I'm getting a house!

Congrats, that looks like a nice place. Got any neat plans for the as yet unlandscaped backyard?

wow…looks like a cool little house. I’m involved in the development industry, and as long as you are confident in the builder you’ve done it right.

Where in CA are you, XPav? If you’re close to San Diego, my wife and I could drop by with housewarming gifts, advice, and a studfinder loan.

Why don’t houses in CA have basements? If you’re not in a swamp or below the water line in your area, why the heck not have a basement?

Having grown up in a house with a basement, and living in Michigan where almost everyone has a basement, I don’t understand why a lot of places that aren’t under water don’t have them.

If the ground doesn’t freeze you don’t actually need a basement.

Having bought a brand new house a while ago, I loved mine! So nice having everything new. Be sure to hire an independent inspector before closing, and of course examine the warranty. Keep in mind that anything the builder adds is covered by the warranty, but if you get work done independently, it’s not covered by the warranty, which is why we paid a premium to have the builder put in the flooring that we wanted.

We’re all the way up in Nothern California – Santa Rosa. So I guess I’m going to have to buy a studfinder.

Plans for the backyard are undefined. Our short term goal is to get moved in, then consider budget and how that fits into the home-improvment plans.

Pick one thing at a time, and take care of it. You’ll go crazy if wifey makes the big list and you have to think about everything she wants. Tell her she gets one big remodel/improvement every two months, and that’s it. Anything else is madness.

H.

That’s an unhelpful comment. How many people pay cash for their houses?

It’s not about needing a basement, it’s about a basement being a huge chunk of square-footage that you non-freezers are missing out on.

The cost delta between pouring a basement vs. building a foundation has got to be a joke when you break it down, but then I’ve never looked into it very far.

I just know what it costs to build homes here in Michigan and can’t imagine that it costs that much less to do it sans-basement anywhere else.

Believe it or not it’s about 38%. That probably includes retirees and investors. That number also skews the average mortgage payment to $684 a month because the average payment adds in people who have no payment.

By the way, did anyone else read the thread title and ask themselves, “Why is Xpav getting a horse?”

Xpav, congrats. Home ownership rocks, once you get past the constant bills and repairs and the whole “money pit” thing.

I just bought a new house myself. We closed on it this past Friday. It’s a fun and scary feeling. We’ll be moving in on the 11th of June, though our stuff won’t get there until the next day. We have a contract on our current home and will close on it on the 26th of June (at the latest).

Welcome the world of owning a home. And if you can make the payments, ignore Midnight Son. Whether your home goes up or down from this point doesn’t matter unless you plan to sell.

Congrats to the new home owners! Hope you guys are handy because paying someone to do maintenance around the house stinks. In the last few years since I bought my house I’ve had to learn basic wiring and basic plumbing. Learning to make my yard not ugly as sin and how to replace storm-destroyed storm doors is next on the list.

I can wire up phone jacks, crimp ethernet cable, and have gotten good at de-clogging drains recently in my apartment, mainly because I’m too lazy to call the office. I call that a good sign.

Thats a beautiful house Xpav, congratulations!

Percentages vary, but pouring a slab is a fair bit cheaper than digging a basement, which is why it’s done. But you are bang on that it does sacrifice a lot of potential square footage. I live in VT, so almost all homes have basements, and i love having it…i put my driving range net down there (you wouldn’t believe the amount of kitchen renovation that you have to do before you can put a driving range in the basement…lol).

Don’t worry, Alex. With the internet, basic home maintenance is usually easy, and when it’s not you can usually call a local handyman for relatively cheap. It’s definitely worth it. Having your own home is VERY nice.

A studfinder? Didn’t realise the swinging seventies were having a revival, californication style!

(in UK and HK, timber frame construction is very, very rare, so had to look this one up. We have wirefinders/ detectors, but no studfinders)

Yeah, we build stuff to last. If it’s not built like a WWII bunker, it’s not really a house*. My house is reinforced concrete, so a powerfull studfinder is quite handy, since the walls are reinforced with steel that you really can’t drill through. Also wiring and plumbing is stuff that’s nice to avoid.

Congrats on the house. Have Jpinard do your backyard.
We bought ours three years ago and haven’t regretted a thing. Here getting work done is maddingly expensive and with the building boom going on (slowed down now) the wait for any decent craftsman was just horribly long, so I’ve been learning a lot of stuff, but apart from one bathroom I can now see the end of all the remoddelling and the wife thinks I’m very handy.

(*actually, more and more houses are build with wood here too, I’m surprised if that’s not the case in the UK too. It’s cheaper.)