DH and I are really ready to get out of our apartment, we feel that by renting we're throwing our money away, especially for a cramped one bedroom with no privacy. We've been going over our finances and looking at our savings, CDs, and DH's military accounts etc. Our "big money" CD is maturing this August, and we've heard that rates are going up in September, so we're planning on seriously looking this summer and hopefully having a contract on a house in late July/early August, so the timing is perfect.

Right now we're bank shopping. Looking at local banks to (hopefully) give us a great rate! We're currently debt free and once our CD matures we'll be able to put down a nice down payment on a house. I'm so excited! I'm all over realtor.com looking at affordable houses in our area, it's so much fun. I've seen many houses that I like, but nothing that has everything I'm looking for. I guess I'm looking for the total package. I'm just praying that God will bring us the right house at the right time.

If anyone has any advise or words of wisdom regarding home buying, I'd be glad to hear it. DH and I are going to be first time homebuyers, so it's all new! Luckily, my mom was in real estate and my dad is in construction, so that helps too. But any outside help would be great! Either way, I'm really excited to start this process.

Congratulations! I love looking at houses and watching all the house hunting shows on HGTV, so I was very excited when DH and I started looking for our first home. It turned out to be the most stressful and tense moment in our relationship.

My advice is to sit down with DH and make a Needs list and a Wants list. For example, we Needed to live on a quiet street, not a double yellow line street. We Wanted a fireplace.

It would have been helpful if we had done this before we started looking. We assumed that we both had the same priorities and vision for our house, but when we found out house that had the perfect basement for entertaining, but no formal dining room for family dinners, DH couldn't understand why I was so against the house.

Now, even though the checklist is a good idea to help you be on the same page. I had to explain to DH that it's also a feeling. You'll know your house when you walk in, just like you knew DH and knew your dress.

Also, in the beginning, make sure it's just you and DH that go. When you think you've found it, bring in mom and dad if you want to, but not before. My in-laws live close by and when DH would tell them that we're going to check out a house, they would show up! While I love them dearly, I felt I couldn't be totally honest about my opinion of the house because if it had something I really didn't like, that his family's house had, I didn't want to insult them.

In the end, DH and I found the perfect house for us (it has a basement that can be fixed up for entertaining for him and a little formal dining room for those family dinners we look forward to having). We love our house and have enjoyed fixing it up and making it our own :)

Good Luck, try to relax and enjoy it!

Take your printouts with you, and rate them when you are in the house. We came up with a scale, based on features most important to us. We looked at about 60 houses over a 3 day weekend, which is a LOT of looking. Our realtor scheduled them based on location so we could get it done.

But, you forget specifics so writing down our ratings there, and taking a couple of digital photos, helped.

Then, we ate dinner and made up the day's list. Some were really easy to eliminate because they just didn't add up to the ad or what we saw online once we got inside. But by the end we had about 5 that we really liked. We put those on our spreadsheet/chart my husband made and we made offers based on the top 3. Then, we ended up buying one that never made the list that we found 3 days after that weekend of looking. But the list and rating while we were there was a huge help, we would never have remembered details we really liked or things we didn't like so much if we didn't write them down at the time.

However, our top one countered our offer and we thought wanted to start a bidding war. We didn't want to pay over our set price. So, we upped our search range by 5,000 and looked one more time. We found 2 houses with all our features we hadn't seen yet. We are living in one of them, bought 2 years ago.

We also looked at the tax rates and water districts, here, if the builder had to pay a whole bunch to get water set up, then you pay an additional fee through property taxes for about 15 years. We bought in a subdivision that doesn't have the additional tax. Throughout our community, our town, the tax varies to a large degree, and we didn't want to live in the most popular subdivision just so we could say, we live in the meadows, when that meant paying twice (or almost) as much property taxes per year.

