Posted: 3/9/2011 7:43:04 PM EDT
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So my wife and I got our pre-approval and the hunt begins.
This is my first foray into buying a house and I'm looking for advice, your experiences, hard learned lessons, and things to look out for. |
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Take your time and make sure it's a home/neighborhood you absolutely love. Don't settle! Definitely do not have to settle in today's market. You should cruise the neighborhood a few times in the evening and weekends to see how it is when the locals are at home. |
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Do not accept a home inspection that was paid for by the current owners of the home or the listing real estate agent. If you want the home inspected, then you call and pay for the inspection. Yes they are expensive, but the amount of money are quality inspection can save you is unbelievable.
I live in Monticello, GA, if you are ever looking at a home or area out this way, give me a shout and I'll tell you what I think about the area. There is a great cross section of people here in the HTF that covers pretty much the entire state. |
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It would be good if the mortgage payment can be paid by just one of your jobs if one or the other of you lose your job.
Do not spend up to the limit of what they approve –– just because the bank may say you can afford a $400K house doesnt mean you really can. |
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Quoted:
Do not accept a home inspection that was paid for by the current owners of the home or the listing real estate agent. If you want the home inspected, then you call and pay for the inspection. Yes they are expensive, but the amount of money are quality inspection can save you is unbelievable. I live in Monticello, GA, if you are ever looking at a home or area out this way, give me a shout and I'll tell you what I think about the area. There is a great cross section of people here in the HTF that covers pretty much the entire state. What he said about a GOOD home inspector. One thing I really look out for is homeowners associations. I hate them with a passion. That's why I live in a wilderness subdivision. Everyone here has at least 5 to 15 acre lots. I hate it when someone says I can't do this on my own $$&$ing property. |
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Do not accept a home inspection that was paid for by the current owners of the home or the listing real estate agent. If you want the home inspected, then you call and pay for the inspection. Yes they are expensive, but the amount of money are quality inspection can save you is unbelievable. I live in Monticello, GA, if you are ever looking at a home or area out this way, give me a shout and I'll tell you what I think about the area. There is a great cross section of people here in the HTF that covers pretty much the entire state. I have bought and sold many houses in my life and every "home inspection" I've ever seen was a joke and waste of money no matter who paid for it. You may have had better luck with them but I have not. TD |
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Quoted:
Do not accept a home inspection that was paid for by the current owners of the home or the listing real estate agent. If you want the home inspected, then you call and pay for the inspection. Yes they are expensive, but the amount of money are quality inspection can save you is unbelievable. I live in Monticello, GA, if you are ever looking at a home or area out this way, give me a shout and I'll tell you what I think about the area. There is a great cross section of people here in the HTF that covers pretty much the entire state. I have bought and sold many houses in my life and every "home inspection" I've ever seen was a joke and waste of money no matter who paid for it. You may have had better luck with them but I have not. TD There are very, very few properly qualified home inspectors Just like general contractors 
I have a referral if anyone needs it |
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Where do you want to locate? with the number of forclosures on the market you can buy a TON of house for the money. Find where you want to be and then start digging, you'll find a nice place for the right price if you are patient.
paint, carpet, and tile can be replaced and eventually wil be, find the floor plan you want with the features you want, and don't let your wife fall in love with the first house she see's or the second... Don't shop out of your price range, those $800k monsters are nice to look at but not with a $200k budget. Base your mortgage amount on what you want your monthly payment to be and NOT what they pre-approve you for...that number is not real and in this economy your earning potential may not "grow" into the house payment in a few years....that's a tough lesson to learn the hard way. Look at houses until you are sick of it and by then you'll have seen enough to know what you want, then find the right house for the right price. Enjoy it, it's a lot of fun to begin with. |
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Do not accept a home inspection that was paid for by the current owners of the home or the listing real estate agent. If you want the home inspected, then you call and pay for the inspection. Yes they are expensive, but the amount of money are quality inspection can save you is unbelievable. I live in Monticello, GA, if you are ever looking at a home or area out this way, give me a shout and I'll tell you what I think about the area. There is a great cross section of people here in the HTF that covers pretty much the entire state. I have bought and sold many houses in my life and every "home inspection" I've ever seen was a joke and waste of money no matter who paid for it. You may have had better luck with them but I have not. TD There are very, very few properly qualified home inspectors Just like general contractors
I have a referral if anyone needs it I'm certain there must be a few good inspectors out there but I can only go by my first hand experiences including the ones that were referrals.. TD |
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Thanks for all of the advice, everyone.
