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.
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.
When to start looking? first time buyer
My fiance and I are getting married in October and we are currently renting a home and just resigned a one year lease. By the time our lease is up next March we hope to be moving into a new home. I was just wondering how soon we should start our search? Some people have told me to start looking now but I know other people that found their home in just a few months. Or should we just wait until we have a nice down payment saved to start looking, even if that means we may have to rent month-to-month after our lease is up.
Also, how much should we have saved up for a down payment before we start looking? I've heard you should put down 10% of the loan.
Thanks!
Re: When to start looking? first time buyer
Hoo, boy. Pick up a copy of Homebuying for Dummies or take it out from the library and see if there are any homebuying seminars in your area.
http://pandce.proboards.com/index.cgi#general
I agree with the book recommendation. I'd also suggest going to some open houses just for fun to see what is out there. Use the next year to familiarize yourself with the housing market in the area you are looking. Check out a site like redfin to see what's on the market, and what the asking price is. Watch the homes you like and see what they sell for vs. the asking price. Go to open houses and talk about what you like and don't like.
And before you buy, make sure you can afford it. Look at your monthly budget and determine how much can you pay each month toward your home. This should include mortgage, insurance and taxes, as well as utilities (electric, gas, oil, water, trash, HOA, etc.), plus maintenance (painting, repairs, lawn, snow removal, etc.). Check out this post for earlier in the week for more info.
It's never too early to start looking online. Such research will help show you what's on the market, the FMV of homes, etc. It certainly helped us. We started looking with our agent and were able to snap up our house in a couple of weeks. I wouldn't have had that level of confidence if I had not done significant research.
I recommend heading on over to the Money Matters board to talk money and financial preparedness to buy home.
You could start casually looking now by going to open houses. It's a good way to meet agents and hopefully find one you want to work with. It will also give you a chance to see what is out there.
Chances are that anything you like will be sold by the time you're ready to buy -- if it's not you should find out why. Most people like to close on a house in 30 - 60 days.
You definitely need to save up enough for a down payment, plus closing cost, plus an emergency fund, plus money to use for moving. There are differing opinions on this matter, but it all comes down to what you're comfortable with. As a first time home buyer you can get an FHA loan and put 3.5% down. Anything under 20% down will mean paying mortgage insurance which can add an extra $100 or so to your monthly payment.
DH and I are first time buyers and we're putting 10% down.
I agree with some of the PPs suggesting the books to read up on.
Check around your community as well. H and I just took a first time home buyers class in our city last weekend. We have a 2 hour counseling session this Saturday to finish up. It's a down payment assistance. It was offered to us, so we're taking it!
That's not necessarily true. We are approved to put 5% down with no PMI. Also PMI for homes we are looking at is between $400 - $450 per month on top of the monthly payment.
Like the others have said, do your research, start saving, start narrowing down your target areas, and start watching your budgets to see what you are comfortable spending on a mortgage each month.
Our lease is up at the end of March. We started looking at houses immediately after X-mas (although we had done online searching for a long time prior, and were well aware of how much we could afford before we started searching). We didn't see it as necessary to find a house before our lease was up - we were perfectly willing to go month to month after, or even to sign another lease if necessary.
Anyway - despite our initial relaxed attitude about this, we ended up finding a place, and assuming the inspection goes well today, we should be closing at the end of the month - 2 days before our lease is up. We will be working with our landlord to get another week here!! (he's a good guy, don't think this will be a problem).