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Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
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Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Buying a house
So, we are in the process of getting pre-approved for a VA loan. I'm SOOO excited and nervous at the same time!!
Any advice on home buying you girls can give? I'm up for it all since this is both our 1st time buying!!! :-)
Re: Buying a house
Awe congratulations!
Buying a house is such an exciting experience! I guess the only pointers I have are:
1. Decide how much you want to spend before pre-approval, often times a bank will approve you for an amount, but you have to feel comfortable with the mortgage payment that comes with that amount. So decide in advance what you can afford (want to spend) each month, and shop with that amount instead of what the bank approves you for (unless of course it's more then your approval).
2. When looking at houses, try to look past the things that can be changed (flooring, wall color's, furniture) and look for the important qualities you want that can't be changed.
3. Decide before you go looking what's important to you, it's easy to get swept up in the moment of a really nice house:
- Area
- Schools (since I know you're planning on having kids
)
- Age of house when built
- Size (Sq. Footage, bedrooms, Great room or Living/Family Room)
Most importantly, trust yourself. Even if you see a house that looks like a great buy, and has on paper everything you want- if you're not feeling it, odds are you may never feel it for that house.
Good luck! Can't wait to hear all about your dream house!
Jennifer touched on some really good points!
Definitely know what YOUR budget is. The bank approved us for 200K and said oh you can affoard it...We knew what we wanted to pay mnothly and looked at houses under 120.
Dont give up...We looked at over 100 houses....and just when we thought we wouldnt find anything, there was our house.
Try to get out looking asap! We were actually looking around this time last year, so with all the rain, we got to see how houses handled it. There was one house we loooved. It looked great online, went to look at it, and the very last room we went into, water was just rolling down the wall.
Love and TRUST your agent! If you dont have one yet, ours was RAD! www.therealestatetwins.com They reallllly know what they are doing!
When it comes time to do the inspections, spring for the extra $200 and have a sewar inspection done. It gave us peace of mind knowing that our pipes looked good!
When you are negotiating for the house, Get the seller to buy your first year of your home warrany! If they say no, BUY ONE! They are like $500 for a year, with in 2 weeks of moving in our water heater started dumping water. All we had to pay was the $60 deductible and it was fixed
Totally worth it. We plan on extending it when our year is up 
Once you think you have found the one....bring in a fresh pair of eyes. Maybe someone in the construction business or someone who has bought a lot of property. FIL own a lot of realestate, there were about 3 houses that we almost put offers on till he came and looked at them and pointed a lot of stuff out to us that was MORE then cosmetic fixes.
GOOD LUCK!
P.S. No idea why everything turned green ...lol
1. Like the other girls said, decide on your budget and STICK TO IT. Don't look at a house that is too expensive and say "we can pay that extra $5,000 (or whatever it is)!" We got pre-approved for 210k and even though we could get a house that expensive I swear there is no way we'd be able to afford that! So, we set a lower budget for ourselves personally and stuck with it (and actually I wish we'd gone a little lower since I didn't realize i'd be going back to school).
2. There are always lots of houses out there so if you don't get one you really loved don't have regrets over it, you will find another one!
3. Make sure your realtor listens to you. I hate when I see tv shows where the buyers tell them what they want and their budget and then their realtor goes crazy and gets them something totally opposite and way too expensive. Fortunately, we had a great realtor.
4. Location is important to me. You could have the best house ever, but if it is in a yucky neighborhood it isn't worth it! Find a great surrounding area you both enjoy and that would fit your needs.
That is all I can think of for now, good luck!
Thanks girls....all GREAT advice! We are so excited.
We got the preapproval today so we're going to start looking this week! WOOHOO!!!
Congrats & good luck.