House Buying in Fu**ed Economy

Professor_X · April 28, 2010, 6:05pm

[quote]AndrewG909 wrote:
^^^ Oh yes, good friends who know their way around landscaping and construction are worth double their weight in gold!!!

If you have any distant friends PX that do contracting, it’s time to start hitting them up and taking them to lunch.

I’ve got a buddy building a wall for me and paving the drive way for me, to make room for RV parking. All i’m paying is parts cost and a little extra for his time. Then he agreed to help me build a stone BBQ pit in my backyard with a stone walkway to a jacuzzi. This guys is really helping me get as much bang for my buck from my tax return.[/quote]

Yeah, I eventually either want a pool or at least pave most of the backyard.

It was fun picking out colors for the tile and kitchen area. No girly colors in my house at all and I am glad I did this before thinking about marriage.

DJHT · April 28, 2010, 6:29pm

[quote]Professor X wrote:

[quote]AndrewG909 wrote:
^^^ Oh yes, good friends who know their way around landscaping and construction are worth double their weight in gold!!!

If you have any distant friends PX that do contracting, it’s time to start hitting them up and taking them to lunch.

I’ve got a buddy building a wall for me and paving the drive way for me, to make room for RV parking. All i’m paying is parts cost and a little extra for his time. Then he agreed to help me build a stone BBQ pit in my backyard with a stone walkway to a jacuzzi. This guys is really helping me get as much bang for my buck from my tax return.[/quote]

Yeah, I eventually either want a pool or at least pave most of the backyard.

It was fun picking out colors for the tile and kitchen area. No girly colors in my house at all and I am glad I did this before thinking about marriage.[/quote]

My 2 cents. I have built a home with the wife and just recently sold. You can never have enough bathrooms or storage space. Get a bigger garage, most garages for two cars are tight MF’s. No carpet, shit will get fucked up and will have to replace it at some point. Congrats by the way.

kothreat · April 28, 2010, 6:44pm

[quote]AndrewG909 wrote:

[quote]Professor X wrote:

[quote]kothreat wrote:

[quote]Professor X wrote:
I was surprised as well. You can probably find a brand new house right now in this city with 4-5 bedrooms for under $150,000. Foreclosures seem to be all over as well even though people seem to try to destroy the house before they leave it.[/quote]

that’s ridiculous. wanna see what $150 000 will buy where I live…

http://www.realtor.ca/propertyDetails.aspx?propertyId=9106860[/quote]

Yeah…that sucks.

I am sure places like California and New York are expensive as hell also.[/quote]

Oh yes they are. Went on the Market saying I wanted to spend no more then $350K on my first house. Was looking in the Los Angeles Area (which the prices really crashed here) but even so I couldn’t find anything in a respectable neighborhood. Even the not tooo ghetto neighborhoods but still pretty bad, the houses for that price were torn apart and had no yard.

I ended up moving to a suburb outside of Los Angeles to a 4 bed 3 bath beautiful home, it’s a 2 hr commute, but I’m young so I figure I can do it for now and reap the reward a few years from now when I sell it in a better economy.

The yard work and house work is extremely time consuming but a lot of fun in my opinion and you learn a lot.[/quote]

Yeah, but I live in Edmonton, Alberta. Ever been here? Exactly.

Not like we’re running out of space, or there’s anything exciting around here. Oh wait, we got the biggest mall in North America…which is just like every other mall in North America except increases murderous rage 20 fold.

sam_sneed1 · April 28, 2010, 6:49pm

[quote]Rockscar wrote:

[quote]sam_sneed wrote:
dug up a 10x30 section of my backyard this weekend because it was a gay rose garden. [/quote]

Dude, I highly recommend straight roses for the garden. They don’t rub it in your face like the gay ones do, and they are less maintenance overall.

In all seriousness…why not plant a veggie garden in it’s place! Awesome tomatos, corn, squash, cucumber, carrots, artichokes, beans, peppers…I just planted last weekend in my raised box 10x15 garden.
[/quote]

Haha, actually I moved the faggy roses to the back of the yard where they can do no harm. I have a retaining wall around my 3/4 of my yard with about 4 feet of area behind. You’ll see a little of it on the right. It’s like a deep shelf for planting shit and over 50 feet long. I’m going to be growing a veggies up there. Here is a pic of the offending roses. It was taking up valuable yard space which could be used for…uh grass I guess lol.

Professor_X · April 28, 2010, 6:59pm

[quote]DJHT wrote:

[quote]Professor X wrote:

[quote]AndrewG909 wrote:
^^^ Oh yes, good friends who know their way around landscaping and construction are worth double their weight in gold!!!

