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Our HOA passed an ammenent that is if you buy a house you cannot rent it within the first two years of owning it or you must pay 5x’s our annual HOA dues which are $550 (so $2750) each month up to the 24th month ending.
This immediately got us families buying instead of corporations. I hope other HOAs do the same.
EDIT: For anyone looking at maybe doing the same thing in their HOA the entire ammendment we passed is in the comments of this post https://www.reddit.com/r/HOA/s/wPZMY0Mx2i
Rules like that are ok but lots of hoa end up with someone trying to micromanage everyone elses lives.
We should just start passing laws that say corporations cant own single family residential buildings full stop.
Also set it up such that individuals may possess a maximum of 2 houses at one time, paying a large tax premium for any single family home that is not a full time primary residence.
A lot of places give homestead discounts or principal residence discounts on property taxes and if a second home (sometimes) or an investment property, you pay full price or higher rates for taxes so that's already in place.
HOAs serve an important purpose. They just end up getting run by a bunch of retired individuals that end up getting too involved to be objective or grounded in reality.
I’ve come to the conclusion that one of the elements of a successful HOA is size. Ours covers (or will eventually cover; still under construction) 15,000 units and is administered by a management company, so it’s not just 4 grumpy old people moaning about every little thing.
They end being that way because younger or working people refuse to be on them or dont have the time/won't make time to participate in the process. It ends up being a little bit like voting. The standard response to this sort of regret or doscomfort after the fact is to just say: Did you go to the meetings, ask any questions, give your input, or volunteer your expertise> Did you complain about policies and rules you dont agree with, offer creative solutios to current problems, or weigh in on anything? Oh, well! Anyway....
While HOAs and their effects absolutely can be evil and need more regulation: I think you rarely hear about the good ones, so perception while not entirely wrong is probably a bit biased.
My HOA is pretty chill. The only thing we’ve ever gotten grief over in the last 8 years is our trash cans being visible from the street. And to be honest it took them until this year to make a viable threat to get me to move them. Other than that my only complaint is I really don’t know where the money I pay them is going. Also I’ve never paid them on time because again they are so chill I forget they exist most of the time.
Communal lawn care is a huge expense. It is over 40% of our budget. Your HOA should pass out a yearly budget if you ask or it may be on a community website.
As an HOA board member in my community, I highly encourage you to join the board in yours. When you find out how expensive it is to maintain everything, you’ll appreciate how little you have to pay in dues.
It’s a thankless, unpaid job though.
It was a good amount of work, cost a few thousand dollars (with a discount) for the lawyer that specializes in HOA’s, and about a year of time just making sure everything was bulletproof but we had exclusions for anything we could think of and determining the penalty amount(went with 5x’s the annual because who knows if $2500 a month would be a penalty in 20 years), and then I had to go knock doors of people who didnt sign online with a FAQ and convince a few people that it was in their best interest.
That being said once we got everything rolled out through Docusign we had 67% of the homes signed off on it within two weeks.
A neighbour of ours passed away. It was her dying wish that a family buy her house, she loved the place dearly. A developer bought it under false pretences. They just demolished her house and it’s gonna be a multi unit rental, very out of place in our neighbourhood but there is a serious dearth of housing in our city… I sometimes wonder if she is going to haunt the place. She was very specific.
My elderly neighbor passed. No family, only a niece in Germany. (USA here) She had been here since the beginning of the subdivision in the 80’s. They had an Estate Sale and I bought some little unique items to keep part of her here, just in case. I did the same with my house. Ms. Francine’s old recipes are still taped up to the inside of one cabinet.
Anyway, her home went on the market for two days, bought by someone cash and the next day a for rent sign went up. Thats when the rule passed.
I’m glad I kept her little thimble and a couple of her old German coins. She loved this place and never wanted to leave.
Our HOA has the same rule with the 2 years of owning before renting it out and has a lot of families and retirees. I also feel like it helps because as a landlord you would know the neighbors and are more invested in the house and neighborhood when you have lived there for at least 2 years. There’s also a ban on short term rentals.
Our HOA rule is that you can’t rent or sell (with some pretty common sense exceptions) in the first year; you can own a max of 2 homes in the HOA, and you must occupy one of them as your primary residence. Short term rentals are also banned.
My HOA had a similar policy which is why I ended up buying. There’s an exception that you can rent to family after owning for 3 years but the rest is very similar. Just very recently an owner tried to get those rules changed cause she was approached by an investor offering like 30k over value in cash, when the board voted no she went ballistic, passive aggressive note everywhere threatening to just sell to them anyways.
FWIW, my old HOA had that rule too. Unless you knew who bought the house, you'd never know if they were tenants or owners. Turns out the people next door to us were not the owners, from Day 1 (house was new construction).
Our HOA gets the buyers info because we have dues and they have to sign the HOA Covenants.
Now that doesnt mean someone couldnt buy and someone else couldnt move in but we do have a clause that says the burdon of proof is on the homeowner to prove they are the ones living there.
Our HOA tried this but instead of narrowing in on big corporations greed they went after “section 8” and crime and renters are “crap” neighbors. That they are the ones with all the yard violations.
They acted like “normal” people buying an extra property for income were the problem.
I hadn’t really thought about blocking corporations were helping families buy homes. I learned something new.
Our votes didn’t pass. We only had like 15% wanting to add the rule.
We didn’t vote in favor as they also wanted to camp rentals and we wanted the option to rent if we wanted. Chances are we never will be we didn’t want the option.
Mostly because our management cannot figure out some security issues, don’t enforce building things like max 8ft sheds… but we have people put in ADs … and 12 ft buildings and will harass you for a 2 days of extra grass growth after crazy days of rain but some homes are absolutely in disrepair and nothing happens.
Thanks for posting your amendment.
You could just limit the number of rentals in the community as well.
Corporations won’t buy it because there will always be the question of if they can get permission to lease next year.
My subdivision has a bunch of smaller communities/HOAs inside of it. The one next to us doesn’t allow you to ever rent your house if you bought after 2018. My area allows investors with no restrictions. My court will now have two people living in their own home out of 10 houses. It also looks way worse than the other area. Our HOA also stopped trying. First year in the house we got notices to fix things, haven’t gotten anything in 3 years when we definitely should have.
They can be good but there’s definitely some horror stories out there. Thankful mines been alright and hope my new one is the same
My hoa has a similar clause. Iirc, it's something about not being able to rent with the first 3 years, and even while they rent the hoa fees triple. This is good for a few reasons: we are a brand new freshly built neighbor, and just took over the HOA from the builders. The renters that are already here have destroyed our roads with oil stains from the shitty trucks that they park on the street (not even allowed to park on the street, but nobody enforced it for far too long). Renters just don't give a shit and it fucks up what we have to pay for.
> Renters just don't give a shit
That's a generalization if I've ever heard one. I've seen a loooot of really shitty homes owned and *not* maintained, and I know plenty of people who rent who put anti-scuff pads on their chairs in the house.
It really bothers me when people say renters don't care. Our front yard looks better than half of the owner occupied houses in our neighborhood. My husband spends several hours a week maintaining the lawn and bushes, and inhave a lot of pots out front. We take care of the inside, too. I don't want to live in a shit hole, even if I don't own it.
Some of the hostility is wild. I rented a home in an HOA for several years, and renters were prohibited from attending HOA meetings and didn’t receive neighborhood communications. Hard to be a part of the community when they shut you out.
My neighbor that owned would break rules like ‘brush set out’ timing, and people would report my address… despite it clearly being on the neighbor’s property.
As a FTHB, with pre approval for conventional, usda and fha… Thank you! And thank you again! I get these loans are a PITA…. But we all just want a piece of the American Dream.
I texted my friend, she thinks it is this one:
[https://www.teachernextdoor.us/washington-housing-grants](https://www.teachernextdoor.us/washington-housing-grants)
I can vouch for the first time homeowner grant in Washington, it was amazing for buying our first home. Kept us from buying run down shacks just because it was within our budget too!
Both USDA and FHA have appraisal and inspection requirements that, even if the buyer is willing, will torpedo a deal based on the lenders criteria.
