s/o house hunting: Starter homes?

caffinated_tulip · August 2011

DH and I are hoping to be seriously house hunting by this time next year (was supposed to be sooner, but our debt-pay-off plan got pushed back a bit with the baby and some slowness at work, but its cool now).

If you've done the house hunting thing, what do you look for in a starter home? I know our price-range and likely area and there's quite a bit to look at, but I'm not sure what I'm looking for.

MrsT2008 · August 2011

we consider our home our long-term starter home (we'll probably be here 10 years). When we were house-hunting, we wanted a house we could grow into (since it was just the 2 of us at the time) and for us we considered the number of bedrooms (we wanted 3-4), bathrooms (at least 1.5, preferably 2 full), a good yard and location, and a town that had good schools.

We also took into account the amount of work a house would need. We were not/are not afraid of projects and renovations (good thing since we've done everything from painting to gutting a bathroom and the kitchen and replacing all the windows).

pinkflipflops44 · August 2011

we wanted city water, garage, dishwasher, yard, not a lot of work required.

SBma · August 2011

I made a list of things that were non-negotiable for me. Air conditioning was one of them. You could start thinking of some of those and go from there. Minimum number of bedrooms/bathrooms, remodeled kitchen or bath, etc. Air conditioning alone reduced my searches by a lot.

fabbate13 · August 2011

Price range and area were the two main things I started with. Being the curious type that I am, I had a blast looking at houses. I love to see how other people live and decorate. That being said, I was looking for a house that didn't require much work as DH and I are not terribly handy. That was pretty much it. It was slim pickings in my price range, but we got incredibly lucky with the house we found.

roshybride · August 2011

a place with enough room for us for us to grow for five years

not too much work

price range

good neighborhood (also schools)

magdalina.h · August 2011

We bought our house 6 years ago. Our plan was to move around 5 years, but then the economy tanked. We bought a house for the now instead of the future and I really regret that. It feels cramped with the 3 of us and now it looks like we'll be in this house for another year or 2.

btaylor19 · August 2011

MrsT2008:

we consider our home our long-term starter home (we'll probably be here 10 years). When we were house-hunting, we wanted a house we could grow into (since it was just the 2 of us at the time) and for us we considered the number of bedrooms (we wanted 3-4), bathrooms (at least 1.5, preferably 2 full), a good yard and location, and a town that had good schools.

We also took into account the amount of work a house would need. We were not/are not afraid of projects and renovations (good thing since we've done everything from painting to gutting a bathroom and the kitchen and replacing all the windows).

All of this. Plus we had to veto any house that was a short sale unless the price was pre-approved. We had a tight timeline and short sales took way too long.

edit- I am a typing fail

pinkflipflops44 · August 2011

schools played a huge factor as well

jkish22 · August 2011

Yeah, it was slim pickins for us too, so it was really just what could we afford we had to jump on. We hope to get out of our house in the next 2-3 years.

Mrs_Liberto · August 2011

The best pieces of advice our realtor gave us were:

1. Figure out your own personal level of what you're comfortable paying out every month for PITI before you talk to a mortgage company. Make it clear to your realtor that you aren't willing to even consider homes outside of this parameter.

2. Get pre-approved (not just pre-qualified) for a mortgage and shop around for good rates before you start looking at houses.

3. Start thinking in the mindset of "10 year home" instead of just a "starter home" for now. With the way the market is going, chances are you'll be in it much longer than just a starter. This was helpful to us when several homes we looked at seemed fine as "just a starter house" but when we considered living with X issue longer-term, it quickly wrote them off our list.

4. Make lists (each of you separately) for what things are "must haves", "would like to have" and "no way can our house have" and then compare them. For H, we HAD to have a garage and I really wanted at least one fireplace.

5. Be realistic in what things you think you can fix or update on your own and what things you'll need to have fixed/painted/repaired prior to move in or immediately after. Remember to add these costs to things like closing costs, inspections, moving costs, utility transfer fees, re-keying fees, etc, as a point to consider if you have enough liquid assets for immediately after you close.

danlexi04 · August 2011

Price, location, and school systems were the most important. Size was a biggie and a big yard. We needed ac and to not do a lot of work to the house. We didn't want oil or septic. We compromised and have septic but gas heat.

staycee · August 2011

we're in our "starter" now and looking for our permanent... but I would think you'd look for the same basic stuff: price-range, area, knowing your must-haves, and knowing your "we can live withouts".

