House Hunters - General Discussion

[CrazyInAlabama]

I bet that the super crowded house that the Compton couple showed was only for filming.     After mulling it over, I bet they're flipping the house they bought, and then will used that money for a bigger down payment on a bigger house near where they are now.  

I'm wondering if they were fronting for someone else that was a real flipper (if you have to be a buyer, not investor and own it for a certain period to qualify for special programs, or it was a FHA or other foreclosure, and the initial buy period is only for owner/residents), or else the claim that they didn't know much about repair on houses was a sham.   

Edited October 18, 2020 by CrazyInAlabama

[amarante]

Amateurs can't flip a house profitably. Only people who are in the business can make money flipping - especially a house that needs that kind of massive overhaul. That is a complete down to the studs renovation and I would imagine there might also be structural damage of some kind that would need repairs.

Home renovation shows understate how expensive it is to remodel. It made absolutely no financial sense to purchase a home that would require more money to renovate than the flipped house cost.

Homes in metropolitan areas - in my experience - have either bars or home alarm systems. More expensive homes have home alarm systems and less expensive homes have bars. Code requires bars to be able to release easily (even by a child) from the inside. I grew up in a middle class home in Brooklyn which had bars on all the windows on the ground level except those which faced directly on the street - this was before there were home alarm companies. Everyone in the neighborhood had bars on accessible windows.

[ByaNose]

Isn’t Compton where people leave & not go to? $400,000 for a dump? No thanks. 

[Grrarrggh]

9 hours ago, ByaNose said:

Isn’t Compton where people leave & not go to? $400,000 for a dump? No thanks. 

Since around 2010 Compton has been doing much better and is no longer the murder capital it was in the 80s and 90s. 

[ByaNose]

6 hours ago, Grrarrggh said:

Since around 2010 Compton has been doing much better and is no longer the murder capital it was in the 80s and 90s. 

That’s nice to know. I still think $400,000 for that place is crazy. I know it’s California but I have my limits. LOL!!!

[edie3]

I thought that was sad, the Compton show. Especially when you compare it to the "we have to get rid of that granite" and "only white kitchen cabinets" you usually see. But at least they are getting equity in a house, and no payments to a landlord.

[CruiseDiva]

2 hours ago, edie3 said:

I thought that was sad, the Compton show. Especially when you compare it to the "we have to get rid of that granite" and "only white kitchen cabinets" you usually see. But at least they are getting equity in a house, and no payments to a landlord.

I felt bad for the Compton wife when she went along with her el cheapo husband and bought that horrible dump. Honestly, it looked like a crack house with all that mold and filth. It's going to cost a small fortune to make it livable and I don't think they have enough money to accomplish a decent renovation, particularly if there is asbestos in any of those old building materials. However, if there is asbestos I imagine they'll just live with it because I can't see them pulling permits for the work they plan to do or have anything tested.

That hard working woman deserved the nicely fixed up house, which would probably have saved them money in the long run.

[Grizzly]

Georgia episode was very ordinary. Wife didn't understand that her budget wasn't getting a 5 bedroom. And hubby might go for a secret vasectomy. Number of kids should be discussed before marriage, not on a TV show.

[CrazyInAlabama]

I bet there are two ways to redo the Compton house, if you're really going to live in it, put on a big addition with a big master suite, with bath and closet, and fix the house up correctly.   However, for a cheap flip that would still sell, you do surface renovation, put in a generic, builder grade kitchen with stock cabinets, and paint everything with new flooring right over any tile that's there.   (My next door neighbor was building another house, and he found a great way to save on the entire kitchen.   A big box store would change out their sample kitchens that had all types of additional features like pull out drawers, organizers, lazy Susans, etc., and he bought an entire kitchen that he stored in his garage when they were swapping out for the new trend.     He saved a bundle on a very fancy kitchen, and he just had to get a few filler cabinets for spaces that didn't conform to the sample kitchen). 

 

I'm betting the second way is what they did, and the claims they know nothing about redoing houses was a sham.    I don't think they're going to live in that house, but do a lipstick on a pig fix up, and sell.  

