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September 2012 Moms
watercolor5
member
House buying newb...
watercolor5
member
DH recently started a new job, and we renewed our lease for 6 months on the house we're renting. Now that income is secure and we have a second baby coming in Dec, we'd love to buy our first home after this lease is up, or rent month to month at that point until we can close on a house. For those of you who have done this,
-How long would you want to be in a new job before you felt established and comfortable enough to look at houses based on the new salary?
-How long did you look at houses once you were serious about buying?
-What percentage downpayment did you make?
-Other than getting pre-approved for a mortgage and finding a good realtor, any advice on starting the process?
DH wants to give his job a few months before he'd seriously consider buying. We have excellent credit and no debt, and are veterans, so we could use the VA to back a loan if we needed to, so I don't think financing will be a problem.
TIA!
-How long would you want to be in a new job before you felt established and comfortable enough to look at houses based on the new salary?
-How long did you look at houses once you were serious about buying?
-What percentage downpayment did you make?
-Other than getting pre-approved for a mortgage and finding a good realtor, any advice on starting the process?
DH wants to give his job a few months before he'd seriously consider buying. We have excellent credit and no debt, and are veterans, so we could use the VA to back a loan if we needed to, so I don't think financing will be a problem.
TIA!
This discussion has been closed.
Re: House buying newb...
-How long did you look at houses once you were serious about buying? Forever! About a year total. We looked in one area with a realtor for a few months, but we ended up breaking up with our realtor b/c he was an ass. We took a break, regrouped, and went back to hunting in a different area with a different realtor. I realize this is not the norm!
-What percentage down payment did you make? 20% (30 yr, fixed, conventional)
-Other than getting pre-approved for a mortgage and finding a good realtor, any advice on starting the process? Research the area you want to live in, the schools, crime rates, etc. Go into the process knowing what you want in a house b/c it can be overwhelming to just look at everything out there.
edited formatting
I looked online for a year, drove by properties to get a feel for the hoods, then got a realtor and bought the second house I saw.
I put 20% down but an FHA loan wouldn't have required that. My advice is drive around a lot, even at night.
For my next house, I'll buy it when I think it's what I want. No set formula. I'm keeping an eye out but don't plan to move for 5 years. Or tomorrow, if THE house comes on the market. We want a different school district.
DH and I had both been in our current positions for a long time, but if we hadn't I think I would wait a few months before beginning to look.
-How long did you look at houses once you were serious about buying?
We looked for maybe 4 months or so. But we must've seen 100 houses in that time. I'm sure our realtor hated us, but we knew what we wanted.
-What percentage downpayment did you make?
20%
-Other than getting pre-approved for a mortgage and finding a good realtor, any advice on starting the process?
Know your budget and how much you want to spend each month on your mortgage. Don't be swayed by how much they will approve you for. We chose a house well below what we would've been approved for because we knew a) we wanted to maintain a certain lifestyle and not be house poor and b) we knew that inevitably there would be repairs or remodels we wanted to do and we needed to put money aside for that.
We also bought a house that we could either grow into if we decided to have more children (we only had DSD PT at the time), but one that would also be ok if we decided to not have more children...so no worry about moving if circumstances changed. And we also bought in a town with good schools in case we had children and because resale is going to be easier.
-Other than getting pre-approved for a mortgage and finding a good realtor, any advice on starting the process? Understand that while some houses look terrible, you have to envision the potential in them (granted they are sound structurally). Our house was in great shape when we looked at it but terribly dated. Think: appliances from 68 and 69, heavy drapes from ceiling to floor, wood paneling on the walls. We have done so much work to make the house 'ours' that I can't believe it looked the same way back in 2008.
The job is stable now that he has it- the contract has already been funded through the next 2 years with a pretty good possibility of continuing funding through 2017, so once he feels competent, I'd love to start looking. I just don't know if we'll be able to show stability to the lender with this job history.
Thanks for all the experience and advice, though!
We only spent about 2 months (maybe even less) looking at houses.
I think we put 20% down
As for the process, I'd just think about what's important to you. We figured we'd be in this house for awhile, so it was important to us that we were in a good school district. We also knew we wanted a yard that was fenced or could be, and we had a list of must-haves vs wants for the house itself. That made it easier to limit our search.
-How long did you look at houses once you were serious about buying? Maybe a month.
-What percentage downpayment did you make? We did an FHA loan and wanted to make sure we had at least 3-6 months of bills, deductible, and emergency repair fund still left in our house savings after buying. We did 5% down.
-Other than getting pre-approved for a mortgage and finding a good realtor, any advice on starting the process? Narrow down your must have list to really must haves, then have a nice to have. Whatever you feel comfortable with for a monthly mortgage, start paying now (anything over your rent, put into savings - this is a good way to build your emergency repair/deductible fund). See if that is comfortable for you. Don't worry about how much you are qualified for and concentrate on what you want to pay per month. We were qualified for way more than what we were comfortable paying.