I've recently began searching for a house to purchase and am looking to compile a list of resources to help me along the way. A few of the things I'd love include:
- a way to estimate the costs to renovate individual rooms (in the Calgary market) including bathrooms, kitchens, unfinished basements, etc.
- a list of estimated costs to replaces a roof, furnace, hot water boiler, windows
- a list of the demographics of a particular neighbourhood
- things to look for when house shopping
- things to negotiate and strategies to do so
- any general tips or 'things you'd wished you'd done'
I have family and friends skilled in various trades and hope that most renovations can be done saving on some of the labour that way. If similar houses are say $30K apart, with one needing a little TLC, I want to be able to estimate those costs so I can see which house would be more affordable in the long run.
Most of these questions can be answered by your realtor. There is no black and white numbers as the quality of work and brands can alter the estimates by thousands.
__________________ OFFICIAL CP REALTOR & PROPERTY MANAGER
Travis Munroe | Century 21 Elevate | 403.971.4300
If similar houses are say $30K apart, with one needing a little TLC, I want to be able to estimate those costs so I can see which house would be more affordable in the long run.
Depending on your financial situation, one may not be possible. You have to come up with cash to pay for a renovation whereas you can essentially finance the already renovated house. So if you're putting 10% down, that's only another 3k out of pocket for the renovated house. But if you buy a house and then do a 30k reno, it's 30k out of pocket.
Whatever numbers you decide on for your reno, just double it, add 10% and triple your time line.
The Following User Says Thank You to OMG!WTF! For This Useful Post:
Depending on your financial situation, one may not be possible. You have to come up with cash to pay for a renovation whereas you can essentially finance the already renovated house. So if you're putting 10% down, that's only another 3k out of pocket for the renovated house. But if you buy a house and then do a 30k reno, it's 30k out of pocket.
Whatever numbers you decide on for your reno, just double it, add 10% and triple your time line.
You can borrow extra for renovations (I believe up to 10% of the value of the house).
The Following User Says Thank You to opendoor For This Useful Post:
There are a variety of options for financing a Reno with a purchase. There are guidelines for the amount of additional funds... 10% of purchase price is one, up to $40k is another and there are exceptions to these. It all depends on property, renovation, timeline etc.
__________________
Thanks,
Tim Lacroix | 403-648-1541
Mortgage. Made Easy Experts
Mortgage Connect www.TimLacroix.com
Most of these questions can be answered by your realtor. There is no black and white numbers as the quality of work and brands can alter the estimates by thousands.
I'll be honest - so far I'm not happy with my realtor. It's very early in the process and I'm willing to give him a chance, but he's putting off a strong vibe of wanting to make a sale asap and not willing to put the work in. That said, I'm also someone who likes to educate myself before making a large decision like this. Sure, I could take the word of a realtor. Or, I could look into the numbers myself to be certain. I'll burn up the phone's tomorrow getting quote if no resource exists like I'm looking for.
Quote:
Originally Posted by OMG!WTF!
Depending on your financial situation, one may not be possible. You have to come up with cash to pay for a renovation whereas you can essentially finance the already renovated house. So if you're putting 10% down, that's only another 3k out of pocket for the renovated house. But if you buy a house and then do a 30k reno, it's 30k out of pocket.
Whatever numbers you decide on for your reno, just double it, add 10% and triple your time line.
The money is there for renos if that's the route I decide to go.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Winsor_Pilates
So all of the things a good realtor should help with?
There is a "demographics" tab on realtor.ca when you are looking at a specific property. No clue how accurate the info is or how they get it, but it has graphs about age of the local population, income, languages spoken, et cetera.
You can borrow extra for renovations (I believe up to 10% of the value of the house).
Yes you can borrow whatever you want actually. But a really good goal is to keep a 20% down payment so you save insurance fees and are not personally responsible for any short fall in a foreclosure. Just considerations.
The Following User Says Thank You to OMG!WTF! For This Useful Post:
Yes you can borrow whatever you want actually. But a really good goal is to keep a 20% down payment so you save insurance fees and are not personally responsible for any short fall in a foreclosure. Just considerations.
Yes. Great point when it comes to avoiding Mortgage Default insurance.
__________________
Thanks,
Tim Lacroix | 403-648-1541
Mortgage. Made Easy Experts
Mortgage Connect www.TimLacroix.com
I've recently began searching for a house to purchase and am looking to compile a list of resources to help me along the way. A few of the things I'd love include:
- a way to estimate the costs to renovate individual rooms (in the Calgary market) including bathrooms, kitchens, unfinished basements, etc.