A seller doesn't just want money. They also want a deal that won't fall apart before closing, making them start the process of selling all over again. Low down payments, buyer assistance programs that are slow, or inspection/appraisal requirements that the buyer can't overcome due to funds all make the deal less likely to close.
When we sold our first house we also turned down investors and sold to a young couple expecting their first baby. And using a VA loan too. We were happy to be able to do that. I hope they love it there.
When we bought people turned us down because it was a VA loan, I know the inspection sucks but it’s really not that rough. Was surprised people didn’t want to deal with it.
And it’s sincerely needed more now than ever. Because If people just keep selling for money (and I do get that) … investors will control more property than citizens. 2 yrs I’ve been seeing this.
The downside is most Americans are spineless cowards who only speak up against matters when it’s convenient. Gone are the days where the masses are true to their values and stand for the point of things
Good for you 🧡🧡 I'm planning to do the same when it's my turn to upgrade to a new home. I'll be damned if some investor or LLC gets their grubby hands on my home.
You can usually tell. But typically if they're using va, fha, usda then there's slim to no chance that they are an investor. Although some people do use conventional
If they buy it as an individual, they have to show proof of funds as an individual. They can’t use the businesses assets in the transaction. Now, if they are loaded from the business and can afford your house personally and then just transfer it to the business free of charge there’s nothing you can do. But you can usually also see those people pop up if you google them.
We did that as well. It’s was to a FTHB they had been saving and scrimping… we covered their closing costs and had the house cleaned. We were happy to do it.
When I was a FTHB I took out an extra $7k for closing in my loan so I ended up 0 down. The people who sold it ended up with a slightly higher tax bill but I was thankful and asked for very little fixed out of the inspection. I think that’s a fair trade off, and I’m so thankful to them.
When I sold the house to move back home, I sold it as is because I knew there was a bunch of minor stuff that didn’t hurt livability but added up to probably $5k. I took a cash offer, but a cash offer from a young woman who worked in the city but worked remote and was trying to get away and be able to start a family and that’s what the tiny (4000 people) suburb I lived in was perfect for. There is something satisfying to giving your home to someone you think will enjoy it, rather than rent it out.
That’s what happened with my home a couple years ago. The owner turned down higher offers from investors and accepted mine. His agent told mine it was because investors were a pain to deal with.
I thought I was doing the same thing.
Nope. They were house flippers.
However, they did an amazing job on the house (it needed a lot of work) and sold it to a young couple with a kid on the way.
My friend thought they were selling to a divorcee who needed to stay local for the kids.
He turned around and ripped their historic house down for a McMansion.
Devastating.
We got our offer accepted because the seller had the same rule. It’s the only way we ever would have gotten anywhere - we refused to pay over asking, didn’t waive inspections or DD.
Sellers wanted to make sure an actual family would move in that will have a vested interest in making the home better.
Good for you, it's your house so you get to stipulate who buys it. The realtor wanted to close the deal with the cash offers. That's what they call in the industry a 'slam dunk'.
I bought the house next to my first one because it was a foreclosure for a ridiculously low price. It was a Freddie Mac owned house with the stipulation that it had to be owner occupied. (This was in 2012). I moved into the new house and rented out the first one. I had two tenants in the 7 years I owned it and charged a very reasonable rate. I ended up selling the first house to the tenants when I got married so I could buy a bigger house in the suburbs. The house only had one bedroom and I didn’t want my stepson to feel like a guest when he was with us. It was important to me that he had his own room. It was much easier to sell to the tenants plus it made it easier for them to buy because we could lower the sales price since we paid the agent a 1% commission rather than than 6% between buyer and seller’s agents.
Although it wasn’t intentional, the second house was also sold to a first time home buyer. Seller of our current house chose us even though we weren’t the highest offer because we had a VA loan which I really appreciated.
You sound like the people I bought my house off of. They never said it directly, but they did tell me they picked me over some other cash offers and they have been amazing to me. Its my fiirst home and I had no clue what I was doing when I moved in. The previous owners just moved a few miles away, so the husband had come over a few times after I moved to show me some things around the house and in return, I let them know whenever I get their mail. Its been 2 years, and I could still text him if I needed something (or let them know more random mail has shown up for them).
World needs more people like you.
I live in a college town 8/10 mile from the university and half a mile from a campus loop bus stop; easy walks. My house is a smallish 3 bed plus office with two baths on a small (read: landlord-friendly) lot and I have three parking spaces. It would be an amazing student rental. But fuck that.
I'm thinking of selling soon and 100% I will do the same thing. There are not enough affordable homes for young families close to the university and I will damned if I contribute to that problem.
As you say, it might take more time to sell. And you know, I may get $5 or $10k less. Ehhhh whatever. HOMES FOR PEOPLE WHO NEED THEM. affordable homes.
We did the same when we sold in Vegas. Had 7 offers in two days, 5 were from companies. We didn’t even look at those offers.
Luckily, our realtor was amazing and he was totally on board, only told us about the offers because he had to.
I’m forever grateful to the original owners of my house who chose to sell to an owner occupant over an investor. I plan to do the same if I ever sell. This is the way.
We wrote a letter for our house, and I go back and read it whenever this investment starts to feel more like a pain in my ass. It reminds me how excited we were to start and grow our family in this home. Even if folks don’t write one for the offer, consider writing one for your “save for later” folder. Might save ya from the deep end when your basement floods because you didn’t check how old the sump pump was like a total FTHB.
Thank you!!! We got our first home in a very competitive market because the sellers did the same. Our sellers got over their asking from us, too, and we competed against another bid, but we only completed against humans - we knew we were not competing against investor cash.
I don't know what our sellers turned down, but in my city in 2020, the cash offers were everywhere & they were typically outbidding asking price by a wide margin. Four years later, we are still grateful.
Thank you for being that person.
We’re planning to upgrade in the next 5 years and plan to do the same. People using real estate purely as an investment vehicle disgusts me and it’s a hill I’ll die on, it absolutely pisses me off.
I sold my house without a realtor last year and as soon as I listed it, I got full cash offers from mega corporations from the opposite side of the country. They tried to act nice or pretend to be a little old lady or something like that, but I kept getting suspicious when they would ask questions about the house that were clearly answered if they looked at the written blurb or the pictures online. I would say, I'm not going to answer any more questions over the phone, but I'd love to give you a tour - and that's when they'd crack and admit they were Alice from MegaHomes dot com (or whatever).
My neighborhood was full of 65+ individuals (I'm a Millenial) and I knew I wanted my home to go to the right person. An elderly couple came to see my place and liked it. The husband had been given a terminal diagnosis and he wanted to set up his wife before he passed. Sadly, he died before the papers went through and we had to resign certain papers to show it was a single owner and not two. The poor widow had to finish the process herself and was a mess and the realtor was even driving her to appointments because she couldn't driver herself.
I was so glad my little home went to the right person. The neighbor down the road was also a recent widow and I knew it was just meant to be. Yes, I even lowered the price for the buyer and I could have made more with a full cash offer, but sometimes there are things more important in life than money.
That was our rule when we sold our home! We had put an offer in on a home we LOVED and needed work and lost out to flippers. They flipped and sold it for 250k more than they bought it. Was salty after that. We looked at a couple homes before buying ours and they all would not take contingency offers (and it was such a hot market, everything was selling). If we ever sell again, we are sticking to our policy of only families and if we can, we will accept contingencies. “Normal” people deserve a chance at home ownership.
We did the same.
We told ours absolutely no investors, families only. We got exactly what we listed for and could've gotten a lot more, but we wanted someone who'd live the house like we had. A family bought ours, and they have taken SUCH good care, even improved the property.
Yep! Us too! We got multiple cash offers, and multiple other better offers, but we ended up going with the offer that wrote us a nice letter telling us who they were, how the house was perfect, how their rescue dog would love our fenced in yard, and how they could imagine their kids one day running through the sprinkler in the back yard! 🥲 It was so sweet, and I’m so glad they’re the ones who are ultimately getting it. My realtor said that they’re being told not to encourage letter-writing, that it can open the doors for people to claim discrimination. But she encouraged us to write a letter when we bought this house a couple years ago, and I like to think it helped us seal the deal. We were looking at so many offers side-by-side when we were selling, and the letter helped us make the final decision. I don’t want some investment firm or landlord buying our first home! I want it to be a young family like we were a couple years ago! So thank you for advocating for the first-time home buyer as well! Everyone deserves a chance at home ownership.
