Question about buying a house...

[SkippyNXC]

So FH n I were driving this weekend and he asked me "so do u know where do you want to live forever?" meaning... we've moved to the area where we're setting up shop and laying down roots, now we need to figure out what town to buy a house in. We live in a city right now, Dover, NH... but we want a home w/some land so we'll need to go into a suburb when we buy...

I'm just wondering if any of the ladies could give me advice on how they picked where to buy their home...

We want to start TTCing shortly after buying the house (which will be prolly shortly after the wedding... nothing like getting it all done at once ;)) so I'm thinking we should really be looking at where the best schools are... fh has no clue at all...

am i on the right track? totally off base? what else should we be thinking about when considering where to buy? and how do u even figure out whats a good school district other than word of mouth...
idk if anyone here can help but i fig'd i'd ask... u guys have given me lots of good advice so far so it couldn't hurt :winktongue:

i'm sure once we get serious n get a realtor they'll be armed w/many of these answers but i'm not a patient person and like to do all the research myself n come in armed w/answers as well as some questions :innocent:

[Tadswife]

I think your on the right track. Looking for schools in the area is a good thing if you plan to start trying to TTC after the wedding. When we bought our house we looked at
* a budget. How much can you afford! Keeping up with a home can be expensive.
* What kind of home do you want, how many bathrooms, how many bedrooms, attached garage, a garage that's not attached, do you want a 1 car garage, 2 car garage?
* Do you want a home that you can move right into and not worry about remodeling it or do you want a home you can move in to and put the time, effort and money into remodeling it. Sometimes you can find a home you love, but need some things done to it. You can often wonder what people were thinking when they decorate thier homes:bbeek:
* Credit! Do you have good credit, any outstanding bills that you may have that you can work on paying off before you go house hunting. Outstanding bills can really hurt you when you look for a house. It can not only affect how much the bank gives you and can affect the interest rate in which the bank gives you. The more your interest rate the more you mortage payment will be .
* DO NOT GO with an adjustable rate, if possiable go with a fixed rate. An adjustable rate means that everytime the interest rates go up so does your mortage. It's much easier to pay a set mortage every month rather then worrying if the interest rates are going up. Thats how many people in the economic mess we have now got into forclosures.
* Get a pre approval from the bank. The bank will tell you how much you are pre approved for a home. Then you can have an idea of what to look for. EX: the bank weill tell you that your are approved for $170,000, that will give you an idea at what kind of house's you can look at. And the pre approval allows you to make an offer on the home you like.
* There are plenty of girls here who have recently bought homes in many differant ways, eather thru FHA loans and short sale loans. There are plenty of us here that can help. GOOD LUCK and I hope the info. I gave you is helpfull.

[Danielle9608]

For us we wanted to be closer to Boston but our budget didn't really allow it. So then we looked at burbs around Boston (30-40 minute drive from Boston) and started comparing what you could get for your money and how much the taxes were from town to town. We didn't take in account the school systems since we didn't plan on being there longer then 2-3 years. However we also didn't plan on the market crashing. My advice to you would be make sure you find a house that you can really grow into. Even if you don't plan on being there forever make sure it is someplace you *could* be happy living for a long time.

[sandy03]

We are currently going through some of the same stuff in looking for a house. As far as the school stuff, I know there are national rankings of schools and school systems done every year(although I'm not sure who does these, but I know that they are reliable). You also need to consider whether you want to put your kids in public or private schools because just because one is good, the other may not be!

When you look at budget, make sure you look at the big picture, not just the list price of the home - does it need a lot of work? What are the average utilities like in that area? What about property taxes? And are you going to spend an arm and a leg in gas to commute to your job(s) just to save a few bucks on the house?

A few of the other things I am considering personally are - how far am I from a hospital in case (heaven forbid) something happens, especially once we have kids. What is the nearest grocery store, gas station, drug store, etc? How far are both of us going to have to drive to get to work? How far are we from extended family? Anything else that you find yourself complaining about where you are now, put it on a list so it's something you can think about when you are comparing places.

[Nekochanpurr]

I would say think about whats important to you, and whats in your budget. For me, the whole house thing probably won't happen for a veeeeeeeeeeeeeery long time, but when it does, i plan on staying in or around the same town. For me, its important to stay near my family.. Specially when i start popping out kids. :)

[MrsDM]

When you look at budget, make sure you look at the big picture, not just the list price of the home - does it need a lot of work? What are the average utilities like in that area? What about property taxes? And are you going to spend an arm and a leg in gas to commute to your job(s) just to save a few bucks on the house?



