House hunters, come on in!

[Lauren23]

Emilie, glad the sellers were able to work with you.

Well, now the guy isn't sure if he wants to sell or not. We're supposed to hear either way this week. How annoying... :rolleyes: So in the meantime, we're still looking. But there's not too much out there in our price range. And most of what is out there is really pretty crappy.

[jjohm]

i'm on a business trip, but DH says he saw a house today that looks great, finished basement and everything. AND is affordable for us at the asking price. location isn't prime, but it might work for us. i have to wait till Friday to see it. :(

does anyone have experience with a pipestem driveway? it's the kind that is off the main road, and shared by 2 or more houses.

btw: the houses we put offers on previously were ones that hadn't dropped their price yet by 50-70K. they are better (obviously) than the ones that lowered their prices, but not by that much, which is why we thought our offers were reasonable.

when we sold our townhome, we dropped the price by 5K (not much, but that put it below 400K so a different set of people were looking). then, the offer came in asking for another 10K off for closing. we took it, especially because it's fall now and there's less buyers than summertime.

[Kristy]

Trying to close on this house has become the nightmare of my life. We were scheduled to close last Monday. At the last minute, the mortgage officer called to say a discrepancy with a signature on the deed was just found and we would need to push closing back a few days. Most certainly by the end of the week though, he says.

So the end of the week is drawing near and we still have no closing date or time. We call and are told they're just finishing things up and we'll most likely be closing Monday, today, but he doesn't have the time yet. We were going OOT for a weekend wedding and asked mortgage guy to leave us a message for the time and we'll be there. We return from the wedding and there's no message. DH calls and leaves messages with both our realtor and mortgage officer and no one calls back. WTF? Since no one got back to us, I'm guessing it wasn't going to happen today anyway.

This is getting ridiculous. I just want my freaking house. We have been more than easy to work with in this entire process. They ask for a copy of some paper or form, I use my entire lunch break to drive to the office and drop it off. Need something signed? Tell us a time and we're there ASAP. I understand things get tied up sometimes, but for goodness sake TELL US! The only thing that's keeping me sane is that all the reasons for it being pushed back aren't because of us, it's all the bank. I thought buying a foreclosed home would be somewhat easier because we wouldn't have to be dealing with the previous owners, but sheesh. Our lease is up on the 31st, so hopefully we'll get this done by then.

[kmmommy]

Kristy ~ Sorry to hear you're having so much trouble closing on the house. I hope you're able to close in the next day or 2 and get moved in.

We close on Friday! I can't believe the big day is almost here. We've hardly packed anything which with 2 kids, both working FT (opposite shifts), and DH in school isn't too surprising. We don't have to be out of our townhouse until 10/31 so we're not in a huge rush but I'd like to get settled soon.

DH talked to our mortgage broker and realtor today and we found out the current owners just moved out so we can take possession immediately after closing. We also found out we don't have to pay anything at closing!! Yay!

[Lauren23]

Kirsty - What a pain. I hope you're able to close ASAP.

We looked at some places this weekend. I was happy because we finally went to a bank and found out what we could actually afford, and it was more than I assumed. (I played it very, very safe on my assumption!) So we were able to look at much nicer places and we found a couple we really liked, but they each have their drawbacks. We're going to go look at them again this weekend along with some new places.

[Kristy]

And the nightmare continues...

Now they can't find the deed. WTF? How do just lose the deed? Now we're hearing they want to close at the end of the week or early next week. If this keeps up it'll be Christmas by the time we close.

[onfire]

We close tomorrow!! I am so excited!!!

Wow kmmommy How does this happen? We also found out we don't have to pay anything at closing!!

We are taking a GIANT check with us to closing! It feels so strange to be "spending" all that money at once!

[Emilie]

We close on Friday! Yay! We don't get the house until Sunday at 6 pm but I am so excited just to get it finished and signed!

We are taking a semi-large check to closing with us but it is our downpayment - between the seller paying closing costs and the credits from inspection, it isn't even our full downpayment - they are contributing to that as well! Woo-hoo! Of course, we are pulling some out to make some needed repairs but that is okay....we are going to be home owners again!

[kmmommy]

onfire ~ I have no idea to be honest. My DH did most of the work and I showed up to sign papers. He's been talking to our mortgage broker. I'll try to find out and let you know but it may be too late for you. :)

[onfire]

Oh, I'm sure there is nothing that would change the amount that we need to bring to setttlement. This is our second home and the majoroty of the check that we will be taking to settlement is our down payment (equity and profit from our first home). In our market, for the type of house we are buying the sellers wouldn't really have motivation to pay selling costs so that's in there as well.

[mgmhmj]

Alright, I'm going to hesitantly dip my toe in the water here...I'm not actually engaged yet (should be before Christmas) but we're really seriously looking at a house for the 2nd time - first one was being built and we loved it, but after going back and looking *one more time* we realized we really didn't like how it sat on the lot. We really weren't looking to buy for at least 6 more months (looking at getting married next October, BF will live there a few months w/o me since I won't move in w/ him before we're married), but I found a house that was listed almost $20K below everything else in the neighborhood, and since I'm nosy, I called to see it so I could find out why. Foreclosure - previous owner went nuts after her divorce, so there's a lot of things that need fixing (not to mention she just had terrible taste!!), but a few days after I looked at it, they dropped the price another $7K. W and I went and looked, and he wasn't crazy about it at first (he's the one with the downpayment and income, since I'm not working right now!) but the more we talked about cost vs. value, the more he started to rethink it, so we got my dad to go look at it (he's a builder) from the outside and got his opinion. Then the realtor had an open house, and apparently it didn't go too well, b/c she emailed BF last week and asked him if he was still interested. We sat on it for a week, and I finally emailed her today and told her that we want to look at it one more time with my dad, and depending on that, we'll probably make an offer of $153K. I also asked her if the bank would entertain that offer (since it's a foreclosure, I know the bank mostly just wants the balance owed, but since I don't know exactly what that is, I didn't know what the response would be), and told her that we might negotiate a little bit, but it wouldn't be by much b/c of everything that needs to be done in and around the house (the yard is a nightmare - and it's not just cut the grass and trim the bushes, it's practically at the rip it all up and start from scratch point!). I was a little surprised when she emailed me back and said that she thought we could work with those numbers! Of course, that doesn't actually mean anything necesarilly, but still...I'm that weird combination of excited and terrified!! Here's a picture of the house - the yard certainly wasn't winning any beautification awards then, but this is before it looked like it could be a backdrop for "Little Shop of Horrors!"...
http://i59.photobucket.com/albums/g295/hmjarvis/maybeourhouse.jpg

[MeTheGirlie]

Wow, if the house looked like that at one time but doesn't now, it certainly has potential! I love the exterior and the windows! Good luck!!

[mgmhmj]

Thanks! We went into warp speed this morning - the realtor came in and there was another offer on it, so we're scrambling this morning to get our offer in to be presented at the same time. It all seems so FAST, especially since we started looking at houses with the idea of January, and it's only October!!! I'm beyond freaked out now...I don't know whether I'm more scared of getting it or not getting it! I'll keep you posted!

[Lauren23]

Good luck, mgmhmj!

Well, we made an offer last night on a place we like. It was low and we knew they would counter. They did. They came down quite a bit on the first shot. Not low enough for us. We countered again. They won't budge from their first counter. Honestly, we could afford it, but we just don't want to! If I was really in love with this place I would probably take it. I do really like the place, but it's kind of on the small side and I bet we could do better if we kept looking. The inside of this place is great - very new kitchen and bathrooms and the location and complex are great. (It's a condo.) But it does look out on a parking lot and, like I said, it's a little small for two bedrooms. So I think we're just gonna keep looking.

[StudentNurse24]

Ohhh I am soo excited to find this!! We are looking at relocating from Denver Colorado to the Fort Worth Texas area

[Kristy]

As of this moment, we still have not closed. After some pretty nasty messages left by my DH someone finally returned our calls about the delays. First there was a problem with a signature on the deed, then they lost the deed, now the deed is in Cincinnati, etc. We were getting dangerously close to not having a place to live (lease is up on the 31st), and we needed some answers.

We had a long conversation with the realtor, who spoke with the title company, who asked us to sign an extension agreement. We agreed, if they would pay for another month's rent at our apartment (which took some serious sweet talking on our part, as the office had already found renters for it). Instead of that, we added a line to the agreement that the title company will compensate us $40 for every day since Sept. 8th, when we signed the final offer, until we close. Our realtor agreed it's more than fair, since that's the amount we'd have to be paying them if we were holding up escrow. So technically, it would pay for the rent, but since we already budgeted that for the mortgage, it'll be extra money in our pockets to use for decorating and what not. Yay for extra money.

Supposedly they're shooting to close before this Wednesday, the 25th. Hopefully now that they're paying us, they'll get their butts in gear and we can get this thing done. We have until the end of November to be out of the apartment, but I'm so ready to be in this house and unpacking.

[Renrel]

Just an update. We are still looking and have not put any offers in. We are seeing things that we like more given both a drop in prices and looking at things that cost a bit more. We were unable to look for a few weeks due to Jewish holidays and deaths in the family and my son's 3rd b-day. But this weekend we saw 6 places and they all were actually possiblities. They ranged from 599,000 to 650,000. They all had reasonable yard space and sufficient bedrooms, though for some office and/or storage space might be tricky. There were two homes in a neighborhood that apparently is very very close knit. They have huge block parties and a progressive dinner and a fall ball and a halloween party and stuff like that. I find that very attractive but it is hard to factor in that X factor in with price, square feet, # baths ect that make the place itself attractive. There is another around the corner from one of my single friends and a synague. It would be great not to have to drive DS to hebrew school when that time rolls around and to have a friend near by for emergencies. Another home is just really really nice. Enough room, everything pristince. It could use one more bath to make a master bedroom, but there is room for it. It would just be a matter of do we want to spend more money to put it in. Then there is one that has wonderful flow but is on a noisy street and would need storage space built into it. I am trying to order all of these in my head and decide which I most like. I think we must be starting to drive our realtor crazy with our inablity to say which homes we like best.

