House hunters, come on in! [Archive] - Page 4

Katyanne

08-15-2007, 07:01 AM

Noa, I'm so sorry you didn't get the condo, its such an emotional rollercoaster. I hope you find a place that you love even more.

Hubby and I find ourselves in an interesting situation. When we first started looking at houses several years ago we came across this beautiful house that was everything that we wanted, we ended up not moving quick enough and someone else snatched it up. So fast forward to now and we're in a house we love in a different city then what we thought we'd settle. We still drive by that house occasionally and we've noticed that the owners either have abandoned the house or just have let the yard basically rot. So now we're wondering if its in forclosure so we've begun to talk about if it comes back on the market and what we'll do if it does. LOL! Got to love those "what if" games. We love our current home but we would definitely jump at the chance to live in this other city. It would actually nock off about 20 miles from my work commute (still be a drive but it would be better) But since we don't know if its really going to be on the market and then we'd have to try to sell our house which in this market is questionable.
Has anyone else ever gone through this?

Katie

shortcake

08-16-2007, 07:44 AM

noa - Sorry to hear you didn't have your offer accepted!

katyanne - Never been in your situation, but I have a thought for you. A friend of mine actually had someone knock on her door and offer to buy her house. They had been thinking of moving eventually anyway (house wasn't suited for a family, and they'd just had a baby) so they accepted! If you and DH figured out exactly what you'd like to spend, what about just knocking and seeing if the owners are thinking of moving anytime soon? You certainly have nothing to lose. You could simply tell them you've loved their house for years, make them your offer, and see what they said.

EJH

08-16-2007, 08:43 AM

katyanne --

friends of ours recently were in a situation like the one shortcake mentioned. planning to put it on the market, had mentioned that to their neighbors (it's a townhome). Well, turns out the neighbors friends were looking, they took the liberty of peeking in the window apparently, while our friends were out, and loved it (what wasn't to love, fully upgraded gorgeous townhome!) and called and left a message saying we want to buy your place.

So, they sold without ever even listing it. Pretty amazing, actually. So, shortcake is right, it can't hurt!

Erin

lkendra00

08-20-2007, 05:44 AM

We put an offer in Saturday. Our realtor called yesterday and said the relocation company the house is through wants our preapproval letter so I'm taking care of that this morning. Hopefully everything works out and we'll be homeowners by the middle of the week.

Standrea

10-05-2007, 02:12 PM

I just wanted to come back and post that we looked at the house with 8.5 acres. Although nice, it was about 100 feet from the major highway running through ny. Not exactly a country setting.

We made an offer on the second house we looked at, a 5 bedroom 2 bath Colonial in the same town. Our offer was accepted, and the owners now want a 30 day close, so hopefully we'll be in on November 1st!

Bloomwood

10-05-2007, 02:13 PM

congrats, standrea! I can't wait to see photos.

shortcake

10-05-2007, 02:37 PM

Congrats Standrea!

Renrel

10-22-2007, 10:37 AM

I know I have not been too active here. After pulling out of two homes after inspection we kind of lost our enthusiasm. But we have found a house and it looks like this time it is really going through. The P and S is this week, DH is locking in the mortage today.

The house is a 1880's gatehouse in a nice, very family centered, neighborhood. They have progressive dinners and big family days at the community center with pet parades and bbq and the like. There is web page maintained for the community and lots of working together to get things like traffic signs changed and streets repaired. The elemenary school bus stop is the address of the house. The community center a block and a half away and has an after school program that the grade school will bus kids to. The elementary school is very good but not the best in the town, we wanted better but think/hope this will work for our son. The house is a short drive or a 15 minutes walk (for an adult) to public transportation. Very close to the highways for commuting. The community center is an old school with a playground, tennis and basketball courts as well as fields for soccer and soft ball. There is a public golf course behind the house.

The house is over 2000 square feet and has a full basement on a 1/3 of an acre of land. The layout sucks but we think we can fix it and that will be our first order of business before moving in. The sellers are empty nesters building a bigger nest right next door. The other side is a family that gives music lessons (I heard piano and voice coming out of the home during one visit). They have a pool so hopefully we will be friends and be invited to swim.

The house at present has 4 bedrooms but we plan to convert one into a closet/bigger bath for the master bedroom because it is very small. There are two nice sized other bedrooms, two full baths and a laundry room upstairs. Downstairs there is a livingroom, den, dining room, office, kitchen and half bath. Our plan is to covert the dining room into a family room and the office into a dining room. The kitchen is old but we will deal until ,hopeful, one day we have money to redo it. There is a nice little porch on the front and a detatched and rather decrepid garage (not about to fall down but in need of serious repair that we are not planning on attending to anytime soon.) The roof and boiler are new. There is a full basement under everything but the kitchen. Part of it is called finished but need work to be a room we would really use. DH wants it to be all storage. I want it to be a playroom/extra space for overnight guests/storage.

Major changes we plan before moving in include getting rid of of one stair case to open up the entrance, switching the other stair case so that it goes up from the other side of the house and openning up the wall between the present dining room/office as much as possible (It is a supporting wall) to make it more open.

We are hoping this will be a good move. We are excited to have a place with storage and room to put up guests. We are excited about having a nice neighborhood to raise our son. We are relieved to have found a place we can talk up rather than appogise for to friends and relatives. It has real problems yes, but it also has real assets and is attractive. We are scared of the problems an old house can raise and of course the financial committment.

Wish us luck.

Bloomwood

10-22-2007, 02:21 PM

The neighborhood sounds idyllic and the house sounds very workable! Can't wait to see photos! Congrats.

Standrea

10-22-2007, 07:51 PM

Congrats Renrel! It sounds wonderful!

Lindzee82

10-28-2007, 06:51 AM

After taking a break from house hunting for about 8 months, we are looking at another. It is a 3-4 bedroom, 2 bath raised ranch. I am going to look at the outside today and then if it seems nice, I will email the realtor and schedule a showing. It is a brand new construction home. I am very excited and super nervous.

Standrea

10-28-2007, 09:34 PM

Good Luck Lindzee! It sounds really nice! Let us know how it goes.

Renrel

10-29-2007, 06:49 AM

We signed the P and S on Friday night. The closing is December 5, 2007. We are sorta Freaking Out at the moment. Our Realtor was kind of a wreck himself while we signed, since he was proposing to his live in the next day.

shortcake

10-29-2007, 11:05 AM

Congrats Renrel! The neighborhood sounds amazing, and it's great that you can see what you want to do to make the house perfect for you.

Renrel

10-29-2007, 11:48 AM

Thanks for all the Congratulations. At the moment I have having something akin to a brides cold feet. I am picturing myself living all by myself in a three room house on a tiny plot which would cost maybe a third of what the house we are buying will cost, before the improvements. The house is furnished with next to no furniture and I am wearing a simple but comfortable white robe and slippers. Of course the fact that I have a husband and a child, and way more stuff than I need (but somehow can not throw out) and need to get to the city for the job that will pay the mortgage, regardless of whether it is for $200,000 or $600,000, and want a house that allows out of town guests with family to visit without staying at a hotel, does not jive with this little fantasy. Yet that is what the "perfect house" is to me three days after signing a p and s on a 2500 square foot home on a 1/3 of an acre with a mortage for over $500,000, which sadly what you need to buy a an relatively inexpensive home in my neck of the country.

I am sure this fantasy is in part due to DH twitching all weekend over the mortage and getting pissed at all the "extra" cost in the mortage he noticed this morning. I need to continue picturing my family cross county sking or snow shoeing right out the backdoor and coming back to drink hot coco in the living room in front of the fire. I need to picture waiting inside the house for the bus to pick up my child instead of on a corner in the rain. I need to picture not carrying laundry up and down stair, even if the upstairs lay out to get to the laundry room is a bit bizzare. I need to picture my parents coming up every other month and offering free babysitting since they can stay for free. Yes, I am calming down a bit. Maybe this is not a great big mistake. ;)

Lindzee82

10-29-2007, 06:27 PM

standrea - Thanks so much!

Unfortunately...it was not for us. The pictures are really deceiving and the floor plan was just not good. It was very awkward. So, we are still looking. We found a buyers agent and I emailed him a list of properties we would like more info on. So we will see where it takes us.

shortcake

10-30-2007, 01:55 PM

Renrel - It is a scary jump, but your house sounds wonderful. Snow shoeing out the back door...are you kidding me? Here in the crazy bay area that sounds like heaven. I had the same "cold feet" when we bought ours, and now - even if there are things I would still like to change at some point - I'm so happy we didn't wait and just DID it.

Lindzee - That's too bad about the house. Maybe your agent can really help - he can preview homes so you don't waste your time looking at ones that aren't good at all!

Renrel

11-01-2007, 08:33 AM

With the P and S signed and the mortage paperwork in progress we now start our attempt to acclimate to a new neighborhood before actually moving in. Last night we took DS trick or treating in the new neighborhood and I think it did alot to ease his concerns over moving, though it was a long night. We did not eat dinner to 8pm and DS is only 4, but it seemed important to do this and we could not start till 6:30 given work and traffic delays. Walking up to every neighors house ringing a door bell, having a very very brief conversation (anywhere from trick or treat/thank you to a few comments about his costum or the house decorations) and getting candy certainly is a nice first impression of a new place to live. No one trick or treat where we live now, so this was all new. Plus being out at night when it was dark and seeing some other kids walking around helped. We ended at the house which will be ours and when the man asked him if he liked the house DS told him that he was going to live in the house soon. The man and his wife laughed and told him they would be his next door neighors and DS seemed OK/happy with that. This weekend DH and I will join in a progressive dinner. I think they have tried to pair us up with people who live close to our house to help us meet people. I am just now realizing that I myself will need to remember all these new faces and names and that I am making my first impression. What to wear, what to wear? :eek: And since I am not a clothing person this is a real issue, both in that I have no nice casual fall cloths and if it registers that I need to worry about what I look like it has to be a pretty big deal. (I forgot I needed shoes to match my clothes for my own wedding shower and would not have had any jewelery for my wedding dress if my sister and mother did not "happen" to bring some with them knowing I am that clueless. )

DH is doing a walk through today with an Arcitect and a interor designer. We need an arcitect to help with the re-modeling. The interior decorator is just there for a consult, to get her ideas about our re-modeling plan, that it will feel right/work when we are living in it. We have no plans to have her actually decorate our home (pick colors, furniture, etc.)

