new construction - unique issues - Page 2

[amyamanda]

Originally Posted by Ola_

Around here they typically do come with the house. If the sellers want to take anything with them that is a "fixture of the house" it needs to be specifically excluded in the contract. But that may be regional as the PP said.

For some reason, these three things (fridge, washer, and dryer) are not considered fixtures of the house in our area. You can't take the stove or dishwasher, but you usually do take the fridge, washer, dryer, or you negotiate to sell them to the person buying the house. I know, it's weird.

[mnnice]

I still am not sure how you have four units, but no HOA. Who pays for the roof if it needs replaced?

[polyhymnia]

Originally Posted by mnnice

I still am not sure how you have four units, but no HOA. Who pays for the roof if it needs replaced?

well, there are two buildings and each building is two units. There is a Usage Agreement (forget the specific name - it's in my notes which are in the other room!) that you sign when you buy, and you agree to maintain exterior to a certain standard, with some guidelines for roof, exterior painting and parking area, etc. They vary from place to place and I haven't seen the one for this unit specifically, so I don't know the details.

It's apparently very common here - every townhome we have looked at has this setup (although some are 3 units per one building, or just one building with two units).

[StarJune]

I had a premium lot with my first home and still ended up with a cable box, a phone box and a large green utilities box on the bottom of my front lawn on the boulevard. I was not impressed. That is something that I would definitely look into. With the kids walking by and hanging off and breaking them, every dog in the neighbourhood stopping by and cutting around them with a weedwacker... it was a pain in the butt. A mailbox was slotted right across the street but the owners of that house made the builders put in writing that nothing would be in front of them or else they would get compensated and-or sue! Canada Post actually had to move the mailbox up the street! So look into those things that are not showing on the plans but the builder knows that they will be there.

Not sure if it will be an issue for you but just another thing to look out for!

[mightymoo]

Originally Posted by polyhymnia

I'm also nervous about the taxes, since it's brand new.

Taxes are easy to figure. Search for '<TownName> tax rate' (You are in MA if I recall correctly, and in MA taxes are done by town). You might try townname assessor or something like that if you can't find it that way. It's stated as $$ per thousand. My town for example is currently $14.07 per thousand. That means that for every $1000 in value my house has, I pay $14.07. While the value the town assesses your property to be may be different from what you pay, chances are it won't be far off, and you can just use the purchase price to estimate taxes until you get the bill. So just take the purchase price, chop off 3 zeros and multiply by the tax rate. (So in my town, a $100,000 house would pay 100 x 14.07 or $1407 per year in taxes). Towns vary greatly though, don't assume that my town has the same rate as yours. Some make commercial properties pay more and have lower residential rates, etc. HTH

Whoops, I forgot, you are in Seattle, someone else was in Ma. Seattle is done by county, so search for the county name and tax rate, but its the same idea, so many dollars per thousand in value.

King County tax rates: http://www.kingcounty.gov/Assessor/PropertyTax.aspx

[ASusan]

We moved into our new house 8 months ago. We still have paper shades, as window coverings will run us $4,000.

We bought our own mailbox. Builder installed it.

Make sure the landscaping has some sort of guarantee. Our bushes died over the winter (and were replaced).

HOA fees and deed restrictions. We're in one of those subdivisions that doesn't allow clothes to be hung outdoors. And I just learned that we're supposed to have a lawn contract. (I need to go back to read the fine print - it seems totally nuts that chemlawn would be enforced.)

References -- Our builder supplied a list of names of completed jobs. (Just opened up his book and handed it to us.) I copied down names & numbers of people in our neighborhood and called them. EVERYone I talked with was pleased.

[mightymoo]

The appliances seem to vary by builder. Our builder gave us an appliance allowance. It was a joke - $1200 for appliances, I'm not sure you could manage to buy a microwave hood, fridge, dishwasher and stove for that little, but given the price of the house (not cheap) it was seriously laughable, but we negotiated him up to $2000 and still spent a bunch of our own money.

Things that cost us with our new house:

the appliances
shades (even just roller shades for the bedrooms cost $200, the bathroom has a paper shade and the rest of the house nothing right now, 1 year later)
paint - because we got sick of off-white very quickly
area rugs
CFL bulbs - to replace all the incandescents the builder put in
Locking Doorknobs - builder only put locking ones on the bathrooms, not on the bedrooms and we wanted them for closets and things to restrict kids access.
Landscaping - the builder put lawn in and a minimum of scrubs, but after trying to maintain it this way we've realized we really need to create mulch borders to cut down on the continuous weedwhacking and make mowing easier.
Mirrors - The builder doesn't include bathroom mirrors, though by mistake they never billed us for the 4 they had a glass place put in for us. I wish I had just had them put the other one in as it still doesn't have a mirror a year later.
Toilet Paper holders, towel racks, etc - not included by the builder, we still don't have them.