[asksmd94]

I posted here a long long time ago. Well, I have finally found something I really liked and it has all the things I was looking for in a home. We are now in the inspection stage and of course there were things found that need to be fixed.

My question to you all is this, there were somethings advertised in the listing that the seller says 'were in error. That was meant for another house he was selling'. How hard should I be in demanding that he puts in the storm windows he advertised? I don't feel like I have a realtor that will go to bat for me because she wasn't all that firm during our initial negotiation phase which disappointed me a bit. It just made me feel like she was working for them and not me. I want to press the issue but if my realtor isn't in agreement, I don't think she will go to him strong enough to where he will do the work he advertised. The home is an older home (1953). I have noticed small openings from where the window doesn't shut completely. I do know this can cause major electric bill shock so for me, it's not just the look of it all but a cost-saving issue as well.

I do love the house and it has been a long search...since January.

[Kristy]

We finally closed this afternoon! You have no idea how glad I am to be done with it. The entire experience has been nothing short of a nightmare and I'm glad we won't have to deal with it again for a long, long time.

[kmmommy]

Congrats Kristy! I've thought of you many times this week and am glad to hear you've closed and are moving into your new home!

[Kristy]

Congrats Kristy! I've thought of you many times this week and am glad to hear you've closed and are moving into your new home!

Thanks :)

[Lauren23]

I am just so annoyed. We have looked at tons of places and it seems like no matter what we get we won't be happy. For 240k in our area we can get a two bedroom place. But there's always a tradeoff.

In one of the places we like the bedrooms are tiny. The living room is huge but there is no seperate dining area. It is also not an EIK. There also two full bathrooms. But the view looks out onto the parking lot of the shopping area next door.

The other place also has two bedrooms but they are bigger, especially the master. The living room, however, is rectangle and it would look kind of strange with our big screen TV. There is a seperate dining area, and one bathroom. You could also put a small table in the kitchen and the view from the patio is pretty private.

Both locations are good, but the first one is slightly better. However you have to turn right off a main road. The second one is off the main road only a little bit, plus there's a traffic light. The second place has central air, but the common fees are like $100 more. Parking is the same. Closets are good in both places.

Both have very nice kitchens and bathrooms that are updated. This is a big deal for us because we really don't want to sink money into a place where we will only be living for a few years. If the bedrooms in the first place were bigger I'd be sold, but they were really small. I guess it comes down to if we want a bigger living room or bedrooms, and it's a really hard choice. I feel like either way we'll be disappointed. We don't want to wait too long to make a decision because most of the other places we've seen aren't even close to being as nice inside as these are (with the updates and such).

Which would you pick?

[kandi007]

ive been looking for a house for 9 months, so i know you dilemma.

i think you just have to go with your gut feeling. so you spend more time in the bedroom or living room? did one have something in it the other one didnt? i cant exactly tell you which one to choose, since i havent seen either, but go for what you feel is best.

and good luck!

[missemily]

We are just starting our search. This is the first house for both of us, so we're clueless. How did everyone pick an agent? I don't want to contact a seller's agent without one of our own.

[Renrel]

Hey all,
We have been looking all summer but have made no offers. We were waiting till prices came down at summer ended and fall started. That did happen and we did finally see a few places in our price range that interested us. Yesterday we saw a place that we will probably make and offer on, though we are nervous. We live in a very expensive area so prices are crazy. The owners are asking assesment, which is about $600,000. Most places that sold recently have sold for assement or less according to my husband's research. The location is great. It is on a dead end street and most streets in the neighborhood are dead ends. Our dead end leads to a trail to a local park. There are at least two houses with kids close to my son's age (he is 3 and a neighbor identifed one 2 year old and one 4 year old). There is a subway into the city where I work and DS has daycare about 1 mile away and a bus that goes to the subway if I fell that is too long a walk, or I can drive in, estimate on mapquest is about 25 minutes, but traffic probemly means it is longer. Driving in means $300 in parking, which is what I do now.

The house has very nice space but is only 1400 square feet. Our apartment is 2000, so this is a step down in size. There is a pleasant living room with a fireplace and a very small dining room in an L off of the living room. The kitchen is small but not tiny and there is one very small room next to it with a penisilia type thing seperating it from the kitchen. There is a door to the backyard off of that room. There is an attached garage next to this room, but no access from the house. DH is looking at it again today with our realitor (a friend who has done alot of nice flip jobs) to see if it is feasable to turn the garage into living space. There is no downstairs bath. The basement is full but not finished and the laundry is down there. It has a bulk head. It did not look like a good space to finish but we were not looking that closely. But we do need storage space. Upstairs there is a nice sized master suite with a small walk in closet and some built in drawer on the wall. A master bath with just a stall shower, sink and toilet. There is a family bath with a tub and two bedrooms. One is fairly large and long, two kids could share it if necessary, and one small bedroom, nursury or small office size.

Our major concerns are the lack of any exta space. We have one son and hope to have one more child. We need an office to do work at home. We need space for a playroom. We need a place for out of town guests to sleep, since most relatives live more than 4 hours away and it would be nice to entertain some friends who have had us visit overnight.

If we grab the garage and add it to the small space off of the kitchen it should become usable as a nice sized playroom/tv room and we could have a pull out couch or murphy bed in the room as well. (We never have the tv on when DS is awake, but he does get to watch 30-60 minutes of video a day). We might also be able to squeeze in a small office and/or half bath, though it looks like getting plumbing to the areas a bath would fit would be tough and therefore expensive. Until we have another kid and for a few months after that, one bedroom can be the office/guest room. After that we either give up the office/guest room or have the kids share a room. I grew up with my own room, DH shared, unless the garage space allows for an office.


I big concern though is that DH and I are also not neat people. Our present place if full of clutter. Boxs and papers and whatnot gather and are not put away. Moving into a smaller space may cause this issue to become a major strain on our marrage. My plan is to get rid of alot of stuff when we move and develop better neatness habits in our new place, but I am in my 40's and DH is older, and I may be kidding myself that I /we will change that much.

The house does have expansion possiblities but we don't think we would start those right away. More likely we would wait a few years and decide whether to expand or move to a bigger place. I expect to get PG during this year, so issues of lead paint dust during construction as well has the the addtional hassle when I am tired, big and hormonal, are conciderations, and will be for at least a year or two after birth.

The house is on .2 acres but it is an odd shaped lot, sort of trianglish, but it looks like we would have the necessary space to do the expansions we would concider in the future.

We both felt very good about the feel of the home and the street when we saw it yesterday, but right now a single person lives in the home, so it is neater and less cluttered than it will be for us. Are we crazy to think we could live comfortably in this space??? Also any ideas on what a reasonable bid would be. DH thinks, based on the research he has done, that the house will go for somewhere between $560,000 and $600,000. It just came on the market, we have no idea if others are interested.

The mortgage numbers we have gotten indicate that we could go as high as I think $650,000 for a home, but we would rather not max out since DH does not want to feel tied to his present job. I would also like to cut down to part time hours after we have a second.

The contractor our realtor uses estimated $50,000 to do the garage, based on a description not a walk through. That seems high to DH and he thinks he could hire out some of the work and do some himself, if we have a general contactor who will pull a permit for us. He is handy with tools and has a degree in electical engineering, so this is not out of the questions.


DH is meeting our realtor at the house in 10 minutes and will call me to let me know if he still thinks we should make a bid. If so I need to sign papers tonight.

[justHB]

I am just so annoyed. We have looked at tons of places and it seems like no matter what we get we won't be happy. For 240k in our area we can get a two bedroom place. But there's always a tradeoff.

The other place also has two bedrooms but they are bigger, especially the master. The living room, however, is rectangle and it would look kind of strange with our big screen TV. There is a seperate dining area, and one bathroom. You could also put a small table in the kitchen and the view from the patio is pretty private.

Which would you pick?Hey Lauren,

I don't know if you've made your decision yet, but I would go with option #2. We went through the same issue with our TV and really ... it's just a TV (albeit a very gorgeous, big one). It's definitely a trade-off, but I was willing to go with a different layout of the living room to satisfy my requirements for the other rooms. In the end we got very luck and found a house that would accommodate the behometh, but it was a sacrifice I was willing to make if we didn't.

Good luck!

[Lauren23]

Hey Lauren,

I don't know if you've made your decision yet, but I would go with option #2. We went through the same issue with our TV and really ... it's just a TV (albeit a very gorgeous, big one). It's definitely a trade-off, but I was willing to go with a different layout of the living room to satisfy my requirements for the other rooms. In the end we got very luck and found a house that would accommodate the behometh, but it was a sacrifice I was willing to make if we didn't.

Good luck!


We actually did end up going with place #2 and we figured out a way it could look with our TV. In the end we just decided it was better for us. Thanks!

[phoenics]

I just signed the closing documents for my home today during lunch. It was painless. I handed over this massive check that I seriously considered running off with to buy a brand new BMW free and clear, lol.

But it was great.

I was so excited. The title lady got all nostalgic about when she bought her first home... another guy at the office said he was sick when he bought a home. I said I was excited - so maybe I was in denial.

I can't believe I did it.

Of course, the mortgage company still has to do their part - so keep your fingers crossed. They just have to wire over all of the money to the title company and I should be able to pick up the keys Tuesday or Wednesday!

I did it. I can't believe I did it.

I'm having a moment.

[udsweetpea]

We are just starting our search. This is the first house for both of us, so we're clueless. How did everyone pick an agent? I don't want to contact a seller's agent without one of our own.


If you've already been pre-approved by a mortgage lender, you might want to try asking them who they would recommend. They know the agents who have smoother transactions.

[Renrel]

We did not go on the house I described above, as there were structural issues which made it less appealing, though it is still on the possiblties list. We just did not feel it was going to get grabbed up so fast. We would have to put an addition on which would cost at least $100,000 to make is livable for us.

In the meantime we saw another house that is bigger than we were planning on but very interesting. It has an in ground pool in the backyard which tends to be a bad thing around here. A lot of hassle for a few months of pleasure, but it does have its appeal side as well. Anyway, does anyone know how to check out that a pool is in good shape during the winter when it is closed? And how much does it cost to have professional come in clean you pool for you?

