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.
Too soon?
Hello! My fiance and I are planning on buying a house this summer after we get married. Since he is still in school and will not be graduating until April, we are not quite ready to actually buy just yet. However, we would really like to begin scoping out neighborhoods and really get a feel for what we can get in our price range. It seems like HOA and CDD fees are a big secret, as we cannot find any accurate information anywhere! (Unfortunately in Florida EVERY neighborhood has an HOA!) We would really like to sit down with a real estate agent and find out this information on prospective neighborhoods, and also get some information and perhaps get inside and look around some of the gated communities. My question is: is it too early to contact a real estate agent to start looking? I certainly don't want to waste an agent's time since we won't be ready to buy for another 6 months, but it would really help with working out our budget to know what kind of fees we should expect. Thanks!
Re: Too soon?
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Thank you, you were a lot more helpful than the other girl! Yes, he is graduating from Graduate school. We don't know yet what his income will be, so we don't want to apply just yet. We will also be using the VA home loan as he is a veteran. I definitely don't want to waste a realtor's time, there are just so many factors in buying your first home! Thanks for the advice
My goodness you are condescending! By school I mean Graduate school. My fiance will be finishing his Masters in April. Get off your high horse.
I went through pre-approval first. He will probably need a few months paystubs to qualify. You can talk to a mortgage broker and they will let you know how long he needs to be working to get approved.
I would go ahead and run your credit scores. I am not sure what they need to be for a VA loan but this will give you time to sort out any surprises. Just google VA loan credit scores. I saw a bunch of answers for the search and I am sorry that I did not take the time to read them all to post here.
I started contacting agents a few months before I was ready to buy. I wanted to make sure I had the right one. I still ended up switching half way through but they can help you get an idea of what is on the market. They can also help you narrow down neighborhoods so when you are ready to go then you don't have to sort through all of that.
Please remember to check the last years taxes. You will need to add that and insurance to your monthly mortgage cost.
Good luck!
Just a few thoughts....
I'm not sure if you can do this with a VA loan, but when I got the original loan on our house, I went to the bank and got a pre-approval for a loan which is just really a ballpark of what the bank might let you borrow. That will give you a starting point. After that, if you just want to see what's out there without really engaging a realtor, look for open houses. You can walk through and see the houses, but not take up a realtor's time knowing that you're not buying now. There's usually also an agent at the house that most times are willing to answer questions.
I totally understand where you're coming from on wanting to start the process now, we were in your same shoes a few months ago. However, based on what you've said, I do think it's too early. When you get pre-approved, the banks want to know about you last two years' earning history. My husband and I also recently graduated from grad school, and this made it a bit difficult to show two years worth of good income history. Since your husband is still in school and I assume does not have a job lined up yet, (?) the banks might frown on approving you for as much as you could get if you wait.
That being said, it sounds like you really just want to talk with a realtor about hidden costs in neighborhoods you're interested in. I think most realtors would be perfectly willing to give you this information before you're pre-approved and actually looking, especially if it means they might get to keep you once you really start looking!