Renrel

11-05-2007, 11:29 AM

Just a quick update- We did the Progressive Dinner Saturday and it was a great way to meet the neighbors. Everyone was super friendly, loves the neighborhood, loves the grade school and Principal (a few issues with how the middle school deals with kids from this grade school, because it is small they have fewer friends they know in their classes in middle school and requests to try and keep the kids together falls on deaf ears). Everyone talked about how our sellers soon to be neighbors are wonderful people who will do anything for you. We met lots of interesting people with interesting stories. DH found out about a month poker game that has being on-going for about 30 years and as a fiat owner it was nice to hear that there are a few car buffs in the neighborhood, though we may sell the fiat. It has not been on the road since DS was born. So, so far so good.

The walk through with the arcitect and the interor designer went well according to DH. Though they do not like our idea of turning the diningroom into a family room. It is such a lovely room now and next to the kitchen, but we want living space next to the kitchen and the dining table far away from the door we usual use to avoid that table becoming a drop zone. They also strongly suggested moving the bathroom out of the kitchen, which I would like to do though we have to decide if it is worth it money wise. The big good news was that the stairs, though very steep, are to code, so if we turn them we don't have to change them which would eat into the landing.

Oh, and I did not get my hair done, though I did do my nails for the first time in about 2 years and picked up some new make up. That boosted my self confidence for meeting all these new people.

Cativa

11-09-2007, 02:19 PM

Can I play?

DH and I currently are in a 2nd floor condo which we own, but we hate. We hate the HOA, hate the location, hate how small it is, etc., etc, but 5 years ago, its what we could afford.

My DH was a Marine so we have the VA loan, but since we live in the Bay Area the amount was always too low to afford anything. With the recent market down-turn, plus the VA upping loan amounts (to $417K in our area) we have finally decided to start looking for a nicer place!

Most neighborhoods in the Bay Area are still way out of our price range, but we found a small neighborhood that we might *barely* be able to afford, but it does require a 90 minute commute to work. We decided it was worth it though.

Unfortunately it seems like everyone else had the same idea. We fell in love with one house, only to find out they accepted an offer only hours after we had walked through it. Then we found another house, placed an offer, found out they had another offer come in the same day....and yesterday were told that they chose the other offer because the other offer wasn't a VA loan (VA loans take 45 days to close, opposed to the normal 15-30 closing). :(

We are getting very frustrated. So much for it being a buyers market!

Renrel

12-04-2007, 08:10 AM

We were supposed to close tomorrow but we have hit a snag. The sellers don't have a certicate of occupancy which means they can't get financing which means they don't have the money they were supposed to bring to closing. ERRRRR. They apparent have had a sign off by all the necessary parties but there is something else that has to be done to get the actually certificate. Our lawer is chasing it down to try and make it happen as scheduled but we will see. I was looking forward to having this happen on Chanuka. Kind of a rededication of the home as our own.

We have however finally got things moving towards the renovation. We have an arcitect on retainer and he has done the measurements and is drawing up the original plans. Then we need to meet with him for a few hours and come up with our plan for the changes. The carpenter is rearing ot get started so he can finish before his vacation in January. We want to get the electrician in while we are working on the plans for the carpentry.

I have finally started packing, barely, but I have started.

Renrel

12-04-2007, 10:15 AM

Well the closing is definately off for tomorrow. We are trying to reschedule for next Tuesday or Wednesday. The sellers are however, moving out today and I am going to try to do a walk through tomorrow because I have hardly spent any time in the house in order to be able to make reasonable suggestions regarding what changes we should try to make to the floor plan. We are both going to meet with the arcitect in the afternoon to discuss what changes we can make to the floor plan to create a more modern space, without spending alot of money. If only money were not an issued there is sooo much we could do, but then again, we would probably be in a different house if money were no issue.

Cativa - Sorry things did not work out. I know how frustrating it is when you think it is a done deal and then if fall through. We had to back out of two accepted offers due to inspection issues. Give it time and faith the right one will find you.

Renrel

12-10-2007, 10:22 AM

Tomorrow is our closing. It looks like it is finally going to happen. I am going to be a home owner. :eek::D:eek:. We got our initial plan for redoing the space nixed by the arcitect, who then came up with two more expensive options. We came back with another idea and he made some suggestions around it and we think we have a plan for going forward which while more expensive then our original plan can be stages and leaves alot of possiblities for how to make future improvements. We need to talk to our contractors now and see what we can really expected this work to cost. To make everything more fun DH took a bad fall on the ice today and is already an achy mess before the stress of closing on the house and the sore hand form all that signing. We hope to celebrate the last night of chanuka in our new home but if DH is too sore to deal with a picnic dinner on the floor then was may nix that idea. :(

jimmysgirl424

12-10-2007, 11:07 AM

deleted

Renrel

12-12-2007, 07:39 AM

I am a homeowner, lord help us.

The closing went well. I freaked on the way there because I could not find my driver's licence but my state issued ID for work was sufficient. We were in such a rush to leave and pick up DS though that we forgot to take the keys. We therefore were unable to celebrate the last night of chanuka in the new house as we had planned. We were all disappointed but still had a very nice evening and chanuka celebration at the apartment. We have mailed off a retain check to the electrician so that he can start work immediately. We will meet with the carpenter on Saturday. DH thought of something that will/could cause a structural problem with our plans for the house while he was supposed to be sleeping. He also had 3-4 house related nightmares including the house sliding off of a cliff (there is no cliff anywhere near by) and being filled with mold (a reason we backed out of another home he has also been concidering buying a mold removal company). I am unsettled by the fact that our silly horoscopes this week talk about it not being a good time to change residences, silly but you kind of like those little things to say yeah, good move! It feels like a good sign then.

wine_o_girlie

12-12-2007, 08:30 AM

Jimmysgirl,

I would be concerned about a house that had turned over that many times in the recent past. Do you know if there is something majorly wrong with the house (roof, mold, foundation, etc.)? Or, could there be some sort of major "neighbor" issue. Anyway, just wanted to say that I would be extremely cautious about a house like that.

shortcake

12-12-2007, 08:44 AM

jimmysgirl My guess it that it is priced higher b/c the sellers feel they "need" to get that much in order to move! They don't want to lose money on it. (They may have paid closer to 220 in the first place - they wouldn't have known about your lower offer - plus there are all the realtor fees). I would definitely try to find out why they are moving, if you can. That could affect their willingness to take a low offer, as well as your determination to buy! Have your realtor talk to theirs. Also, knock on neighbors' doors and try to figure out why the high turnover. It's normal to talk to neighbors before buying, so you don't need to feel weird about it. At any rate, if you want to offer a low price, I say, offer it. What's the worst that can happen??

IrishEyes

12-12-2007, 01:43 PM

jimmysgirl - some of the Maryland homes are taking longer to sell, but are still seeing a rise in home price. Depends on the neighborhood, etc. With so many people in Maryland being federal employees, and that being such a stable source of high paying jobs, Maryland's market is slower but not necessarily decreasing in price.

I know the house we're in was turned over a few times in row. Not sure about all the reasons why, but the owners we purchased the house from had bought in January and the husband left the wife in May, so she had to sell for financial reasons.

mpc863

12-12-2007, 05:27 PM

i think i can join this thread...

we were not looking at all but a house came on the market across the street from good friends of ours. it's the 1st time it has been on the market (owner passed away). we went through it on saturday and made a low ball offer. the market here is pretty slow, it had been on the market for 60+ days, and the house needs a lot of work (but it is livable). another couple put in an offer as well (how is that for timing :rolleyes:). long story short, we countered today with a bit more than what they asked for in their counter because we did not want to lose it. their agent gave ours a verbal acceptance but we do not have the paperwork yet.

i'm still in shock!

Lindzee82

01-01-2008, 11:33 AM

We are still on the search for our perfect home. *sigh* This really sucks! Ha!

We have looked at a few new construction homes in our price range, but nothing that was right for us.

We have an appointment for next week to look at another house. This one sounds great, but we have learned not to get excited until we actually see the house in person. The problem is that the house is priced $20k above what our budget is. But, the specs of this house, the neighborhood, and outside looks of the house are great! So, if we like the house, we plan on offering what we can pay and see where it takes us. Seems like a long shot so I am not getting my hopes up. But we will see.

Then, there is another one we are going to look at that is in our price range.

So, the opportunities keep coming. I just hate waiting weeks between appointments when our realtor is busy! When I see a house I like I want to see it now!!! I am such an impatient person!

Lindzee82

01-06-2008, 01:05 PM

Yay! We can post again!!!!! We are looking at two houses tomorrow! I am so excited!!!

Lindzee82

01-08-2008, 10:46 AM

And again we strike out! Ugh!

ManteoChik

01-08-2008, 02:28 PM

Rejoining this thread.

We're kinda "seeing what happens"...sounds like we're trying to have a baby..lol. Anyway, here is our story...

August 2007 we decided to start looking at some homes in preparation for our move back home to NC. During our August visit we went to drive by a home on the MLS we'd been watching (not exactly what we wanted but still..) and saw a home FSBO and really liked it. We assumed it would be out of our price range but we called anyway. We were surprised to see that it wasn't and we toured it and REALLY liked it. Long story short we procrastinated for a week and someone else put in an offer and they accepted it.

We decided to put our search on the back burner and just rent. We've continued to watch the MLS and a home we'd been looking at had suddenly been pulled off the MLS and listed FSBO. In edition, they also dropped their asking price by $30k...and we know they'll take an even lower price than that. We're not getting our hopes up but I think we're going to go take a look at it next week when BF gets back into town.

Lindzee82

01-08-2008, 03:20 PM

Good luck, Courtney! I wish I could be as patient as you are just waiting for something to come up!

bostonbride06

01-09-2008, 06:34 AM

Me too! I'm sooo impatient, and we JUST started looking! :rolleyes:

jajacobsen

01-09-2008, 04:43 PM

Renreal - how are thinsg going on your house?