Edited October 21, 2020 by CrazyInAlabama

[cameron]

10 hours ago, Grizzly said:

Georgia episode was very ordinary. Wife didn't understand that her budget wasn't getting a 5 bedroom. And hubby might go for a secret vasectomy. Number of kids should be discussed before marriage, not on a TV show.

Can't understand people's fixation with having to have a sight line on their kids all the time and turning the dining room into a downstairs play area.  Last thing that I would want to see is all those toys right when I walk into a home and let's forget being close to one's parents.  No way.

[NYGirl]

43 minutes ago, cameron said:

Can't understand people's fixation with having to have a sight line on their kids all the time and turning the dining room into a downstairs play area.  Last thing that I would want to see is all those toys right when I walk into a home and let's forget being close to one's parents.  No way.

Just the fact that 99% of the people with kids say that leads me to believe that it's producer driven.  After watching so many episodes I now can detect what's really true or what the producers make them say just by the way they say it.

There are just so many things that a good number of house hunters say that make it positive it's the producers.

[Grrarrggh]

11 hours ago, CrazyInAlabama said:

  I don't think they're going to live in that house, but do a lipstick on a pig fix up, and sell.  

Well if the Flip or Flop people can become rich on the stupidity and lack of taste among California buyers I don't see why these people can't. 

[Grizzly]

Austin, TX the guy looks 12. What do these people do for work that they have a 500-700k budget? And they're paying for a wedding? Or is her flipper mom and his real estate mogul dad paying for all of it?

[chessiegal]

2 minutes ago, Grizzly said:

Austin, TX the guy looks 12. What do these people do for work that they have a 500-700k budget? And they're paying for a wedding? Or is her flipper mom and his real estate mogul dad paying for all of it?

I was only half paying attention, but I thought he said they both worked in sales. Or maybe that was another show, Dang, they're running together.

[Lady J]

23 hours ago, Grizzly said:

Georgia episode was very ordinary. Wife didn't understand that her budget wasn't getting a 5 bedroom. And hubby might go for a secret vasectomy. Number of kids should be discussed before marriage, not on a TV show.

They were not a fun couple, but I did like his step mom / realtor.

[chessiegal]

A bride who views a wedding as a cash cow. How many times did she say "I want a house so I can put things on my registry to fill the house". Blech.

[jacksgirl]

Rushed here before bed so I could read about Austin couple. She was awful. She had to "put her stamp" on a newly renovated and lovely kitchen by choosing a generic looking new backslash.  And lady, doubtful someone is going to buy you a dining room table off a wedding registry. Vapid and unlikable  woman. 

[LittleIggy]

19 minutes ago, chessiegal said:

A bride who views a wedding as a cash cow. How many times did she say "I want a house so I can put things on my registry to fill the house". Blech.

I’m with you there. Chica was all for the gift grab potential. 🙄

[cameron]

8 hours ago, jacksgirl said:

Rushed here before bed so I could read about Austin couple. She was awful. She had to "put her stamp" on a newly renovated and lovely kitchen by choosing a generic looking new backslash.  And lady, doubtful someone is going to buy you a dining room table off a wedding registry. Vapid and unlikable  woman. 

Unfortunately, that type of registry seems to be the new normal.  Funding for the honeymoon, landscaping the backyard, etc.  I've seen it on several different bridal registries.  In my day, if you couldn't pay for it you shouldn't have it.  Not how it seems to work now.

[Dehumidifier]

1 hour ago, cameron said:

Unfortunately, that type of registry seems to be the new normal.  Funding for the honeymoon, landscaping the backyard, etc.  I've seen it on several different bridal registries.  In my day, if you couldn't pay for it you shouldn't have it.  Not how it seems to work now.

The couples are all living together before the wedding now so they have the toaster, the vacuum, the dishes, etc., etc., etc., so they have to come up with something to wish for. Just give money; that's what they want anyway.

[doodlebug]

13 hours ago, chessiegal said:

A bride who views a wedding as a cash cow. How many times did she say "I want a house so I can put things on my registry to fill the house". Blech.