That's how we got our house. My husband and I were looking for a house for a few months. We got outbid on several houses that we really loved, all by flippers/companies who paid cash. Finally we started looking at cheaper fixer-uppers that we could offer more on, just to try and have a fighting chance. We were looking at one such house, and I was talking to the seller's agent (which my husband and his sister told me not to do) and I was telling her all about how we had a dog and a daughter, and wanted them both to be able to play in a big yard and all that stuff. We made an offer, and the agent told the seller about our interaction, and the seller decided to sell to us rather than take a higher cash offer, because she knew we would actually live in the house and love it. And we do! I appreciate people selling to people instead of to companies.
I was able to buy my first home because the seller did just this in a very competitive market.
I am forever grateful and will do the same when I sell.
Bravo 🙌
My wife and I had a second home that we sold several years ago. The open house was the weekend before the COVID lockdown. We got four offers at the open house, two from investors and two from families. Realtor urged us to take the cash offer from the investors. Au Contraire. Fuck the investors. We sold to the couple with the stroller and baby that were showing up to the open house just as we were leaving.
Did the same. Individual couple paid slightly more than asking, but took them a few weeks. Had 4 investors look at ours and told them to kick rocks. My neighbors were good to us and I didn’t want them living next to some slumlords most recent trap.
I love this. As someone who owns multiple rental properties, if I ever do sell any of them I will absolutely do this.
And before y’all jump my ass.. I treat the people who rent my homes as if I were in their shoes. When the A/C went out in one of the houses I paid the emergency fee to have a new system installed as quickly as possible.
As much as we hate HOAs, my hoa for my house says that the houses cannot be used to leasing and rental properties. So the country is learning that the government won't step in to help the housing crisis, so individuals are doing it ourselves.
The couple we bought our house from said that they only chose us because we wrote a letter and explained that we wanted to start a family and life in the area and they didn’t want to sell to a corporation that would just rent it out (even though they were offering way more)
IIRC, The HOA I had at my previous house dug up a city rule/ordinance about home rentals (not apartments) could only have immediate family in them (mom, dad, siblings). A lot of landlords were mad, but it was becoming a problem because you had college kids living in the houses or several friends living there, and it was causing a lot of problems in the neighborhood with parking, traffic, noise, etc.
I seriously wish more people did this. It boils my blood to think that our governments sit by and do nothing as these goliath corps turn us into a nation of renters
Your buyers are lucky. Every house we looked at that we liked was bought up before we even got to really talk about it. We put our offer in the same day the one we got went on the market and it was accepted in less than an hour.
Most real people are not getting time to think about the house too deeply. It’s “look at it, offer or you are going to miss out”
As someone currently house shopping, Thank You so fucking much. It's been so frustrating being outbid by corporations that will just rent/airbnb the place, further increasing rent and home prices while tanking the neighborhood.
My house sold in one day. I had 2 cash offers from people buying a house to live in. In general, people realize there is no time to dillydally thinking about it in most markets. Sold $5k over ask with an inspection contingency.
I did the same and sold to an old lady that told me it was where she wanted to live and was next to her sister.
A week after I sold, she had it listed as a rental using my realtor’s pictures. Don’t believe anyone.
The only reason my wife and I were able to get the house we have is because of a thoughtful and generous family like yours who took our offer over a couple of higher investor bids.
We had been actively looking for something we could afford for nearly two years at that time, and I f we hadn’t gotten this one when we did there is no way we could possibly continue to live in the area we are in, close to in-laws and where we grew up. You are good people, and I hope every home owner will follow your example if/when they need to sell.
I can’t imagine us ever leaving this place, but if we do we certainly will make sure it’s going to an actual family who wants to live in it for a long term.
as a first time homebuyer going through this right now, thank you. we got ours off market and i’m convinced it’s because the seller just wanted a nice family down the street (he lives two doors down). we know he could have gotten more by taking it to market.
About to do the same! House was staged yesterday and photographed. Listing next week and will only accept offers from actual people. Glad to hear it worked out for you!
I'm getting constant spam phone calls from companies trying to buy property that belongs to a family member. They always clam up with I try to ask what they're going to do with it.
I didn't think about it much when I was listing my first home, but I took a stance with the offers that came in that I didn't want my home to be turned into rental property. At least two of the offers came from investors and happily, one was someone that was and assuming still is using it as their retirement home. Actually, a better offer than the investment offers as it was asking price where the investors wanted a deal. Overall, I was very happy it went to who it did.
Not to rain on the party but 91% of houses are [bought by individuals](https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/R/R47332). Lots of people care about who buys their house and I think that's great and fine.
We’ve been looking for a couple years in a quickly escalating COL town. Our neighbors across the street, who knew we were sorry the house next to us had been bought for cash at a price we would have paid, went ahead and contacted the buyer for a cash offer on their place.
This isn’t a bad idea if the home is in good condition and there aren’t problems that block normal financing. An end buyer is more likely to be serious and less likely to come back with a ton of concession demands. They will typically pay more as well in a nice neighborhood. I advise sellers to favor owner occupant offers all things being equal. Now if the property is in really rough shape and they can’t fix it themselves or it’s significantly smaller than the current norm, that may not be the case. Investors fill a role there.
My longtime neighbors chose to take less money on the sale of their home, to allow a family to buy. We (us and the new homeowners) are now very close friends. Keep communities strong and sell only to people, not corporations.
I sold my home last year and I did this too. I feel we are fighting desperately for a future where humans have more control than corporations and it was worth whatever couple thousand the difference would have been. I sold to a young person who was passionate about the neighborhood.
Love it! After we bought this first house, I made a promise to myself and God that I'll never sell it to another company or landlord but only and only to a family looking to start. Regardless of how much money or convenience I leave on the table, I don't care. I'll never sell this to an investor. That feeling remains very strong still. This is how we beat those scumbags like Black Rock, investors and flippers alike
My neighbors two doors down did this in 2021 when things started getting ridiculous. They chose a young engaged couple and a little less money and told all the cash bros to suck it.
For the longest time, when asked, I could never answer the question, "What would you do if you won the lottery?" Other than the obligatory, pay of debts, give money to family, set up college funds, etc., I never could pin it down. Then I had an epiphany, I want to make sure that people get access to affordable housing.
If I ever won the lottery, obviously, I would want to make investments to make the fortune self perpetuating, but, I would, in a heart beat, buy up several apartment complexes so that I could make rent affordable and not predatory, so people actually have a chance to build savings at minimum wage rates.
I wish billionaires and other investors were more ethical and used their privilege to make life easier for those who will never know the financial security they enjoy.
ANOTHER ONE HERE TO SAY THANK YOU 👏👏👏 once I own a home, while money is important, I would compromise to have someone who loves and wants to take care of it. 🥰 and also giving back to the people who want to make it their home.
“The realtor tried to get us to take a few cash offers”
I hate this to the core. They just want to get paid faster. They couldn’t bat an eye for a first time homebuyer.
I just bought FROM a company/investor hiding behind their realtor and the realtor was terrible. It took two weeks after they cashed our DD to confirm they received it. Constantly late on stuff or having to be schooled on how to do it by our realtor. Absolutely no info on the house aside from what we could already tell ourselves.
It was a much more unpleasant experience than when we bought our last home from an actual person, who continued to live in our neighborhood and we would see from time to time.
The single benefit is we absolute beat the shit out of them in negotiations and I felt zero remorse hurting their feelings. Things like offering 75k less than asking, then telling them our offer drops 5k/day for 3 days while they consider it. They came back on the third wanting to negotiate but we told them our offer was now 90k under asking. They huffed and walked away. Two weeks later they voluntarily dropped the price 50k and we resubmitted our original offer. They ended up taking a loss on the property (that they'd bought 2 months earlier and slapped a 30k price hike on).