This house was used as an illegal three family, so it has a kitchen at and small full bath in both the basement and the attic. The second floor has three bedrooms of OK size and one family bath, with two sinks and a tub. The downstairs has a nice kichen, a den off the kitchen with a gas fire place, a dining room with a woodburning stove (probably put in to deal with a bad heating system) a living room and a mud room with a laundry and powerroom in it. There is a shed in the yard which has a wet bar and a window to the fenced in pool area, which could be alot of fun for entertaining. The elementary school is around the block. No streets to cross. But the neighbors have a a VW van up on cinderblocks and shed with broken windows and I notice one broken window on the first floor or basement of the house, which makes me worry about what kind of neightbors they might be.

The house as a whole seems structurally sound. There are some cosmetict things we would want to do immediately and it is steam heat which I am told is very inefficient.

After traveling out of state for the holidays, once again, and spending over 10 hours traveling, sleeping on bad beds and being rightfully called on the carpet for being lazy guests, we are really feeling a desire to buy something already, so we can insist people come to us at least 1/2 the time.

[Lauren23]

We didn't end up going with that place either... We decided to look for something less expensive, i.e a one bedroom. Not what I wanted, but easy to afford right now. Neither of us are really settled in a career. To be honest I don't even want to stay in this area. I'm sure my 200k could buy me much more than a one bedroom elsewhere.

Sorry, I'm just feeling very bitter and down on buying a home right now. :(

[TriSigmaNC]

We have just decided we're moving back 'home' of sorts to Lawrence, KS and will start our home search initially in January by finding a good agent, then looking for a few months to move into a new home hopefully by June.

[Renrel]

AFter spending all summer looking we finally made an offer on a place. It is a two family in move in condition. We are not in love with it but it looks like a good place to sit for 3-5 years where we won't be paying rent. If the second unit sells for what we think it can sell for we would make about $40,000 in profit and that can go towards our dream house, or at least closer to the dream. We actually put the bid in for $10,000 less than we what we think would have been safe to have our offer accepted. There are other bidders. Since we are not in love with the place (for our needs, if we could live in it as it is staged instead of with all our junk it would be very sweet), I said to let Karma play a roll. If we get it it was meant to be- whether because is will be pleasant to live in or to teach us some life lesson. If not, well it was not meant to be but we will be less scared of making offers going forward. We are changing our way of looking to be more open to actually taking a place.

Even while putting in this bid we are continuing to consider the place with the pool and another great place that needs an addition to work for us. The place with the pool has many great features but it has an old heating system that will be expensive to replace. The heating bills were $4000 last year. They said the kept the place warm, but they also had a wood burning stove in the dining room. There is also a lack of storage space since the basement and attic have both been finished.

The other place we like would be really great if it did not require that all the work to make it what we want (two floor addition with basement) be done upfront. Right now it is under 1400 sq ft and we are used to an apartment of over 2000 sq ft. It is a great neighborhood with a great school. It was the first place we really started to feel like it could be our home, where we actually let DS wander away from us a bit while we talked to a neighbor, as we would do if it was our home.

Anyway, we are someplace new when it comes to shopping for a house. DH is twitching, even though the best thing about the place we are bidding on is that it will lower our monthly "rent" putting less finanical pressure on him. (I work ft but he his the main bread winner, but he wants to switch jobs which may decrease income for a while.) Suprisingly he told me my Karma method "made sense." He usually likes everything to reasonable. Maybe letting go of some of the responsibity or control will releave some of his stress.

[Renrel]

We got the response to our bid. There were 7 offers, 2 below asking. We were second highest. The owners are taking second offers till tomorrow morning. I don't think we are going to try again. I am ok with not getting the place. It feels good that we made a go of it and that we came close to the "right" bid. Tells me we are using good reasoning in deciding what the place was worth.

[TriSigmaNC]

I hope it turns out the way you all want ;)

[TriSigmaNC]

I got my first big list of MLS listings and we have an appointment with our agent on January 27th. We'll see how this first appointment goes.

[August2005Bride]

Hi ladies...I hope I can join in. Me and DH have a while to go before even buying a house but any tips anyone can provide would be very helpful. We are very serious about hopefully having a ouse by next year sometime IT is sure hard around here but we can try

Any help and advice would be great.

[TriSigmaNC]

Update:
Our appointments went GREAT. We looked at a lot of older homes (mostly 70's and 80's), but truthfully didn't find anything we wanted. Then we found one (new development) that we LOVED, but didn't have a basement. So, we saw a few lots right next to the development with walk our basements. We asked our agent to talk to the builder and she should have an answer for us today if they'll do what we'd like: The same house we saw with a few tiny changes, no cabinetry at all, an unfinished basement. We'll get a yes or no from the developer today and a price and we'll then go from there. If it's anywhere near our range, we'll put in an offer and go from there :)

YAY!

[August2005Bride]

Great news TrisigmaNC....I am sure it will fall into place. ;) Lots of luck

[TriSigmaNC]

Great news TrisigmaNC....I am sure it will fall into place. ;) Lots of luck

Thank you! No word yet today, we're hoping tomorrow.

[MrsWindmill]

Update:
Our appointments went GREAT. We looked at a lot of older homes (mostly 70's and 80's), but truthfully didn't find anything we wanted. Then we found one (new development) that we LOVED, but didn't have a basement. So, we saw a few lots right next to the development with walk our basements. We asked our agent to talk to the builder and she should have an answer for us today if they'll do what we'd like: The same house we saw with a few tiny changes, no cabinetry at all, an unfinished basement. We'll get a yes or no from the developer today and a price and we'll then go from there. If it's anywhere near our range, we'll put in an offer and go from there :)

YAY!

Sounds awesome! Good luck! :D

[TriSigmaNC]

Uh-Oh, I just realized if we get what we want, I'll have to move to the building from group up thread!

Thanks mrswindmill :) No word yet, keep your fingers crossed girls.

[eponymous]

Uh-Oh, I just realized if we get what we want, I'll have to move to the building from group up thread!

Hey, we're good people!

Good luck with your offer: that sounds like a really nice way to build.

[TriSigmaNC]

Hey, we're good people!

Good luck with your offer: that sounds like a really nice way to build.

HA! :) I meant I'd be excited, but sad to leave this one.
Ok...no word again, but my agent did email me to tell me she was still waiting to hear from the builders agent. So, at least that means they're talking. She said she truly was just waiting on a price, so I think that means they'll do it, just trying to price it still.

[TriSigmaNC]

Small update: our agent came back with a price, that we weren't that happy about, but not devastated by. She told us she was sure that was without kitchen cabinetry, but she's going back to check to see if it was also without bathroom and unfinished basement. She also said that the builder of course threw out his highest price. eta: Now she's going back and getting a better quote, and then we'll start the bidding war if we'd like.

So, we're very optimistic and we'll start this process now. We're supposed to talk with a mortgage company today and get that ball rolling too.

[TriSigmaNC]

OH, and if anyone is interested in being friends on LJ, I'm the same screen name and do put pricing info in there. I'm always in need of help.

[blueskygirl]

Hi all, mind if I jump in? My DH and I have finally joined the house-hunting ranks after years of finding excuses not to. It's finally time, and it's terrifying.

Name: Alison
DH's name: Jake
Househunting since: December 2006
Looking for: Our first home. We are looking for a 4BR/2 Bath home that is fairly new (less than 10 years old) or one that has been completely updated. We want 2 living areas + formal dining. It's a lot to ask on our budget, we want to spend under $200k, but that's not an entirely unreasonable goal for this area. We've only been looking for 3 weeks and we're already sick to death of the whole process. Nothing we've looked at so far has been just right and I don't know if I can keep this up for too much longer.

We have an appointment with the mortgage lender at our bank next week to get the actual pre-approval. After attending an open house this week, the realtor said some things about the bank's fees that made me nervous (things that don't appear in their literature). I am afraid we've decided to go with the wrong lender. How did you all choose your lender? Did you get quotes from several before choosing? It seems like a lot of work to fill out all that paperwork and get your credit checked multiple times.

[tunibell]

It's finally time, and it's terrifying.

Yep.

We're jumping in now too.

We're also looking for our first home. Not sure if it will be in San Francisco or way north of the city. We're looking for a 2 bedroom for under $700K, which is, pathetically enough, not going to get us much. Still, I'm very excited, and anxious not to rent anymore.

[TriSigmaNC]

WOW tunibell

Ok, here's my update as of lately. Realtor called back and here's the jist: She said the other agent was incorrect, he just had the house number wrong, not the house style.

So, we've got 2 potential options in an area that isn't the BEST, but we're fine with it. It's a new development and half of the houses are not sold yet. The one we're looking at is now around $8k less than what it was listed for. There are also lots down the street at the end of the culdesac for way more, but with basements. So....not sure what to do. So confused.

[MrsSmith]

TriSigma - The one that's $8K less doesn't have a basement? What are some of the other tradeoffs?

tunibell - Welcome. I hope you can find something that you likefor a decent price.

blueskygirl - Yes there are different fees that some banks and lenders have that others may not. Of course you want to compare the best loan for your needs, that would include the interest rate and term compared with how long you plan to live there. Also, some lenders have silly rules that may make it tougher to deal with them. For example, my last mortgage company only accepted payments in person by cash. If I had a check, I had to mail it or dro it off. Also, they wouldn't let you make partial payments, which actually decrease the amount you pay in the end. So, small things like that can make a big difference between lenders. GOod luck and feel free to ask any more questions.

I guess I should introduce myself...LOL...We're looking for a new home and are putting our current home on the market pretty soon. We have an appt to look at 5-7 homes on Friday. From the internet pics, they look great. So, I'm pretty excited!

[TriSigmaNC]

MrsSmith
The one that doesn't have a basement that's $8k less than it's original asking price is actually our backup house if we can't get the lot that we are putting an offer in today or tomorrow for! Wish us luck.

The one with no basement is truly a good house, just doesn't have a basement. Honestly, if we get the lot, we're building the exact same house on the lot.