2.5 years ago , DH an dI bought a "dream house" (well sort of - it needed a lot of work) out in the country where things are idyllic, etc. Backed right up to a farm, etc. Wake to hear cows and goats, that sort of thing. Our neighbors don't sound nearly as nice as yours!

Anyway, we had renovations, etc and it was a lot of work but our quality of life now is so much better. I hoep it is going that way for youas well.

jimmysgirl424

01-22-2008, 01:29 PM

deleted

ManteoChik

01-22-2008, 06:36 PM

Just thought I'd come back for a little update.

Since SO is out of the country until March, my dad went with me to take a look at the house. It's FSBO, so the owners were there and answered all the important questions my dad had on his list to ask. Overall, I wasn't super impressed with the house. The lot was HUGE (almost 3/4 acre) but the house wasn't that large. It was an okay size, but I wasn't too keen on the layout. There is the yard space for an addition, but it wouldn't be conducive to the layout of the house - without doing major construction and knocking down all the walls. The upstairs had the two guest bedrooms and a bathroom as well as a Room Over the Garage that was unfinished. However, the only access was through one of the bedrooms.

In the end we decided that it would be silly to buy unless something amazing comes on the market for a good price. The price of lots are dropping like flies around here so we're thinking that we're going to buy a lot and build. Rob's aunt is a contractor and has offered to build for us at cost.

Renrel

01-23-2008, 11:51 AM

jajacobsen- We are in your normal remodeling hell. DH is acting as GC coordinating the carpenter, electrician, plumber and arcitect. We expect to move in around the last week of February. The house looks much more spacious now that we have knocked out one of the walls and the electrican put more lighting in the basement which makes that space already seem more usable. DH is freaking out about all the heat seeping out of the house while also worring about keeping it warm enough to prevent freezing pipes given how many radiators were pulled out with walls and such being knocked out. He is spending alot of time on the weekends there trying to insulate or seal places where heat escapes. I have only gotten over there a few times given that someone has to watch DS and between the dust covering everything, the holes and tools around and it being too cold to be outside most days we usually don't want to bring him over. And even if we take him over I end up having to occupy him which defeats the purpose of my being there.

I am trying to help with all those annoying little questions: Where should the light switch go on the left or right?; Which way should the closet door open?; Should the stairs be a little narrower to allow for a slightly bigger landing or vs a vr? But DH is handling most of the decisions. We will have to make decisions soon about paint and flooring and such. All of this is very hard when we are not really sure how we are going to use the dining room space yet. We can't even have the electrican put in outlet or whatever its called in the ceiling for a chandellier since we don't know where we are putting a table yet. And I am still daydreaming about the $100,000 plus addition I would love to put on the house that will solve, in my mind, all the problems I have with the house and then some, which leads me to throwing away $10 every few weeks on a lottery ticket. :o

But for all the headaches and my fear about moving after getting so settled where we are it will be nice to have a place of our own and land we can plant a garden in and put up a climber for DS. I am mostly thinking about what I want to do to make the basement a nice playroom and what to do with the yard. I have barely thought about any other room. I am also looking forward to DS starting to make neighborhood friends and having playdates he can walk to.

Lindzee82

01-23-2008, 05:42 PM

Once again, I am leaving this thread...

Just found out that DH will be deploying to Afghanistan for 12-18 months in September. No sense finding a house now. *sigh*

We will be in this apartment FOREVER!

Renrel

01-24-2008, 07:36 AM

Lindzee82 - Sorry about the delay. It must be so hard not to have any control over your future like that. Thank you both for making such a huge sacrifice for all of us. How long is he expected to be deployed for?

DH was up a lot of last night fretting over the cost of renovations. We bought the house expected to spend $25,000 on reno with a ceiling of $40,000 and we are now up to $50,000 without all the finish work. We just got and estimate of $3000 for the downstairs laundry which another plumber had estimated at $1000. That was the straw on the camels back as far as last nights sleeplessness. It kills me that it cost's this much without putting in or improving a kitchen, bath or addition.

jimmysgirl424

01-26-2008, 07:40 AM

deleted

Lindzee82

01-26-2008, 01:49 PM

Renrel - Thank you. He will be gone for 12-18 months. Sorry about the house renovations. I hope you figure something out.

jimmysgirl - Good luck!

jimmysgirl424

02-05-2008, 08:55 AM

deleted

gardenmommy

02-05-2008, 09:44 AM

I just wanted to pop in because we are starting to look at houses.

We plan on putting ours on the market in another month or so, and I really don't want to buy anything until ours is sold so we know exactly what we get for this place. I'm sure we will have to move into temp housing for a few months, which with 2 kids will be ...interesting...but I can't stomach the 2 mortgage thing.

Anyway, just wanted to see what was going on in here.

Good luck Jimmysgirl...hope this house works out for you!

Renrel

02-05-2008, 09:54 AM

Congrats Jimmysgirl! I hope it all goes through smoothly.

Goodluck on your search Gardenmommy.

We are still in renovation h*ll but moving forward. Paying rent and a mortage is such fun.:rolleyes: I have finally started packing things up in a manner that makes it look like we are really moving.

It has occurred to me during our renovation to warn others that while you may get a better deal on a house price in the winter you may eat up a large portion of those savings do serous renovation during the winter if you live in a cold climate. Heating costs on a home with radiator pulled out as wall come down and insulation removed as elecric is reworked and heat excaping through ceilings that have been openned up and calling contractors in on a weekend to put in emergency supports before a snow storm fall on roof that has not yet had new supports put in to replace things removed are all things I never thought about until we were in the middle of this mess.

For those of you who have done major renovation work before, have you paid a professional cleaning company to clean up the mess after the work was done? We are concidering this because every single surface is apparently covered in dust and/or soot and/or saw dust and even after DH spent a full day cleaning up the worst of it (and our contractor is actually very good about cleaning as he goes) he says there is still dirt on everything. I called one place and they quoted me $140 an hour for one person with a minimum of 4 hours of work. This sounds very high to me and I am wondering if it is worth it. I would love to start off with as clean a slate as possible and I am not a skilled or motivated cleaner myself. I tend to stop seeing the dirt before I get around to cleaning it, though I am much happier living in a neat clean place.

gardenmommy

02-05-2008, 10:01 AM

For those of you who have done major renovation work before, have you paid a professional cleaning company to clean up the mess after the work was done?

No, but if I were in your shoes I would absolutely do it!

We basically renovated every room in our house over the last 5 years, and so it was manageable to just clean up after every reno. But this last time when we redid our whole basement there was drywall dust EVERYWHERE!! I swear it's still hiding from me and craws out at night just to drive me insane!

jimmysgirl424

02-11-2008, 10:55 AM

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gardenmommy

02-12-2008, 10:06 AM

Fingers crossed for you Kym!;)

jimmysgirl424

02-14-2008, 09:27 AM

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Renrel

02-14-2008, 09:39 AM

Congradulations! I hope all goes smoothy from here on in. But from experience I would say to keep you elation down until you at least get past inspection. We backed out of two houses that we had accepted offers on after inspection. It is kind of like waiting till the 3rd month to announce a pg publicly. By the time we got to our present house I barely got excited since a part of me refused to believe it was real. I am not sure I will really believe it till I am living in it, and we have owned the darn thing for just over 2 months now. With any luck we will be moved in the middle of next month.

jimmysgirl424

02-14-2008, 12:14 PM

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Standrea

02-14-2008, 04:53 PM

Congrats Jimmysgirl! I ll keep my fingers crossed for you that all things go well!

bookworm

02-14-2008, 05:24 PM

Ok, I thought about joining this thread, then it seemed premature (b/c I was looking casually), then I found a place having a first showing and made an offer (one of two they received with just one OH) and had it accepted (after some negotiating) this week. I don't know how people do this for an extended time. This was so quick, no brokers involved (just lawyers), the sellers seem like nice people (and I'm nice too :) ), and I still haven't slept. Inspection is Monday, and my lawyer has to review all of the condo documents. If it all works out, this place would be great--a block away from where I am now (and I love my neighborhood), good space for a 1 bedroom, and it's nice but not over-improved (so many places now are getting granite kitchens and therefore "luxury" prices). We'll see. If this falls through I may keep renting :).

ETA: And I'm considering going back to Strunk & White school, after seeing all of the parentheses in this post.

ETA2: And congrats, jimmysgirl. I hope it goes well :).

bookworm

02-19-2008, 04:53 PM

I don't know whether to be thrilled or terrified, but I had the inspection yesterday and it was pretty much fine. I'm still waiting for the written report but the unofficial one was that it's an old building (which is part of what I like about it), but fairly well maintained & updated. My lawyer has the condo docs to review right now, so we'll see... :eek:

Ilovemysoldier812

02-21-2008, 08:40 AM

I want to join!.. We put in offer in on a house and they accepted it so the next step is getting a VA appraiser to come out and appraise it. Since it's the military and government it might take a while. Hopefully not, I really just want to close and move in. I HATE living in an apartment with a huge yellow lab. Good luck to everyone else buying houses.

Renrel

02-21-2008, 09:15 AM

Bookworm - Congrats! I understand your pull between excitement and terror, I tend to live on that line at any transition, but it does sound like a good move for you. I think you will be happy and if it is not the right thing, well, nothing in life is permanent except death, and some faiths don't even think that is permenent. If it is a mistake you will learn something of value that will be the foundation of a future correct decision, so it is not so bad. Mistakes though painful are often not, in the over all pattern of life, bad things, so long as we are willing to experience them to the point of learning and changing. If not we will make the same mistake again in some other form until we do learn, so just get the learning over with by making the darn mistake. This is of course a do as I say not as I do life lesson. ;)

Ilovemysoldier812 - Good luck with inspection.

bookworm

02-21-2008, 04:41 PM

Thanks, Renrel :). I'm hoping it's the right thing--the way it has all gone so far makes me think it is, but who knows. At least it's an excuse to get rid of my grandmother's kitchen table from the 60s. How are your renovations going?

lindybug

02-21-2008, 05:04 PM

Joining in!

We currently live in MD (DC suburbs). DH found out 2 weeks ago that he is being transferred to Miami. So, we interviewed 4 real estate agents, hired one, and got our house up on the market last Thursday. We wanted to do it quick since we know how long it has been taking some houses to sell around here. Well, we got a full price offer on Saturday from the first woman who saw the house. I am still in shock at how fast this is all moving! (Not to mention depressed at selling our dream house...)

