Looking to buy my first house coming up within the year.

Can you guys give me your best advice?

Trolls and stupid posts allowed.

get a house in the bad part of town...it will save you some dinero.

Make sure you can afford it, and everything that comes along with it.

Move back in with your parents. Let them pay for it. HAHA

Seriously, if the choice is between the best house in a fair neighborhood or an average house in a great neighborhood, go with the average house. It will appreciate in value better.

Think about your long-term goals. Are you planning to be in the area for the next 30 years? Buy a place you enjoy; consider it an expense, not an investment. If you make money off it, that's great. But first and foremost, you have to live there, and you want to make sure it's something that will make you happy.

Im looking to buy a house soon too. Was hoping to see some good info here but prolly better off talking to people I know.

If you're not handy, learn how to fix things and you will be astounded at the money you will save as a home owner because you won't be calling someone everytime something breaks.

If you are handy, don't be afraid of buying a moderate fixer upper. If as FFT said your time horizon is longer, look for houses in better neighborhoods that may need some work, but have the potential to be polished up real good.

Just keep an open mind going through places and don't get hung up on things not being exactly as you would like them as a reason not to buy a house.

Also, whatever your budget is, make sure to buy a house cheaper than that by a decent amount as you will need a fund for repairs as things will go wrong. Whether it's you fixing them or someone else, if you're not buy a new house there will be repairs needed and it will cost money. Not enough people budget for these contingencies, and then find themselves in a big time financial pinch because of it.

IggyPride00;481622 wrote:Also, whatever your budget is, make sure to buy a house cheaper than that by a decent amount as you will need a fund for repairs as things will go wrong. Whether it's you fixing them or someone else, if you're not buy a new house there will be repairs needed and it will cost money. Not enough people budget for these contingencies, and then find themselves in a big time financial pinch because of it.

This is good advice. We went against the advice of our realtor/mortgage broker and spent less than they recommended (right before the credit crunch). After two rounds of salary cuts, we're very glad that we were conservative in our approach, as we're still able to make the payments pretty comfortably. Keep in mind the potential worst-case and likely bad scenarios, and make sure you know what you'll do if that happens (layoff, salary cut, job moves, etc.).

Also, look at your budgeting. Figure out how much you can spend on a place. Don't forget to account for taxes/insurance (for us, taxes run about 2.5% of assessed value each year, while insurance is something like 0.25%). I believe the rough rules of thumb on affordability are 25% of your net/35% of your gross, but that's going to depend a lot on your income, your risk tolerance, how secure your job is, and how much other debt you have.

When you are ready to buy, use zillow.com to find how much comparable homes in the area sold for ($/sq. ft). Adjust per amenities. Then focus on the bottom end of that range for your initial offer. You're better off making an offer on the low end of reasonable than you are lowballing someone--if you do the latter, you run the risk of pissing them off, which can be hassle as you move towards closing. Be on the low end of the range of reasonable (probably 10% off list is a reasonable starting point, but you'll want to do research). Homes that have been on the market for a really long time are either likely to be very flexible on price (as they want to get out) or not flexible at all (which is why they're still holding out). Don't fall in love with a place--figure out beforehand what you want to spend, and then stick to it. If you can't afford it, you can't afford it--don't pay more than you have on an impulse.

Research, research, research!

If you have young kids, check the area sex offender registries. Check to see if it's in a flood plain. Get reocmmendations for a good inspector.

All good stuff so far...

If you buy a house that's more than ten years old, don't forget to budget a healthy amount for repairs and preventative maintenance (we allow $350 per month). The house we built twelve years ago is starting to need dis-a and dat-a on a regular basis - this year it's been:

- replace the water heater (preventative),
- replace the pump and motor on the hot tub (failed three months after warranty expired),
- power-washing the siding,
- re-staining the cedar fence around the back yard and the hot tub privacy fence (nasty job)
- painting the garage and basement floors ($255 for 5-gallon bucket of oil-and water-proof anti-skid concrete paint,
- a new blower motor on the HVAC system (found a leaking bearing during the annual A/C maintenance check).

If there aren't any fresh breakdowns by the end of October, (I'm worried about the sump pump ), we'll be under budget enough to pay to grout a section of the driveway apron where the original fill gravel and dirt has settled.

Get preapproved for your mortgage. That way, you know what you can spend before you start looking. Talk to several banks--they don't need to pull your credit score--just tell them what your credit score is and have them quote you an interest rate. We talked to 3 banks and 2 mortgage brokers and ended up saving 7/8% on our interest rate simply by negotiating between all of them. A little bit of work upfront saves you thousands over the long haul.

ccrunner609;481579 wrote:go ahead and buy way out of your income level....foreclose on the loan and then live there for a year without making payments. Over insure then burn it down.

