| StoreTags: donate, money, scary
Author: j_chot on February 13 2008 Viewed 2873 times. 17 people liked this blog. You can rate it below if you haven't already.
People who enjoyed reading this: ignatius, breakscience, tylth, jogn, shamann, DrexonField, Fognozzle, atum, infradead, jdg, frnortnr, sAMsKi, doofgoblin, subset, Tridact, SenorFrio, monty
-->
hey.
I'm probably gonna buy a house soon. I could type out all the details, OR I could just post an exerpt from my wife's email to her dad....
"John and I looked at a house this morning, and we're interested in it
but I have a lot of questions about how everything works. It's an
older home, 3 bedrooms, 1 bath, 1350 sq ft for $56,900, on a little
less than a 1/2 acre lot. It's got hardwood floors in the living room
and hallway and newer carpet in the bedrooms, eat-in kitchen,
dishwasher and stove, the central a/c and heat were installed 5 years
ago. It's in the Decatur High School district and the neighborhood
seems to be mainly older people. Some cons are the houses are close
together, the backyard would eventually need fencing, and it's an
older house, so there's probably some repairs to be done (although the
visible ones were minor, like replacing a light fixture).
Besides all that, yesterday I was looking at different mortgage
options from Redstone, and I went ahead and filled out the online
application for loan pre-approval, but haven't submitted it yet. I
hesitated to submit it because 1) I wanted to see if the type of house
we can afford is something we really wanted to pursue and 2) I still
haven't sent it today because since we really like this house, I'm
wondering if we should make some sort of offer, and if it's accepted,
to go ahead and apply for a loan specific to this house. I'm also not
sure what kind of offer would be acceptable or if they would take an
offer seriously if there wasn't a pre-approved loan behind it.
Also, we're in the lease for this apartment through the end of April,
so if we bought this house soon, we'd still have to pay rent here for
March and April. We couldn't afford to do that without help. While it
seems best to wait until our lease runs out, obviously the house will
not be there anymore, and it'll be really close to my due date - I
don't want to be trying to look for and buy a house and move into it
when the baby will arrive any day..."
and that's pretty much the whole story....
oh and the kitchen has a frickin sweet wet bar. | |
Comments
02/13/08
+
PM |
QUOTE |
PERMALINK |
REPORT
j_chot
I appreciate all the advice, but we watch the homebuying show on hgtv ALL the time, so I'm sure that I already know ALL there is to know about home buying.
seriously though, that show teaches you alot, and most of the stuff you've suggested I've already taken into consideration, but I will heed y'all's wordz!~
02/13/08
+
PM |
QUOTE |
PERMALINK |
REPORT
Tridact
adcBicycle said: "Also, not sure if they have them in the states but variable rate mortgages are the way to go."
Not always the case in the US. Be careful of predatory lending.
02/13/08
+
PM |
QUOTE |
PERMALINK |
REPORT
ignatius
oh.. my friend bought a home warranty when he and his lady bout their house and it paid off big time. ask about that. it ended up saving them thousands when their furnace died and also helped w/some plumbing issues too.
02/13/08
+
PM |
QUOTE |
PERMALINK |
REPORT
adcBicycle
at least in canada, you always win with variable rate mortgages.
the question do the banks know where interest rates will go better then you? if you're more knowledgeable then the banks then lock in.
more importantly then interest rates though, know your market, shop around, know what the resale may be... and even though i dislike hgtv, yeah, watch it, lots of info there.
02/13/08
+
PM |
QUOTE |
PERMALINK |
REPORT
ignatius
adcBicycle said: "at least in canada, you always win with variable rate mortgages.
the question do the banks know where interest rates will go better then you? if you're more knowledgeable then the banks then lock in.
more importantly then interest rates though, know your market, shop around, know what the resale may be... and even though i dislike hgtv, yeah, watch it, lots of info there."
in the states they arbitrarily raised interest rates on sub prime adjustable rate mortgages. it's been in the news for a year now and is a key part of the economic situation here in the USA.
link
link
link
02/13/08
+
PM |
QUOTE |
PERMALINK |
REPORT
tantan
OMG 57k! WTF I need to move to Alabammers!