So, we are now hunting for a home down in Miami. We have an agent down there that is sending us listings. We found a few possibilities, but nothing we are in love with. One thing is for sure... I am really going to miss our finished basement!

gardenmommy

02-22-2008, 06:49 PM

Quick update...

We met with our realtor this week and she's convinced our house will sell very fast so she wants us to look for a new house and put on offer in contingent upon selling ours before ours hits the market. So we went house hunting thursday and we visited a great neighborhood he recommended to us. The only drawback is that it's an expensive neighborhood so we'll be buying one of the worst houses in the neighborhood in order to afford the area. We saw 3 homes and all of them needed some work.

How much work are you all willing to do to your new homes? I was hoping only paint and maybe some new carpet or a countertop, but it may be more. What about you all?

betsyboop

02-23-2008, 08:49 AM

I thought I'd join since we will start looking at houses this afternoon. I'm kind of excited, but also nervous and sad about selling our current house. We still haven't totally decided on a town- we like where we live now, but the prices are just so high. The school system is one of the best in the state, but the houses really aren't that nice. We'll see.

Today, we're looking at a house just down the street (literally less than a 1/2 mile from our current house). I've always thought it looked like it had a lot of potential and luckily for us, it just went on the market yesterday at a price that we can afford! It'll need a fair amount of work, but we're used to it since our current house needed quite a bit of work as well. On the bright side, that means we can make it exactly to our taste rather than just moving in to a place that was done up to someone else's taste.

Anyway, this was long. I just wanted to introduce myself:)

gardenmommy

02-23-2008, 09:44 AM

Betsy~ It sounds like we are in very similiar boats. I'm excited about potentially finding a great new house to, but we love ours now and the neighborhood is amazing (as are all the neighbors!) It's gonna be really really tough!

Do you have a time frame you're trying to meet, or just seeing what's out there?

Bloomwood

02-23-2008, 02:16 PM

Quick update...
How much work are you all willing to do to your new homes? I was hoping only paint and maybe some new carpet or a countertop, but it may be more. What about you all?

That's great that your house is going to sell so quickly!

As for doing the work, I am all for it. I've "graduated" from the thread, but the house we bought needs work. It was the low end of our range, but we got so much more house than we could have otherwise. It is all very livable but the need to update dissuaded other bidders, giving us a leg up in a competitive, over-priced market. Before we try to sell (in 4 years or so) we need to redo the kitchen, master bath, kids' bath, guest bath and minor updates to the powder room. We want to do all these updates to make the house nicer for us, but we are not going to invest so much as to make it our "dream house" since we know the house has an expiration date for us.

So, bottom line for me is that I needed to balance what construction I was willing to live with and projects I was willing to undertake with how long we plan to be here and the current livability. We got extremely lucky and our house was even under-priced for market comps (the POs were divorcing and the husband had a house under contingency); we're certain that even with an iffy market we will make money on it when the time comes even factoring in our remodel investments.

I think it is also best to make sure the house has "good bones" as little things always come up. Oh! another thing about our house which might also be a factor for you, is that we have room to expand the house - for one, we'll add a wine cellar which is a big seller here.

betsyboop

02-25-2008, 11:04 AM

gardenmommy- Well, I guess it all depends on how long it takes us to sell our current house (we're listing it next week). Our realtor said that nowadays people are unwilling to accept offers that have a contingency based on selling a house, so we're going to have to sell our place before making any offers. There's no way we'd be able to carry 2 mortgages for any length of time, nor would we even want to- too much stress!

Ilovemysoldier812

02-27-2008, 08:53 AM

We have a closing date for 3/21! Only 3 more weeks. We might be able to push it up because the army sucks and my DH will be away at the field.

bookworm

02-28-2008, 04:06 PM

I feel for you all who are selling/buying at the same time. I find half of that equation stressful enough!

Betsyboop, I hear you on the loving the town/hating the prices (and I'm in MA as well). Moving a mile or two north or south would have gotten me SO MUCH MORE space, but in the end I decided I love my neighborhood (where I currently rent) so I'm staying.

I just FedExed the purchase & sale agreement, and the deposit. As my lawyer said, I am no longer allowed to get cold feet :) (well, they would be EXPENSIVE cold feet!).

ManteoChik

02-28-2008, 08:07 PM

Ahhh, I'm getting cabin fever!

We've been in this one bedroom condo since September, and after looking at that FSBO house it looks like we'll be here longer. Like I updated, the house was nothing special and not worth the price they were asking.

Because of that, and the fact that SO is still out of the country (he travels a lot) we're still on hold. We commited to staying in the condo through the end of the year....gah....only 10 months to go. I think when he gets back into town we're going to start looking at lots. We figure we'll go ahead and buy a lot and start paying on it - probably this summer, and then build when we're ready.

jeninef

02-29-2008, 07:53 AM

SO, I just wanted to drop in and join...we listed our house officially on Monday and it had an offer from the first person who viewed it on Tuesday! The offer was accepted and we have until April 14th to get out and close! So, we went and looked at some homes on Wed. and Thurs. we put an offer in on a home! We're still waiting to find out if they accept it or not. They have until noon today. It's crazy fast for me! I totally loved the house the first few times I saw it...but now I am wondering if the bedrooms are too small. I told DH this morning how I felt and he totally disagrees with me and I think is pretty irritated with me...oh well. I guess we'll just have to see if they accept the offer...

jimmysgirl424

02-29-2008, 08:08 AM

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jeninef

02-29-2008, 09:10 AM

SO, they accepted the offer and we are official "new" homeowners once again! I am excited because this house really is great, I just wish it had bigger bedrooms! Although it is over 800sqft. larger overall. On the plus side...it does have a pool! Which is really great out here! And a 3 car garage which we need for the ever accumiliating(sp.) stuff we seem to keep! With no basements we need a place for storage!

Home and termite inspection on both homes is scheduled for Monday. Let's hope it goes smoothly! Closing for both homes I think will now be scheduled for March 31st. I have to find some movers now and get packing!!!

Thanks Jimmysgirl!

Ilovemysoldier812

03-01-2008, 10:55 AM

Our lender sent in all the paper work for a VA appraiser and that all should be done by the middle of the week. Once our lender has the papers from the VA in her hands we can close so our date will most likely be sooner than the 21st. So we should be closing very soon. I can't wait to be in a bigger place with alot more room since my 85lb lab puppy is taking up all the room in our small apartment.

jimmysgirl424

03-03-2008, 01:51 PM

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pride&prejudice

03-09-2008, 08:18 AM

Can anyone here tell me how long we can reasonably expect the loan underwriters to evaluate our loan paperwork and get back to us? Its been two weeks and still nothing! Our mortage said that most underwriters are really backed up and our file is still "in queue" but should be nearing the top. :confused::mad: We are due to settle in less than two weeks and have to give notice to our apartment complex in one week, so we need an answer.

Sorry you are going through this. Although I can't tell you a reasonable time, since when we bought this house we had the exact same problems. And they "conviently" missed our calls and let us know 2 days prior what the mortage paperwork was going to be and didn't put 20% down, even though we had the 20% to put down. :rolleyes:

Honestly, that's why we went with a small town mortage guy this time. Its been so easy, and I don't have to constantly check up on him. He's calling me every day to let me know the status. Now if we can just get our house sold, maybe my nerves will go away!

gardenmommy

03-10-2008, 10:48 AM

Yvangeline

03-10-2008, 11:06 AM

I would say that if you've found a place that you really like and that meets your needs, go for it!

jimmysgirl424

03-10-2008, 12:38 PM

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Ilovemysoldier812

03-10-2008, 01:31 PM

Gardenmommy- We looked about 6 houses before we put an offer in on one which happened to be the last one we looked at.So I say go for it if you think it's the one.

Jimmysgirl- We become homeowners on the same day. When are you guys going to start moving in?

Renrel

03-10-2008, 01:44 PM

gardenmommy - If the house feels right go for it, particularly if homes in your desired area are few and far between in your price range.

RobynScott

03-10-2008, 01:58 PM

How long did most of you look for homes before you put in an offer?

Dh and i just started looking and have seen maybe 10 houses total and found an amazing house yesterday. I think if we had been looking longer we might jump on it but we are both concerned that we haven;t looked enough and are being a bit premature.

Our issue is that we are looking in a very small area where there are currently maybe 15 houses for sale in our price range...I'm just afraid if we wait for more inventory to come on the market that this house will get snapped up!

What to do??

GM - not a househunter now but when we bought our house, we had been looking for about an hour :p when we found our house. Seriously, DH and I weren't looking to move for another 6 months - I just dragged him to some open houses to start getting ideas of what we would like. The second open house we went to was our house. It had everything on our "must have" list and almost everything on our "nice to have" list. If we waited to see what else came on the market in the following months, we were afraid we wouldn't find what we were looking for. So, we went for it and moved in 3.5 years ago - and have never regretted it :cool: I think you can judge a lot by your gut instinct. If it's got everything you're looking for, I would go for it. You might keep looking and never find anything else you like as much - and lose this house in the meantime. Of course, if you're not sure, you can wait and hope that something you like equally as much comes along - or that this house is still available. For us, it had everything we were looking for (and then some) - so we didn't see the need to keep looking.

Good luck!

jimmysgirl424

03-10-2008, 02:41 PM

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Ilovemysoldier812

03-10-2008, 03:50 PM

yea we have till the end of saturday night to be moved out of here! yikes

Bloomwood

03-10-2008, 04:41 PM

young lioness

03-10-2008, 06:48 PM

Joining the thread!

We just decided this weekend to look into putting our house on the market and decided on areas to look for a new (to us) house. We talked to our realtor earlier tonight and he's going to start researching comps and sending us listings to look at. We have some work to do around the house to get it ready to sell (decluttering, a bit of painting, and a new bathroom floor), so it probably won't be listed until closer to May.

I'm excited, but a little bit terrified, since the house we are in now was our first house, and that process had me pretty stressed out, let alone being in the position of selling AND buying. Since we have to sell in order to buy, I'm trying not to get too interested in looking at listings, but at the same time I want to get an idea of what amount of house we can afford in the areas where we plan to look.

bookworm

03-11-2008, 06:42 PM

I hate this, I hate this, I hate this, I hate this.