You forgot the best parts. Complain about how it's the government's fault you can't afford a house you bought with a loan you can't afford and demand that the government pay your mortgage.

ccrunner609;481579 wrote:go ahead and buy way out of your income level....foreclose on the loan and then live there for a year without making payments. Over insure then burn it down.

this is fiscally sound advice.

you might also get a $200,000 car. don't want you're minivan in the driveway of your palatial estate.

There is no such thing as a starter home.

ccrunner609;481681 wrote:i looked at 36 houses before I bought........dont buy any house till you look at 12+.........make sure you buy a house that has resale power. Dont buy a house that needs kitchen and bathroom work. All the other rooms are easy and cheap to make nicce.

cheap ass.

How the hell do you look at 36 houses before you finally decided? That has to be some kind of record. Did you just have literally no idea what you wanted?

Well, make sure it has a good roof so you don't immediately have to sink 5-10K on that, make sure there are no cracks in the foundation that will be a headache, and make sure the water slopes away from the house.

Know the property lines for sure, just in the case your neighbor wants to put a fence up that touches your house almost (happened on our street, not to me). Whatever the bank says you can afford, maybe drop 20-25% off of that, just in the case you want to pay it off early or want to actually ever have a few dollars in your pocket. Our first house we bought in 1985 and sold in 1993 and double our value with new siding, furnace, etc. We then built our current house, which does require a very good sense of humor. Project yourself 5-10-20 years down the line and visualize yourself in this place in those years at that place. If it looks like a go, it may be worth a try. For example, if you are 55, do you really want a hilly place that takes 10-15 hours a week in grass cutting to maintain. Probably not, especially in 10-20 years. Good luck.

We moved pretty quick with our home purchase. We bought it from a friend who had the house on the market for over a year and he made us a great offer since he didn't want to be carrying three mortgages.

It's in a great neighborhood in a good location and is a home that we can grow into. It needs some work (mainly just updating things since he did nothing in the 10 years he lived here) that will only help the value of our place.

For someone looking for a place- look for something that is a bit older and needs some work done- our friend refused to do any upgrading on the place and that is why many potential buyers were put off by our place. He did replace the roof, hot water heater, HVAC, and windows within the past year so those were some big costs that we don't have to worry about in our place.

We got approved before purchasing and were able to stay way under what we were approved for. We now only pay about $100 more a month to own our own place versus renting. Granted there is upkeep and maintenance that we have ended up doing, but all and all it is worth it for us to not deal with apartment management.

We had been looking at quite a few houses prior to our friend making us an offer- it is certainly a buyers market now if you are patient enough and are especially willing to do some work on a place yourself.

come buy mine...I'll really cut you a great deal...PM me and we'll talk.

CinciX12;481984 wrote:How the hell do you look at 36 houses before you finally decided? That has to be some kind of record. Did you just have literally no idea what you wanted?

wife and i looked at 41. when there are 100's of houses for sale, you have to be diligent and look hard. most houses we didn't get too thorough with, just walk in and say, "nope" and walk out.

Nowadays there are pictures on the realtor's website and such. I just can't imagine looking at more than 10 or so.

fan_from_texas;481599 wrote:Think about your long-term goals. Are you planning to be in the area for the next 30 years? Buy a place you enjoy; consider it an expense, not an investment. If you make money off it, that's great. But first and foremost, you have to live there, and you want to make sure it's something that will make you happy.

Amen. This is great advice. Your home is not an investment. It is an expense.

Real estate can be an investment. Your home should never be treated as real estate.

CinciX12;482190 wrote:Nowadays there are pictures on the realtor's website and such. I just can't imagine looking at more than 10 or so.

Unfortunately they don't take pictures of what's wrong with the house. And I've looked at houses that looked a lot better in the pictures than when you got there.

Con_Alma;482199 wrote:Amen. This is great advice. Your home is not an investment. It is an expense.

Real estate can be an investment. Your home should never be treated as real estate.

But renting is purely an expense and in the heavy majority of cases much more expensive than owning in the long run.

It certainly can be.

IggyPride00;481622 wrote:Also, whatever your budget is, make sure to buy a house cheaper than that by a decent amount as you will need a fund for repairs as things will go wrong. Whether it's you fixing them or someone else, if you're not buy a new house there will be repairs needed and it will cost money. Not enough people budget for these contingencies, and then find themselves in a big time financial pinch because of it.

I agree. You have to budget for repairs and things going wrong. There is always something.

You should also make sure you figure out how much you can afford so you have a budget and then stick to it. I'm amazed whenever I get approved for a home loan and they try to tell me how much house I can afford. It's always way more than I would be comfortable spending.