It's looking pretty good that this house will work out, so this post is part 1 of our journey towards first home ownership!
In mid/late December we met with the realtor my best friend used in finding her first home this past summer. We sat down with her and got the schpeal about what she does, what to expect of hunting for homes, etc. Given the time of year, not much was out there in the market, so we decided to wait to look at houses until after new years.
Jan 2, 2011, was day one of house hunting... we saw a bunch of brick ranch style homes and realized we don't really like older homes like that- too boxy and closed in with narrow hallways. We did see one that was a newer, open ranch in a super cute neighborhood that I loved: Woodbridge Pointe. The neighborhood is newer (all the homes have been built in the last 5 years or so & several more are still being built), but that also means all the homes tend to range $330-450k... waaaaay too much for us unless we had a HUGE down payment, which we don't, but at least we know what our dream house will be like!
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| House hunting spec sheets aplenty! |
Towards the end of January we found a foreclosed house that looked pretty promising. The house was in bad shape with several windows boarded up, some water damage in places, and new flooring needed throughout the whole place. It was listed low already around $220 and we were going to offer $190-$210-ish with the intentions of doing some major renovations and fixing up with a contractor and having a great house in the end. But it was on a golf course and I was a little concerned about that, so we asked D's stepdad to take a look and a friend who is a big golfer.
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| House #1... a no go! |
The night we met with the realtor to put in the offer, D's stepdad had driven by to check the place out and confirmed my suspicion that the house gets hit by golf balls- it started to make sense that the windows boarded up were only on one side of the house...
we even got the opinion of a friend who is BIG golfer (going to golf school to be a course manager) and he confirmed that with the direction golfers are aiming and how the house sits in a bend of the course, its just in that sweet spot... thinks HE even hit that house before... so it's a no go- as much of an amazing deal it looked like- not trying to be replacing windows and vinyl and dodging golf balls for the next few years. BUMMER! But better to find out sooner than later, so we did NOT put in our offer that night and instead just walked away.
We kept looking for a few more weeks and came back to a nice one we had seen early on but was a short sale listed at $334k. This was way more than we wanted to pay (I had $300k in mind as the absolute upper limit), but since it was STILL on the market a couple months after listing it at that price and knowing that the couple were splitting and needed to get out of the house, we figured there could be opportunity to negotiate with the bank before it moved to foreclosure and possibly get a great deal. The house is newer (built in 2007) but huge (2700 sq ft) so I was concerned about heating/cooling costs, but we figured it could be a great investment if we got it at a low enough price. So we decided to low-ball it and put in an offer of $280k.
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| House # 2... The Runaway Wife |
We put in our offer on Valentine's Day and waited... and waited... and waited... Supposedly the wife had split and was very hard to get a hold of, so everything was held up waiting on her signature to move the offer on to the bank for approval. After nearly two weeks of waiting we were told she was going to meet her lawyer and sign the offer sometime in the next week, but we decided to look at houses again in the meantime. At this point we had seen over 30 houses since the beginning of January and we were both starting to feel
totally over the "house hunt".
And that's when we found House #3. It's a smaller house (1900 sq ft), but it was cute and still pretty open. There's a lot of updating needed (it was built in 1989 and looks like it still has the same cabinets, counter tops & faucets), but overall the house has good vibes. The price was lower ($244,900) and had just come on the market again after 6 months off (the history showed it had been listed for $279k, then $269k, then removed) so it seemed like a pretty great deal. The one big issue for me was that the master bedroom is located downstairs in the back of the house while the other two bedrooms are located upstairs in the front of the house. Thinking ahead to when we have kids... I don't want to be on opposite sides of the house from my child. However, we talked it over and determined that we could turn the master into more of a game room/man cave/guest bedroom and use one of the bedrooms upstairs as ours.
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| House # 3... Third time's a charm? |
We saw the house on Sun, Feb 27, put in our offer for listing price plus seller paying closing costs on Mon, Feb 28 & it was accepted with a closing date of Mar 25. We locked in a 30-year conventional loan at 4.875% and are planning to pay 5% for our down payment. This will make our payments about $1600-1700/month. We got quotes for homeowners insurance policies and decided to go with USAA (where we currently bank, have credit cards, car loans, car insurance, and renters insurance and haven't had a problem once).
We scheduled the home inspection for the following Saturday, Mar 5. The inspection turned up several issues- the most serious involved some safety issues in the attic due to the flue pipe not having enough clearance, the dryer vent being clogged, the furnace being 3 years past its expected life and having lots of flaking below it, a few moisture/wood damage issues in various places, and a few fogged windows & loose toilets. To determine the costs, we extended our offer's inspection contingency and had a contractor come out to take an estimate of the work tonight where we found out that the security light in the backyard is also broken. The estimate for all the work was $1,800 and the sellers agreed to pay for all of it. They also had the furnace cleaned and inspected & it passed. We also went ahead and delayed closing until March 30th to provide the sellers with more time to move out.
So that's the situation thus far! We now are in the process (or rather our loan officer is in the process) of getting everything completed and finalized for our mortgage (assessment, home owners insurance policy settled and in place, etc.). We also have to decide when we want to end our lease at our current apartment to provide our 30-day notice.
Overall though, things are looking quite good now!