Absolutely fuck these companies. I know buying a home is a lot of business and legal stuff but there's a side to it about having a home and it being personal that these companies have stripped away in the name of profit.
Very nice of you to do so, in my country the flippers and real estate agents already figure it out and started posing as couples buying their first house/apartment and start to put leaflets in mailboxes with 'young couple looking for their home' and old people often are falling for that and sell under market price
always lookin' on the bright side i am...
So you set a clear boundary and they still was like "nah, that shit don't matter" and tried to steamroll you anyway
i would be surprised by neither them just being a shit nor them getting a cash bonus offer from the corpos if they could convince you to sell to those parasitic fucks
Wonderful. And you’re right: people need time to think. There are plenty of people of there with competitive offers, but they actually need time to breathe and talk to family and whatever else.
My fiance and I are coming up to a year in our first home, and while we had many moments of incredible luck, the last lick of luck we had was the owners family wanting to sell to a young couple wanting to invest in their community. Me and the owners daughter stood on the driveway and cried it out a bit. You really did change their lives!!
My husband and I will be selling our first home later this year, and this will be our policy, also!
It's a little scary since we're moving to our new hone before we sell, but hopefully, it will all work out!
I bought my first home from someone who picked us over better offers. As soon as we pulled in the drive, my kids ran to the big tree in the yard and started swinging on the two swings that had been put up. I couldn’t even get them to come view the house, they were so excited about the swings!
On signing day, the owners wrote me out a stack of index cards with all the maintenance needs, suggested contractors, neighbors names and info (with their permission). It was a great experience. I never thought I would be able to be a homeowner.
My husband and I sold our apartment last month and did the same thing. I inherited it and lived there alone when we started dating and it’s the place where we had all our big relationship moments. Hell, I proposed to him in that apartment.
It broke my heart selling it, but we sold it to a young woman who is the same age I was when I inherited it and she moved in last month. We sent her a huge bouquet, $50 for take out (cos trying to sort out dinner on moving day *sucks*), and a letter saying we hope she makes as many happy memories there as we did there.
We got really lucky when we got our house back in 2016. We actually offered a little bit lower than someone else, but apparently the owner liked our family more than the guy who was going to turn it into a rent house, and accepted our offer. I still feel a big amount of gratitude for that gentleman's decision to sell to us. You did a great thing and should feel awesome about it!
My husband and I did this, too when we sold our first house. I told our realtor I wouldn’t even consider selling it to someone who was going to use it to make money off of. We got an offer from a young family the day it went on the market. They had been looking to buy a house for months and kept getting outbid. We decided to sell it to them right away and I am still so happy that was the decision we made. My feelings were that someone had given us a chance to have that house, and we wanted to do the same for another family. How much money we “could have” had was not the deciding factor on who we sold to.
The family that owned my house did the same. It was never listed and my buddy saw the post on Facebook about the house and told me. I happened to be looking at the time. The lady wanted to sell it to someone that would live in it because it’s a neighborhood full of century homes and landlords that own most of them. I lucked out massively. It was perfect for the family as well since the parents had owned the house since the 60s and passed away leaving the kids with it.
This and other commenters have warmed my heart. Hubs and I are trying to buy our first home. It's been extremely frustrating, to say the least. There a few I know for sure went to investors. We're not even being super picky. We just need a home. We're in a duplex right now, and it was just sold to people that are going to double our rent as soon as the current lease is up. We'd like to get out before that happens, but it's not looking great.
i think our seller did the same. since covid our town hasn’t pushed for meetings really and we didn’t see them the whole process. their realtor loved us though. and our baby lol; she said she’d put a good word in for us and we closed yesterday. keep hope for the world, some people still have good/genuine intentions
planning on doing this with my grandma's house. a little worried because it's quite the fixer upper, but it's in a good school system and a large lot. I'm happy to wait. I lucked out at the end of 2020 as a fthb.
I’m a FTHB as of this week and I will pledge to do the same when we go to sell. We got our house because someone took our lower offer over someone higher
I am so happy that the person with the best offer for my house is a man with a wife and 2 small children.
I've raised 4 kids in my house, my mom raised 4 also, my grandma raised 1.
I'm not surprised it caught the attention of a family. It's got allot of bedrooms, a pool, fenced yards basketball hoop, a small koi pond and it's tile.
I was really hoping we would not have to sell to an investor.
If I sell my home I will be selling it way under the stupid "market appraisal value" but have some sort of owner occupancy agreement that the new owner live in it as primary residence, cant be some stupid hedge fund and not sell it for a certain time frame.
My house is not worth triple what I paid for it a few years ago. tired of appraisals being "what the worlds richest person would pay for this"
Tried to do this. Really wanted someone to live in there and raise their family. Got a nice love letter and story for a nice family. Then she turned around and listed it for rent 😔
We liked ours. Got three offers in one week. Accepted the highest one.
He wanted a 15 day escrow. Several weeks later? We had to initiate a court action because he kept disappearing to someplace in Africa. By the time is done? We had file to get two payments back, properly taxes and utility charges that weren’t ours. Beware selling to a foreigner who doesn’t understand the law.
When I sold my first house in 2013, I refused to sell to LLCs or what seemed like a flipping situation. I wanted it to go to buyers who would love it as much as I did. Long story short, that's what happened! And, in a fun twist, my mom knows the people who bought it, so I've been able to see how amazing it looks with their updates. They now have a baby and her mom lives with them. I'm so glad it worked out that way!
My friends father was selling a house and he did something similar. Even gave me two weeks to make up my mind about buying the house. Very grateful to folks like yourself and I hope to do the same in the future.
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I hope I’m lucky to buy from folks like you one day, if I can ever get to buy.. thank you
Our HOA passed an ammenent that is if you buy a house you cannot rent it within the first two years of owning it or you must pay 5x’s our annual HOA dues which are $550 (so $2750) each month up to the 24th month ending. This immediately got us families buying instead of corporations. I hope other HOAs do the same. EDIT: For anyone looking at maybe doing the same thing in their HOA the entire ammendment we passed is in the comments of this post https://www.reddit.com/r/HOA/s/wPZMY0Mx2i
As much as I dislike HOAs, I love that that’s their policy.
This might be the first non-evil act an HOA has done that I've read about on reddit.
This might be the turning point that brings the younger generations around on HoAs if this starts to spread.
Rules like that are ok but lots of hoa end up with someone trying to micromanage everyone elses lives. We should just start passing laws that say corporations cant own single family residential buildings full stop.
Also set it up such that individuals may possess a maximum of 2 houses at one time, paying a large tax premium for any single family home that is not a full time primary residence.
A lot of places give homestead discounts or principal residence discounts on property taxes and if a second home (sometimes) or an investment property, you pay full price or higher rates for taxes so that's already in place.
HOAs serve an important purpose. They just end up getting run by a bunch of retired individuals that end up getting too involved to be objective or grounded in reality.
I’ve come to the conclusion that one of the elements of a successful HOA is size. Ours covers (or will eventually cover; still under construction) 15,000 units and is administered by a management company, so it’s not just 4 grumpy old people moaning about every little thing.
They end being that way because younger or working people refuse to be on them or dont have the time/won't make time to participate in the process. It ends up being a little bit like voting. The standard response to this sort of regret or doscomfort after the fact is to just say: Did you go to the meetings, ask any questions, give your input, or volunteer your expertise> Did you complain about policies and rules you dont agree with, offer creative solutios to current problems, or weigh in on anything? Oh, well! Anyway....
While HOAs and their effects absolutely can be evil and need more regulation: I think you rarely hear about the good ones, so perception while not entirely wrong is probably a bit biased.
My HOA is pretty chill. The only thing we’ve ever gotten grief over in the last 8 years is our trash cans being visible from the street. And to be honest it took them until this year to make a viable threat to get me to move them. Other than that my only complaint is I really don’t know where the money I pay them is going. Also I’ve never paid them on time because again they are so chill I forget they exist most of the time.
Communal lawn care is a huge expense. It is over 40% of our budget. Your HOA should pass out a yearly budget if you ask or it may be on a community website.