It's kind of funny. My first wife basically buried me, financially, and forced me into bankruptcy. I had worked hard to build up some decent credit for a fairly young guy and she completely destroyed it. My current wife has worked very hard to repair that damage so it was a bit surreal to have the mortgage loan officer tell me that my credit was excellent, my debt to income ratio was phenomenal, and that we were pretty much approved for whatever we needed. We, however, have set ourselves a personal limit of just over $100K. We could afford higher, even if one of us lost our job, but we'd already determined what our monthly payments would be and based our limit on what we wanted to pay. We both really like the school that our youngest attends and we want to stay in the same school district. We understand the short-sell process and aren't completely opposed to it, provided our agent has the experience necessary to make it as pain free as possible. We're also able to setup our loan as a 203k rehabilitation loan and aren't opposed to finding a place that needs a little TLC. So we made a list... Here are the things that we must have, the things that would be nice but aren't a deal breaker, and the things that we absolutely will not accept. We made this list with the intent to hand it to a real estate agent. We contacted a realtor yesterday but I've got a tingle in my gut that tells me she's not going to work out. I can already tell from her communications so far that she's testing my wife and I and our knowledge of some of the details. And I'd actually be fine with that if she said; "Hey, let me ask you about a couple of things to see if you're aware of x, y, & z" but, instead, she casually uses wording in her other questions to feel us out. Asks us about or casually mentions things and uses terminology that the typical new home buyer wouldn't know, things like that. An example; I told her that we'd looked at a couple of houses ourself already. She sends me an email and tells me "well send me the the FMLS numbers for those". Most new home buyers have no idea what an FMLS number even is, much less how to find them. So my gut tells me that she asked that question because she wants to see if we're talking to any other agents. You know what? Ask me that question. I'll tell you if I am. Anyway, all of the above advice is great and I really appreciate it. What I'd like to ask is if anyone has any recommendations for a real estate agent that would represent me, as a buyer, with respect and dignity... but be a bit of a bulldog with the seller when negotiations time hits. |
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An example; I told her that we'd looked at a couple of houses ourself already. She sends me an email and tells me "well send me the the FMLS numbers for those". Most new home buyers have no idea what an FMLS number even is, much less how to find them. So my gut tells me that she asked that question because she wants to see if we're talking to any other agents. You know what? Ask me that question. I'll tell you if I am. I wouldn't exactly take it that way - if you're looking at any houses online, it typically has the MLS number listed. It would be an assumption on her part that you were already looking there, but in this day and age - it typically wouldn't be a bad assumption. Especially considering that most people check things out a little bit before they actually contact a realtor. I'm currently shopping for my second house to get closer to work. We put in an offer the other day for a house we really like and the owner countered with an offer that basically showed he wasn't willing to negotiate at all. So we countered again and if he balks we're walking and will start searching again. With as saturated as the housing market is right now, don't be afraid to give someone the finger and walk away because you will find something else. |
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My step dad was my agent. He was able to get wachovia to agree to an awesome deal for us. They wanted $160,000 for a short sale home. We ended up getting the house for $141,000 AND they agreed to pay all closing cost, first year of property taxes, and first year of insurance. He was a bit of a hardass to them, but they caved in. Depending on where youre looking, he could be your agent.