Phew, just had to get that out.

The bank person will not call me back. I don't even know if there is a problem (I don't know why there would be--I was pre-approved, the property appraised for the purchase price, and they said they don't need any other documentation from me) or if they just haven't gotten to it yet. Tomorrow I guess I will have to go back to the main number (it's MegaBank; the person isn't local) and try to find a supervisor or something.

If this goes through, I'm going to live in this one bedroom condo until I die. I do not want to do this again!

jimmysgirl424

03-11-2008, 07:18 PM

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bookworm

03-11-2008, 07:20 PM

Oh no! I'm sorry. I hope it all works out.

gardenmommy

03-11-2008, 07:52 PM

kym~ OMG honey! I hope that something great happens and this crap is resolved quickly! Fingers crossed for you!

bookworm~ How frustrating! I hope you can get in touch with someone soon! Fingers crossed for you too!

We are putting in an offer tomorrow and praying it gets accepted, and then it its a mad dash to et ours photographed and listed and sold asap! I feel my ulcer erupting as I type!:rolleyes:

pride&prejudice

03-12-2008, 03:45 AM

We are putting in an offer tomorrow and praying it gets accepted, and then it its a mad dash to et ours photographed and listed and sold asap! I feel my ulcer erupting as I type!:rolleyes:

Good luck. I so know how you feel. We found ours last weekend, and it had only been on the market for 20 days, but it was what we wanted in our price range. We just got done arguing with their realtor to change the status on the MLS listing. :p For some reason he didn't see it my way, that if I was writing them a good faith check and a contract, that it meant I was serious and the house was under contract and no longer on the market! 5 days to change it on MLS!

kym~ Oh honey I hope everything works out for you!

jimmysgirl424

03-12-2008, 10:28 AM

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bookworm

03-12-2008, 06:52 PM

Oh that stinks jimmysgirl. I hope they are able to work it all out.

I was able to talk to someone (actually 2 someones) this morning, and all is so far, so good. When she actually looked at everything, it was "wow, you're really in great shape!" So I guess we go forward... We don't close for another month, so I have time to pack (and my lease isn't up for awhile after that). I suspect it will still wait until the last minute!

Ilovemysoldier812

03-14-2008, 08:37 AM

We were supposed to close today but the seller didn't get all their paper work ready and done so we close on monday. Since they messed they gave us the code to the box on the door for the key so we can move in this weekend.

jimmysgirl424

03-14-2008, 03:01 PM

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pride&prejudice

03-16-2008, 07:24 AM

ilms~ That stinks, but at least you were able to get keys!

jimmysgirl~ That stinks, hope it all works out.

I think we are going to be still looking for quite a while. We had the home inspection on Friday for the house we put a contract on. Its good and bad. Good thing is its a structurally sound house, and just needs love. Plus we love the guy that we got to do the inspection,a dn we'll definitely be using him again if we wind up not getting this house. He really did an inspection, instead of the usual just glancing through the house and saying its ok.

But, there were quite a few things we hadn't noticed when we had walked through, and my gut feeling is they covered it up before. But, there was extensive dry rot in 2 of the doors/door frames and in the garage doors, the heating/cooling unit had not been maintained and had no filter, the water pressure tank was leaking, the water heater was being supported by a milk crate, there was mold behind the water heater, live exposed wires in the attic, temporary patches in the roof (with pans below them), and baout 3 other things that weren't as pressing but stll need to be fixed/maintained if they are going to be living there for 2 more months.

My gut feeling is telling me that they are probably not going to fix it and tell us to take it as it is. Its a young couple, but they haven't been the greatest with the whole negotiations, even though we offered full asking price. If they do that we are walking away. Luckily we put a clause in the contract for just such an event. There is just too much major work to be worrying about first thing when we move into the house.

So yeah, we've been looking at houses online again this weekend. I'm not too upset. It will give our house sometime on the market and we won't be in the crazy rush mode that we were in.

Renrel

03-16-2008, 11:56 AM

Ilovemysolder - Hope the move went well this weekend.

Jimmysgirl - Hope all goes well on Monday, may the luck of the Irish be with you.

We finally have a move in date. We have owned the house since December 11th and the movers should be moving us in March 29th. We have so much packing to still do and there is still work that needs doing during the next two weeks.

Ilovemysoldier812

03-17-2008, 09:06 AM

We got all moved in this weekend. I have lots of unpacking to do. Most of it is just army stuff I think I'll leve in boxes and put them down in the crawl space. Our house got winterized a month ago and since it had been such a short time we just turned the water heater on and lit the pilot on our own. We didn't have any water pressure so we called a plumber and he came out, all he had to do was turn a knob and he couldn't get it turned. He was being very lazy and didn't want to go get the part to get it turned so he tried heating it with a torch. That didn't go over well since he made our pipe burst. WATER WAS EVERY WHERE! luckily it wasn't inside the house. Well I have to get kids to school then we go and sign all the paper work so we can actually own this house.

Good luck today, jimmysgirl.

Have fun packing, renrel.

jimmysgirl424

03-17-2008, 10:09 AM

t minus two hours and counting...:D

pride&prejudice

03-22-2008, 09:21 AM

Given the market.... WTH do some people seem to think that it doesn't apply to them? If there is something major worng with your house, like a leaky roof, and live exposed wires in the attic (that's just the tip of it), I expect you to fix for it prior to me buying it! Just because you bought a home warrenty doesn't give you the right to say "But that's what I got the warrenty, so I don't have to fix that stuff." Hellloooo..... you have a 4 month old DD in the house, half this stuff is a safety hazard!

Ok, maybe this was more of a vent. But I honestly cannot believe this guy whose home we are trying to buy. I cannot even imagine trying some of this crap selling my home. :cool:

ilovemysoldier and jimmysgirl~ Hope the moves went good

renrel~ That's great you finally get to move in!

gardenmommy

03-25-2008, 06:45 PM

I know I should be more excited about house hunting but this is frustrating. We have narrowed our target area and have seen a couple houses that would work, but I always feel like we are compromising and DH and I cannot agree on what are the easy things to live without...If I could just take the backyard from one house, the kitchen from another, the bonus room of another etc and put them all together we would be happy as clams.:rolleyes:

Renrel

03-31-2008, 08:27 AM

We finally spent our first night in the new house. The move was horrendus and it is not quite done. It took the movers all day and two trips with the truck to move our stuff and we still have a few things left in the apartment that need to be moved or thrown away or taken away. The house if filled with boxs and of course I could not find the one I most needed last night, but we are in. Today the cable and phone and internet should be connected. We have lease on the old place for another month. But we are now living in our own house. Yeah.

Good luck to everyone else looking to buy. With Spring here the market should be picking up and there should be things to be seen and maybe a few semi-bargain with people wanting to sell before everyone else gets there house on the market to compete.

Photobug

04-02-2008, 05:45 PM

Joining in!
We just decided to start looking again. We are currently renting, and with house prices in our area stabilizing (finally) we thought we should get started before mortgage rates go up too much in response to falling prices.

We are in a good situation in that we really like where we are renting and there is no pressure to find something within a time limit. The problem is - we really like where we are living -LOL- and anything in our price range will be a compromise of some sort. There's no way we could afford to buy the house we're in now. It's in a great setting with lots of land around it.

I just think that if we don't buy something now, we will kick ourselves later when prices start to go up again. And if we compromise now, we'll at least have built up some equity and have something to sell if we want to move, whereas now the money we're spending is pretty much going down the drain.

It's a scary proposition, and I have no idea what I'm doing process-wise. The good news is we found a buyer's agent that comes highly recommended and we are going to meet with her this weekend.

Well, off to read through some of this thread, I'm sure I can learn a lot from everyone else's experiences.

gardenmommy

04-04-2008, 10:05 AM

Well we found another house and after competing with multiple offers ours was accepted. The sale is contingent upon us selling our house so now we are in a mad dash to try and sell it. I just hope and pray we don't lose this place because we can't sell ours fast enough.:( The house is great though and everything we were hoping for.

pewee9196

04-08-2008, 03:16 AM

This summer we should be buying. YAY! We have moved a lot in the past 12 years and are hoping to settle down with a career change. One Job looks promising so I have been looking online. I am so excited about the prospects. I will be back when I have more time to read!

Congrats to everyone moving in!

bookworm

04-14-2008, 12:29 PM

Well, I closed on my place this morning. I kept waiting for something to go wrong, but I am now a homeowner! Well, more like I'm now renting from the bank instead of from a landlord :). Now to figure out moving...

Tara07

04-16-2008, 09:04 AM

I am going to be joining in too!!

We just got preapproved yesterday. We have already looked at one house, that we loved but on the other hand the rooms are small and it has a weird master bath. The thing we love most about the house is the completely finished basement. We are going to be going out with our realtor on Saturday to look at about 4 houses in our price range. I am really excited to start looking. We are hoping to get completely moved in before our wedding which is in July.

Photobug

04-18-2008, 05:21 PM

Well, we found one we liked in our price range and put an offer in. Turns out that someone else had put in an offer before us. We're talking they beat us by a couple of hours. It's so frustrating!!! Anything in our (admittedly cheap) price range that is not falling apart sells so fast. We just went out and looked at five more houses last night and they were all dumps! I'm starting to get really depressed over this. If we wanted to buy a house with no land, it would be different but I can't be happy with other people living practically on top of me. I'd suffocate. Luckily DH feels the same, so we don't argue over it. I'm so ready to give up and we've just barely started looking. I just know that if we don't buy now and the prices start to climb again we'll be kicking ourselves that we didn't buy now. Especially with the climbing prices of - well, everything else - besides.

Congratulations, Bookworm, on finding your house! Good luck with the moving. :)

gardenmommy

04-18-2008, 09:10 PM

Photobug~ I just wanted to say keep your chin up. When we bought our current house we looked for several months at a LOT of dumps and I was so discouraged at what our money was going to buy us. The house we ended up buying still needed a lot of work but it fit us, and after all the hard work and renovations we love our house and now that we are selling we stand to make a ton of $$.