[CLW4KU]

I'll join....
Name: Courtney
FH's name: Kyle
Househunting since: October '06
Looking for: 3B/2Br, 2 car garage, fenced yard.....those are my "absolutes". We're having a hard time finding that in our price range. If I won't be such a penny pincher and move up another 10K then we could have a lot. I'm just not "sure" how much I want to spend on a mortage. We're already pre-approved and have an agent, just haven't found a house we love. I hate that the homes I see on the websites that are "perfect" are about 15K over what I want to spend. FH isn't taking an active role in the search, so if I want it, I have to find it. I get emails when the MLS stuff changes, but so far...nothing. Hopefully we'll find something before our September wedding! :)

Tracie What the heck are you doing buying a house in Lawrence without a basement?!?! Are you crazy?!?! *end tornado rant*

[MrsSmith]

MrsSmith
The one that doesn't have a basement that's $8k less than it's original asking price is actually our backup house if we can't get the lot that we are putting an offer in today or tomorrow for! Wish us luck.

The one with no basement is truly a good house, just doesn't have a basement. Honestly, if we get the lot, we're building the exact same house on the lot.

Hopefully you get the lot, but it's great that you have a backup plan.

[TriSigmaNC]

Tracie What the heck are you doing buying a house in Lawrence without a basement?!?! Are you crazy?!?! *end tornado rant*


Alright alright....you're starting to sound like my MIL. ;)

[blueskygirl]

Tracie - I grew up in MO in a house with no basement, went through 2 tornados, and live to tell about it! You'll be fine. :)

******************

Well, we put in an offer on a house today! I am so excited and nervous, I don't know how I'm going to get any sleep until I know whether they accepted our offer. They should, we offered list price, but there are 2 other couples interested in the house and preparing to write offers. We're hoping we got in first.

The house is 5BR/3BA, 3160 sq. feet, and exactly what we were looking for! It's at the bottom of our price range to boot. It's not in a part of town we were considering (we didn't even know about this neighborhood), but are glad we found it - it seems great.

I can't stand all the excitement!

[TriSigmaNC]

Good luck Alison!

I am supposed to get our offer contract today, so we'll see :) Then we'll have FIL check it over and send the offer off!

[TriSigmaNC]

I have the offer papers with me now. We'll take the weekend to look them over. I faxed them to my FIL and he'll have his lawyer look them over and we'll probably fax them back Tuesday or Wednesday. Not sure how long that takes after that for a response, but we'll see!

[CLW4KU]

I went and looked at a house yesterday. I started laughing when I walked in because it reminded me of you Tracie.....it didn't have a basement! Ha! So, needless to say I didn't love it. I think we're going to look at 50 more homes before we find anything.....*sigh*

[TriSigmaNC]

I went and looked at a house yesterday. I started laughing when I walked in because it reminded me of you Tracie.....it didn't have a basement! Ha! So, needless to say I didn't love it. I think we're going to look at 50 more homes before we find anything.....*sigh*

Oh....yeah, we're hoping that the company will accept our bid for the basement one :) We really do want it.

[MrsSmith]

We looked at about 12 houses this weekend. There were 2 that are still possibilities. We're going to see more next week.

[TriSigmaNC]

OMG I'm an adult. I have an offer contract out (waiting to hopefully hear today or tomorrow) and I have a mortgage application on my desk.

[TriSigmaNC]

Still waiting............................

[CLW4KU]

You crack me up Tracie! Can't wait to hear news!

[TriSigmaNC]

x posted from my journal:
1st offer rejected. They only came down 1k on their original price, upped the earnest money and want a 5k deposit while building now. HA. So, we countered back at 1.5k over our price, no deposit and ok with the 1k earnest money.

Our agent said she'd honestly look around for some other builders in town for us too. We'll keep looking big time, but truly are still interested. WE had a great discussion (well Eric did, I lost my voice), with our agent about what you all have taught me about how much a basement finish costs (approx: 25k), and we're asking for no cabinets in the kitchen, bathrooms or basement. We told our agent the builder should be concerned for their business as they have 5 empty houses and over 20 unsold lots.

We'll see what happens next.

[MrsSmith]

Keep us posted Tracie. At least they came back with a counter. It sounds like they should be taking all the business they can at this point. Good luck!!

[TriSigmaNC]

Thank you :) So again we're waiting. We're also thinking of looking around more too. It's tough to look across country though.

[CLW4KU]

Sorry it didn't work the first time! Hopefully they'll take what you're offering this time.

Me...We went to two houses yesterday. The first one was a complete bust. I think the basement used to be a bar and they just put a house on top of it. Completely gross. I was back in the car before the realtor and FH were done looking. The second house wasn't AS bad, but still bad. Every single room needed remodeled. I just don't want to spend that much time and energy on en entire house. Plus we would have been living next to a "dirty" neighbor. Just not what I want.....so the hunt continues....

[blueskygirl]

Good luck Tracie, I hope the builder comes around. With that many homes and lots for sale, you wouldn't think they'd have room to be so picky.

Courtney - I'm sorry the last 2 homes were a bust. A bar with a house on top of it sounds...well, yikes, that's not a pretty picture.

Well, we did not get the house we bid on last week. There were competing offers, and the house actually sold for $3000 LESS than our offer. Our real estate agent did not do his job, although he knew there were other offers on the house, he did not fax our offer to the listing agent in a timely manner, or call him and tell him what our offer would be for. He sat on it several hours. That house was only on the market for 3 days, and sold for $3k under what they could have had. Unbelievable, and so disappointing. Obviously we fired our agent.

We found a new agent - a really aggressive one - and saw 3 houses on Saturday, 4 on Sunday, and 2 on Monday. One of those we went back and saw again on Tuesday, and then again last night. Today we made an offer, for 2.9% under list price. We're expecting a counter offer by 9pm tonight. At least there are no competing offers on the house!

[TriSigmaNC]

Courtney
LOL, that sounds like one of my experiences too when we were looking.
It is frustrating, but we'll see what they come back with this time. Otherwise we'll just keep hunting. Eric is now considering building on land if we can find any.

Alison
Thanks hon!
Sounds like your first agent was a bust, excellent for the 2nd one! Good luck!

[TriSigmaNC]

JUST faxed our mortgage application, so we'll see soon what we're eligible for and if we can push the basement one.

[blueskygirl]

Good luck with the mortgage, Tracie. It was our experience that they approved us for way more than we would ever consider spending or really afford. I'm sure you'll be eligible for what you need.

Do I get an award for the shortest stay in the house hunter thread? We are homeowners, as of 8:45 last night! We put in an offer at about 3% under list, but expected a counter offer because the list price was already very reasonable. Also, we asked that they leave the fridge and range, all the window treatments and area rugs, and provide us with a 1 year home warranty at their expense. They agreed, no haggling! I was so shocked and thrilled. We close in 60 days - they are building a home that is not yet completed, so we're giving them extra time.

I think we got a good house in a great location at a good price. It's smaller than what we were looking at, but we got into a location that we never thought we'd be able to afford. It's 3 bedroom/2.5 bath, attached 2 car garage, 2000 sq ft, with great room, eat-in kitchen, formal dining room, large master suite with separate shower and whirpool bath, fenced yard, and large deck on the rear. The interior decorating needs some serious help, and we will update the kitchen in a year or two, but otherwise it's perfect!

[TriSigmaNC]

WOW Alison! Congratulations!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[suzubeane]

Delurking ...

x posted from my journal:
1st offer rejected. They only came down 1k on their original price, upped the earnest money and want a 5k deposit while building now. HA. So, we countered back at 1.5k over our price, no deposit and ok with the 1k earnest money.

[snip]

We told our agent the builder should be concerned for their business as they have 5 empty houses and over 20 unsold lots.

It seems to me that a builder with 5 empty houses is demonstrating plenty of concern for his business when he opts not to place himself in the position of potentially having one more standing empty. He is being asked to build a house with some very specific requirements that the buyer can walk away from at any time. Of course he's going to want more money up front. He's probably wishing he'd gotten more up front from the five potential buyers who walked away from those other houses.

Just something to consider for your negotiation process.

[TriSigmaNC]

suzubean
Thanks for that input. But here's the thing. People didn't ask for those houses to be built or have them under contract. The developer did the entire new neighborhood on their own and didn't have any of the houses under contract before they were done building that neighborhood. Now they've got one neighborhood up with 5 empty houses on it. Does that make sense?

So, the lots too, there are tons of them, empty. The developer was going to pre-make those neighborhoods also, but just can't afford to do what they did with the first neighborhood so instead are selling the lots now.

[suzubeane]

People didn't ask for those houses to be built or have them under contract. I guess I don't know how you can be sure of this. That would have been between the builder and the potential buyer; info your agent might not even be privy to.

And even if your agent DID know, do you think that empty homes from which other buyers walked away would be a good selling point?

Just sayin'.

[TriSigmaNC]

I guess I don't know how you can be sure of this. That would have been between the builder and the potential buyer; info your agent might not even be privy to.

And even if your agent DID know, do you think that empty homes from which other buyers walked away would be a good selling point?

Just sayin'.

Sorry, let me clarify a different way. No one every bought the houses, or put them on contract or were interested in them yet. The Developer just put up a neighborhood in hopes people would purchase the homes.

[suzubeane]

I understood you the first time, so let me clarify a different way: You have no way of knowing if some of those houses were built as spec or had interest expressed/contracts signed on them. That would have been a private deal between the developer and those individuals, and no one involved - neither the builder nor your agent - needs to inform you about it. In fact, they both have something to gain if you don't think that people are walking away from deals with this builder.

I'm simply saying that if you're really interested in negotiating to have this house built, it might help to put yourself inside the head of the person who would be building it for you. He obviously does not want to get burned, hence the no-budge on the deposit and earnest. So it's possible he got burned with these other properties.

I actually think that if someone is agreeing to build a house to a customer's specs, and he's going to own it and maintain it the entire time he's building it - and incur all the costs of ownership until it's finished and closed on (before which said customer can walk away at any time without buying it) then yes ... he deserves the deposit and earnest. I think it's pretty bold for anyone to expect that he NOT get those things.

Just my 2cents; Carry on ...

