House Hunt Part 1 - The Begining
I put together a fair bit of notes and thoughts I have about house hunting, what I have learned so far, what I am doing, what I need to do, etc .... but I think its a bit much for one post. Therefore, I am going to start out this series with a much briefer statement of intent and my initial thoughts on what I/we are looking for.
We are looking to buy a 2+ bedroom 2+ bath house in approximately 10 months when our current lease will be up. That means (from my rough estimates) we will need to officially really start looking for a house in the late April time frame (so that if we find a great house, we don't have to pay for rent+mortgage for very long).
Some features that at least for the time being are top on our lists of needs and wants (seperating the list will come in the following months) are:
- garage (at the very least covered parking)
- decent size house and lot (doesn't need to be too big, I have never lived a huge house)
- big enough yard for a dog to run in (I can't wait until we have Rudy or Truman ... yes we have names for the dogs we want before we have them ;) )
- we prefer older and more unique homes to your standard Suburbia ranch or two story. A small interesting house with some character is what we want.
- going along with the last point, we are thinking to live much closer in to the city than where we both grew up (out in the suburbs). I wouldn't have guessed this one growing up, but I really like the community atmosphere and the age of older neighborhoods.
- we plan on living in the house at least until the our future kids are ready for kindergarten, maybe a bit longer so school districts are a factor but not a for sure limiter
My intention, given the positive response everyone gave, is to document what I find out, what resources I am using, and what things we get right and wrong.
For now I will leave you with some of the resources I am currently reading. My next post will hopefully talk about what we have found out so far, what we are in the process of doing and some of my questions about different mortgage options (Alex, your first step is to remember how to spell it ;-) ).
- Resources I am using (books, websites, RSS)
- -- Idiots Guide To Mortgages - currently reading, less detail but good
- -- Tips & Traps When Buying a Home - Third Addition by Robert Irwin - I couldn't finish this one. Right out of the gate they were pushing houses as investments and that you can/should borrow as much as possible so that you can get a good return. Had a few good tips and traps to watch out for (especially when it came to home inspections) but I didn't want to find out.
- All of the above links are to sites whose RSS feeds I subscribe to that have had house buying, mortgage or home repair articles lately. I read all of the pretty much everyday and they usually have some really good advice. As with anything, you have to take it with a grain of salt, but they often agree on things or at the very least give me insight into something I need to read up on.
1 comment:
"we prefer older and more unique homes" -- a common UD alumni desire. those old houses have TONS of character, and UD does a good job keeping them up. we complain as students, but really, keeping up 1500 houses all 60+ years old is a helluva job
the biggest trick i can offer is to look at your county auditor's webpage... they have accurate numbers of house size, lot size, taxes, sales history, etc... some list all of the renovations (you can also check the county treasurer webpage for this) or maps of the area.
oh, also, zillow.com is a great way to approximate the value of homes in the area -- if you buy the most expensive house on the block, any updates you make won't be worth as much toward home value as if you buy the cheapest house on the block.
if school district isn't a big deal yet (i.e. you plan on moving sometime before your future children turn 6), a house on a main road won't sell as easily as other houses, and if you're intending to move later, the house should really be picked with resale potential high on the list of priorities.
types of mortages... there are a lot. 100% financing, 5% down payment, 3% down FHA loan, 80/20, etc. more down payment = lower interest rate = lower monthly payments, but FHA is pretty close to 5% down. 80/20 is a double mortgage -- you take an 80% mortgage and the other 20% is a mortgage that is the "down payment" - so you pay slightly more (sometimes the 20% is a 15-year loan) but you don't have Private Mortgage Insurance. we just got quoted today as PMI being ~$121/month for a house we saw.
i'll post more on my page tomorrow
Post a Comment