Hope you find a great place soon!

Photobug

04-19-2008, 05:25 AM

Thanks, Gardenmommy. It's always heartening to hear that someone else had a similar experience that worked out alright. Intellectually, I know that there are decent houses out there, it's just hard to remember when you go to showing after showing of less-than-livable houses. Plus a lot of people around here are still living in fantasy land and asking for prices above the assessed value (which is always inflated as it is) so that makes it difficult. We're going to be looking at some more houses this Sunday - a little further away from where we have been looking - so we'll have to figure the cost of commuting in the decision. At least we've got some good stories to tell about some of the really weird places we've seen.

bookworm

04-19-2008, 05:37 AM

Thanks, Photobug :). I will second the "hang in there"-- from this thread it seems like I found my place immediately, but I had been looking casually for maybe a year. I had said more than once "If this is what's available in my price range, I'll just keep renting." And then I found my place (which was at the tip top of my range, but given that I had seen everything else out there, I felt it was a fair price), which I will be painting today!

ManteoChik

04-20-2008, 11:23 AM

Coming back in again!

I swear, it just seems like this is a never ending process.

We've been watching the MLS in our hometown for about 3 years. The first 2.5 we weren't too serious, but if the perfect house came up we would make a move. With my SO's generous new raise, we're really starting to get serious.

Last week I went to see a FSBO that we were very interested in, and met with the owner. We like the house, but we would have to get it for the "right price" for it to be worth it. The lot is very low, which in common living on an island, but it seems as thought not enough fill was brought in during the building process and we would need to have sand brought in under the house. We know its a good house, it was built by a local builder (that built my parents house) for his daughter.

There has been a home on the MLS we've been seeing for a while. Great house, a bit above what we want to pay. We could swing it, but we don't want to be house poor. They recently dropped the price (still more than we want to pay) and so we called a friend who is a realtor just to take a look and see what type of difference more $$$$ can get you.

We loved the house. We also found out that the owners are friends of a friend and that they are possibly REALLY needing to sell. Husband already moved to a new state for a job and Wife is a school teacher. We've been told that Husband is worried he might have to drop out of the training program he's in (for his job) and come home if they can't sell.

The only downfall is that we were REALLY hoping to not make a move on anything until after summer. We're renting our condo from a family friend, and while we don't have a lease we did commit to staying here until the end of the year. We could swing rent here and a mortgage - but we only want to have to do that a max of a few months...not 6.

Question **I apologize in advance if this is a total noob question - and don't even know how ethical it is..so here goes....[/b]

We know their listing is up in a couple of months with their current agent. We have never dealt with this agent nor has he ever shown us this home. We aren't ready to do anything for a few months - but we'd also hate for the own to drop out of his program to come home and then a couple months later we make an offer. We would be willing to put down some sort of deposit within the next couple of months to show we are
serious. Is it ethical to make an offer after their listing expires with the agent? We don't have any sort of connection or agreement with him - but I guess I wonder about what is ethical for the owners??

If you've made it this far you deserve a medal....lol.

suzubeane

04-20-2008, 12:38 PM

Is it ethical to make an offer after their listing expires with the agent? Is it ethical to give a deposit to the current owners, establishing a secret oral agreement under which they'll wait out the contract with their realtor and then make a private sale to you?

No it is not.

bookworm

04-20-2008, 04:46 PM

Manteochik, you could make an offer on the house now and offer a close that is way out in the future. If you don't have a broker of your own, you'll want to get a lawyer to write the offer. The owners may or may not go for it (may depend on how much you escrow). The realtor thing is for the seller to work out with the agent--I would imagine they have already signed whatever they are going to sign and will have to pay them.

ManteoChik

04-20-2008, 05:06 PM

Gah, it just sucks because we aren't ready for a few more months but we also don't want to miss out on the house.

The biggest thing is that I actually do feel really bad for the family. I would hate for the husband to drop out of his training program for his new job to come home - not knowing they could have an offer some time later. I recognized the family as soon as I saw pictures on the wall (I subbed for the mom at the elem school one day) and the dad is a friend of a friend, although we had no idea this was their house.

Kanga

04-20-2008, 06:28 PM

Maybe joining?

I wouldn't say we are definitely house hunting. We've always go our feelers out, looking for what we could possibly get for our money. We rent so no need to worry about how we'll sell our house and we also have a month to month lease on our place now. I came across a house that seems perfect (of course there's always something though). Pro's - the square footage we're looking for, some cosmetic updates needed but not gawd awful floor to ceiling wall paper in every room and bathrooms and kitchen have all the hard work already done, 1 more bedroom than we wanted, and right amount of bathrooms. Cons being no garage (but space to add one if we wanted to down the line), somewhat busy road, not my favorite exterior color (light blue, but could be worse), and not my #1 pick for area but not horrible either.

We're scheduled to look at it Wednesday morning so I'll let you know how it goes.

SD601

04-20-2008, 07:09 PM

So in this market right now, I'm wondering if I should just wait a while before buying?

Our condo sold in just two days, which left us completely unprepared and without housing. I look on the MLS daily and while we've seen a few houses, none of them are right for us. I'm freaking out now....should we try and rent for a while? Month-to-month, if possible? Our dream area is *just* out of our budget, but with the downward market, there's always that hope that prices will decrease enough for us to purhcase. Ahhhhh, I don't know! Any advice?

bookworm

04-21-2008, 05:38 AM

SD601, that's what the sellers of my condo are doing--they sold in one day, and didn't want to rush into buying something, so they are renting in the neighborhood they think they want to live in. Moving twice stinks, but it might be a good decision.

Tara07

04-21-2008, 06:33 AM

We put an offer on a beautiful house yesterday. I love it. I hope to hear from them either today or tomorrow. It is totally perfect for FH and I.

Photobug

04-22-2008, 05:50 AM

We went on a marathon showing the other day. Six houses in four towns in all different directions of the compass. We actually saw two that we kind of liked, that were in close to move-in condition. Unfortunately, they were in the town furthest away from our jobs and after the ride out there we decided with the cost of gas being what it is, we'd rather not commute that far if we didn't have to. The other houses we saw were not too bad. The one my husband loved was at the very upper end of our price range and needed quite a lot of finishing, so no go there. We are actually going back tomorrow night to look at one of them again. It was towards the end of the day when we saw it last time, and at that point we hadn't ruled out the move-in-condition ones, so I didn't really pay this one much attention, because it is a BIG fixer-upper. The thing is, it is really much more comfortably in our price range. It needs a LOT of cosmetic work, but the previous owner did do a lot of updates (new septic, new roof, new windows) that you don't see in a lot of fixer-uppers. So we are going back to take another look. We're going to bring my parents along this time, because they've done a lot more home renovation projects than we have, and they might be able to tell us just what we'd be getting ourselves into money and time-wise. It's a big old house in an historic district, and will be quite a project. I don't know if we're up to the challenge.

Like our real estate agent told us, we've got to reconcile ourselves to the fact that we are not going to get everything we want and stay in our price range. So it's a matter of deciding what is negotiable and what isn't at this point.

gardenmommy

04-22-2008, 09:03 AM

It's a big old house in an historic district, and will be quite a project. I don't know if we're up to the challenge.

Photobug~ When we bought our first place (our current house) that is exactly what we bought. I'll be honest and say that we spent maybe $100,000 over 5 years to totally redo every inch, the kitchen, the exterior paint, both yards, both bathrooms and we added a bedroom and bathroom too, but it was worth every penny and drop of sweat. In the end the house was what we really wanted and it was actually fun making it our own. You also stand to make a pretty penny if you ever sell.

Good luck and I hope your second showing is a good one.

Tara07

04-24-2008, 06:23 AM

They counter offered back at us with $132,000. We had originally offered them $127,000 with 5% assistance with down payment and closing costs, the house is selling for $126,900. So we counter offered back at $130,000 with 5%, so now we are waiting to here if they except the offer, they have till Friday at 5pm, in my opinion I think that is too long for them to be able to decide. I guess it is etiquette, but I just think it should have been 24 hours.

So now we are just in a waiting game right now again, I have a feeling that they will respond to us tonight, if not we hear something tomorrow.

Photobug

04-24-2008, 11:04 AM

We went to see two houses last night. We revisited the one I posted about earlier. It's really a very good bargain, but I'm just not sure we'll be able to put the work into that it needs. We don't have a ton of money to put into renovations, and it needs a LOT. Plus we found out the neighborhood is on a high water table and there is quite a bit of water in the (fieldstone) basement. This wouldn't bother me so much, but the furnace and water heater down there are not very high up off the ground. I know from experience at my parent's house that this can cause major problems. The sump pump went on twice while we were there. I do love the location, and I love older homes. They layout is great. Some of the old plaster ceilings need to be replaced. The way they did the bathroom is really weird - you'd almost have to sit sideways on the toilet because the sink is RIGHT there. Really, I'm not afraid of some work, it's more of a time and financial issue. DH and I rarely have the same days off, and we have other community commitments outside of our 2 full-time jobs. This will take some more contemplation.

The second house we saw was a cute little cape. The structure seemed in good condition. The interior only needs light cosmetic work (mostly to remove wallpaper and replace bizarre paint colors.) The electric may need updating, we're not sure. The down side: it has a much smaller lot than I would like, and neighbors on three sides. I could see seven houses from the backyard. I am a hermit by nature; I have a very social job, so I don't want to look at people when I'm home. DH doesn't mind it at all. The other thing is that this house is FILLED with the previous owner's stuff. It's really weird. And it stipulates that the buyer would have to get rid of it. I'm talking clothes still in closets and food still in the cupboards. It's like they were abducted by aliens or something. It is in the same town as the first one, in a good little neighborhood on a dead-end street.

I know DH is leaning more towards the second one. Emotionally, I still like the first one much better. I know they say you shouldn't let emotions sway you at all in a decision like this, but how can you help it? Who knew this would be so HARD?

Geez... I've written a book again. Thanks to anyone who slogged through this!

shortcake

04-24-2008, 11:46 AM

Photobug - it's such a tough decision, of course your emotions are playing a part! I'm not sure what I would do in your case.

