Buying A Home
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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.
Any other first time homebuyers?!
My husband and I looked at two more homes today. We are still stuck on the first house we looked at!!! (its a short sale and works good with our time period of moving)But, we're trying not to just jump on the first house we loved. So, Thursday we are looking at a few more, than looking at the first house we love again!!! Yay!!!! We're lookin to move April/may. Anyone else moving at this time period? If so, how's your house hunting going? If not, and you're moving another date, how is your house hunting going?!
Re: Any other first time homebuyers?!
I think it's smart to look at some other houses, and then if you still like the first one you saw to go see it again. You will have a good basis for comparison at that point.
Short sales can take a very long time to close though, so make sure your timeframe to move is flexible.
Good luck!!
Congratulations on starting the process!
For our first house, DH and I did buy the first house we looked at, and we made the offer the day we looked at it (at an open house, no less- we never even had a second showing!). Luckily it all worked out because we are selling it for well over what we paid for it.
The house we are buying now was not the same. We looked at well over a hundred houses before we found it. But, just like the house we're leaving, we knew the second we walked in the door that it was the house we wanted.
Good luck and have fun!
Ditto this. I've heard of people who don't hear back from the bank for 6+ months. And then there's other side of the spectrum... people who hear back and the bank wants to close within the month.
Hopefully you're flexible. Short sales are not for the faint of heart.
http://pandce.proboards.com/index.cgi#general
We are also first time home buyers. We have looked at maybe 20+ houses so far. But nothing has really hit us yet. Our realtor said that we will know when we see it, and that more properties will come on the market now that the holidays are over.
I would say the biggest thing I learned so far is to drive by the house before going for a showing if you are able to. For us, that has eliminated several houses just by seeing where they are. I am also learning not to trust the pictures on the website. But it has been really interesting so far even though we have not found what we are looking for yet.
ETA: We went to look at a short sale, and our realtor advised us if we liked it to put a clause stating we may withdraw our offer at any time before the bank approves it if we decide we want to offer for another house. This might not be a great idea in a competitive market though.
We are also first time homebuyers! We're looking to buy something in the March/April timeframe. We went and looked at houses this past weekend. I think we saw about 10. But only 5 made our short list.
Then one was a flip and could possibly have legal issues. That made the list 4. Then one had a storm shelter in the middle of the back yard. While that might not be a problem for some, it's literally right outside the back door and is an eyesore. That leaves us 3. One with an eletrical transformer in the backyard but an adorable house, one that is listed $20k over what the lady paid for it a year ago, and the other one is a new construction at the top of our price range.
I want to go look at some others this weekend. We'll see what happens!
YES! Buying a house is scary! We started looking early November, have now seen 35 houses plus about 5 second looks. One house pretty early on we saw on a Wednesday, really liked it and thought it was perfect for our needs, worried that "we liked one of the first houses we saw," and we waited until Sunday for the second look... were going to make an offer on it Monday, then someone had offered on it the previous Thursday. I was SO BUMMED! I think that if you *really* like something a lot, do a follow up visit one or two days later if you can and then move forward if you're ready. This gives you a chance to sleep on it and for you and your husband to dream about the house's potential, and the second look confirms "yes we COULD do that with the backyard!" or "nooooo, I don't think this kitchen will work after all..."
Tomorrow we're doing a second look on a house we saw Saturday and a third look on an unlisted house we saw right after Christmas, just to confirm that we definitely want the unlisted house. We've liked this house since our first look, but we wanted to wait just in case better houses that met our needs came out after the holidays. I feel so squeamish about choosing a house and what that means to our investments and money--eek! We like the house and it fits our budget, but there are definitely a TON of 'what ifs' that are stuck in my head late at night: what if the neighborhood declines? what if the electric wiring needs to be replaced? what if we immediately regret it because we realize the other house met our needs better after all and we just couldn't tell without our furniture inside?! AAAHHH!
Anyway. Pretty sure we're offering on our first house this week, and really spooked about it. Thanks for letting me post!
we started looking online seriously & going to open houses on our own in november (we've been looking online for years casually and also would pop into open houses now and then). we read up about the process a lot, got pre-approved (not pre-qualified), interviewed agents, and picked one.
since early december, we've looked at about 40 houses. however, the inventory during the holidays in our area was pretty crappy. we've found only 2 houses we really loved out of those, but one is too small/we will outgrow it too quickly, and the other is near a main, very industrial artery. so we're waiting to see if the prices drop on those/aren't going to offer just yet because they're overpriced to us given those to-us negatives.
we can move whenever as our current lease is month-to-month, but of course we impatiently want to find something ASAP.
We've been looking since early October and have probably visited well over 30 homes, including a few re-visits. We put an offer on one of the first homes we saw, just a few weeks into our search, but they pulled the house off the market. While we loved the house and would put another offer on it in a heartbeat if it popped back up on the market, we've really found that our wish list has developed. We know a lot more about what we do - and don't! - want than we did at first. It makes us a whole lot more picky but I don't think that's a bad thing!
That said, I wouldn't target a SS or a non-SS based on your timeframe. We figured the whole process would take a few months, start to finish. You just don't know what will happen!