Recent content by funkychalupa

All the concerns over your neighbors' friendliness are valid. But what's that have to do with schools being too Asian? Are we talking about unfriendly parents or kids? Are these concerning parents complaining about the parents being too Asian or the fact that their kids are befriending too many...

Whoo... I'm having a very mixed feeling about what's being said in this thread. I'm a Taiwanese American. I immigrated to the States when I was 14. I'm 32 now. I went to high school in Nashville, TN where only 0.25% of the student body was Asian. I then graduated from UCI where good 55% of the...

This math doesn't sound very attractive to me. 1st is your negative cash flow. 2nd is your high upkeep. Is your mortgage 380k or is your whole condo worth $380k? @2.875%, you can't go much lower in this economy so forget refinancing. You also have to think about what you plan to do after you...

Yes and no, it depends. I have numbers here to prove it. I opted to go with builders (IPac) on can/recessed lights in various places throughout the home because, first, the price isn't necessarily higher than what an electrician might charge me. Builder is charging me $375 for 2 can lights...

I haven't gotten that far into the design stages yet but I know I get to upgrade the carpet through the builder, not that I'd want to. I don't know what kind of carpet comes with the house but I heard from the designer that it is a very basic kind that's not stain resistant, with standard...

Well... they don't necessarily broadcast their prices for upgrades right away. Think about the actual shopping experience. You first visit the sales office and the model houses. You get a brochure on the general neighborhood. These two steps alone tell you what upgrades are actually in the model...

By that logic, if gas stations in areas like south central LA, compton, or inglewood give themselves a really good cleaning, those neighborhoods in general should improve... I'm leaning towards the opposite. I think the gas stations are beat to the ground because the neighborhoods they're in...

You mean "inversely proportional"? There is no Walmart in Irvine. Care to venture a wild guess as to why? Gas station cleanliness vs neighborhood quality I think is still a chicken-or-egg situation. So which one is the cause and which one is the result?

Additional costs yes (because of options and upgrades). Hidden fees tend to show up when you get a mortgage. The "Kelso Team" (OnQ Financial) has been very informative and upfront with all the little bitty details you need to know about timing, interest rate, closing costs, points, rate locks...

BofA is out the door. Their preferred lender is now under a lender with its own portfolio of $200M and access to 30+ different products. The new lender is called OnQ Financial.

I bought the Plan 1 in Phase 6. I was told that starting from Phase 7, the prices will go up by approx $20k. That is standard practice with any new dev homes. Phase 7 isn't released as of right now. I was told it'll be released middle of Dec.

I have a design meeting with IPac coming up this weekend and will get a realistic estimate on how much it would cost to get the same type of bathroom/kitchen upgrade with the builder. At the same time I've already collected a few bids from 3rd party contractors and design shops. I will be happy...

First of all, thanks for the knowledge on permits. It's very helpful. Definitely answered my question and I do agree that the contractor might just be blowing smoke. Now, due to time constraint during execution phase of this project 4/11 - 5/14, I just don't feel that I would have the bandwidth...

I'm definitely not doing anything electrical such as new outlets. Those options are done through the builder during the design phases. So for bathrooms, I'm looking to upgrade countertops, sinks, faucet, shower tiles, shower system, shower glass enclosure, plumbing, backsplash. For kitchen, I'm...