This is the best advice I could give! :)

I think you are definitely on track. I know for FH and I when we bought this year, we definitely wanted a good school district, land, a house that needed work but wasn't unlivable and a decent drive to work (more him than me). No house is going to be perfect.

We originally started looking in the town that he worked in, however slowly shifted away from that due to what Sandy was saying. Yes, we were close to his work, but lots were small, taxes were high, and it was more of a city feel than we wanted. When we found the house we bought, it was about $20,000 higher, but with lower taxes we were able to afford it for the price we would have been paying in the other town.

Its sometimes hard to remember what your goals were after you've been looking. The process gets frustrating quickly when you haven't found what you want. Don't settle and when you are considering a house to buy, and make sure you have a neutral 3rd party come in there and give their advice too!

Good luck!

[dizy1j62881]

This is the best advice I could give! :)

I think you are definitely on track. I know for FH and I when we bought this year, we definitely wanted a good school district, land, a house that needed work but wasn't unlivable and a decent drive to work (more him than me). No house is going to be perfect.

We originally started looking in the town that he worked in, however slowly shifted away from that due to what Sandy was saying. Yes, we were close to his work, but lots were small, taxes were high, and it was more of a city feel than we wanted. When we found the house we bought, it was about $20,000 higher, but with lower taxes we were able to afford it for the price we would have been paying in the other town.

Its sometimes hard to remember what your goals were after you've been looking. The process gets frustrating quickly when you haven't found what you want. Don't settle and when you are considering a house to buy, and make sure you have a neutral 3rd party come in there and give their advice too!

Good luck!

Also did you know you can call local complanys, etc, water, gas and electric to get average prices for that address. Thats what we did when we determined wheter we could move to smaller apt or our condo now. HTH

[SkippyNXC]

So after posting in my journal i just remembered about this thread i posted FOREVER ago LOL so i'm bumping it...

DH and I are officially on the house buying kick...

So I have another question. I realize every market is different but since we are stuck in this apartment til April 30th.. we can't move til then but want to be moved BY then... we don't mind having to pay rent and mortgage for like a month maybe even 2 if ABSOLUTELY necessary so is it TOO early to start looking at this point or should we start this process now...

[saltyveruca]

I think it really depends. You could always just start shopping and if you find a house you love, talk to your apartments and find out what the penalty would be (like, how much $$$) and factor that lost cash in to any offer you put down. You will probably want to keep your apartment for at least a couple weeks after closing. Your first mortgage payment won't be due until the month after you close, and it will give you some time to do renovations before you get all your stuff moved in (and time to move in your stuff!)

Your timeline depends on the type of sale. We were ready to go in November 2008 and found a house that we thought we wanted. It turned out to be a "short sale" which *sounds* like it would be quick, but was not. We loved it so much we waited with our offer in for months and months (because it has to go through a lot of different stuff and the bank that is selling the house has to approve it, etc) and finally found out that it was a dead deal. That ate a whole lot of time.

When we moved on, we started looking the first week of April 2009, found a (normal-sale) house that week, put in an offer immediately, and closed by mid-May. We were trying to close by a deadline (Bank of America's no closing cost program was ending) so we basically harassed the heck out of everyone trying to get it all through that fast, but still.

So depending on the situation, it could go lighting fast, like a month and a half from tour to getting your keys, or it could take like 6 months+ if you have to sit on an offer! You should talk to a realtor and find out what the market is like there.

Personally, I would not wait. Interest rates are AWESOME, like I think I've heard 4.5% lately. We thought we were getting an awesome rate at 4.75% last year-that's with my great credit and a couple points bought down. The money you save in interest could (over time) negate any penalty you have to pay to the apartments, and again, if you're looking this early out, you should factor that lost cash in to offers anyway. And if your TTC goes well (and I think it will) you could be either pregnant or have a tiny baby to deal with when you're moving if you wait. Much better to get this out of the way when things are less complicated.

[SkippyNXC]

Well the problem is the penalty on our apartment is that you have to continue paying rent until your lease is up (no subletting allowed of course, and can't find someone to take over your lease...) even if they rent out your apartment the lease says u STILL pay rent...

so basically its a really sucky... but if our lease ends and we're not out yet we can convert to a month-to-month...