For house #1 - if you are concerned you won't have time/money to do the stuff, I'd hesitate for sure. It took us MUCH longer to get everything done in our first house than we anticipated - and we never did finish before we ended up moving for a job. (The next house we bought we made sure only needed light cosmetic work because we were not up for doing that again. And then we ended up hiring someone to do some of the things we COULD have done ourselves, because it was just faster.)

For house #2 - I would seriously think about the location (too many neighbors, lot size, etc) and whether you'd get comfortable with that. Because that's something you can't ever change. I didn't love our current location when I bought it - and I still don't love it. I'm not sure if it was right to buy when I did - maybe something would have come up in a better location - but the house is nice and suits our family well for the moment. On the other hand, if your gut is telling you you won't be happy there I would listen to your gut! That's weird about the previous owner's stuff - did they die or something? Anyway you could make some calls to find out what it would cost you to get rid of it - charities will come pick up some things but I'm sure you'll have to dump some of it. Factor that in to your offer. (But hey maybe you'll find a treasure!)

Tara07

04-25-2008, 09:01 AM

Well they denied our second offer. So we made a third an final offer of 131,600, giving them what they want 125, 020. We are giving them an extra twenty dollars. The only apprehension we have about this house is that if it doesnt appraise at the price we are going to pay, then we are stuck paying the appraisal for house and we are given the option to walk away from it if it doesnt appraise at above 131,600. We dont have the extra money to come up with the remaining if there is.

I guess the realtor's wife knows the wife from high school and he says that they are snobby people. They have only had the house on the market for i month.

pride&prejudice

04-25-2008, 09:21 AM

tara~ Sorry you are having problems. I don't knwo what to tell you, except what I would do. Knowing what the relator told you and based off of their offer, I would have walked away and had my relator inform me when someone else made an offer on the house.

The one that we are going to be closing in on a month, we had similar problems. The sellers did not want to budge at all. So basically, DH and I decided to give them full asking price (they actually wound up knocking $3k off when they wouldn't give us a contingency on our house). We haven't been picky, and now that its coming down to inspections and them fixing a few things, we have a ton more leverage. They can't argue since we didn't fight them on price, and they have a place already lined up, so once they get to closing, we have the upper hand. Just something to think about.

And the people we are buying from.... ugh I just vented in the sellers thread. I don't like calling people stupid, but these 2 take the cake. We had a re-inspection today to take a look at the fixes they were supposed to make based off of the inspection report and negotiations that we had. Its just horrible the short cuts that they are taking and trying to pull over on us. I don't think they realize if they keep going down this path, how much they are going to have to put in escrow. :cool:

And they are already starting to neglect the yard and cleaning inside. :confused: I don't get that. That's just more money we'll be getting at settlement from them. So yeah, closing is in a month, and they have 2 weeks to fix up the things that we found today. Sad part is, we weren't even super picky like we could have been. :( This whole thing is just way too stressful.

Tara07

04-25-2008, 11:20 AM

Thanks P&P!! I just think the sellers are being unreasonable. Granted they want to get there money out of the house, but the arent budging like your sellers were. I hope that they become more cooperative. My FH and I fell in love with this house and we just dont want to give up on it. I just hope that it appraises at what we offered them.

Photobug

04-27-2008, 05:46 AM

And they are already starting to neglect the yard and cleaning inside. :confused: I don't get that. That's just more money we'll be getting at settlement from them. So yeah, closing is in a month, and they have 2 weeks to fix up the things that we found today. Sad part is, we weren't even super picky like we could have been. :( This whole thing is just way too stressful.

Sorry to hear the current owners are being such a pain. Are they still living in the house? Why would you start letting it get run down just because you have an offer? Especially when the offer is contingent on repairs/changes being completed? :rolleyes: Some people don't think.

We are taking a little break from looking at houses due to the stress level we were experiencing... plus our work schedules the next two weeks are nuts and we have no time off together to go out looking anyway. Someone else put a bid in on the old fixer-upper and we decided not to counter. The other one, we are keeping in the back of our minds, we'll see if it's still on the market in two weeks and then maybe we'll reconsider it, but we're not in love with it.
It actually feels like such a relief not to have to think of house hunting all day long! And it sounds like things only get more stressful after an offer is accepted... Good luck Tara07 with the negotiations.

pride&prejudice

04-27-2008, 08:36 AM

Sorry to hear the current owners are being such a pain. Are they still living in the house? Why would you start letting it get run down just because you have an offer? Especially when the offer is contingent on repairs/changes being completed? :rolleyes: Some people don't think.

Yes they are still living there. They already have a place lined up. The thing is, I don't know if its them or their realtor (even though their realtor is a ditz) that just doesn't seem to comprehend that they signed a contract saying they would make these fixes, and that in the original contract, we can walk away if we don't like it and take all our money. Its not even like I expect then to be scrubbing everyday. But I sure as heck never let our house go liek that when we were selling it. And the wife got mad because we wouldn't say anything about the inspection. Hello... you aren't even supposed to be there. But I think it was more that we weren't raving that it was great. :rolleyes: Whatever.

MIL and FIL are looking to move and I've started helping them look for a place. Think I'm going to start scoping out some other places for us as well.

Tara07

04-28-2008, 06:45 AM

The sellers finally excepting our 3rd and final offer. We got a call on Friday night saying they had excepted our offer. Now we just need to wait on the appraisal, hopefully it appraises over what we offered them. Now we just need to get all of the paper work together.:eek:

pride&prejudice

05-01-2008, 03:40 AM

Congrats Tara!

Question..... DH and I have been going back and forth about maybe withdrawing our offer. We feel that the couple is getting way to cocky, and didn't make any of the fixes they signed the contract to do, but stated they had. I mean blatent stuff. Like saying you will make permenant fixes and get rid of the temporary fixes in the roof. Their solution was to go out and get a contractor to say the roof was perfectly fine. That's about 1 on a liste of 4 major things that they did like that.

I'm calling our realtor up to talk about it today, but I'm sort of nervous if I'm going to have to go through it..... So would you guys pull the offer?

Tara07

05-01-2008, 06:31 AM

Thanks P&P~ We are anxiously awaiting to sign our commitment papers tomorrow and also awaiting the appraisal. It is suppose to take place sometime this week.

Pride~ You have a right to withdrawl your offer on the house if there is a MAJOR issue. At least that is what our realtor told us. He said that we could walk away. Also legally they have to fix the problems the right way. Did they sign a contract? The decision is really up to you if you want to pull the offer, personally if they were not willing to fix anything per the inspector's findings then why would they put the house on the market to sell it in the first place? Is the house fairly new or is it old?

gardenmommy

05-01-2008, 09:47 AM

Congrats Tara! I'll cross my fingers that the appraisal goes smoothly.

P&P~ If I were in your shoes I would not hesitate to withdraw. The way I look at it that there are so many things that could be wrong with a house that an inspector just can't find, and if they are in denial about fixing something as big as the roof, then what else are they not disclosing or fixing correctly. A house is an emotional investment, but its an investment either way and it sucks to have doubts about such a big thing.

I also bet if you threaten to withdraw it will spook the sellers and they will do what they need to do rather than loose a buyer...it's not exactly a sellers market anymore!

pride&prejudice

05-01-2008, 08:11 PM

I also bet if you threaten to withdraw it will spook the sellers and they will do what they need to do rather than loose a buyer...it's not exactly a sellers market anymore!

Well, we are giving them a week. Actually tonight they are getting presented with our plan. Which is do everything that we stated orginally, but its definitely goign to cost them extra. Our realtor is actually talking about their realtor eating some the cost. Too much to go into right now....

I wish someone woudl tell them its not a seller's market. I know we'll get a knee jerk reaction with them since they have already put an offer in on another place. But my gut is telling me that we are going to be walking....

Photobug

05-04-2008, 09:50 AM

P&P I'm sorry you're still having such a rough time. I agree with gardenmommy that if they are being so dishonest about issues you already know about, they probably are the type to try to get away without disclosing other potential problems.

I wish someone woudl tell them its not a seller's market.
Ha! There is a serious learning curve with some people. We've looked at houses that were so overpriced for the condition they were in, our real estate agent actually went outside to check the number to be sure we were in the right house! I mean, we are looking at cheap houses, but when some of the rooms are missing FLOORS.... (yes, I mean the whole floor, nothing but joists) well, you just can't expect to get the same as the neighbors did two years ago...

Anyway, good luck with your negotiations. They'd be smart to give you whatever you want at this point, they're lucky you haven't walked already!

dana b

05-06-2008, 11:42 AM

ugh, how long does it take to "get over" a house :( we fell hard for a house this weekend and were all ready to put in our bid yesterday, but they're not accepting offers on contingencies. with this market, we have no clue how long it would take to get an offer on our house.
this house was beyond perfect, we're SO heartbroken

the front
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2362/2470782863_5f4402a525.jpg?v=0
kitchen
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2089/2470782867_ea62ffc556.jpg?v=0
pool
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2120/2470782869_69bf6a8a13.jpg?v=0

wah :(

LRL

05-06-2008, 11:53 AM

<delurking>Dana B- So sorry they won't take your offer! That house looks amazing!

granada

05-06-2008, 12:03 PM

delurking too to say that house is beautiful! (would you mind telling me where in the country it's located?)

gardenmommy

05-06-2008, 02:19 PM

Gorgeous House Dana!

I don;t get why they would not take a contingency...if they get additional offers more appealing to them before you sell they could just bump you which of course would be awful for you, but fine for the sellers so I don't understand why they wouldn't accept a contingency.:confused:

dana b

05-06-2008, 02:46 PM

granada it's in altadena, calif -- i guess it would be a suburb of l.a. we're currently in pasadena, which is the next city over.

gardenmommy i think it's because they need to close on this house before the 45 day escrow is up on their new house. plus, as of yesterday morning there were already 4 offers.

