Buying a House

So the wife and I are looking at buying a home around here. We have about $24,000 that we can use for a down payment. We found a house that's a short sale nearby that's going for $84,900, which means putting 20% down would be no problem. I've spoken to the agent who is selling it and he will show us the house once we get pre-approved for a mortgage. I submitted a few requests to a few banks and am currently waiting to hear back, although I've already received a prequalification from Chase Bank and will probably get a phone call from one of their loan officers tomorrow.

Do any homeowners here have any advice for a first-time home buyer?

Advice???......RENT!!!!

bad time for my input. i just put in a new water heater, dryer and need a new heat pump. i swear sometimes i think it is smarter to just rent.

Yeah, but I want to buy now while prices are stupid low.

Thanks for the sweet deal greedy banks and federal deregulation.

Off the top of my head ... live within your means. Don't feel that you have to change every aspect of the house right away. Don't go into debt charging things. Houses can be huge money pits. So live within your means. That's the best advice I can give.

I know what you mean. We're currently looking at cheaper houses that are smaller, but in good shape so we don't have to put all of our savings to cover the 20% down.

BGSU A Dub wrote:

I have never owned a home but I can't wait until the day that I do. I am SICK of apartment living (and I've only been doing it for 4 years). There are times I have almost bit the bullet and moved back in with the parents just to have a place with space (and not have to hear roommates having sex).

Better than having to hear your parents.

JonM229 wrote:

BGSU A Dub wrote:

I have never owned a home but I can't wait until the day that I do. I am SICK of apartment living (and I've only been doing it for 4 years). There are times I have almost bit the bullet and moved back in with the parents just to have a place with space (and not have to hear roommates having sex).

Better than having to hear your parents.

So I've received a Pre-Qualification letter from Chase and will be seeing the house on Saturday. If there's nothing apparently wrong with it, we'll probably be making an offer. An actual closing will only happen if it passes inspection, of course.

It won't pass inspection. Home inspectors feel that they must find problems or they are not doingh their job well. I'm an electrician and they come up with some really funny stuff that makes me wonder if they have any understanding of the code at all. Sometimes its better to use the stuff as a bargaining chip to lower the price then simply have them get the stuff fixed by the cheepest guy they can find.

Its a good time to buy right now, don't rush into it look around tons of stuff out there right now.

We have plenty of homes on our list. This is one of the cheaper homes that also claims to be "move-in ready"

Well, the house was definitely not move-in ready. The house recently went into pre-foreclosure and all of the appliances were stripped out of the kitchen. There was some great woodwork throughout the rest of the house, but it would take a lot of work to make it livable again. We won't be making an offer on this house.

We'll be looking at another one tomorrow that's listed as "Needs some TLC." If the house today was supposedly move-in ready, I'm kind of frightened to see what needs TLC looks like.

any luck yet?

Nothing yet. We tried to put an offer on a house that was small, yet in good shape and cheap, but we waited too long some asshole snatched it up already.

Going to look at some promising listings later this evening. With any luck, we'll be making an offer on one.

JonM229 wrote:

Going to look at some promising listings later this evening. With any luck, we'll be making an offer on one.

I know a good house that was abandoned by some hooligans awhile back and should be on the market. The only drawbacks are that it's in a stuffy, uptight neighborhood and reeks of urine.

Made an offer last night which was accepted earlier today. I'll hopefully be living the high life in my own home in a month from now.

Congrats, Jon.

I eagerly await your thread bitching about homeownership.

Awesome Jon! Glad to hear you finally nailed one.

Wally's right though. It comes with some headaches of it's own.

Thanks. The house is cheap enough that we're probably going to take some of our down payment money and use it to fix some stuff up.

Wallace108 wrote:

Congrats, Jon.

I eagerly await your thread bitching about homeownership.

Quote :

Thanks. The house is cheap enough that we're probably going to take some of our down payment money and use it to fix some stuff up.

Yep, I wouldn't fix it up too fast. Wouldn't want you to have to make more repairs after the ravens lose to the Steelers again in the playoffs!

stlrtruck wrote:

Yep, I wouldn't fix it up too fast. Wouldn't want you to have to make more repairs after the ravens lose to the Steelers again in the playoffs!

I'm not too worried as long as Roethlisberger tries to be Peyton Manning and Mendenhall continues to be a fumble machine.

JonM229 wrote:

stlrtruck wrote:

Yep, I wouldn't fix it up too fast. Wouldn't want you to have to make more repairs after the ravens lose to the Steelers again in the playoffs!

I'm not too worried as long as Roethlisberger tries to be Peyton Manning and Mendenhall continues to be a fumble machine.

You've got Joe Flacco who loves throwing to Troy Polamalu
You've got WRs who seem to drop the ball when they play the Steelers

I'm not too worried about it.

stlrtruck wrote:

You've got Joe Flacco who loves throwing to Troy Polamalu
You've got WRs who seem to drop the ball when they play the Steelers

At least their teammates don't point it out to the media

JonM229 wrote:

stlrtruck wrote:

You've got Joe Flacco who loves throwing to Troy Polamalu
You've got WRs who seem to drop the ball when they play the Steelers

At least their teammates don't point it out to the media

After the last two games against the Steelers in the playoffs wasn't Ray Ray crying about how his offense sucked? - and wasn't he doing that crying in front of a microphone?