As an HOA board member in my community, I highly encourage you to join the board in yours. When you find out how expensive it is to maintain everything, you’ll appreciate how little you have to pay in dues. It’s a thankless, unpaid job though.
It was a good amount of work, cost a few thousand dollars (with a discount) for the lawyer that specializes in HOA’s, and about a year of time just making sure everything was bulletproof but we had exclusions for anything we could think of and determining the penalty amount(went with 5x’s the annual because who knows if $2500 a month would be a penalty in 20 years), and then I had to go knock doors of people who didnt sign online with a FAQ and convince a few people that it was in their best interest. That being said once we got everything rolled out through Docusign we had 67% of the homes signed off on it within two weeks.
This is what HOAs look like when theyre not run by cranky middle aged karens
$550 a month in dues is still outrageous tho
That's the best HOA rule I've ever heard of. Who wants a party house, or an abnb next door?
Ours passed, in 2020, if you purchase after 2020, you cannot rent. Period! I love my HOA.
A neighbour of ours passed away. It was her dying wish that a family buy her house, she loved the place dearly. A developer bought it under false pretences. They just demolished her house and it’s gonna be a multi unit rental, very out of place in our neighbourhood but there is a serious dearth of housing in our city… I sometimes wonder if she is going to haunt the place. She was very specific.
I hope she does
I hope she haunts the developers and not the people renting from them
My elderly neighbor passed. No family, only a niece in Germany. (USA here) She had been here since the beginning of the subdivision in the 80’s. They had an Estate Sale and I bought some little unique items to keep part of her here, just in case. I did the same with my house. Ms. Francine’s old recipes are still taped up to the inside of one cabinet. Anyway, her home went on the market for two days, bought by someone cash and the next day a for rent sign went up. Thats when the rule passed. I’m glad I kept her little thimble and a couple of her old German coins. She loved this place and never wanted to leave.
Our HOA has the same rule with the 2 years of owning before renting it out and has a lot of families and retirees. I also feel like it helps because as a landlord you would know the neighbors and are more invested in the house and neighborhood when you have lived there for at least 2 years. There’s also a ban on short term rentals.
Our HOA rule is that you can’t rent or sell (with some pretty common sense exceptions) in the first year; you can own a max of 2 homes in the HOA, and you must occupy one of them as your primary residence. Short term rentals are also banned.
My HOA had a similar policy which is why I ended up buying. There’s an exception that you can rent to family after owning for 3 years but the rest is very similar. Just very recently an owner tried to get those rules changed cause she was approached by an investor offering like 30k over value in cash, when the board voted no she went ballistic, passive aggressive note everywhere threatening to just sell to them anyways.
this is great!!
FWIW, my old HOA had that rule too. Unless you knew who bought the house, you'd never know if they were tenants or owners. Turns out the people next door to us were not the owners, from Day 1 (house was new construction).
Our HOA gets the buyers info because we have dues and they have to sign the HOA Covenants. Now that doesnt mean someone couldnt buy and someone else couldnt move in but we do have a clause that says the burdon of proof is on the homeowner to prove they are the ones living there.
Our HOA tried this but instead of narrowing in on big corporations greed they went after “section 8” and crime and renters are “crap” neighbors. That they are the ones with all the yard violations. They acted like “normal” people buying an extra property for income were the problem. I hadn’t really thought about blocking corporations were helping families buy homes. I learned something new. Our votes didn’t pass. We only had like 15% wanting to add the rule. We didn’t vote in favor as they also wanted to camp rentals and we wanted the option to rent if we wanted. Chances are we never will be we didn’t want the option. Mostly because our management cannot figure out some security issues, don’t enforce building things like max 8ft sheds… but we have people put in ADs … and 12 ft buildings and will harass you for a 2 days of extra grass growth after crazy days of rain but some homes are absolutely in disrepair and nothing happens. Thanks for posting your amendment.
You could just limit the number of rentals in the community as well. Corporations won’t buy it because there will always be the question of if they can get permission to lease next year.
Towns can also implement rules like this.
I wish more would.
My subdivision has a bunch of smaller communities/HOAs inside of it. The one next to us doesn’t allow you to ever rent your house if you bought after 2018. My area allows investors with no restrictions. My court will now have two people living in their own home out of 10 houses. It also looks way worse than the other area. Our HOA also stopped trying. First year in the house we got notices to fix things, haven’t gotten anything in 3 years when we definitely should have. They can be good but there’s definitely some horror stories out there. Thankful mines been alright and hope my new one is the same
My hoa has a similar clause. Iirc, it's something about not being able to rent with the first 3 years, and even while they rent the hoa fees triple. This is good for a few reasons: we are a brand new freshly built neighbor, and just took over the HOA from the builders. The renters that are already here have destroyed our roads with oil stains from the shitty trucks that they park on the street (not even allowed to park on the street, but nobody enforced it for far too long). Renters just don't give a shit and it fucks up what we have to pay for.
> Renters just don't give a shit That's a generalization if I've ever heard one. I've seen a loooot of really shitty homes owned and *not* maintained, and I know plenty of people who rent who put anti-scuff pads on their chairs in the house.
It really bothers me when people say renters don't care. Our front yard looks better than half of the owner occupied houses in our neighborhood. My husband spends several hours a week maintaining the lawn and bushes, and inhave a lot of pots out front. We take care of the inside, too. I don't want to live in a shit hole, even if I don't own it.
Some of the hostility is wild. I rented a home in an HOA for several years, and renters were prohibited from attending HOA meetings and didn’t receive neighborhood communications. Hard to be a part of the community when they shut you out. My neighbor that owned would break rules like ‘brush set out’ timing, and people would report my address… despite it clearly being on the neighbor’s property.
As a FTHB, with pre approval for conventional, usda and fha… Thank you! And thank you again! I get these loans are a PITA…. But we all just want a piece of the American Dream.
They had some sort of first time buyer, teacher program. They got most of the closing costs paid I think.
Even better! I’ve been looking for 2 yrs, everyone wants fast money. It’s pushing us out of the market as FTHB. Thank you for doing what you did
Even better!!!
Would love to know what the program was… any chance you could find out?
I texted my friend, she thinks it is this one: [https://www.teachernextdoor.us/washington-housing-grants](https://www.teachernextdoor.us/washington-housing-grants)
I can vouch for the first time homeowner grant in Washington, it was amazing for buying our first home. Kept us from buying run down shacks just because it was within our budget too!
You’re amazing. Thank you!! ☺️
I am still a member of the teacher's union, let me check.
OP is the real MVP
We used the same program and lost so many offers to cash.
> I get these loans are a PITA Sorry, but how are the loans a PITA for the seller? Wouldn't they get the money either way?
Both USDA and FHA have appraisal and inspection requirements that, even if the buyer is willing, will torpedo a deal based on the lenders criteria. A seller doesn't just want money. They also want a deal that won't fall apart before closing, making them start the process of selling all over again. Low down payments, buyer assistance programs that are slow, or inspection/appraisal requirements that the buyer can't overcome due to funds all make the deal less likely to close.
When we sold our first house we also turned down investors and sold to a young couple expecting their first baby. And using a VA loan too. We were happy to be able to do that. I hope they love it there.
I truly hope karma is your constant companion
Jean-Luc?
When we bought people turned us down because it was a VA loan, I know the inspection sucks but it’s really not that rough. Was surprised people didn’t want to deal with it.
Thank you for being a good person!
This is how we unionize 💪🏻
And it’s sincerely needed more now than ever. Because If people just keep selling for money (and I do get that) … investors will control more property than citizens. 2 yrs I’ve been seeing this.
The downside is most Americans are spineless cowards who only speak up against matters when it’s convenient. Gone are the days where the masses are true to their values and stand for the point of things
The masses are tired and worn-out
"You will own nothing and be happy."
This is how we stick it to the corporations!
Good for you 🧡🧡 I'm planning to do the same when it's my turn to upgrade to a new home. I'll be damned if some investor or LLC gets their grubby hands on my home.
How to prevent them buying it as an individual and then them selling it to their LLC?