- a list of estimated costs to replaces a roof, furnace, hot water boiler, windows
- a list of the demographics of a particular neighbourhood
- things to look for when house shopping
- things to negotiate and strategies to do so
- any general tips or 'things you'd wished you'd done'
I have family and friends skilled in various trades and hope that most renovations can be done saving on some of the labour that way. If similar houses are say $30K apart, with one needing a little TLC, I want to be able to estimate those costs so I can see which house would be more affordable in the long run.
Be careful with this, don't expect them to work for free/ peanuts/ discounted rates/ after hours etc... just because YOU got a "good deal".
__________________
The only thing better then a glass of beer is tea with Ms McGill
The Following User Says Thank You to Derek Sutton For This Useful Post:
I'll be honest - so far I'm not happy with my realtor. It's very early in the process and I'm willing to give him a chance, but he's putting off a strong vibe of wanting to make a sale asap and not willing to put the work in. That said, I'm also someone who likes to educate myself before making a large decision like this. Sure, I could take the word of a realtor. Or, I could look into the numbers myself to be certain. I'll burn up the phone's tomorrow getting quote if no resource exists like I'm looking for.
The money is there for renos if that's the route I decide to go.
Good being the key word. See above.
I'm a lurker but just wanted to vouch for Travis (Realtor 1). I'm not sure how easy or hard it would be to get out of your current agreement with your realtor (if you have one) but if you can, it might be worth it and talking to Travis.
The Following User Says Thank You to codfather For This Useful Post:
I've recently began searching for a house to purchase and am looking to compile a list of resources to help me along the way. A few of the things I'd love include:
- a way to estimate the costs to renovate individual rooms (in the Calgary market) including bathrooms, kitchens, unfinished basements, etc.
- a list of estimated costs to replaces a roof, furnace, hot water boiler, windows
- a list of the demographics of a particular neighbourhood
- things to look for when house shopping
- things to negotiate and strategies to do so
- any general tips or 'things you'd wished you'd done'
I have family and friends skilled in various trades and hope that most renovations can be done saving on some of the labour that way. If similar houses are say $30K apart, with one needing a little TLC, I want to be able to estimate those costs so I can see which house would be more affordable in the long run.
First off, there are many different theories. So take the following with a grain of salt. Some might not be relevant to you.
What I did.
#1. PLAN. Literally sit down, do a must have, nice bonus, cannot have, whatever list. Figure out what the deal breakers are right off the bat. Argue this till you're blue in the face with stakeholders in the home. Every few homes, sit down again and see if you're willing to bend on certain attributes for home acceptance.
#2. Walk into the home hating everything. Don't BS yourself. The things that bug you will always bug you more than the things about the home you love. Ignore why the owner is leaving. Focus on reasons why you don't want to be there. Try to get the seller to do a price drop incentive for you to ignore things you dislike.
#3. Separate inside vs outside. Outside you mostly cannot change. Busy road, power poles, crappy noisy neighbors etc. inside you can generally change, but it's almost always about money. See #4.
#4. Never EVER tell your Realtor or the other Realtor that you can do anything cheaper or will do it yourself. I made that mistake and two different Realtors (casually looking over 2 years) tried to sell me on crap and major understating renovation numbers. For instance 15k to renovate an entire 600 square foot 70s condo downtown with obvious cigarette damage and 40k to renovate an entire home in Thorncliffe. Yeah, no. Easily double that.
Numbers I relied on as a ball park when I was looking and making comparatives of old vs new homes:
Spoiler!
- 7-10K for a whole bathroom based on work required and trim.
- 20-40k for a kitchen based on work required and trim
- 8 - 10k per 400 square foot room, add extra for trim if needed. Basements development put in another 50-80% ish for the cost of framing, roughing in electric, plumbing etc.
- $5 square foot for flooring (decent laminate and installation)
- 20-30k garage (detached)
- 3-8k landscaping
- 15-25k for a roof (doing a decent quality one and not cheap cedar shake roof)
- 3-5% of the purchase price of the home for furnishings
- 2.5k each for HVAC and water boiler
- 1.5-3k for electric box.
It's not perfectly accurate. I know that. It's also on a case by case basis. But I swear many individuals will quote you a number based on the cheapest, crappiest, low quality materials money can buy. On top of that, your time doesn't cost you anything, so it shouldn't cost them anything and you can probably find someone "qualified" for about $5 more than minimum wage.
Focus more on what the place is like without the sellers stuff in there. Layout, replacement items (roof, windows, electrics etc.), structural beams, power poles, things difficult to clean, noise (I always open windows while I do the walk through and listen for noises or smells. Obviously I close all the windows when I'm done) etc. Trim can on occasion show whether a home owner really took care of the home or did the bare minimum, but it's hard to tell.