[TriSigmaNC]

Gotcha.......
Just heard back and they only came down another $1k. The thing my DH is confused about is that we're asking for the exact same plan for a house that is selling for $154k and is about to potentially be reduced, except that it has a walkout basement that would be only 1/2 dug on a hillside. We're asking for absolutely no cabinetry, for the basement to be bare (no bathroom even studded). So, our concern is why would they need to go for $183,500 right now if the 1/2 dig for the basement would only cost around $10k? I know they need to make money and thanks for the reminder to be in their heads at times, but for 2 young first time home buyers, that's tough at times. We're truly willing to go up to around $178/180 if we need to, but doesn't seem as if they'll budge. The type of mortgage we are getting also is required to be tied to the build, which creates more security.

Anyway gals, just talked to my agent (though a coughing fit, she's a good mommy too and made sure I was doing all of those mommy things to get better), and she's going to talk to two other builders she knows will do similar homes in the area for possibly around our preferred range (even for $150's about 20 miles down the road). We'll see what we come up with. She also mentioned they are bigger builders. She's honestly been concerned with this builder (just had a feeling).

[Renrel]

We have not seen much lately, this being the slow season, but something came up yesterday and suddenly everything is rush, rush rush. This is what I posted in another thread. Any advice would be appreciated.


We saw a house last night and we are making an offer and are freaking out over it. The house is inexpensive for the area, but that is not saying much. The realor created a bidding war by listing it at a low price to get interest and then, after allegedly getting 2 "good" offer, stating that their would be no open house. All serious buyers could come see the house last night at 5pm or today at 2pm. All offers need to be in this afternoon. The family will make a decision before 5pm tonight, no counter offers. There were about 5 other buyers looking at the house last night. The family are religious Jews, so the 5pm deadline is real. They will not deal with money or sign their names or turn on a light after sundown.

We were up till 2pm last night working on what or offer should be and writing a personal letter to go with it. We ended up with an offer much higher than asking. It was a very simbolic number. Then this morning DH woke up at 5am in a panic and started running numbers and is thinking that we really can't afford this house. That the down payment will take too much out of our savings for retirement and Gabe's colleget. But if we can't afford this house than we have wasted all summer looking, because we will not find anything we like for less. We did lower our offer though after thinking about it. I am still not sure.

It is a nice house that seems to meet most of our needs. It has enough bedrooms, room for a office, an OK yard. It has a large living room with a fireplace. Enough baths. A full unfinished basement and an attic that could be converted into another usable floor. It as a pleasant little porch in the back. It is in a good school district and that neightborhood looks nice. We have friends who live in the next neightborhood over. A good paint job would do a huge amount to make the house look better and thus increase the value.


But the kitchen is way below average and despreatly needs to be redone, the furnice is on its last legs, we have not had a chance to personally check out the neightborhood and school, it is one block away from a fairly busy street, so there is street noise. We have no idea how many kids Gabe's age live on the street. The roof needs some repair, but not much. The attic is currently filled with tubing for the AC. That would need to be reworked to capture that space for more than storage. The furnice and all that other stuff is right in the middle of the basement, so it would be hard to put a finished room down there. The hall closet and back "mud" room are barely functional. The yard is not flat, so it is not as useable as we would like, though it is not bad. There is no deck or patio or anything at the moment. There is a detatched garage and a driveway for tandum parking.

Anyway we may be on the way to homeownership by sundown today. And we are scared to death.

[LittleFredPunkinHead]

renrel, I definitely sympathize. DH and I just had an offer accepted for a house, and I am panicking myself about the cost. Same situation too- if we can't afford this, then we've wasted time because we can't afford anything we've been looking at.

What's helping to make me more comfortable is knowing that the neighborhood is a very good one, and although we're going to be squeezed for a while, it's a solid long-term investment. This house is the stereotypical "worst house in the best location." (That's my freak-out mantra right now. :) )

[snoopy30]

Renrel-I think house-buying/selling is one of the more stressful things you can do so you're totally normal to be scared ;)
I would consider a few things. One, are you making an offer b/c there's a sense of urgency or b/c you really like the house?
Two, will you be able to comfortably afford repairs/updates that will make the house the way you want it?

When DH and I bought our house we thought that "oh we'll use the upstairs as bedrooms, a playroom, etc." but when it came down to it it just doesn't work for us. The IDEA of doing work on a house and the REALITY of doing work on a house are so different. It's all what you're able to tolerate really. Personally I don't do well with renovations :rolleyes:
But I digress...we bought our current house when I was pregnant w/ DS. We felt we needed a house so there was a sense of urgency. I feel like in the end we purchased this house perhaps too quickly. We are now in the early stages of looking for another house.
Just really think about why you're making an offer. If houses really do rarely come on the market right now it may be worth making an offer if you really need to move.

Anyway, I just wanted to post since we are just getting back into this process and I too am feeling some anxiety about it!
Good luck and let us know how it goes!

[Renrel]

Just a quick post, I do need to get some work done today. :)

They accepted our offer! We are now negotating on details, like they want to sell as is, and not have us nickle and dime them on little things over inspection. They also want to close end of April.

DH did the math and now says we will be spending on $2000 more a year to own this home rather than rent and that $7000 of that will be going towards principle. So it seems like the right move financially. The elemenary school, by one grading tool, is 3 in the state for academics and 17th over all. So that is good too. I can't wait to call my family tonight and let them know the news.

[Renrel]

This is what is driving me crazy! DH just did the numbers again and said that the mortage guy or someone left out some tax info, or something. Now he says we will be spending $10,000 more a year, not $2,000 and $7,000 will be principle. He points out princple is not getting intrest, unless housing prices rise. But that is the same for all investments right? Sometime they go up, some times they stay steady and sometimes they fall. RE is generally a pretty safe investment, but of course alot of people got burned recently and DH was burned really badly on a property he bought 20 year ago, so he is gun shy. I am sure this is a good investment. It is a solid property, as far as we can see at the moment. It is one of the least expensive houses in the neigbhorhood. The house across the street is assessed at over $1,000,000. It is near the city and not far from major highways, so it is a good commuter location. The schools are outstanding. We are unlikely to lose much money unless we sell immediately or the market takes another dive, and I really think that after last year's price drops and so many people like me waiting it out, that sales will not go down this year. People who have been holding out need to buy. And if we just give the inside a good paint job the price would go up. The kitchen will hold it down until we replace it but we should eventually get most of that back as well. If we can afford to live where we want to live then we are doing the right thing. If not, and that is what has DH panicing, we have to seriously rethink our future. Living much further out from the city, good but not great school districts, longer commutes, giving up a nicer neighborhood and investing in private schools, something. But DH is a worrier so I have to figure out what all this really means. There is nothing like agreeing to hand over over $30,0000 of your life saving to make you wonder if you are really rich enough to live the life you are planning to live or if you are smoking something.

[CLW4KU]

We found a house that we LOVE today. We are waiting for my dad to look at it tomorrow to see if it passes the "daddy test". If so, then we'll work on putting an offer together. I'm scared I'm about to throw up! :eek:

[Renrel]

Snoopy - In answer to your questions.

Are you making an offer b/c there's a sense of urgency or b/c you really like the house?

It was not just the created urgency that made us bid. We like the house but don't necessarily love it. But we are unlikely to love anything we can afford in the town we want to live in. This is probably the best compromise between what we want and what we can afford that we have seen.

There was one other we have been talking about, it has more space, a really nice kichen with the family room next with an open wall over the counter so you can talk to anyone in that room, a huge mud room and a pool (which is a mixed blessing). It has a finished basement and attic, which means lots of places to put overnight guests and for DS to play, but very little storage. But that place is asking about $50-100,000 more, has a school with a lesser reputation (not bad but not as good as where we are) and is one of the most expensive homes in the neighborhood. So this one is a better value but we are mourning the dream of what it would be like to live in the other house. (not sure which neighborhood we would enjoy more thought). We also live in a huge apartment, with two fireplaces and 11 ft ceilings. So there is a bit of mourning over what we are leaving and the home we were trying to find a way to maybe own, before this one came along.

I think we would have made an offer even without the rush job. I am not sorry we got the house. I would have liked to have more time to drive around the neighborhood, get as sense of exactly how far the schools are, public transportation is, the supermarket is. Visit the elementary school ect.


Two, will you be able to comfortably afford repairs/updates that will make the house the way you want it?

This is hard to say. We would need to sink about $25,000 into the kitchen to make it what we really want, and we are not even sure exactly what we want. But reasonably nice appliance and cabinets that opimise space (pull out draws, corners that rotate - stuff like that. It is a very small kitchen and we have not come up with a certain plan on how to make it work. We will want to open up a wall somewhere, but we still need to think out where an But, at the moment we plan to redo it immediately with inexpensive cabinets and counter and a second hand gas stove, because we hate, hate, hate what it looks like at the moment. It has probably not been touched in 50 years.

We will need to repair some of the roof and replace the furnice in the near future. We can afford to do this.

We need to give the interior a good paint job and refinish the floors. We can afford this.

I would like to update the AC and get rid of all the tubing in the attic. We can then turn the attic into living space, but that can wait till we have more money. We don't need the space as of yet. I would also like to finish part of the basement to grab some more living space, but since the furnice and water heater and all that other stuff is in the middle of the basement this would be a major job. So that is also on the back burner. These are all projects that would enhance the value of the home on resale and the neighborhood can support them.

DH has also concidered expanding outward, but that would be major work and is not something we would be doing for awhile, even if we decided to do it. The major reason would be to increase the size of the kitchen, but we would also lose some yard, and the yard is not huge to begin with.

I think we got a good deal on this home, even if we did probably bid more than we needed to. We did that because we knew we would kick ourselves if we lost it over $2000. Houses don'tusually show up in neighborhood like this at this price unless they are gut jobs. Unless something shows up at inspection we are getting a very good deal. The fact that the kitchen is awful and that they did not give it a paint job and that the owners are divorcing and need to get new and seperate homes quickly allowed us to get what I think is a bargain. We are in a situtation similar to LittleFredPunkinHead. This is one of the least expensive homes in the neighborhood. We purchased for under $650,000 and the home across the street is accesses at over $1,000,000, next door the homes are between $750,000 and $850,000 and that is what most of the block and neighboring blocks are like. The less expensive homes are all within $10-$20,000 of ours. So the other homes pull us up and support our making improvements, as we will likely recover all or most of the cost when we sell.


eta
Sorry for the long windedeness. I am still getting my head around all this. I am suprised that I have not really paniced yet over the process of having to pack and of leaving the home I moved into when I got engaged and to which I brought my son home. I have such clear memories of that first hour in this home with him. It will be hard to know I will never walk by those rooms again and be able to remember exactly where I sat to feed him.