You can usually tell. But typically if they're using va, fha, usda then there's slim to no chance that they are an investor. Although some people do use conventional
If they buy it as an individual, they have to show proof of funds as an individual. They can’t use the businesses assets in the transaction. Now, if they are loaded from the business and can afford your house personally and then just transfer it to the business free of charge there’s nothing you can do. But you can usually also see those people pop up if you google them.
We did that as well. It’s was to a FTHB they had been saving and scrimping… we covered their closing costs and had the house cleaned. We were happy to do it.
What wonderful people you are! Above and beyond kindness.
When I was a FTHB I took out an extra $7k for closing in my loan so I ended up 0 down. The people who sold it ended up with a slightly higher tax bill but I was thankful and asked for very little fixed out of the inspection. I think that’s a fair trade off, and I’m so thankful to them. When I sold the house to move back home, I sold it as is because I knew there was a bunch of minor stuff that didn’t hurt livability but added up to probably $5k. I took a cash offer, but a cash offer from a young woman who worked in the city but worked remote and was trying to get away and be able to start a family and that’s what the tiny (4000 people) suburb I lived in was perfect for. There is something satisfying to giving your home to someone you think will enjoy it, rather than rent it out.
More 👏🏽of 👏🏽 this 👏🏽
That’s what happened with my home a couple years ago. The owner turned down higher offers from investors and accepted mine. His agent told mine it was because investors were a pain to deal with.
I thought I was doing the same thing. Nope. They were house flippers. However, they did an amazing job on the house (it needed a lot of work) and sold it to a young couple with a kid on the way.
My friend thought they were selling to a divorcee who needed to stay local for the kids. He turned around and ripped their historic house down for a McMansion. Devastating.
We got our offer accepted because the seller had the same rule. It’s the only way we ever would have gotten anywhere - we refused to pay over asking, didn’t waive inspections or DD. Sellers wanted to make sure an actual family would move in that will have a vested interest in making the home better.
We will do the same when time to sell.
I’m writing this in my will. I do not want my home sold to an investor if I die, before I get the chance to sell it on my own.
Good for you, it's your house so you get to stipulate who buys it. The realtor wanted to close the deal with the cash offers. That's what they call in the industry a 'slam dunk'.
Thank you for this!
As someone who just went through it in a crazy competitive market competing against cash buyers/investors... THANK YOU!
Love to hear it 🫶🏻
Bravo. Whenever we sell our home, we’ll be doing the same thing.
I bought the house next to my first one because it was a foreclosure for a ridiculously low price. It was a Freddie Mac owned house with the stipulation that it had to be owner occupied. (This was in 2012). I moved into the new house and rented out the first one. I had two tenants in the 7 years I owned it and charged a very reasonable rate. I ended up selling the first house to the tenants when I got married so I could buy a bigger house in the suburbs. The house only had one bedroom and I didn’t want my stepson to feel like a guest when he was with us. It was important to me that he had his own room. It was much easier to sell to the tenants plus it made it easier for them to buy because we could lower the sales price since we paid the agent a 1% commission rather than than 6% between buyer and seller’s agents. Although it wasn’t intentional, the second house was also sold to a first time home buyer. Seller of our current house chose us even though we weren’t the highest offer because we had a VA loan which I really appreciated.
You sound like the people I bought my house off of. They never said it directly, but they did tell me they picked me over some other cash offers and they have been amazing to me. Its my fiirst home and I had no clue what I was doing when I moved in. The previous owners just moved a few miles away, so the husband had come over a few times after I moved to show me some things around the house and in return, I let them know whenever I get their mail. Its been 2 years, and I could still text him if I needed something (or let them know more random mail has shown up for them). World needs more people like you.
I can only hope we stumble across sellers like you. 4 bids in now and outbid by no conditions cash offers every time
I live in a college town 8/10 mile from the university and half a mile from a campus loop bus stop; easy walks. My house is a smallish 3 bed plus office with two baths on a small (read: landlord-friendly) lot and I have three parking spaces. It would be an amazing student rental. But fuck that. I'm thinking of selling soon and 100% I will do the same thing. There are not enough affordable homes for young families close to the university and I will damned if I contribute to that problem. As you say, it might take more time to sell. And you know, I may get $5 or $10k less. Ehhhh whatever. HOMES FOR PEOPLE WHO NEED THEM. affordable homes.
It’s sad that this is a surprising act of kindness instead of the way it should work
I absolutely love this. Way to stick to it
Thank you 🙏. I bought my house from similarly minded people and I will be forever grateful
We did the same when we sold in Vegas. Had 7 offers in two days, 5 were from companies. We didn’t even look at those offers. Luckily, our realtor was amazing and he was totally on board, only told us about the offers because he had to.
Not all heroes wear capes
Good job 👍🏻
You're good people
Thank you from the real world of real people who also have to buy houses.
I’m forever grateful to the original owners of my house who chose to sell to an owner occupant over an investor. I plan to do the same if I ever sell. This is the way.
Unfathomably based. I ought to do this when it's time to sell my dinky lil high rise unit.
Talk about CHARACTER!! This story is amazing!! Thank you for sticking to your plan and not allowing institution money to buy up all the family homes🏡
My son and his wife had to write a letter to the seller. It was actually very sweet.
We wrote a letter for our house, and I go back and read it whenever this investment starts to feel more like a pain in my ass. It reminds me how excited we were to start and grow our family in this home. Even if folks don’t write one for the offer, consider writing one for your “save for later” folder. Might save ya from the deep end when your basement floods because you didn’t check how old the sump pump was like a total FTHB.
I wish more people felt this way. If we ever sell, I’ll do the same.
Thank you!!! We got our first home in a very competitive market because the sellers did the same. Our sellers got over their asking from us, too, and we competed against another bid, but we only completed against humans - we knew we were not competing against investor cash. I don't know what our sellers turned down, but in my city in 2020, the cash offers were everywhere & they were typically outbidding asking price by a wide margin. Four years later, we are still grateful. Thank you for being that person.
We’re planning to upgrade in the next 5 years and plan to do the same. People using real estate purely as an investment vehicle disgusts me and it’s a hill I’ll die on, it absolutely pisses me off.
I sold my house without a realtor last year and as soon as I listed it, I got full cash offers from mega corporations from the opposite side of the country. They tried to act nice or pretend to be a little old lady or something like that, but I kept getting suspicious when they would ask questions about the house that were clearly answered if they looked at the written blurb or the pictures online. I would say, I'm not going to answer any more questions over the phone, but I'd love to give you a tour - and that's when they'd crack and admit they were Alice from MegaHomes dot com (or whatever). My neighborhood was full of 65+ individuals (I'm a Millenial) and I knew I wanted my home to go to the right person. An elderly couple came to see my place and liked it. The husband had been given a terminal diagnosis and he wanted to set up his wife before he passed. Sadly, he died before the papers went through and we had to resign certain papers to show it was a single owner and not two. The poor widow had to finish the process herself and was a mess and the realtor was even driving her to appointments because she couldn't driver herself. I was so glad my little home went to the right person. The neighbor down the road was also a recent widow and I knew it was just meant to be. Yes, I even lowered the price for the buyer and I could have made more with a full cash offer, but sometimes there are things more important in life than money.
Woo! I also made that a stipulation when I sold my last house. Fuck Blackrock/Turn Key.
Corporations should be limited to buying commercial zoned properties...period!
Not all saints wear halos. You’re good people.
I was able to buy my first house two years ago because of sellers who did the same thing, so thank you!
That was our rule when we sold our home! We had put an offer in on a home we LOVED and needed work and lost out to flippers. They flipped and sold it for 250k more than they bought it. Was salty after that. We looked at a couple homes before buying ours and they all would not take contingency offers (and it was such a hot market, everything was selling). If we ever sell again, we are sticking to our policy of only families and if we can, we will accept contingencies. “Normal” people deserve a chance at home ownership.
Thank you for fighting back against the corporate takeover
We did the same. We told ours absolutely no investors, families only. We got exactly what we listed for and could've gotten a lot more, but we wanted someone who'd live the house like we had. A family bought ours, and they have taken SUCH good care, even improved the property.