If you have any distant friends PX that do contracting, it’s time to start hitting them up and taking them to lunch.

I’ve got a buddy building a wall for me and paving the drive way for me, to make room for RV parking. All i’m paying is parts cost and a little extra for his time. Then he agreed to help me build a stone BBQ pit in my backyard with a stone walkway to a jacuzzi. This guys is really helping me get as much bang for my buck from my tax return.[/quote]

Yeah, I eventually either want a pool or at least pave most of the backyard.

It was fun picking out colors for the tile and kitchen area. No girly colors in my house at all and I am glad I did this before thinking about marriage.[/quote]

My 2 cents. I have built a home with the wife and just recently sold. You can never have enough bathrooms or storage space. Get a bigger garage, most garages for two cars are tight MF’s. No carpet, shit will get fucked up and will have to replace it at some point. Congrats by the way.[/quote]

Thanks, man. I want to post a pic of it but I won’t because people are crazy on the internet…but it is “blow panties off” nice.

Eventually, I may get rid of nearly all the carpet, but I will take my time on that one.

andersons · April 28, 2010, 6:59pm

[quote]countingbeans wrote:

[quote]Rockscar wrote:

[quote]countingbeans wrote:

[quote]Rockscar wrote:
I traded the 401k for the house that was underwater so I owed the IRS this last year.

[/quote]

That was a good move.

Owing is a function of being under withheld/not pay in estimates.

[/quote]

The goal is to try and make sure my writeoffs and taxes give me either owing a small amount or breaking even. I don’t want the IRS to have my extra 3k the whole year if they owe me at the end.
[/quote]

A man after my own heart[/quote]
I tried to break even, but whoops. Ended up owing this year. I don’t mind that at all, but I understand that the IRS might mind.

sam_sneed1 · April 28, 2010, 7:00pm

[quote]AndrewG909 wrote:
^^^ Oh yes, good friends who know their way around landscaping and construction are worth double their weight in gold!!!

[/quote]

This is the best part about being the only one out of my friends to go to college. One works for his family’s HVAC company. Another works for the electric department of the utility company. I’ve also got a friend who’s a mechanic and my girlfriends brother in law is a contractor. In return, I fix all of their and their family’s computers after they end up destroying it with porn.

countingbeans · April 28, 2010, 7:08pm

[quote]andersons wrote:

[quote]countingbeans wrote:

[quote]Rockscar wrote:

[quote]countingbeans wrote:

[quote]Rockscar wrote:
I traded the 401k for the house that was underwater so I owed the IRS this last year.

[/quote]

That was a good move.

Owing is a function of being under withheld/not pay in estimates.

[/quote]

The goal is to try and make sure my writeoffs and taxes give me either owing a small amount or breaking even. I don’t want the IRS to have my extra 3k the whole year if they owe me at the end.
[/quote]

A man after my own heart[/quote]
I tried to break even, but whoops. Ended up owing this year. I don’t mind that at all, but I understand that the IRS might mind.
[/quote]

Depends, just meet exception one and you will be fine.

DJHT · April 28, 2010, 7:19pm

[quote]Professor X wrote:

[quote]DJHT wrote:

[quote]Professor X wrote:

[quote]AndrewG909 wrote:
^^^ Oh yes, good friends who know their way around landscaping and construction are worth double their weight in gold!!!

If you have any distant friends PX that do contracting, it’s time to start hitting them up and taking them to lunch.

I’ve got a buddy building a wall for me and paving the drive way for me, to make room for RV parking. All i’m paying is parts cost and a little extra for his time. Then he agreed to help me build a stone BBQ pit in my backyard with a stone walkway to a jacuzzi. This guys is really helping me get as much bang for my buck from my tax return.[/quote]

Yeah, I eventually either want a pool or at least pave most of the backyard.

It was fun picking out colors for the tile and kitchen area. No girly colors in my house at all and I am glad I did this before thinking about marriage.[/quote]

My 2 cents. I have built a home with the wife and just recently sold. You can never have enough bathrooms or storage space. Get a bigger garage, most garages for two cars are tight MF’s. No carpet, shit will get fucked up and will have to replace it at some point. Congrats by the way.[/quote]

Thanks, man. I want to post a pic of it but I won’t because people are crazy on the internet…but it is “blow panties off” nice.

Eventually, I may get rid of nearly all the carpet, but I will take my time on that one.[/quote]

We close on our new house next week, we are currently getting quotes to remove the carpet in the living room, master and the stairs. The kids room will have to wait. I have been renting for the last 9 months and I hate it. Building a house can be a blast.

Professor_X · April 29, 2010, 1:26am