Well, after ripping up brand new, perfectly functional bathrooms and kitchens to 'put her stamp' on the house rather than using the serviceable (and new) fixtures already there and replacing as they wore out; she wasn't going to be able to afford the 'right' table or the'right' chandelier immediately, too.  Wouldn't want her chosen generic, dime a dozen backsplash to clash with the light fixtures already there, would you? The fiance was no prize, either, IMO.  His stepmom, the realtor, was the only one I liked.

Edited October 22, 2020 by doodlebug

[CrazyInAlabama]

I was very surprised the Austin couple bought the first house.     I really wondered if the princess would demand the third one, the $700k condo with almost $500 a month in condo fees (and I bet when the other 15% of units sell, and it's turned over to the HOA, that the condo fee will go up.   

Or the second house that was a total fixer, but fairly far out of town. 

[cameron]

4 hours ago, Dehumidifier said:

The couples are all living together before the wedding now so they have the toaster, the vacuum, the dishes, etc., etc., etc., so they have to come up with something to wish for. Just give money; that's what they want anyway.

I've seen some that even have a Go Fund Me account.  Still find this in really poor taste.  If they want the money so bad; just have a small wedding instead of an expensive extravaganza.

[Empress1]

16 hours ago, chessiegal said:

I was only half paying attention, but I thought he said they both worked in sales.

One of them did - I forget which one, but one of them said they both worked in sales. Depending on what they sell, they could make a good living ... in which case they can furnish their own house. I was pretty floored that she said she'd put an entertainment center on her registry.

[pdlinda]

1 hour ago, Empress1 said:

Depending on what they sell, they could make a good living ..

I'm simply not crystal clear on how a couple in their 20"s can amass what I assume is a cash reserve of  about $140,000 (20% down payment on a $700K house that I believe she said they were qualified for by the lender), while paying their basic expenses AND having to put these "discretionary" expensive items on their registry.  

I didn't see their lifestyle as suggesting they were making "millions."  They may do well financially; however, maybe someone can enlighten me on possible scenarios to produce that financial reserve.  Perhaps the parents are gifting the newlyweds with the down payment (or part of it) or maybe they struck it rich in the stock market; however, in both cases, someone's got to pay taxes on that large amt of $$$.

Maybe some financially savvy person can answer this question. From my perspective, I simply couldn't fathom them looking at homes in the $650-$700K range at their age. Just carrying such a house would seem a "stretch." 

I would be concerned that one of them might lose his/her job (for whatever reason) and/or one dropping out of the work force to start having a family.

[Grrarrggh]

Yet another HH shopper who claims to hate cookie cutter houses and yet gushes over a completely cookie cutter kitchen/bathroom and open floorplan. Where do they find these people who are so willing to lie?

[snarts]

Guessing pharmaceutical sales. Easy six figure income and big bonuses. If they're both making $100-150k annually, a $700k house is realistic.  We're also back to the days of extremely low interest rates and small down payments.  Did they actually state their ages? I thought they were more as early 30s rather than 20s.

I knew Austin was pricey, but no idea it was that pricey.  I was not impressed with the detached condo they chose and completely appalled by the $700k condo with the $465/mo HOA.  It was brand new!  Why was the HOA so high?  They only go up over time.

[chessiegal]

 

14 minutes ago, snarts said:

Did they actually state their ages? I thought they were more as early 30s rather than 20s.

The Austin couple said they were in their 20s.

[Grrarrggh]

7 minutes ago, chessiegal said:

 

The Austin couple said they were in their 20s.

28 to be exact. 

[chessiegal]

I went to college with someone who went straight to pharmaceutical sales out of school and was making big bucks immediately.

[Dehumidifier]

I'm watching the Austin show on DVR now. The realtor is wearing boots with spikey heels. I'm worried about the floors. My only memory of my brother's christening party back in the 1960s is the round indentations  left in our kitchen linoleum by the ladies shoes.