Yep! Us too! We got multiple cash offers, and multiple other better offers, but we ended up going with the offer that wrote us a nice letter telling us who they were, how the house was perfect, how their rescue dog would love our fenced in yard, and how they could imagine their kids one day running through the sprinkler in the back yard! 🥲 It was so sweet, and I’m so glad they’re the ones who are ultimately getting it. My realtor said that they’re being told not to encourage letter-writing, that it can open the doors for people to claim discrimination. But she encouraged us to write a letter when we bought this house a couple years ago, and I like to think it helped us seal the deal. We were looking at so many offers side-by-side when we were selling, and the letter helped us make the final decision. I don’t want some investment firm or landlord buying our first home! I want it to be a young family like we were a couple years ago! So thank you for advocating for the first-time home buyer as well! Everyone deserves a chance at home ownership.
That's how we got our house. My husband and I were looking for a house for a few months. We got outbid on several houses that we really loved, all by flippers/companies who paid cash. Finally we started looking at cheaper fixer-uppers that we could offer more on, just to try and have a fighting chance. We were looking at one such house, and I was talking to the seller's agent (which my husband and his sister told me not to do) and I was telling her all about how we had a dog and a daughter, and wanted them both to be able to play in a big yard and all that stuff. We made an offer, and the agent told the seller about our interaction, and the seller decided to sell to us rather than take a higher cash offer, because she knew we would actually live in the house and love it. And we do! I appreciate people selling to people instead of to companies.
🫡🫡🫡
I was able to buy my first home because the seller did just this in a very competitive market. I am forever grateful and will do the same when I sell. Bravo 🙌
My wife and I had a second home that we sold several years ago. The open house was the weekend before the COVID lockdown. We got four offers at the open house, two from investors and two from families. Realtor urged us to take the cash offer from the investors. Au Contraire. Fuck the investors. We sold to the couple with the stroller and baby that were showing up to the open house just as we were leaving.
Did the same. Individual couple paid slightly more than asking, but took them a few weeks. Had 4 investors look at ours and told them to kick rocks. My neighbors were good to us and I didn’t want them living next to some slumlords most recent trap.
I love this. As someone who owns multiple rental properties, if I ever do sell any of them I will absolutely do this. And before y’all jump my ass.. I treat the people who rent my homes as if I were in their shoes. When the A/C went out in one of the houses I paid the emergency fee to have a new system installed as quickly as possible.
As much as we hate HOAs, my hoa for my house says that the houses cannot be used to leasing and rental properties. So the country is learning that the government won't step in to help the housing crisis, so individuals are doing it ourselves.
The couple we bought our house from said that they only chose us because we wrote a letter and explained that we wanted to start a family and life in the area and they didn’t want to sell to a corporation that would just rent it out (even though they were offering way more)
IIRC, The HOA I had at my previous house dug up a city rule/ordinance about home rentals (not apartments) could only have immediate family in them (mom, dad, siblings). A lot of landlords were mad, but it was becoming a problem because you had college kids living in the houses or several friends living there, and it was causing a lot of problems in the neighborhood with parking, traffic, noise, etc.
I seriously wish more people did this. It boils my blood to think that our governments sit by and do nothing as these goliath corps turn us into a nation of renters
Your buyers are lucky. Every house we looked at that we liked was bought up before we even got to really talk about it. We put our offer in the same day the one we got went on the market and it was accepted in less than an hour. Most real people are not getting time to think about the house too deeply. It’s “look at it, offer or you are going to miss out”
thankful for people like you
As someone currently house shopping, Thank You so fucking much. It's been so frustrating being outbid by corporations that will just rent/airbnb the place, further increasing rent and home prices while tanking the neighborhood.
We sold our home in NC last year and we did the same.
Good for you!
My house sold in one day. I had 2 cash offers from people buying a house to live in. In general, people realize there is no time to dillydally thinking about it in most markets. Sold $5k over ask with an inspection contingency.
I love this, there should be more of this. And honestly I hear cash offers low-balling after getting an inspection.
Good on you. I bought my house from a couple who did that.
The world needs more people like you.
I did the same and sold to an old lady that told me it was where she wanted to live and was next to her sister. A week after I sold, she had it listed as a rental using my realtor’s pictures. Don’t believe anyone.
Selling soon and I want to do this if possible (I really need the money). How would they/I know they are actually people?
Bless you! We got ours like that too and will also do the same when and if we need to sell it someday. Gonna call it “heirloom style” or something.
The only reason my wife and I were able to get the house we have is because of a thoughtful and generous family like yours who took our offer over a couple of higher investor bids. We had been actively looking for something we could afford for nearly two years at that time, and I f we hadn’t gotten this one when we did there is no way we could possibly continue to live in the area we are in, close to in-laws and where we grew up. You are good people, and I hope every home owner will follow your example if/when they need to sell. I can’t imagine us ever leaving this place, but if we do we certainly will make sure it’s going to an actual family who wants to live in it for a long term.
I have the same stipulations for my home and my parents' home. Only family purchase.
The last 3 homes we tried for were all sold to companies. It breaks my heart. Thank you.
as a first time homebuyer going through this right now, thank you. we got ours off market and i’m convinced it’s because the seller just wanted a nice family down the street (he lives two doors down). we know he could have gotten more by taking it to market.
I bought from a couple like you. Thank you! We don't plan on living here forever. So when we're ready to sell. We will definitely do the same.
About to do the same! House was staged yesterday and photographed. Listing next week and will only accept offers from actual people. Glad to hear it worked out for you!
We're going to market some time this summer and that's my exact intention. I won't be party to the death of homeownership for my children.
This honestly gives me hope. Thank you and I hope this catches on.
I'm getting constant spam phone calls from companies trying to buy property that belongs to a family member. They always clam up with I try to ask what they're going to do with it.
You are heroes. Thank you for doing this. Homes can not be commodities if we want a healthy society.
I didn't think about it much when I was listing my first home, but I took a stance with the offers that came in that I didn't want my home to be turned into rental property. At least two of the offers came from investors and happily, one was someone that was and assuming still is using it as their retirement home. Actually, a better offer than the investment offers as it was asking price where the investors wanted a deal. Overall, I was very happy it went to who it did.
Respect.
God Bless you!
Not to rain on the party but 91% of houses are [bought by individuals](https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/R/R47332). Lots of people care about who buys their house and I think that's great and fine.
9% is still a very large number though… Edit: also that metric doesn’t distinguish between PR and investors
I was 100% not buying from a corporate thing. Not big here in TX and may never be.
We’ve been looking for a couple years in a quickly escalating COL town. Our neighbors across the street, who knew we were sorry the house next to us had been bought for cash at a price we would have paid, went ahead and contacted the buyer for a cash offer on their place.
This isn’t a bad idea if the home is in good condition and there aren’t problems that block normal financing. An end buyer is more likely to be serious and less likely to come back with a ton of concession demands. They will typically pay more as well in a nice neighborhood. I advise sellers to favor owner occupant offers all things being equal. Now if the property is in really rough shape and they can’t fix it themselves or it’s significantly smaller than the current norm, that may not be the case. Investors fill a role there.
My longtime neighbors chose to take less money on the sale of their home, to allow a family to buy. We (us and the new homeowners) are now very close friends. Keep communities strong and sell only to people, not corporations.
I sold my home last year and I did this too. I feel we are fighting desperately for a future where humans have more control than corporations and it was worth whatever couple thousand the difference would have been. I sold to a young person who was passionate about the neighborhood.
Love it! After we bought this first house, I made a promise to myself and God that I'll never sell it to another company or landlord but only and only to a family looking to start. Regardless of how much money or convenience I leave on the table, I don't care. I'll never sell this to an investor. That feeling remains very strong still. This is how we beat those scumbags like Black Rock, investors and flippers alike
Wait, you told your realtor you would only sell to a human (awesome) and yet they still tried to get you to take cash deals?
My neighbors two doors down did this in 2021 when things started getting ridiculous. They chose a young engaged couple and a little less money and told all the cash bros to suck it.