#5. Consider negotiating something of value that isn't cash if you get stuck. (Not sure on a Realtor's perspective on this though). Maybe there's something that's not included that you might need to buy. Ask to have that thrown in to make up the value difference. Excess electronics like TVs/Fridges/washer/dryer etc., mobile bars, heavy duty shelving, their car etc. It might even work for both parties as the seller might be having a major headache figuring out how to remove/move the item. Careful about the condition of the items requested though, or consider a side deal at a rather than include it as part of the house purchase. You don't want junk left on the premises for you to deal with. This is risky though and don't do it unless you trust the other side.
DoubleF's story
Spoiler!
When I bought my new town home, during negotiations we got caught up over about $5k. Other side was a developer and wouldn't move because he didn't want that number to affect the other unit (he'd essentially settle on the same number we agreed on for both units, putting him out $10k vs $5k). So I asked him how much the show room furniture in the unit cost. He told me cost was about 8-9k and he'd probably get around 4k on Kijiji or wherever... Let's just say I got the furniture at a steal. Win/win. He didn't have to move the furniture far nor deal with scum on Kijiji. I purchased $8-9k worth of 'display model' furniture, color matched to my home by an interior designer ($1k ish of consulting?) for dirt cheap and lower than his Kijiji number. Furniture I would likely have needed to shop for, then buy, wait for delivery, have someone accept delivery and move/match. Nope, was there when I moved in.
#6. Don't drag out a negotiation. Stick to your guns. If things aren't going the way you want after about 48-72 hours, walk. That's your biggest leverage. If they try doing a stupid "Oh, someone's bidding on it too." Consider using the non-monetary items thing I mentioned if you think they're bluffing.
Spoiler!
I almost got into an older home that I was arguing for a while on. Let's just say we hit the point of conditions, they sent back some conditions and we were at the point if I accepted those conditions, I'd have bought the home. Instead, I walked. I saw the same home on the market a month later with all my conditions completed for an even lower price than I had been negotiating for. Sure I got a little egg on my face and my Realtor's face, but the other side wasn't being truthful IMO and I could have ended up with a house I hated. I did have to give my Realtor a nice gift and I pretended I was a stupid, young, first time home buyer with no idea how these things worked. Thing worked out fine as the other Realtor was someone my Realtor hated dealing with anyways.
#7. Watch those stupid: Things to pay attention to when buying a home youtube videos and look up a few "How to reno" videos to determine if certain things can be "fixed" or not.
Other:
City of Calgary has a community demographic. The only thing I found useful was the rental demographic information (ie: 100% minus owner). High rental areas per my broker are sometimes the ones that miss out on gentrification as well as property value increases. Bad neighbors are random. You find them in all communities.
Thanks so much for taking the time to type all of that out DoubleF! Exactly the kind of local, real experience I was hoping I would get. I'm going to start looking up those videos you mention now.
I'll be honest - so far I'm not happy with my realtor. It's very early in the process and I'm willing to give him a chance, but he's putting off a strong vibe of wanting to make a sale asap and not willing to put the work in.
Not commentiung on Travis here, he seems great and very helpful but the worst part of buying my house 2 years ago was dealing with the realtor. The phony personality, ignoring every single item on my short and undemanding search list. Not bringing anything to the table, not one single house that was an option. I found a few on my own and had to hound them for the info. In the end it was a place that I found and really pushed for.
They filled out the paperwork and sent me to the lawyer, I guess that's something.
Not commentiung on Travis here, he seems great and very helpful but the worst part of buying my house 2 years ago was dealing with the realtor. The phony personality, ignoring every single item on my short and undemanding search list. Not bringing anything to the table, not one single house that was an option. I found a few on my own and had to hound them for the info. In the end it was a place that I found and really pushed for.
They filled out the paperwork and sent me to the lawyer, I guess that's something.
I've gone through 3 realtors and still haven't found one I've liked. They all seem to say oh, just renovate that kitchen, it'll only cost you this. Oh just... build an extension so the house is bigger. Oh this garage isn't permitted? It's easy to get one.
I feel I have more knowledge than most of the realtors I dealt with, the only thing they have going for them is pulling just sold listings.
For instance, I put in a big at a foreclosure, it was listed at $350 000, the realtor was telling me to come in at over list. We weren't comfortable with that knowing the state of the house and the other houses in the neighborhood. We came in at 330 000 but decided to pull out in the end due to us finding a more suitable house. In their effort to keep us in, they told us we were the highest bid. He was hounding us constantly to go over list and kept saying oh for sure, don't bother wasting our time etc. I dropped him instantly and got in a nice fight over it.
Resources for a new homebuyer