[amarante]

I don't have a problem with gift registries for whatever the couple wants. Everyone registers somewhere and if you don't need a toaster, then why request it. I've never gone to a wedding that doesn't have a registry and I use it based on what I plan to spend. I give cash to people in the family. 

The big ticket items are generally funded through a contribution. I'm not sure what information the couple gets in terms of how much each person might have contributed. 

Wasn't the Austin couple just replacing the backsplash? That is a pretty inexpensive fix and something that many people do as a DIY. Only tricky part is removing the tile without damaging the existing counters. The tile she was picking looked relatively inexpensive - the white ubiquitous subway or what looked like either arabesque or diamond shapes. Of course the irony was that she was replacing one cliche for another.

As others have posted, they were both in sales which can be lucrative and they might be receiving the down or help for the down from their parents. It is not uncommon for parents to provide down payments for their children.

[Grizzly]

Philly. I wanted to dislike Sandy and then he says something sweet about wanting her to love a house. The one they picked was a good compromise. 

What were they sitting on at his parents' place?

[Empress1]

I laughed when Sandy in Philly said he’d spent his entire life living up and down I-95 in major cities because that has been my entire life, and I’ve framed it exactly that way.

Fishtown, where house #1 was, does have coffee shops; it’s a gentrifying neighborhood. There are bakeries there that sell $7 slices of cake. In Sandy’s childhood it was a white working-class neighborhood; more moneyed white people have moved in (it remains a very white neighborhood). Hated the laminate floors in that house. I also disagreed when he said Fishtown was as close to the country as you get & still have a tow home - there are lots or northwest Philly neighborhoods where you can have a row home (or a single family home!) and have grass. Germantown, Mount Airy, Roxborough, Manayunk ...

Drexel Hill is very suburban - it’s not that far outside the city in terms of mileage but it’s a very different vibe than either Fishtown or South Philly. I suspect they’ll end up in the suburbs if they have kids.

[kirklandia]

Apparently the Austin couple has  generous friends.  Maybe they put house Number One on "the Registry"?

[laredhead]

I like the drone shots of the houses with the cities in the background.  Great information as to how far away the downtown areas are from the the house being shown.

[Crashcourse]

The Philly row houses reminded me of some of those in Baltimore with no front landing, you just basically go from the sidewalk right into the house.   I figured they wouldn't pick the house in the 'burbs but I liked it. 

[cameron]

19 minutes ago, Crashcourse said:

The Philly row houses reminded me of some of those in Baltimore with no front landing, you just basically go from the sidewalk right into the house.   I figured they wouldn't pick the house in the 'burbs but I liked it. 

Very typical of a lot of the historic houses  in the Old Town section of Alexandria, Virginia.  Live in one.

[Crashcourse]

12 minutes ago, cameron said:

Very typical of a lot of the historic houses  in the Old Town section of Alexandria, Virginia.  Live in one.

I'm quite familiar with Old Town, but the facades look much more decorative even though they don't have landings.  

[cameron]

34 minutes ago, Crashcourse said:

I'm quite familiar with Old Town, but the facades look much more decorative even though they don't have landings.  

I'm from Baltimore and always remember the white marble steps leading up to the front door  that women use to scrub, especially around the Eastern Ave. and Little Italy areas.

[laredhead]

I'm not a fan of the row houses in Philly.  I have lived in 2 townhouses that had no windows on each side, but they were both 25' and 30' wide, so I didn't feel like the walls were closing in, but those row houses look much narrower.  Allison was trying to recreate their life from a couple of years prior, but I think he was the mature one of the couple as far as thinking about the future.  He was ready to settle down and have space for children to play.  She was living in the past.  Once they have a child, that 1300 sf is going to feel super small with all of the things that come with a baby.  No closets is another thing I just don't get.  Where do you put things like clothes, shoes, etc.  I would have bought the house in the suburbs.  They could have 2 or 3 children and still have ample room for uncluttered living. 

[amarante]

Row houses like the ones in Philly were built for the lower working class population. They are the equivalent of the tenement apartments that were built in denser areas like New York City. They were a slight step up. There are a lot of them in the old steel mill towns as well. My friends bought a similar one in Adams Morgan area of Washington years ago when it was first gentrifying.