I want to wait to get pre-approved for a mortgage b/c we're still saving at this point... so it'll look like we've only got 6K saved atm when we'll have much more come the end of the year... (if needed DH can bonus/advance himself in december if we need money in our account)

I know we need to just suck it up find a realtor and talk to them but idk how to go about finding one... i guess i should just google and find the number for someone and just meet w/them...

[NOTKT]

What we did in the beginning was just look at a lot of open houses. We knew what we wanted, but it was an eye opening experience after we actually saw the houses in our price range.

Also, we looked for a good community and an acceptable school system. We love our HOA and neighbors, we really wanted that community feel. There are always kids riding bikes or power wheels in our cul de sac. We have 5 parks and 2 basketball courts. Our "main road" is almost a complete loop, so its great for walks.

Edit: I just saw your post. I would try to get a recommendation from someone instead of looking at Google. But if you do find one by yourself, remember you can always leave them. You have to be a good fit with your Realtor, they are the ones fighting for you. And a lot of crazy/shady stuff goes on behind the scenes, so you need someone you can trust.

[sandy03]

If you don't have a real estate agent yet, I would at least start looking for an agent you like and can work with. Try getting recommendations from friends, and definitely find a few and just shoot them an e-mail or call and make an appointment to meet with them.

We started browsing and getting listings e-mailed to us from our agent probably june or july of last year. We spent a lot of time looking at what was available in our price range and trying to decide exactly what we were looking for. Then we took our big list and did lots of drive-bys to check out the neighborhoods and all that fun stuff (which ruled out a lot of stuff for us before we even mentioned it to our agent, which saved her a lot of time and energy, too!). We really had no intention of moving as fast as we did, but we happened to get a really great deal on the house we bought.

We made our first offer in August but someone else already had a verbal contract on it. Then like two weeks later the house became available again so we jumped on it. We didn't close until the end of October, but because it was a foreclosure we had a fair amount of work to be done and it was nice to be able to get all that done (at least all the stuff on the inside) before we had to move. It was absolutely worth the extra cost to have the time to get things the way we wanted them without having to work around boxes and furniture! We ended up moving in December, so it took us almost six months from the time we let our agent know we were looking to the time we moved in.

We ended up having to pay rent and the mortgage for an extra three months after we moved out, but we got such a good deal on the house that it wasn't the strain we were afraid it would be. It took a little bit more from our renovation budget than we would have liked, but we knew that was a risk we were taking. I am SO glad we did it because this really is the perfect place for us!

[SkippyNXC]

thanks sandy... it's good advice! unfortunately since we're new in town we don't know anyone here who's bought a house... the couple friends i have are still single and rent... the couple we know that bought, bought in a complex being built so they just used the agent that was w/them...

so i'm thinking i'll just do some cold calling/googling w/some of the bigger agencies in town...

[saltyveruca]

You can shop for agents at open houses. They are almost always hanging out in the house and if they are friendly, they will probably want to talk to you about your situation and what you're looking for. If you get a good feeling from one or a few of them, give them a try!

And NOTKT is right, don't be afraid to fire your realtor! We used a friend this time around, but we had one help us find a rental house before, and she SUCKED SO MUCH. We told her to go away, found a new realtor, and guess what the new realtor did? Got us in to the house we lived in for like 5 years, that the other realtor said she called about and got a "no" from because we had a big dog! A good realtor can make all the difference.

[SkippyNXC]

You can shop for agents at open houses. They are almost always hanging out in the house and if they are friendly, they will probably want to talk to you about your situation and what you're looking for. If you get a good feeling from one or a few of them, give them a try!

And NOTKT is right, don't be afraid to fire your realtor! We used a friend this time around, but we had one help us find a rental house before, and she SUCKED SO MUCH. We told her to go away, found a new realtor, and guess what the new realtor did? Got us in to the house we lived in for like 5 years, that the other realtor said she called about and got a "no" from because we had a big dog! A good realtor can make all the difference.


ahh GREAT idea! i'll suggest it to DH when he gets home...

[dizy1j62881]

One thing too Nicole...calling the banks and ask how long does it take to get pre-approved, the one who just bought our old rented condo took her 6 months to get everything done. And also ask how good the pre-approval is for. LIke if that is good for 90 days or 6 months or even 1 yr....man all this house buying talk makes me wanna buy :( maybe in a couple years I'll be asking for all this help!!

[firespirit]

Oh and remember real estate agents have open houses to get clients.

Hahaha - Ooops I missed the earlier posts!