heck its even more than that possibly cos men will never attend the worthless crap meetings ... so there ... and she's looking for house maintenance contractors, guess what, you're back at the same point you started out at. And that is no joke. I know all this crap cos form 06-08 I was the Board member/president of my damn HOA.

Oh yea ... someone dont pay their dues ... you still gotta do their roofs and repairs and pressure wash etc etc. We once spent 300 bucks fixing a house that was owned by country wide. The previous owners who left cos they got foreclosed on, removed the door and 1/2 the siding was damaged by their moving help.

Cool.
Buddha.