[CLW4KU]

Our realtor is putting together an offer on a house for us tonight. I'll go in tomorrow to sign everything. HOPEFULLY they'll take our offer. I think we can justify everything that we "lowered" the asking price for. We'll see what happens. Exciting, yet scary!

[Renrel]

CLW4KU - Good luck with the offer!

The purchase price of this home, with our present budget leave very little margin for anything else, a new car, 50th b-day party for DH, or anything unexpected comes out of retirment savings, which is not a comfortable place to be. But our salaries should not remain constant. Well, mine will not go up much, I am a state worker and subsist on cost of living type raises. I am actually hoping to be able to cut down to part time at some time in the future to have more time to spend with my son and maybe a future child, but this house will put those hopes on hold a while longer. But DH's salary should go up. So after a few years things should be more comfortable. And we also figured in a second child into the budget. That may or may not happen. We are an older couple and do not plan to jump through too many hoops to concieve if it does not happen on its own.

But being an older couple also means less time for a home to appreciate and to add to our retirement savings. We are doing all the things 25-30yr old do - getting married, getting new professional degrees, having kid(s), buying a house, but with about half the time between when we are doing them and when we will want to retire. Makes everything much more intense and scary. No time to recover from a mistake.

[mia's mama]

Renel- Congrats on getting your offer accepted! I know what an exciting yet scary time it is. We are in the process of selling our house in Los Angeles (has been on the market for 4 days) and buying a house in Boston. I wonder if we might be looking in the same area. From your description, I think I MIGHT know where your new home is and it's one of the areas we are looking at too. It's really hard to do this from accross the country! We have seen homes we like on the mls listing, but of course I can't see the area/street/neighborhood. We are flying out in 3 weeks to meet with our realtor and at least narrow down the town/neighborhood. We may need to rent for a few months though b/c I am fearful of buying in an area that doesn't suit us, YKWIM? We are hoping to be there by April 1 (depending on the sale of our current home).

[Renrel]

Feel free to ask me questions. I will tell you what I can, though I am not the expert on should be given how long I have been living around here.

[mia's mama]

I just PM'd you :) .
~Stacey

[Renrel]

The inspection is today. DH is attending not me. He is taking my video camara to record any issues. I am nervous. I am not sure what I want. I have already started picturing us in the house and it feels like it is mine. But a part of me wants the inspection to fail, which will mean it was not meant to be, and then we will not be making this huge finanical commitment that is really really scary. Things will remain status quo, which is not a great place to be financially, but it is comfortable because it is familiar. I am someone who resists change but usually adaptes to it very very quickly.

[Renrel]

I just talked to DH on the cell. They finished the inspection and he and our realtor/friend are discussion and digesting what they found. Apparently the foundation is still settleing to the extent that it is bending some pipes or something. That is the biggest thing. If we don't decide to just walk now then we need to get a structural engineer in to give an estimate on what it will cause to fix, stabablize or whatever you do to a foundation. The roof is 25 year old and will need to be completed replaced with 5 years. Parts need to be taken care of immediately. DH says we are definately not buying it at the price offered given what they found because there will be too much money out of hand to do the repairs. So now we need to figure out if we want the house enough to do these repairs and what we are willing to pay. I am not sure how the repairs effect a move in date. The sellers are under pressure to get to closing due to a divorce and a need for money to find new home(s). That give us some leverage. They could put it back on the market or offer it to the next highest bidder I guess, but I think they will need to disclose what was found during inspection. Even if they are not obligated to do that, it will show up on the next inspect causing further delays.

DH has a after work event so I will not see him till 8:30-9:00 tonight anyway, I doubt I will have many brain cell left at that point to think about this.

[Renrel]

I talked a bit more with DH this evening. The foundation is seriously sagging in one corner and you can see where patchs have been done and had to be redone. DH said in one spot the patch was still elastic, even though the owner said they had not done any work on the foundation since they bought it. Our realtor said that the patch stuff would not stay elastic for years. Alot of the improvements done over the year also appear to have been home repair jobs not professional jobs with alot of corner cutting. Things like not having a condensation tray for the A/C and duct taping an old water pipe closed when they moved a sink. And the roof will need to be replace over the next 5 years since it has not been touched in about 25 years. Parts need immediate work. There was alot we did not notice since we saw the house at night.

We are not even sure the foundation can be repaired or if there is a risk of the whole wall coming down if you try to jack it up and put in some alternate support. We need to get a guestimate from a structural engineer just to determine if it is worth having an estimate done on a repair. Are we looking at $10,000 or $50,000. But we are certainly going to negotiate down the price. We made a very nice offer based on the assumption that the house was structually sound. That the repairs needed were mostly cosmetic along with some normal mainance, like roof patching. The inspection, unfortunately indicates that this is not what we would be buying.

Anyone have any experience with cracked and sagging foundations, particularly ones that appear to still be moving? Is there hope?

[suzubeane]

It is not unheard of to lift a house and rebuild part of (or all of) a foundation - some people do this and excavate the entire basement. Obviously, it could be costly.

FWIW, it is my understanding that anything your inspector has found would need to be disclosed to any other potential buyer, which is why it behooves the seller to continue to work with you.

[Renrel]

Thanks for your response Suzebean. DH called me at lunch after making a few phone inquires. Sound like it will cost at least $25,000 to do a repair of this problem. It also raises issues as to whether would we every want to expand the house out at all. Would we run into similiar foundation problems. Now we need to find out if we can work a morgage to allow enough money back to fix this problem, since after a down payment, it would pretty much wipe out all of our savings to fix this problem. Then we need to see if the sellers are flexible regarding our offer going down at least $25,000. If the answer to these questions is yes, then we will problably have a structural engineer look at the house and do the necessary core drilling. If not, then we will walk and the sellers will have to convince someone else to pay more for the house as is, with a disclosure of the foundation issues. I am trying to think of a way to let them know we could and would let any future owners know what we learned in our inspection, to make sure they fully disclose and don't just gloss over the extent of the problem. I don't want to come across as confrontational, but I don't want them to think they can get a better price by not really disclosing the problem, though I guess any other inspector would find the same problem we did, so maybe it is not really an issue.

[Renrel]

We are withdrawing our offer and getting back our earnest money. We are out the inspection fee, and all the time spent this past week working on this deal and dreaming about the house. GRRRRRRRR. Back to house hunting. I think we are going to have to start looking outside the town we wanted to live in. I just don't think we are going to find anything we can afford that we will like enough to be happy living in it.

[mia's mama]

Renel- I'm so sorry it didn't work out. I hope you find something great soon!

[Renrel]

Thank Mia'a Mama- I am sure it is all for the best. The house would probably have been worse than a money pit. But we were getting used to the idea that we were done looking. Thats what I get for counting my chickens before they are hatched. But how do you decide what house is worth to you without pictureing yourself living in it, and how do you picture yourself living in it and like the picture without starting to think of the home as yours?

[Lindzee82]

DH and I are going to look at 3 houses tomorrow! We have never househunted before and are very nervous. We don't even know what to expect! Ahhh!!!! :)

[tunibell]

After I-can't-tell-you-how-many years of looking, we are finally about to put an offer in on a house (in Northern California). So excited and completely and totally freaked out!!!!

[cgmom313]

Ok Ladies.. I used to be in selling in a buyers market and those ladies where always very helpful. We did sell our house in Florida and relocated to Ohio. We are in a small rental right now. We moved to a very small town and the real estate market is the total opposite of Florida. The one thing is that there is not much inventory for what we need/want. When we first moved here we thought about buying a piece of land and building but if we did that it would be at least a year before it was completed. So we have now been looking at existing houses. We have looked at 2 today and of that 1 is really what we are looking for, the only thing is the kitchen needs upgrading. We think we are going to make an offer but I sometimes am a person that wants to wait and think maybe the spring market could bring more houses to the market.

Are we crazy to make an offer on only the 2nd house we saw?

[MrsSmith]

cgmom313 - I am like you in thinking that there will be more houses on the market on the spring. However, is this house that you are considering only in need of a small kitchen upgrade or are you settling in other areas too? If you would regret losing this house and compare all the others to it, then I say go ahead. On the other hand though, since you are new to the area, maybe take a little more time to really get out there and see what might be available in nearby suburbs and towns.

I'm in Ohio too, are you sure you'd have to wait a year to get a home built?

[cgmom313]

MrsSmith - Thanks for your response.

So.. We bit the bullet and actually made an offer and we are now under contract. Like you said we were not settling it had everything we wanted and then some. The only thing that really needs upgrading is the kitchen. We just did not want to take the risk and wait if something else came up in the spring. My DH and I talked about seeing us grow in this house and having holidays and everything so we knew if was worth it.

By the time we got the land situated and selected a builder, most quality builders around here are booked for early spring. The earliest they could start on the house would have been May/June and then at least 6-8mths to build. I was not ready for the stress of that and we got this house at a great price and we probably would have spent 60-70 thousand dollars more for a new build house.

So we have a close date for the end of March! EEK!!!

[Renrel]

cgmom313 - Congrats! I hope this is the place your dreams all come true!

tunibell - Congrats! I hope you time investment has paid off with the perfect place for you.

Lindzee82 - How did it go? See anything nice? Take the time you need to see enough places that you really get to know what you want, and that your realtor also understands what you want.


We started looking again this weekend. Sigh.

We saw two places. One we really like the house, but not so much the location. We have to think about whether this is the compromise we are willing to make and if so how much we will pay for it. It is pushing our financial limits.

On the first floor, the house has an enclosed vestibule (place to take off the wet shoes and such), a nice foyer, with a real coat closet (something hard to find in the older homes found in the town we want to live). It has a large living room with a fireplace, a large kitchen and reasonable sized dining room, a sunny and pleasant family from extention off the kitchen (a big plus for us, we like to chat between kitchen and family living space) and a nice sized half bath. The stove is gas, it has two ovens and a good amount of counter space. We really like this living space for how we want to live. The living room even has a door, which will make it a good guest room if we put a pull out sofa in it. The bath could be turned into a very tight full bath if we ever needed one. There is however a worrysome slope to the floor in the kitchen.