 

 

Edited October 24, 2020 by amarante

[Sheikh Yerbouti]

The very first season of House Hunters is now available for streaming on HGTV.com. I didn't start watching until 2015, so it's quite an adventure to see the OG version of the show with Suzanne Whang (RIP) as narrator. House hunting in 1999, before open concept and all-white kitchens were requirements, feels like a whole other world.

[chessiegal]

And they were all filmed in California (southern, I think) - they didn't mention a specific location. They always picked the 3rd house, although I do remember one where they decided not to buy. And specific prices are never mentioned. I read somewhere that the original show runners/producers had no idea how popular it would become. They figured if they could get a few seasons out of it they'd have done well.

[StatisticalOutlier]

On 10/22/2020 at 3:09 PM, pdlinda said:

I'm simply not crystal clear on how a couple in their 20"s can amass what I assume is a cash reserve of  about $140,000 (20% down payment on a $700K house that I believe she said they were qualified for by the lender), while paying their basic expenses AND having to put these "discretionary" expensive items on their registry.  

I didn't see their lifestyle as suggesting they were making "millions."  They may do well financially; however, maybe someone can enlighten me on possible scenarios to produce that financial reserve.  Perhaps the parents are gifting the newlyweds with the down payment (or part of it) or maybe they struck it rich in the stock market; however, in both cases, someone's got to pay taxes on that large amt of $$$.

If they structure it right, there wouldn't be any taxes owed on gifts to the kids that they then use for the down payment.  Any person can give any other person up to $15,000/year without any tax consequences.

So in this case, each parent can give each kid and each kid's spouse $15,000 a year, which means the young couple can get $60,000 from one set of parents.  If both sets of parents do it, then the couple can get $120,000.  And since it's per year, they could effectively double it by making the $15,000 gifts in December of one year and January of the next year.  That would be $240,000 in short order, with no tax consequences whatsoever.  The parents will have to be careful not to give them any other money during the year, but that's a small price to pay.

And that's not all--they could do bigger gifts and still not pay any tax, but it involves some reporting; anything over $15,000/year to a person can be applied against the donor's lifetime gift tax exclusion/estate tax exemption, which right now is over $11,500,000.  Yep.  Eleven-and-a-half million dollars. 

As for striking it rich in the stock market, the long-term capital gains tax is only 15% for incomes between $40,000 and about $440,000--a lot lower than the marginal income tax rate at higher incomes.  Striking it rich in the stock market is a lot less taxing than getting that money by toiling.

So really, taxes aren't much of a concern at all.  Which shouldn't be a surprise when you're dealing with rich people.  😀

[CrazyInAlabama]

The first season would be so much fun to see again.     I love how they always picked the same number of house, and then they started changing it up, and it was the house without furniture.   Then, it would be the house with dust covers on the furniture, because they already moved in.    Some of the very first weren't even for sale, or else the buyer was just someone the agent recruited to act like a buyer.  The first years they had some minor L.A. celebrities too, I remember one of the women cast members from American Gladiator.    

[pdlinda]

1 hour ago, StatisticalOutlier said:

So really, taxes aren't much of a concern at all.  Which shouldn't be a surprise when you're dealing with rich people.  😀

Great; info!  Of course, my assumption is that if both sets of parents have other children, they would do the same gift-giving for each one.  Also, if both sets of parents are wealthy, maybe trust funds already set up for all their children.

In any event, these two seem to be off to a fine financial start in life and I hope their marriage and job status remain solid and secure!

[Crashcourse]

In the OG HOuse Hunters, I seem to remember the house hunters sitting by the phone, waiting for the call that they got the house.

[chessiegal]

36 minutes ago, Crashcourse said:

In the OG HOuse Hunters, I seem to remember the house hunters sitting by the phone, waiting for the call that they got the house.

You're right! I forgot about that. We got the house!!!!

[amarante]

Thinking back that staged bit of shock was in lieu of the staged cliched wish lists and/or divergent wants of the house hunters.