02/13/08
+
PM |
QUOTE |
PERMALINK |
REPORT
jdg
but then u'd have to live in alabama :/
02/13/08
+
PM |
QUOTE |
PERMALINK |
REPORT
frnortnr
it's about 15 times that much for a house here. jeebus. that's why i will never have one.
yah inspectors rule.
as far as the april thing goes, maybe you could see if you could get possession as late as possible.
02/13/08
+
PM |
QUOTE |
PERMALINK |
REPORT
ignatius
frnortnr said: "
as far as the april thing goes, maybe you could see if you could get possession as late as possible."
when my lease ran out on my apt i talked to my landlord and explained the situation and they let me go month to month on the rent until i found a house. was very helpful.
02/13/08
+
PM |
QUOTE |
PERMALINK |
REPORT
deltasleep
As a teacher, let me strongly suggest that you consider moving when it comes time for little jr to go to school. I've spent a lot of time in the last month talking to schools outside the SE, and let me tell you, it's night and day.
02/13/08
+
PM |
QUOTE |
PERMALINK |
REPORT
besenkopf
Good luck with the house. When you said the house is listed at $56,900, you blew my mind. I live an hour from NYC, so when my wife and I bought a house this summer, we weren't so lucky.
Here are some things to think about:
Fixed-rate mortgages are the way to go. If you get an adjustable rate, especially now, be prepared for the interest to blow up. Fix it and forget it.
Get a home inspector of your choosing. Home inspectors here get about $500, but it was well worth it. We backed out on a house because the owner refused to fix some things our inspector found. They wouldn't come down on the price, either. But we found a better house. We paid a bit more, but it was well worth it. Any work we do is pretty much cosmetic. That being said, always be ready to have to fix something, no matter what the inspector says.
Get pre-approved, and work with the mortgage broker to get a letter of approval that approves you for a little bit more than your offering price.
Get ready for real estate agents to lie to you-- it doesn't matter if they're your agents or the sellers' agents. All they want to do is move the property. That said, a seller's agent will often be willing to take a lower price than the seller wants, because the agent wants to move on to the next house. Oh, yeah, and they ALWAYS tell you there's another offer on the house. That seems to be taught in "real estate 101."
The fact that your lease is up in April might work to your advantage-- you might get a month's worth of moving/prep/flex time.
Don't worry so much about cosmetic issues inside. Paint and burned out light bulbs don't matter. Structure, the roof, and mechanicals are the important thing. Your house doesn't have a basement, so your inspector should be crawling around like a woodchuck.
Get a good lawyer to represent you. Real estate law is fairly simple, but if the bank or the seller or the seller's attorney or anyone else starts playing games, you want someone who won't mess around.
Make friends with the county/city engineer and the local health department. When you get maps and information from them, you find out important stuff, like if there's a drainage easement that brings a million gallons next to your back porch or if there's a stipulation (this is the title guy's field, actually) that no electronic musicians can live on the property.
Above all, good luck! If you plan on staying for a bit (five years or more, I'd say), you'll make out fine. Buying a house is probably one of the most stressful things you can do, but it's so worth it. The only thing we don't like about ours is the fact that we have college students across the street. But then again, we didn't do our research, so there you go.
02/13/08
+
PM |
QUOTE |
PERMALINK |
REPORT
mynameismud
02/13/08
+
PM |
QUOTE |
PERMALINK |
REPORT
mynameismud
02/13/08
+
PM |
QUOTE |
PERMALINK |
REPORT
jogn
yeah i'm not sure how it really goes in the states, but from what i've seen, public education seems to be really the pits.
OTOH, there was this documentary that i saw about inner city children growing up, and it seems that if you inculcate a habit of thinking and problem solving from young, it actually helps --- but ahem not the way bill gates mom did it though --- that's just a little sad.
02/13/08
+
PM |
QUOTE |
PERMALINK |
REPORT
celibacyclub
did u get it appraised by an independent appraiser?
my gf's house is rotten, she got scamed by the seller that knew an appraiser.
Register / login
|
^
EM411 is Copyright 2001-2008 EM411.com
All rights reserved. | Contact | RSS
|
