Good luck man, hope you find something soon! Inventory will probably drop next month, but like you said, most people aren't going to move right after school starts, so competition should be lower.
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Stick to a firm budget, and don't go over it. We had a firm ceiling of $400k, looked at around 40 houses, and put in 7 offers before ours was accepted. It was listed for $375k, made an offer for $385k with a 24 hour expiration. Appraisal came back at $412k. We closed about 6 months ago, and it took us 7 months of looking at multiple houses every week to get to it. We were also using a VA loan, which turned some sellers off due to the added time for the VA appraisal and potential to either force them to fix things that aren't an issue for most people, or back out of the contract.
My wife was pregnant at the time (and miscarried two months later), so I get the added pressure of trying to find something NOW. Don't dig yourself into a hole that you can't climb out of for thirty years because of that pressure.
We got lucky with this one because the previous owners were going through a nasty divorce. I get the frustration, and it was disheartening as fuck constantly being outbid, especially after you like a house enough to tie yourself to it for decades. Our realtor was great, and knew most of the agents in the area, so he was able to get us some inside info on a few of the houses we looked at. If your agent isn't being transparent with you, find a different one.
Treat the search as a business transaction. You have a list of criteria, you're reviewing options within your budget that meet the highest number of your needs. If it doesn't meet your nonnegotiable criteria, don't bid. The most important one of those criteria should be that you like the house. Have a checklist to run down in your walkthrough (roof, crawlspace, foundation, visible water damage, age of HVAC and major appliances that will convey, etc), and try to weed out as many major issues as you can before paying for an inspection.
It's tedious, extremely frustrating, and disheartening. Eventually, you'll find one. You may have to compromise on some things, and it's ok to gradually improve the house after you buy it. Just make sure the basics are solid. Also, allocate way more time for painting than you think it'll take, especially if you're doing it without help. Everything will take longer than you think, be patient with yourself.
Be stubborn as fuck during this process, and be willing to walk away. I get that you want to get out of a lease (I rented for years, and it sucks compared to owning), but once most sellers are motivated to get shit done once they're under contact just as much as you are. They don't want to start the process over again either, especially because if a major issue is uncovered during an inspection, they are legally required to disclose it (my realtor threatened their agent with this fact over some mold in our crawlspace when the seller wanted to walk away instead of fixing it. He told them that he has access to their system and would personally make sure the next offer received a copy of the inspection report and would report the agent if they didn't disclose it).
The seller is required to provide a package with all HOA bylaws within 5 days of accepting an offer, at least in my state. If you disagree with anything in the HOA rules (or any other reason as long as the HOA is cited as the reason), you can back out of the sale with no earnest money forfeited.
Are there any requirements beyond a basic FDM printer that you need to help test?
Is that 11m including everything on the fediverse, or just Lemmy instances?
Is there any chance of changing the profile view to show overview (posts + comments) like it used to be on Reddit vs having them segregated? Having it separated is a minor annoyance of mine
Great work on this app. I used Sync Pro for 10 years, this has blown Jerboa out of the water and has really enhanced the whole Lemmy experience for me
There is a key distinction between a contracted public service and a private company running a for-profit business. Think buses (as you described) vs taxis.
I lost my username once and couldn't recover the account
Abe books was my go-to in college for international editions of engineering textbooks. $40 for a book that cost $450 for the US edition. Only downside was that all the units were in metric and weren't perfectly converted, so I had to check against a classmate if we had work out of the book. All the info was still the same tho, and it was 10% of the cost, and it let me take open book tests where a digital copy wouldn't cut it.
I agree. Our HOA has a website with unofficial copies of the bylaws. After reading those and driving around the neighborhood, it was pretty obvious that they didn't enforce much of it outside of keeping trash off the lawn. Talked to a few people that lived in the neighborhood to confirm, and it's reasonable enough as far as HOAs go. Still not my preference, but it'll do for 10-15 years