Tara07

05-08-2008, 06:53 AM

Well its official. We signed our commitment papers yesterday and we are going to have a new house in less than a month. I am so excited. The house appraised for $1000.00 over what we had to offer in order for them to pay our 5% down for closing and down payment. Here are some pictures:

Front of House:
http://c21images.cendant.com/C21/10002591/0002/LISTING/1160b7f5-7d23-4847-889b-979296098ace.JPG

Kitchen:
http://c21images.cendant.com/C21/10002591/0002/LISTING/e8a10479-eae3-4edf-b19b-d6838e56e7c8.JPG

Living Room with 42" Plasma included in with the home:
http://c21images.cendant.com/C21/10002591/0002/LISTING/762587e9-644c-47ff-a4b8-e8cd40aa9d7a.JPG

Backyard, it looks dull. but we are going to do so much to it (the lot size is 111x205):
http://c21images.cendant.com/C21/10002591/0002/LISTING/57d0063f-05e8-469a-a581-e9db6727f082.JPG

I so cant wait. I will post pictures when we actually move in and decorate our selves, these are pictures from the website.

Photobug

05-08-2008, 04:27 PM

Congratulations!
It looks great, and the land is flat so you have a blank canvas...what potential!

Tara07

05-09-2008, 07:00 AM

Congratulations!
It looks great, and the land is flat so you have a blank canvas...what potential!

I know, the whole house is in such wonderful condition, I cant wait to move in!!!

August2005Bride

05-09-2008, 08:02 AM

The house is beautiful Tara Lots of luck :)

Unfortunately we arent really house hunting but I keep looking online every day at houses to get an idea as I am very anxious for me and hubby to be able to get out own house and out of my mom's basemetn apt. IT is good for now and my mom is great but we wil be married 3 yrs in August and just ready to be totoally on our own.

I just hope the day comes very soon.

Tara07

05-09-2008, 12:31 PM

Thanks Candice!! I am really excited. I cant wait to move in.

allyray231

05-11-2008, 04:29 PM

2 questions

1) do you guys plan to escrow your taxes and

2) do you have the home inspected after the offer and before contract or AFTER contract

bookworm

05-11-2008, 05:23 PM

2 questions

1) do you guys plan to escrow your taxes and

2) do you have the home inspected after the offer and before contract or AFTER contract

1. Nope. I'll take my (tiny) interest payment on my own :).

2. I think it depends on the state--here, I had to make a formal offer with earnest $ ($1k), with the option to back out (and have it refunded) after inspection. After that, we signed the P&S, which was when I had to escrow the down payment. If there were things found at the inspection that the sellers agreed to fix, they would have had to be itemized in the P&S.

And for any other first-time buyers in here, WOW, it does feel different when it's your own (well, and the bank's). I just moved in, and even surrounded by boxes, it is so nice :).

Niko&Troi

05-21-2008, 03:25 PM

I'm joining.

We sold our house in Feb but it didn't close until this past Monday. We moved out in April and are already in Florida in a short term rental until we find something.

I had been looking because we don't want to rent forever but it's so hard trying to find something. Everything that is in our price range, although big enough, is not laid out very well. Here in Fl for some reason, they have big living areas and very small bedrooms. Right now the boys can share a room comfortably, but in 5 years when they are 9 and 7, it will be tight. Plus most of the houses I've seen have a the formal dining/living room combo and I don't like that. I don't need a formal living room, I need a play room. We saw one that we could put a wall up in between the two and I'd get my play room but the 2nd and 3rd bedrooms are only 10 x 10.

There is this house that pretty much has what we're looking for. It's got a living room, dining area and master bedroom downstairs. There are 2 large bedrooms upstairs and a loft that could be a toy room. There are 2 lanai's, a covered in ground pool and it has a yard beyond that. Plus it's in a great school district. The house has been on the market a while and that is because it was built in 1989 and has the original kitchen and bathrooms. It will also need new carpeting and to be painted. We can afford the carpet and paint, but not do the kitchens and baths before we move in w/o a loan.

So we're thinking we could put in an offer and hope to get a home equity line of credit to fix it up. But that is the catch, hope to get the loan :rolleyes: If we did get the house at the price we want, we'd be S.O.L. if we couldn't get the line of credit and have to live in it with the original areas. Now normally aged things don't bother me, however, the owners grandparents are living there and they don't clean. There is mold in the shower areas and it's really gross. The kitchen cabinets are really nasty and falling apart.

If it was just us, we'd work with it, but it's not. We have to think about what is safe for the boys. We're going to go see it one more time and have a contractor meet us there to see how much it would cost to update and if it's worth it.

In the mean time though, I'm still looking. I saw 9 today, none of which would work. Either a not so desireable area, layout or small room sizes.

I would like to think we have all the time in the world, but we don't. Brian believes that the rates are going to go up. And although we only live 20 miles from where Brian works, being it's all streets, it's taking him an hour each way to and from work. Besides the fact that it's not ours and we can't change anything, I constantly have to watch the boys don't break something and the water smells :(

So we continue to look but still keep coming back to that house. I'm heading out tomorrow to another part of town to see what's up there. Hopefully something will just "WOW" me.

Niko&Troi

05-21-2008, 03:29 PM

Check out this website I found for school ratings: School Digger (http://www.schooldigger.com). It has helped me greatly :D

Tara07

05-27-2008, 06:17 AM

We close on our house on the 4th of June. I am so excited. It seems like it is taking forever to get here. I am so beyond excited.

Niko&Troi

06-04-2008, 02:01 PM

Tara Did you close today??

Even though this is a buyers market, it still sucks. We have bid on 3 houses and none were accepted. The first the guy took an offer over ours, the second she didn't want to budge on the price even though the house would need close to $40k worth of work and this last one today the bank accepted another offer over ours, even though we had the better credit scores.

I have seen almost 75 houses and this is getting very frustrating and depressing at the same time. And in the mean time the interest rates are continuing to go up and so will our payments. The taxes here in Florida are insanely high.

It's not supposed to be this hard in this market and it seems like it's impossible :(

Tara07

06-04-2008, 02:59 PM

Lorraine~ We did not close today. We are still waiting on an approval from FHA. My FH is leaving for Vegas tomorrow, so we were hoping to get this done while he was gone, but it was a no go. We are not schedule to close now until next Tuesday the 10th. The other crappy part was that the seller was wanting us to pay $ 225 because we didnt close on time. My FH was pissed because it is not our fault that we are not closing on time, it is the banks fault. So he went to the bank and talked to our mortgage lender and found out that they are going to pay the buyers that money. Our lender pisses me off sometimes because it is just a matter of catching things on the paperwork and we have had to go back 2 times to sign stuff he missed or messed up on. I just cant wait until we have our house.

Niko&Troi

06-04-2008, 03:11 PM

I'm sorry you didn't close Tara. That is what happened with the sale of my house in DE. They were supposed to close on 4/15 but they were waiting for the final approval for their FHA loan. So we pushed it back to 4/30 and again no close. We pushed it to 5/13 and once again nothing. Finally they closed on 5/19.

My realtor told me that they are so backed up right now, everyone having to go FHA and not enough people to do the paperwork.

And that does suck that the owners wanted that $$. Was that written into the original contract? We wanted to do something like that and my realtor told me they may walk and it's not worth loosing them over it.

Tara07

06-04-2008, 08:41 PM

I am just hoping that it doesnt take that long to close!! We have been dealing with all of this since the middle of April. It is just very frustrating. I am getting married on July 12th and I am just hoping that we are able to get in the house by then, that was our goal.

I am just glad that the bank is going to pay the fee to the buyers. I honestly dont remember if that was stated in the contract. What also sucked is that the FHA people are only contactable by email, which i think that is crap. Because our realtor told us that all it is; is a file that someone has to look at and decide whether they are going to approve us, which is only 10 minutes or so.

So now we are scheduled to close on the 10th. Hopefully everything goes smoothly.

Photobug

06-05-2008, 07:09 AM

Well, we've found a house and made an offer, and they accepted! :D

I'm still trying not to get too excited, because we have a lot of steps to get through still and I've been hearing so many horror stories of things that can go wrong at this point. But it's hard not to start mentally renovating and decorating.

We are also doing an FHA loan, so I'm a little nervous about that. We've heard all sorts of things about how picky they can be. Has anyone had that experience. What information do they base their decision on? Is it purely financial? Or do they take the home inspection report into account? I really don't know what to expect at this point.

This whole process is so nerve-wracking! But it'll be worth it if we close on this property.

Wishing everyone luck, swift approval and smooth sailing in their house-buying journey.

Niko&Troi

06-05-2008, 07:25 AM

Congrats Photobug :D

I can say from our experience as sellers, the buyers FHA was not smooth, just read my post above this one. One of the main reasons why they didn't close the first time was the bank wanted more things from both sides. We left a treadmill and work out equipment in the basement, both not worth the time of day. The bank wanted an addendum stating that the items would not add value to the house. Why they didn't ask for that in the beginning I have no idea.

Then they wanted a letter from our relo company that in fact we were relocating and not just selling. This one pissed us off a little bit. To us, it was no body's business why we were selling but we wanted out of the house so we got it to them.

The only offer I can give is just make sure you have all of your work in order. Give them whatever they want. My realtor on the sale told me it's just depends on what underwriter you get. She's seen some go through with no problems, and then others like myself. But either way she kept saying it's going to take time so be patient. Of course that is easier said then done.

~~~~~~~~~~

I'm heading out to a different part of town today to see 7 houses. It is 11 miles west of Disney. The county is deemed short term rental but my realtor has found 2 subdivisions that don't allow them so we're going to one today. It's a gated community and all the sidewalks and driveways are done in pavers, not concrete. And the other plus is the school has a 4 star rating. So we're keeping our fingers crossed, again.

Tara07

06-05-2008, 08:01 AM

Good Luck at finding someting Lorraine!! I will keep my fingers crossed for you.

Photobug~Congrats!!. It is sucha good feeling.The good thing about our FHA is that we didnt have to put any money down, because we dont have anything saved as far as like a down payment, we decided to ask the sellers to pay or down payment and our closing costs which was around $6500, but technically we are going through the Genesis Program. We are actually financing it through our loan but we had to go about it this way, because it actually looks like it is coming from the sellers, but it really isnt. I hope that makes sense because it is so confusing. They also had to check our credit and bank statements and accounts. They also did the home inspection and the sellers fixed what needed to be fixed and that was really no problem, everything was minor. I really agree with you on the nerve racking part, it has just an emotional rollercoaster for us, because we were supposed to close yesterday or today and we arent going to close until next week. So frustrating!! Also the hardest thing for me was not buying