The second floor is not as great but functional for us. The master bedroom does have its own bath but it is a very tight bath with a small shower stall. The closet space is ok but not great. There is one reasonable sized bedroom and fairly two small bedrooms (twin beds only). There is an attic but it has one of those pull down from the ceiling steps, we did not look up there.

The basement is huge and finished in to several rooms. They are not great but would be functional for us. A "office", a "playroom", a laundry, and a large unfinished storage area with a work bench. There is a ceder closet and a door to outside. There is not alot of light down there but the rooms should be fine for the things I listed. The office and playroom are both carpeted and could have small sleeper sofas in them as well, to allow for more overnight guests. There is evidence of many things done to deal with water sepage, but no evidence of recent water damage, so hopefully they found the solution to the problem.

The house is in a great school district and is in a good commuting location. We can also walk to a town center which is nice and this town provides many services. The problem is the house is on a very busy street, so it will be noisy. The lot is narrow. The side of the house faces the street, not the front of it. So there is not much buffer from the noise. There is probably not much top soil, so we will not have a nice lawn and gardening would have to be done in boxes. There is a swing set in the back and enough space on one side of the house for a snall picnic table and bbq. There is a small front lawn, fenced in, where DS could run and play while he is small. There is a two car non-attatched garage and a long driveway that will park 4 cars, tandum. There is a basket ball hoop set up, so DS will have that area for play as he gets older.

A part of me says, this is a house we can live the way we want to, in a town we want to be in, with excellent schools, so go for it. Another says, location, location, location, you don't want to live on a busy street. It is not safe enough for kids and it will make it hard to sell. The noice will make it unpleasant to hang outside (though that is really only an issue on weekends, we work full time). Plus DH is not sure he wants to extend us this far finanically, but that is another question.

I hate having to compromise but sooner or later we will have to, unless I win the $215mil lottery this week (he he) or DH gets a much better paying job. (I currently have no real career path. )

The other house is OK, nice family room, OK kitchen open to the dining room. Small living room with a long room off of it that could be a playroom or office. I just really don't like these long narrow rooms, which are very common in our area. It is on a quiet street, on a very big nice lot, 2 blocks from a great elementary school and park, but the middle and HS are not so great, so it would be a short term plan not a life plan to live there. The commute is good, but I don't think the town offers quite as much, but I could be wrong. I am less familiar with it. It is about $85,000 less then the one I described above that we really like, other than the busy street problem.






.

[Lindzee82]

Renrel - Househunting with the realtor went okay. We looked at 3 houses and only sorta liked one of them. Two of them were awful!!!! One we really liked, but it was very small. Too small for us. Between making the appointments to look at the houses and actually looking at the houses, another opportunity presented itself to us. My DH's ex-BIL, who is now his supervisor, wants to sell his house to us. He told us to go and look at it after our appointment with the realtor. So we did. And we fell in love. It is absolutely everything we want and is so perfect for us. Everything about it. He does not want to make a profit on the house so he is asking for exactly what he paid for it. However, that is a little on the extreme high side of what we can afford. But it is like 50-100k less than the house would sell for. So, we really can't pass it up. We are doing everything we can at this point to get the house. The good thing is that he is not in an immediate rush to move. So we have time to research and save a little more. We just tonight started a homebuyers education course and hopefully we will learn a lot in that. So, we found our dream home. We are just trying with all of our might to get it to work for us. So stressful! Good luck with your house hunt. The first house sounds really nice, but I would be hesitant about the location as well. Does the second house have potential for you to expand the small rooms into an addition or anything? Hope you can figure it out or see some more houses that might work better for you!

[Renrel]

Lindzee82 - I am so jealous. Sounds like you guys really lucked out. I hope it all works out for you. Certainly sounds like a deal. There is probably some room for expansion in the second house, but the layout is just not as appealing to us. We are not going to get the nice foyer, closet, mudroom/vestibule. The family room is not going to be very conducive to chatting with people in the kichen. The walk up attic is through a bedroom, so hard to make it into a useful space, other than maybe a small study room for a kid. Plus we would need to move in 6 year or so for a good middle school.

[suzubeane]

The walk up attic is through a bedroom, so hard to make it into a useful space, other than maybe a small study room for a kid. Friends of mine have this situation. the attic was finished into a bedroom, and the room that you have to walk through to get to the stairs is an office. Would that work for you?

[uskiku]

We're just about getting started here... We'll be looking for our very first house (we've been renters for far too long!) and we're very excited and extremely nervous. Anyway, we'll be moving 10 hrs away from where we're living right now, so it has to be a "long distance house hunt".

Which websites are you using or have found useful in your house hunt?

[riotgrrl]

i am in the begining stages of trying to convince my boyfriend that it would be a smart desicion to buy instead of continuing to rent. our original idea was just to keep renting untill we are ready to build our dream house (in 5-7 years) but recentally i have been thinking we should just bite the bullet and go ahead and buy something small now instead of renting. i want to move out of our current rental (which is cheap but bad neighborhood) to another town..well rentals in that town cost around 900-1200 which would be the cost of a mortage.

does anyone have advice..information about buying a house..mortages..etc? we are still very new to this idea. i am excited.

[fierypyropixy]

does anyone have advice..information about buying a house..mortages..etc? we are still very new to this idea. i am excited.

We rented less than a year after we were married, and decided to bite the bullet and go ahead and buy in the same neighborhood we were renting. It's a new construction, cookie-cutter development, and for the same house (actually a little nicer - we went for the upgrades) we are paying $250 less a month for the mortgage vs. the rent.

We decided to buy the house (definitely not the Dream House, but makes us perfectly happy for now), b/c at least we're putting the money into something we're working towards owning vs. just throwing it away at the landlord. I'd say if you're in a place you plan to stay in for at least a while (therefore not have to handle the hassles of trying to sell), owning is definitely a better move . . at least it was for us.

Oh, and we went about the buying in the worst possible financial way - we decided to buy on a whim, didn't really have any significant money to put down on the mortgage, so did an 80/20 loan . . . those two amounts combined are equalling the $250 less than the rent. It may be different where you live - we live in a college town, our rent for a brand new 4 bed/3 bath was $1250, but this was still cheap compared to rentals of the same size around here.

[riotgrrl]

we are looking at doing an 80/20 loan also. i am still in school so i do not have large amts of cash laying around but we figure since we are paying in rent what a mortgage would be..why not?

we are looking at all of our options right now and have several meetings lined up.

[Lindzee82]

DH and I went in for a preapproval for a mortgage today. We should find out what we qualify for no earlier than Thursday. I am so nervous!

[riotgrrl]

Lindzee82 goodluck! my boyfriend and i will also know what we qualify for by the end of business day tomorrow.

i am excited but so nervous and i just hope everything goes smoothly. this is such a huge step.

[Lindzee82]

riotgrrl - Thanks! Good luck to you and your BF, too!!!! Hopefully we will both come back here tomorrow with some really great news!!!

[riotgrrl]

i hope so. we have 14 houses to look at so far. :) 3 we want to see right away because they are newer houses and the one is like PERFECT..and new this year so hopefully we will get up there this weekend.

[riotgrrl]

we got our loan approval today :D let the house hunting begin!

[Lindzee82]

riotgrrl - That is great news!!! Congratulations!!!! We got called yesterday and were asked a few more questions. Our package is being sent to the underwriter now so hopefully we should find out next week. I am so nervous!!! Yay for you!!!!! Can't wait to see what houses you find!

[shopaholic]

I am very sad/depressed right now. We just got our full approvals this morning for a loan and its not good.

Let me start from the beginning. There is a new townhome development by our current apartment. We decided to look yesterday and we like it. They are in pre-construction phase so we want to move quickly. I called this morning and got the loan process started. We came back approved for a 20-30 fixed. The estimated monthly payment is more than double what we pay in rent now! How in the world do they think we can afford that? It is all based on almost 20K downpayment which isn't possible either. The most we can put down is 10K.

This lender does have a 15K signing bonus which we used towards a few upgrades (nothing fancy) and put the rest to cover closing costs and got the base price down a bit but still!! We can't afford to pay more than double what we pay now. We would solely be working for rent and couldn't have food/electricity/car...nothing.

We don't have any outstanding debt (besides our cars which both have around 5K left on each). The estimated monthly payment also has taxes ($500-ish for 6 months...maybe this can be spread out yearly opposed to 6 mos?), mortgage insur. (since we are doing less than 20% down) and assoc. fee ($125).

This is just so depressing. This will be our first home. I just don't understand how people do it.

We are going to call the lender tonight to discuss more but I am just so down. I want to leave work because I can't even concentrate.

[Katyanne]

Shopaholic
*hugs* I'm so sorry!!! How frustrating! Hopefully when you speak with the lender they may have some words of encouragement or another avenue that you can go down. I know that home prices really vary depending on the area you live, my cousin lives in chicago and she's often talked to me about the frustrating and expensive housing market there.

*hugs*
Katie

[shopaholic]

I am wondering if the 80/20 would be better option for us? The property we want isn't super expensive but its not super cheap either. We just got a revised estimate because the taxes were too high...it went down about $100...yipee! lol

[Katyanne]

YAY!!! That's great, every little bit helps!

Katie

[shopaholic]

The lender is emailing me a 7/1 ARM loan. Interest only? Is this even a good option or should I steer clear at all costs? She said you would only pay interest for the 7 years therefore resulting in a lower payment. Her email did not include the attach. so I can't see the monthly payment.

[fierypyropixy]

We may be entering the house hunt after this weekend. DH has gotten an offer in Seattle, and we are flying out this evening to let me nose around and see if I'd like to live there (we live in Illinois currently, but have only been here a short time from NC). If we evaluate the housing situation and it's something we want to do, we'll start negotiations on the offer (the first was low but it was just a starting point).

The PP above reminded me about something I wanted to ask. We haven't met with the company's in-house financing person, so what I want to know is . . . in an area where housing costs are relatively high, will loans typically be more lenient?