(we're on month 13 of our house hunt now - it sucks!)

Mrs_Liberto · August 2011

Oh, a few more things:

Find out the current costs of utilities from the current owners. We have a boiler and radiant heat so we (wrongly) assumed that it would keep our winter heating costs low. Our heating bill runs $400-$500 per month in the winter and that was a huge shock. The heating problems are due to old drafty windows, which we are now replacing, but that's definitely not cheap either.

For you, the cost of water or oil heat or something else could be high but you definitely don't want to get nailed in January with a giant heating bill or July with a giant AC bill.

Also, a lot of other people mentioned finding an area with good schools. IDK about your area but most of northern IL has obscenely high property taxes ($10-$15k per year is the norm for a standard 3br house). Ours are about a third of that but the tradeoff was that our school district is absolutely awful. However, we made the decision to buy where we did because we figured we'd rather spend $6k in property taxes and $10k in private school tuition vs $15k in property taxes and being stuck with whatever the public school could offer.

It might be totally different in your area but it's worth considering.

Leila'sMommy · August 2011

Mrs_Liberto:

Oh, a few more things:

Find out the current costs of utilities from the current owners. We have a boiler and radiant heat so we (wrongly) assumed that it would keep our winter heating costs low. Our heating bill runs $400-$500 per month in the winter and that was a huge shock. The heating problems are due to old drafty windows, which we are now replacing, but that's definitely not cheap either.

For you, the cost of water or oil heat or something else could be high but you definitely don't want to get nailed in January with a giant heating bill or July with a giant AC bill.

Also, a lot of other people mentioned finding an area with good schools. IDK about your area but most of northern IL has obscenely high property taxes ($10-$15k per year is the norm for a standard 3br house). Ours are about a third of that but the tradeoff was that our school district is absolutely awful. However, we made the decision to buy where we did because we figured we'd rather spend $6k in property taxes and $10k in private school tuition vs $15k in property taxes and being stuck with whatever the public school could offer.

It might be totally different in your area but it's worth considering.

Is $400-500 a normal range for heating?!?!! We are also house hunting (we won't be able to actually start making offers until next year, but just trying to keep any eye out on what's available...) and this scares me right into staying in our little apartment where water, sewer and garbage combined are $70 a month and never more than that.

Mrs_Liberto · August 2011

Leila'sMommy:
Is $400-500 a normal range for heating?!?!!

I know it varies widely, but between $250 and $500 per month seem to be the norm in my neighborhood.

We live in far northern IL (crazy long and cold winters) and IL has super high utility costs too, so it's a double whammy and might not be bad where you are.

Scout05 · August 2011

Here are the things my mother told me that were helpful when we bought our house:

DO care about floor plan, lot size, and location (including accessiblity to whatever highways, trains etc you might need, and the potential for noise if that bothers you). These are things that are either hard or impossible to change.

DO NOT care about paint, appliances, counter tops, floors, etc. Unless they are things that would have to be replaced right away (as in, you couldn't live in the home until those things were changed), people who get hung up on cosmetic things (and yes, appliances and countertops are cosmetic, as long as they work in their present - even if ugly - condition.) miss out on some truly great homes for a silly reason.

(Watching House Hunters on HGTV makes me insane. When they say "don't care for the green in here" it's like "FFS YOU CAN PAINT IT!!!! SHEESH!!!!)

I know that seems obvious, but I cannot tell you how many of my friends passed on great houses in amazing areas for great prices because those homes didn't have the buzz-word granite countertops or stainless steel. Or whatever. I wanted to smack them.

caffinated_tulip · August 2011

Most of the houses that I've looked at online, imaginary house shopping basically, need some cosmetic work. House needs painted, carpet is 70s green shag or the walls are all old lady wall paper. Which is actually 100% cool, I know how to fix all that. There are a lot of houses that are priced really low because they haven't been renovated lately, but they're in great shape. I'm pretty stoked about it actually!

MNgirl326 · August 2011

We looked for a house the we could grow into for 5-10 years , but could also stay in for a little longer if for some reason we needed to.

So, we looked for something that had a few bedrooms, a nice yard, good location, good school district, etc.

The house we are in needed a lot of work, but we were in place where we could do some fixing and make it our own. It is a 1950's rambler and it is small, 3 bedrooms, 1 bath, but it has a lot of character. It is also in a good place that when we do decide to move we should get our money out of it.

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