North Dakota Nesties
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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.
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.
I must be missing something...
I don't understand how anyone close to my age can afford to buy a house. I mean we could afford the monthy mortgage, but trying to save up enough money for a down payment plus closing costs while still having some savings left over seems almost impossible. I know we don't make a lot of money, but I really thought we could start looking next fall, I was just looking at closing costs and loan requirements, it's looking like another 2.5 years at least. Which really wouldn't be that bad except I hate where we are (but we rent from the ILs and have BIL living with us which helps us save more so moving isn't really an option) and I wanted to start TTC in Jan '12 but I don't want to have a baby in the house we're in now not to mention it would take a chunk out of our savings and make the wait to buy a house even longer.
Sorry this is so long and I'm sure the formatting is funky b/c I'm using my phone. I just needed to vent. Thanks for listening and a big cocktail of choice to those who made it to the end 
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Re: I must be missing something...
I'm also super impressed with people close to my age (27) who've already bought a house. I think a lot of it has to do with the housing market in your area, who flexible you are like Jenni mentioned, and just plain ol' finances. DH and I both work primarily in the human services field and you're never going to make big bucks doing that. I have friends in finance who have already bought their McMansion. Not that I want a McMansion, but it would take years of saving before we could get one if we did.
DH and I are lucky in one aspect. He got an inheritance from his when his grandma passed away about 6 years ago. DH made the smart decision to buy the condo we live in (before we met), rather than blow it all and keep renting. It's a small, one bedroom apartment, but all we pay are the condo fees so I love him for buying it.
Now when we sell we'll be able to put everything towards our new home. We're nowhere close to looking for our first home, but even with the condo money I still worry about what we can afford.
As far as baby-making goes, at least you would have a place to put the kid if you couldn't wait. If we had a kid right now the only place for it to sleep would be in the closet with the litterbox.
Can you get an FHA loan? That seriously lowers those costs, plus where we live we qualified for down payment assistance also.
The housing market seems to be ever evolving. When we were looking we couldn't ask for anything. And I mean anything. Plus the fact that we were an FHA loan competing with a lot of cash only buyers, it was a struggle. The fact that we probably won't qualify for FHA next time around means we have to stay here a little longer then we had hoped so we can save up a 20-30% d/p for next time. I feel your pain. I can't wait to get out of our current neighborhood either. Like Jenni we looked at this place a stepping stone to get into the game, hopefully we won't have to be here for longer then 6-7 years. Wow... that seems like a long time now. hahaha.
Wow! How were you able to do that?
We just bought our first home last year (we're now almost-31 and 35). I think we only had to put about 5% down, we negotiated for the buyers to pay most of our closing costs, and we have 2 mortgages for it (the smaller one needs to be paid off within 7 years because the interest rate for it balloons after that). It's definitely not an easy thing and there are trade-offs.
Thanks ladies....glad to know I'm not the only one
We'll probably be getting an FHA loan because if we had to save up 20-30% for a d/p we would be here forever (okay that might be an exaggeration, but it would be a long time). Another monkey wrench is that DH will hopefully be switching careers sometime next year and for FHA you have to have been with the same employer for 2 years. I know it'll happen eventually, but it's been getting harder to wait as we start to pass months where we thought we would be looking already.
Thanks again!
I'm buying a house hopefully this year. I don't make a lot of money but this area got hit the hardest during the crash and they are practically giving houses away. Coming up with a 10% down payment on a $50,000 isn't really that difficult. Plus I think my parents are going to gift it to me so really all I have to come up with it the closing costs. Then my mortgage will be $250/month. Really... in this area, I don't understand why people rent! My one bedroom apartment is $450/month!
But when living in San Diego getting a house was virtually impossible. I know one friend who owns and they got their house on a VA loan (no downpayment, really low interest).
I'm on my second home and i'm 31... I bought my first house at 27 with an FHA loan... only put like 5K down, and my closing costs were about 5 I think as well (this was on a 205,000 house), plus i had fees for inspections and what not. I now rent this house out.
DH & I bought our new home... 5% down, seller's concession at closing (they covered some of our closing costs) and with fees, inspections and what not we end up with about 12K (i think, I forget) in closing closts. This is on a $320,000 home.
Don't get yourself in the dumps, I would really go talk to someone (or a few people) find out where you are now and that will give you a better idea about searching for a home and what you need to do to get there.
Also don't forget a lot of younger people are buying now because the market sucks and because of the tax credit.
I was 21 when we bought this house - and still in college. I don't know how I did it except I worked allllll of the time and so did DH - who was 25.
It helped that the seller paid all closing costs too and our down payment was very minimal.
I was 23 when I stared looking and just turned 24 when I purchased. This was back in 2006 when you didn't need a downpayment though. I had 100% financing and the sellers paid my closing. I really didn't make too much, but my mortgage was the same as what I had been paying in rent.
I wouldn't stress too much about it, there were times when I wish I would have still rented. You know when all the stuff breaks and/or needs fixed! Plus looking back, it's a horrible idea not to put anything down, especially when the market flips and you can't sell your house because you owe more than its worth.
We are buying our home FHA and only needed 3.5% down which wasn't really that bad. As far as closing costs go, we asked the seller to pay for our closing cost which is a HUGE help. We decided since DH was laid off we would be buying the home on my income only which is going to leave things pretty tight until he gets a job, but thankfully our savings won't take that bad of a hit.
We started saving for our house at the begining of the year and since our wedding didn't cost much my dad gave us a little bit of money. Then we put ourselves on a budget at the begining of the year and were able to put away an extra $500-$1000/month.
I'll let you in on a secret...if I didn't have a rich FIL I wouldn't own or be close to owning a house either. I don't know how other people do it.
My FIL very generously offered to help us look for a house. He used his realtor to narrow things down and we only looked at foreclosures and condos. We happened to get really lucky with this house. It was a foreclosure and the bank wanted it off their books by the end of the year so they decided to set the price at 148,000 which is a steal around here. We were able to look at the house before it even went on the market (not really sure how we pulled that one). The day it went on the market there were 7 other offers on the house and FIL bid 150K cash to try and get an edge on the other offers. The bank jumped at the cash offer and wanted to close before the end of the year. FIL said no because he didn't want it on his books for the year, lol. The bank accepted anyway and one of FIL's companies actually bought the house. Then FIL remodeled the house using his construction company and let us pick out everything we wanted. Then FIL's company turned around and sold the house to us for what they bought it for. FIL gifted us the 20% down payment so we didn't have to pay anything up front.
We are so so so lucky for this opportunity and I am thankful everyday for it. If we had to save for a down payment ourselves it would be probably 5 or more years before we could buy a house and it wouldn't be in as nice of a neighborhood. Then I think on top of that my desire to start a family and I just don't know how people do it.
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Formerly Knottie Soon2beMrs.G_09
We had some savings left from the wedding, then saved all of our wedding gifts. We are doing an FHA loan, so only 3.5% down, and the sellers are paying almost all of the closing costs.
That being said, DH & I have worked really hard and saved a lot of money in order to do this. But now that we're looking at all of the finances, we're probably going to be putting off kids for a bit longer than what we want to though.
This exactly but we were 25 and 28. But so glad we are re-financing to fix the APR on it. GL with the house and hope you guys find something fantastic soon!