Zambeezy

Funny that you mention this. My girlfriend's mom mentioned this the other day and I had never heard of this practice. I don't have anything that would get sympathy though. I'm a single male, make a great salary in oil and gas, and have owned a home before. No points for me haha

Glad to hear it! Get that sleep in whenever you can and enjoy it all!

Update! I put an offer on a house, escalation clause that went 12k above asking, and still didn't get it! This housing market is just weird sometimes. Really liked that house and it was in a good location but on to the next one I guess. Going to tour one today and if it passes the eye test, I'm throwing an offer down. Gotta be quick in this market but with the multiple exit ramps (inspection, financing, etc.) available, I'm not too concerned with pulling the trigger on something I like. This one is in an IDEAL location, a quick 30 minute bike ride to/from work yet out of the busy parts of the city. Very walkable/bikeable area that is popular and continuing to grow in popularity. On paper, it would be a great house and a great investment as well (I try not to think of houses as investments and think that can be a dangerous and expensive mindset)

I thought about it! It's sitting in a barn on my family's land in Oklahoma right now but hopefully I'll be bringing it up to Denver later this year after I buy a house. I want to get it running well enough to confidently make it my winter truck for all the ski/snowboarding trips, and I'll keep my JKU my everyday vehicle and especially my summer vehicle since the A/C in the MJ doesn't work

Excellent advice, all of it. Thank you for taking the time to put all that down! I've definitely seen plenty of desirable (to me, at least) houses staying on Zillow/Redfin/Realtor.com for longer than I would expect, so I have hope that I'll be able to find one that I like when the time comes to buy. I've considered pulling the trigger early and just eating the cost of my rent (~1500/month) for the months that I have both a mortgage and rent, and wouldn't say that's off the table, but obviously that's a significant amount of money so I have to balance everything. Easier said than done, that's for sure! Thankfully my parents helped me start building my credit back in college, so I have an excellent credit score that should allow me to get a great rate. Getting all my financial documentation in order now and I'm glad I kept such great records over the years and saved everything. Very thankful that my parents instilled these values in me at a young age. On my last home, I paid extra for a guy to travel out of his region and inspect the house with a thermal imaging camera. I definitely want to do the same if I can find a reputable one here. Anyone you would recommend? That's great advice on the sewer pipe. Never would have thought about that. I haven't engaged any Realtors yet but once I do, I'm going to be very clear that I've done this before and while I don't know everything, I do know some things and I know that if I want to put in an offer, they need to do it without hassle or I'll find someone who will. I'm absolutely a "trust, but verify" kind of guy so I'll have plenty of notes to research throughout the process. Thanks again for the great write-up. Let me know if anything else comes to mind that I should take note of!

Yeah I feel like it's actually a decent time, all things considered.

I'm preapproved up to like $850k. Obviously won't be spending that though. I have several friends who recently bought in Denver and heard all the stories of finding a home they like and can afford, putting an offer in, and then having someone offer more and all cash, which made the seller obviously take that offer. Can't argue with taking the higher bid but it does sound like a frustrating cycle I'll be putting <20% down so with PMI, insurance and taxes I'm looking to keep it around $2750/month. That'll allow me to pay extra toward the principal without really tightening the purse strings too much

Absolutely. I've adjusted my 401(k) and HSA contributions to free up some cash for these surprises. Once I've settled in and have a good understanding of what will need to be replaced/repaired and the costs, I'll max those accounts out again. At the least I'm contributing enough for the full employer match so I'm not missing out on any "free money"

I'm in Uptown/North Cap Hill now. Looking in the Berkley/Sunnyside area as well as Arvada South and East of Standley Lake. I'm willing to pay for a more walkable area and a short commute to downtown (hopefully via bike if the weather is nice) but these prices...woof!

Thanks jdog, I'll take all the good luck I can get! Whereabouts are you located in Denver?

I'm finally starting to get the gears turning on buying a house here in Denver. I've been here for about 2 years now and love it here, so I think I'm ready to put down roots and start growing some equity! Moved here from Oklahoma and man...the housing markets couldn't be more different (for obvious reasons). It was hard to swallow the prices for awhile but after tracking my spend for the past 6 months, I think I'm comfortable with committing to a mortgage. I owned a home in Oklahoma but wanted to rent for awhile when I moved here to get the lay of the land, see what areas I liked/didn't like, and see how close I wanted to live to work to cut down on commute times (and the huge cost increase that comes with that proximity!) This is exciting but also stressful with so many details to take care of and the whole exercise of finding a home, making an offer, getting the inspection, etc...only for some cash buyer to swoop in and outbid me, making the process start all over again! Still, I'm hoping to start putting in offers around April so I'm only paying Rent + Mortgage for a month at most. Anything you guys have learned with trial and error when buying your homes?