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He was a bit of a hardass to them, but they caved in. Precisely what we're after. If he can work the Dacula area, as mentioned above, and he's up for it, send me his contact info so we can chat. Quoted:
I wouldn't exactly take it that way - if you're looking at any houses online, it typically has the MLS number listed. It would be an assumption on her part that you were already looking there, but in this day and age - it typically wouldn't be a bad assumption. Especially considering that most people check things out a little bit before they actually contact a realtor. 8<––––––-snip––––- With as saturated as the housing market is right now, don't be afraid to give someone the finger and walk away because you will find something else. Well the FMLS number request was only an example. There are other little red flags that keep popping up that lead me to believe that this woman is fishing for information. I'm a very up-front "what you see is what you get" kind of guy. I don't like beating around the bush. If you want to know something, ask. If I'm going to entrust someone to, essentially, help me spend $100K then they need to shoot straight with me and knock off the bullshit. shrug And I know exactly what you mean about giving someone the finger. I'm trying to look at it this way; I'm the one spending the money and I should be able to get what I'm looking for. If I can't get it from person X then I'll get it from person Y. We've made a pact not to fall in love with any houses until we've seen plenty of them. And I'm happy to low-ball an offer on a house that's listed for more than I'm willing to spend. If we can't get what we want, we'll go elsewhere. Period. This is a very binary process for us. It's either 1 or 0. Yes or No. There is no grey area. If we can't find what we want, and need, and we've exhausted all of our options... we'll decide then if we need to compromise. Right now, we don't. |
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Thanks for all of the advice, everyone. It's kind of funny. My first wife basically buried me, financially, and forced me into bankruptcy. I had worked hard to build up some decent credit for a fairly young guy and she completely destroyed it. My current wife has worked very hard to repair that damage so it was a bit surreal to have the mortgage loan officer tell me that my credit was excellent, my debt to income ratio was phenomenal, and that we were pretty much approved for whatever we needed. We, however, have set ourselves a personal limit of just over $100K. We could afford higher, even if one of us lost our job, but we'd already determined what our monthly payments would be and based our limit on what we wanted to pay. We both really like the school that our youngest attends and we want to stay in the same school district. We understand the short-sell process and aren't completely opposed to it, provided our agent has the experience necessary to make it as pain free as possible. We're also able to setup our loan as a 203k rehabilitation loan and aren't opposed to finding a place that needs a little TLC. So we made a list... Here are the things that we must have, the things that would be nice but aren't a deal breaker, and the things that we absolutely will not accept. We made this list with the intent to hand it to a real estate agent. We contacted a realtor yesterday but I've got a tingle in my gut that tells me she's not going to work out. I can already tell from her communications so far that she's testing my wife and I and our knowledge of some of the details. And I'd actually be fine with that if she said; "Hey, let me ask you about a couple of things to see if you're aware of x, y, & z" but, instead, she casually uses wording in her other questions to feel us out. Asks us about or casually mentions things and uses terminology that the typical new home buyer wouldn't know, things like that. An example; I told her that we'd looked at a couple of houses ourself already. She sends me an email and tells me "well send me the the FMLS numbers for those". Most new home buyers have no idea what an FMLS number even is, much less how to find them. So my gut tells me that she asked that question because she wants to see if we're talking to any other agents. You know what? Ask me that question. I'll tell you if I am. Anyway, all of the above advice is great and I really appreciate it. What I'd like to ask is if anyone has any recommendations for a real estate agent that would represent me, as a buyer, with respect and dignity... but be a bit of a bulldog with the seller when negotiations time hits. I wouldn't read into her questions too much. Also a good agent who know their shit will have you sign a buyers agreement before they start messing with you. Sign this agreement, this changes the relationship rules(customer vs Client) and the agents obligations to you(If you are a customer she is actually an agent of the seller and if you are a client she is working for you, RE rules and Regs are funny). Remember she is a salesmen so she has taken classes on how to speak and interact with people. Now its been 5 years since I got my license and sat through RE Law so take all of this with a grain of salt. |
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Make sure that if the property has poly butelene(grey plastic water pipe) piping the seller replace, it will burst and cost you later. You want to check this in two places, where the pipe comes out of the water meter and goes to the house and where the pipe comes into the house. I only checked it out of the meter, of course they ran 1.5 ft of copper off the meter and then went to poly and ran that through the yard and into the house. Avoid LP siding, seller should pay to replace this as well. Don't forget about the property taxes when figuring out how much your monthly payments will be. Note that if you buy in Fulton county your taxes for the same house will be a lot higher than in other counties. If you plan on escrowing your tax payment it will raise your monthly payment, otherwise you will need to set money aside every month for a later date.
If you need an inspector I have one that is extremely meticulous |
| If you go after a foreclosure - be patient. I closed Friday on a house in Cherokee that I put the offer in on December 23rd. The selling bank handling the foreclosure - and the seller's agent - was incompetent. It all worked out but fortunately we could wait. The advice about low-balling is very good - this is the second Foreclosure I bought in 12 months and it is a buyer's market. |