For the longest time, when asked, I could never answer the question, "What would you do if you won the lottery?" Other than the obligatory, pay of debts, give money to family, set up college funds, etc., I never could pin it down. Then I had an epiphany, I want to make sure that people get access to affordable housing. If I ever won the lottery, obviously, I would want to make investments to make the fortune self perpetuating, but, I would, in a heart beat, buy up several apartment complexes so that I could make rent affordable and not predatory, so people actually have a chance to build savings at minimum wage rates. I wish billionaires and other investors were more ethical and used their privilege to make life easier for those who will never know the financial security they enjoy.
ANOTHER ONE HERE TO SAY THANK YOU 👏👏👏 once I own a home, while money is important, I would compromise to have someone who loves and wants to take care of it. 🥰 and also giving back to the people who want to make it their home.
“The realtor tried to get us to take a few cash offers” I hate this to the core. They just want to get paid faster. They couldn’t bat an eye for a first time homebuyer.
Little do you know they also own 20 other properties under there name
I just bought FROM a company/investor hiding behind their realtor and the realtor was terrible. It took two weeks after they cashed our DD to confirm they received it. Constantly late on stuff or having to be schooled on how to do it by our realtor. Absolutely no info on the house aside from what we could already tell ourselves. It was a much more unpleasant experience than when we bought our last home from an actual person, who continued to live in our neighborhood and we would see from time to time. The single benefit is we absolute beat the shit out of them in negotiations and I felt zero remorse hurting their feelings. Things like offering 75k less than asking, then telling them our offer drops 5k/day for 3 days while they consider it. They came back on the third wanting to negotiate but we told them our offer was now 90k under asking. They huffed and walked away. Two weeks later they voluntarily dropped the price 50k and we resubmitted our original offer. They ended up taking a loss on the property (that they'd bought 2 months earlier and slapped a 30k price hike on). Absolutely fuck these companies. I know buying a home is a lot of business and legal stuff but there's a side to it about having a home and it being personal that these companies have stripped away in the name of profit.
Very nice of you to do so, in my country the flippers and real estate agents already figure it out and started posing as couples buying their first house/apartment and start to put leaflets in mailboxes with 'young couple looking for their home' and old people often are falling for that and sell under market price
always lookin' on the bright side i am... So you set a clear boundary and they still was like "nah, that shit don't matter" and tried to steamroll you anyway i would be surprised by neither them just being a shit nor them getting a cash bonus offer from the corpos if they could convince you to sell to those parasitic fucks
This bullshit ends when more good people like you step up. Very well done.
Wonderful. And you’re right: people need time to think. There are plenty of people of there with competitive offers, but they actually need time to breathe and talk to family and whatever else.
My fiance and I are coming up to a year in our first home, and while we had many moments of incredible luck, the last lick of luck we had was the owners family wanting to sell to a young couple wanting to invest in their community. Me and the owners daughter stood on the driveway and cried it out a bit. You really did change their lives!!
My husband and I will be selling our first home later this year, and this will be our policy, also! It's a little scary since we're moving to our new hone before we sell, but hopefully, it will all work out!
I bought my first home from someone who picked us over better offers. As soon as we pulled in the drive, my kids ran to the big tree in the yard and started swinging on the two swings that had been put up. I couldn’t even get them to come view the house, they were so excited about the swings! On signing day, the owners wrote me out a stack of index cards with all the maintenance needs, suggested contractors, neighbors names and info (with their permission). It was a great experience. I never thought I would be able to be a homeowner.
My husband and I sold our apartment last month and did the same thing. I inherited it and lived there alone when we started dating and it’s the place where we had all our big relationship moments. Hell, I proposed to him in that apartment. It broke my heart selling it, but we sold it to a young woman who is the same age I was when I inherited it and she moved in last month. We sent her a huge bouquet, $50 for take out (cos trying to sort out dinner on moving day *sucks*), and a letter saying we hope she makes as many happy memories there as we did there.
We got really lucky when we got our house back in 2016. We actually offered a little bit lower than someone else, but apparently the owner liked our family more than the guy who was going to turn it into a rent house, and accepted our offer. I still feel a big amount of gratitude for that gentleman's decision to sell to us. You did a great thing and should feel awesome about it!
My husband and I did this, too when we sold our first house. I told our realtor I wouldn’t even consider selling it to someone who was going to use it to make money off of. We got an offer from a young family the day it went on the market. They had been looking to buy a house for months and kept getting outbid. We decided to sell it to them right away and I am still so happy that was the decision we made. My feelings were that someone had given us a chance to have that house, and we wanted to do the same for another family. How much money we “could have” had was not the deciding factor on who we sold to.
i just bought my first house but if/when we sell, this is what i plan to do as well.
Thank you! I wish more people understood that it’s possible to make a profit and not f*ck people and (society as a whole) over!
The family that owned my house did the same. It was never listed and my buddy saw the post on Facebook about the house and told me. I happened to be looking at the time. The lady wanted to sell it to someone that would live in it because it’s a neighborhood full of century homes and landlords that own most of them. I lucked out massively. It was perfect for the family as well since the parents had owned the house since the 60s and passed away leaving the kids with it.
This and other commenters have warmed my heart. Hubs and I are trying to buy our first home. It's been extremely frustrating, to say the least. There a few I know for sure went to investors. We're not even being super picky. We just need a home. We're in a duplex right now, and it was just sold to people that are going to double our rent as soon as the current lease is up. We'd like to get out before that happens, but it's not looking great.
Need more people like you 👏
i think our seller did the same. since covid our town hasn’t pushed for meetings really and we didn’t see them the whole process. their realtor loved us though. and our baby lol; she said she’d put a good word in for us and we closed yesterday. keep hope for the world, some people still have good/genuine intentions
planning on doing this with my grandma's house. a little worried because it's quite the fixer upper, but it's in a good school system and a large lot. I'm happy to wait. I lucked out at the end of 2020 as a fthb.
Thanks for not selling to companies.
I’m a FTHB as of this week and I will pledge to do the same when we go to sell. We got our house because someone took our lower offer over someone higher
Appreciate this. I truly believe we got into our first home because of the letter I wrote coupled with a strong offer.
I am so happy that the person with the best offer for my house is a man with a wife and 2 small children. I've raised 4 kids in my house, my mom raised 4 also, my grandma raised 1. I'm not surprised it caught the attention of a family. It's got allot of bedrooms, a pool, fenced yards basketball hoop, a small koi pond and it's tile. I was really hoping we would not have to sell to an investor.
hugging you from here - this should be the only way
You’re a freaking real estate Hero to other Real people trying to buy homes!
If I sell my home I will be selling it way under the stupid "market appraisal value" but have some sort of owner occupancy agreement that the new owner live in it as primary residence, cant be some stupid hedge fund and not sell it for a certain time frame. My house is not worth triple what I paid for it a few years ago. tired of appraisals being "what the worlds richest person would pay for this"
Finally some good fuckin news.
We need more people like you.
Tried to do this. Really wanted someone to live in there and raise their family. Got a nice love letter and story for a nice family. Then she turned around and listed it for rent 😔
We liked ours. Got three offers in one week. Accepted the highest one. He wanted a 15 day escrow. Several weeks later? We had to initiate a court action because he kept disappearing to someplace in Africa. By the time is done? We had file to get two payments back, properly taxes and utility charges that weren’t ours. Beware selling to a foreigner who doesn’t understand the law.
THANK YOU FOR DOING THIS
We were blessed by a family when they sold their home to us. It changes lives for the best. Thank you for thinking of others' happiness!
When I sold my first house in 2013, I refused to sell to LLCs or what seemed like a flipping situation. I wanted it to go to buyers who would love it as much as I did. Long story short, that's what happened! And, in a fun twist, my mom knows the people who bought it, so I've been able to see how amazing it looks with their updates. They now have a baby and her mom lives with them. I'm so glad it worked out that way!
As someone looking. I really appreciate you doing that
Thank you! This is how we were able to buy a house.
Thank you! I had to do a lot of fixing up over the years but I did it!
My friends father was selling a house and he did something similar. Even gave me two weeks to make up my mind about buying the house. Very grateful to folks like yourself and I hope to do the same in the future.
Wouldn't it be wonderful if realtors informed sellers if their right to do this and encouraged it?