I pivoted my career in September. Spent the last 6 years on the Land side of oil and gas. First few years was interpreting leases and contracts, administering payments to owners, etc. Next few were systems support and analytics. I really liked that work and was good at it. In September, I moved from Land to Supply Chain. Still oil and gas but 100% different data/context/etc. This job is much harder but I'm also still learning. It's stressful at times but pays very well and I'm learning tons that will translate to any industry were I to decide to move. I don't know the job market in your area but anything worth doing is worth doing right. Don't look for a quick and easy switch; take the time to evaluate your skills and, maybe more importantly, the skills you want and are willing to put in the time to acquire.

Parents got me some nice camo bibs and jacket for hunting. I wasn't able to get out this year but looking forward to some quality time innawoods next year. I turned 30 a few weeks ago, so I'm at the age where I buy what I want, and anything I haven't bought yet is too expensive to ask for as a gift. I told my parents I'd like to stop doing big presents and maybe do a $20 cap going forward. My parents like gifts because neither of when grew up financially well-off, so they like being able to buy gifts for holidays but I want to simplify it for all of us. My mom always gets me some neat kitchen tools like interesting whisks, veggie choppers, etc. and I enjoy getting and using those.

Wow! Just looked through your whole thread and you did some incredible work! How difficult was it to convert to 4WD? Any regrets? I have a '92 that I'll be bringing up to the Denver area sometime this next year and that's first on my list to make it a more capable mountain truck, but the process seems complex and is making me nervous

Dang man, I'm sorry to hear about your terrible boss. That's insane. I grew up in NE OK, moved away a few years ago but in general, Oklahomies were good people. Glad you made it my dude

Pulling this thread out of the grave. HOrn, you've done a gauge cluster swap on your '92, haven't you? I'm working on mine right now and I can't figure out how to remove the wire for the gear indicator. Any help? Also, the '92 won't have a speedo cable plugged into the cluster, right? I'm trying to troubleshoot my non-operational speedometer while I'm swapping in full gauges.

I'm not getting notifications on the site, nor am I getting emails for subscribed forums like I used to get

Looking sharp! Did you do it yourself or take it somewhere?

I'm a fan of Imgur. Seems to be dependable and I've never had any issues with them changing their hosting rules

I like the change so far on the desktop site!

Yep, got the same stuff for mine. The quick-connect adapter only fits on the bottom port, so I would assume that's the low-side. You have to turn the valve on the end of the port (clockwise, it appears) to allow the refrigerant to enter the system, right?

Troubleshooting the A/C and hearing a clicking from the compressor. Here is a video of it while the climate control is set to max. https://streamable.com/l5k3z You can see something spinning about half a turn that coincides with the clicking. Is that the compressor clutch? Very new to anything A/C related. Any help narrowing down what the issue might be would be very welcome!

I bought some new battery cables from Mean Lemons and have them all replaced except the cable running from the PDC to the alternator. Can anyone who has installed new battery cables give me some pictures of how you have the new cable wired? There are a few extra wires down by the alternator that I'm not sure about and I'm also not sure how to connect it to the PDC

Couldn't agree more. There are a lot of terms that I don't know and a lot of things that may be considered "common knowledge" that I'm not aware of, so I'm always thankful when people don't assume that I already know these things when they're trying to help. I know I'm new, I'm just trying to learn more. You would think these people would appreciate that, since the more I learn the fewer questions I should have to ask.

I just wanted to take a minute and thank all of you for being so helpful and kind on these forums. I'm fairly mechanically-inclined but my MJ is my first real tinkering project where I'm having to actually get into the guts of some things. I'm young (27) and there are a LOT of things I don't know about working on trucks but the membership here welcomed me with open arms and the willingness to help me troubleshoot and problem-solve has been nothing short of extraordinary. Thank you all very much. I hope to learn from you and be able to do my part to contribute soon!