We have only been in our current house, brand new construction, for seven months, and it cost $140k with all the upgrades. Therefore, we haven't been able to put much into our mortgage besides the interest amounts. The houses that we are looking at in the Seattle area (actually, East - outskirts of Redmond) are more in the $400 - $450k range for something equivalent, even 30 or 45 minutes from work. While I have this feeling of resentment towards having to pay so much more for a house that will likely be less "nice" than the current one, I just have to deal with it. But, how lenient could we expect the higher market lenders to be?

I don't work, but with his salary, $140k was right at our tolerance level. Could we expect that a salary raise of a mere $15k would be enough to cover $310k more of a mortgage? It doesn't seem equivalent to me, but his numerous spreadsheet calculations try to convince me that it can be done! Is it anyone's experiences that lenders are going to be more gracious when looking at your financial state, in higher priced housing markets?

(Merci in advance)

[riotgrrl]

shopaholic are you dealing with a lender through the builder? i really would try to steer clear of the interest only payment.

what we are doing is 100% finacing which probably isn't the smartest thing to do but we really don't want to dip into our savings right now and we know a house is the right thing for us in this stage of our lives. i did a lot of researching on the different types of loans and i knew i didnt want a 30 year fixed. this is a starter home for us..one that we probably will be in 10-12 years max. we've decided for now to go with a 3/1. we know we will have the money to refinance in 3 years and our credit scores will be a lot better. one thing we did was have it spread out over 50 years so that our payments are basically what it would have been if we did the interest only payments BUT we are actually paying down the principal also.

check with different lenders.. we have gotten approvals from 2 so far and have decided to go with the lower rate but our realtor is also a loan consultant for a local company and she is going to see if she can get us an even better rate.

just do some research. :) i know it can be confusing but just realize that someone out there is willing to give you the best deal and you just have to find a reputable company.

we went out house hunting for about 6.5 hours today. it was very tiring. we saw 6 houses. we realized that we really want a new construction and we aren't going to get a lot for our budget (175,000) and we saw a few possibilties but they are in a community we really didnt want..then we saw a gorgeous kitchen in a home thats 12 years old..but..the rest of the house sucked..

the most promising one is in an area we like..very quiet..very nice..the price is right..it has 1400 sq. feet..2 car garage.. deck..3 bedrooms..1.5 bath..family room down in the basement..so it has everything we want..
only thing is the kitchens not exactly huge but its mid-size..and it doesn't come with apppliances but thats ok

so it isnt finished yet. maybe we can pick the countertops or something :D its been on the market 70 days. we are going to go back next week to see. well i might not since i am having surgery on friday but my boyfriend defintely is..
we know we want to wait at least 3 weeks to a month before we make a desicion and look at more houses..but it is the most house with the most of our wants list in our price range so i am excited..

this is the pic

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/124/421751717_cdd703f776_o.jpg

[shopaholic]

shopaholic are you dealing with a lender through the builder? i really would try to steer clear of the interest only payment.
yes, and I feel like we are getting screwed because of that. The only good thing is they are offering a 15K signing bonus that we could use to cover closing costs and any upgrades. All of this was done over the phone and email (lender is in FL, I am in Chicago). They didn't need proof of anything which I don't like. They have our monthly incomes over-inflated by $300 each per month.

I got the info for the 7/1 ARM and its still so high. The month. payment was around $2,500. We pay less than 1/2 that for rent now. The payment would include the first mortgage (int.) then the 2nd (princ.) then assoc. fee, taxes and mortg. insurance (since we are putting less than 20% down).

The kicker is we make too much (LOL. not sure I agree with that) to qualify for any type of first home owner incentives. If we make too much why are we struggling to find $$ to pay for this would-be monthly payment?!?

I am wondering if I should just check with a local bank (but then I would not be getting the 15K bonus to cover closing costs). I just don't want too many people accessing our credit reports.

[IrishEyes]

shopaholic, you should definitely get another 'quote' from a bank or get a referral to a mortgage broker from a friend. A broker doesn't usually work with just one bank, so they can go out and find the best mortgages for you. It's possible that what you can find will wipe out the $15K the builder is offering.

Don't worry too much about your credit being pulled again. I don't think it's going to affect your score too much, if at all.

[shopaholic]

I also inquired about an 80/20 since I saw those mentioned on here. I was told that they could run it but I would have to show proof of income (which I am fine with) but then we would need to show proof of an additional 5K income each year? uh...WTF? What exactly does that mean!?

[SiValleySteph]

shopaholic, Have you checked rates out there in bankrate.com land, etc and used mortgage calculators to see what the rates mean as far as payments? Is it possible that you just can't afford this house? Home prices seem to be pretty flat right now in most parts of the country (would have to check for your local market), so there's no rush to buy. It might be better to rent longer while saving up for down payment. I'm not trying to be hurtful, I just don't want you to get stuck in a bad situation.

[shopaholic]

Is it possible that you just can't afford this house? Home prices seem to be pretty flat right now in most parts of the country (would have to check for your local market), so there's no rush to buy. It might be better to rent longer while saving up for down payment. I'm not trying to be hurtful, I just don't want you to get stuck in a bad situation.No, you are not being hurtful at all. I think we realized last night that this is just too much house (cost) for us right now. I just wish our lender would be honest and not knowingly put us in a bad situation (which doesn't seem to be the case).

I think we are going about things backwards too. We need to get pre-approved for an amount we can comfortably afford, then go from there. Not find a house we want then try to afford it. Its just not going to work that way. If we need to tweak #'s to make it affordable that should be our biggest red flag ever!

We have decided to extend our lease at our apt. for 1 more year allowing us to get a healthy downpayment and search for a place that will be within our budget (even if that means moving away from the city a bit).

Is it true that if you do more than 1 credit check from lenders within 14 days it will only count once against your credit report? If this is the case we want to get pre-approved for an amount we can afford so we have a starting point to work from.

[Lindzee82]

shopaholic - DH and I are having the same type of problem. We got preapproved for a mortgage, but once we saw everything in writing (the monthly payment, closing costs) we realized that we just couldn't do it right now. So, we are going to save for a year and try to pay off our car loans and try again next spring. I am really sorry that things are so hard for you right now regarding financing the house you want. I really hope that you can come to some sore of decision that works best for you.

[EJM]

**coming out of lurkedom**

shopaholic: You sound like me a few years ago, I didn't realize how many "additions" there are to each monthly payment. What a wake up call, :eek: revised our budget immensely. Not sure if you are looking within city limits, but there is also a rather annoying Stamp Tax to take into account around here at closing. :rolleyes: We attended a first time homebuyers/loan pitch dinner, which was to get our business, but really was informative about crunching loan numbers.

We are moving ourselves soon which is why I was lurking in this thread, just have to sell our current place first. We were told about 3 weeks ago that the 30 year and 7/1 ARM rates were the same, although things change daily it seems. We've been loan shopping, but I think we are going to stick with the woman we used before although she is now with a new company. Her service was great, we can hardly get anyone else to return our calls, and the rates are competitive. Definitely shop around, maybe another institution could help you afford the place you've been looking at?

P.S. Love your avatar, we have a BT too.

**Back to lurking**

[carrie9142]

Joining in! :)

We are moving to Birmingham, AL at the first of June for DH's work. I haven't been there, but I am so excited to buy a new house. I love looking at houses. We are going to go in a few weeks to hopefully find a house.

[ADSigMel]

Oh my gosh, Carrie! I was just jumping in to say that DH and I are moving to Birmingham, too! I'm originally from Alabama, and that's where we both went to college (in Tuscaloosa, just down the road from B-ham), but we've been in Nashville the past three years for my law school. Well, DH got an offer for his dream job in Birmingham on Thursday, and I'm sitting for the Alabama bar in July (although I don't have a job yet). We definitely don't want to rent anymore, so we've decided to go for it and buy our first house. We're both INCREDIBLY excited!

Luckily we have a lot of friends in the area, several of whom have bought houses recently, and one of whom is a mortgage person at a bank. We're driving down Monday morning to meet with him and find out about how much we can probably be preapproved for. Talking to him on the phone the other day, he said we would probably be able to get about $200k, which sounds like a lot to me. I'd be more comfortable spending closer to $160. Anyway, we are meeting with a realtor recommended by one of my sorority sisters who just bought a house down there (and if for some reason we don't like her, I've also got the names of two other sorority sisters' realtors, LOL) on Monday afternoon to look at a few places. I've already found some things online that make my heart go pitter-patter. :)

I'm just so thrilled to be moving home to Alabama and buying our first house to boot! I know absolutely nothing about buying real estate, so I'm pretty scared, and I'm also nervous that we won't really be approved for as much as we hope for, especially since I don't have a job yet, and my law school loans are going to be really expensive to pay back. But I know that I'll have a job offer soon, and it's really important to us to stop flinging our hard-earned cash at landlords, so we're definitely taking the plunge now instead of waiting (assuming that we are approved for a mortgage, that is).

Carrie, what part of town are you looking at? Do you know? I can make recommendations, since I'm pretty familiar with the area.

[carrie9142]

Hi ADSigMel! I PMed you :)

[ADSigMel]

I PM'd you back, Carrie. Sorry it's so long. :o

I'm really excited, Ali and I are going to Birmingham in the morning to meet with our friend at the bank, and then we're going to look at some properties in the afternoon. Does anyone know how long it takes to find out how much you can be pre-approved for? I won't need a pre-approval letter or anything just yet - I just want to make sure we're not going out to look at properties that we won't be qualified to buy.

[tlew12778]

Mel - If you take along your tax returns and last few pay slips, they should be able to give you an estimate immediately I think. I have an appt set up for Wednesday for the same thing actually. They told me it wouldn't be a formal pre-approval since they would need to do real checks, but it would more or less give us a good idea (according to them).

Which means I should join this thread I guess! DH and I are sort of in the market for an apartment or loft in Milan. We refuse to move outside of the city. Ideally we would like a 2-3BR apartment (or loft that could be split into 2-3BRs) but realistically we will probably end up with a 1-2BR, then end up moving in a few years (if we need something bigger). The market price for a 1BR in the areas in which we are looking is btwn 175k-250k euro ($230-330k), while a 2BR will run btwn 250k-400k euro. We most defin