And, having a good realtor who you click with and who is your exclusive buyer agent is good advice. Ours worked super hard for us, and was super accomodating. We had about two weeks to decide for sure, or be stuck in another year's lease, and she went out of her way to make sure we could get our looking done. (the landlord we were renting a house from upped the rent by a LOT and we were pretty certain we did NOT want to pay him, as far as I know, the house is still vacant too)

Before you make offers, or really even look, get preapproved or preauthorized (I forget which one is better) but they will want to see that letter that you are authorized up to a certain amount, sometimes without that letter other seller realtors won't even show and certainly won't take an offer)

Brighter is right about the things you want to change aspect. Ours had white appliances (which we hated, so we put in stainless) and HORRIBLY clashing wallpaper/paint combos in a few rooms. We changed that almost immediately. One room left. But the big stuff, (size of bedrooms, size of bathrooms, type of basement, size/type of yard and views) that's the stuff we looked most closely at. A home inspection is something I would never skip either, by a professional. Your realtor can help with that. We wanted, separate bathroom for kids, walkout basement, no street or house backed right up to our back yard, large master closet, and enough bedrooms, and open floor plan with high ceiling in the living area for my christmas trees, low property taxes, quiet area. With enough looking, you can generally find a couple that meet your most important criteria.

have fun!!

Proud Member of P.O.O.P., People Offended by Offended People

Thanks everyone for for the tips and advice! A lot of you mentioned somethings I never considered. Like a PP said, I have assumed DH and I have the same things we're both looking for. After reading this, he and I have casually gone over what we both want and plan to write EVERYTHING down this weekend.

Wants and needs are good to write down too. We have a brand new car, and I would like to have at least a 1 car garage, but I'm unsure if that fits under "want" or "need". Of course a safe neighborhood is a need and affordability is too. Well, these are things we have to figure out!

I was told that the 1st time homebuyer credit is will be over before we're planning on putting a contract. I talked to an agent and she told me that in order to get the credit you have to have a contract on a house by the end of April and be closing in June. That's way too soon for us! That would've been great to have though.

Thanks again, and if there's anything else, I can use all the wisdom I can get! Thanks

True love is like a ghost which many talk about but few have ever seen.

Dear Aug,

Everyone else has hit the high points, except one: Pre-approved vs Pre-Qualified.

Here are the essentials.

Pre-Approved:

You tell the lender what money you have, what money your earn, etc. Based on your verbal statements of your financial picture, and based on other "standard" features of the market, the lender tells you that you can afford a house priced at $xxx,xxx.

That's the point where you start looking in neighborhoods where the houses are $xxx,xxx or lower. No sense looking at more expensive houses.

Remember, also, that pre-approval means nothing except give you a guideline. The bank does not know if you fudged your income. You know if you fudged your income. The pre-approval is only for your own use.

Pre-Qualified:

You fill out a mortgage application with all your financial details, and the lender verifies each point. The lender calls your employer and verifies your income. The lender pulls your credit report. It's just like the regular mortgage loan application for a real house, except there's no real house.

After the lender has done all their due diligence, they give you a Pre-Qualified letter, in which they state that you are qualified for $yyy,yyy, at %z.zzz percent interest. They will also indicate an expiry date.

This is what you get when you are narrowing your search down to a few good possiblities. When you make your offer to the sellers, you include a copy of the pre-qualification letter. That lets the seller know that you are already qualified by the lender, and will make your offer more attractive than another offer without pre-qualification.

Once your offer is accepted, then since you are already pre-qualified most of the lender's due diligence is done. The lender needs only get an appraisal of that particular property, inspections, etc. They already know YOU (and your finances) are OK. They need to know if the HOUSE is OK.

Pre-Approval (the informal, easy process) is usually free or at a very low cost. You might want to check out pre-approval from a variety of lenders. Most will probably come within a few percent of each other. Be wary if one is an outlier. If four banks will pre-approve you for a $200k house, but one will pre-approve for $400k, then there's something wrong. Don't just jump on the $400k pre-approval, but instead go back and ask on what basis they pre-approved for that much.

You should be doing your own pre-approval as well, based on your own down payment, your own salaries and your own desired monthly payment.

Finally, remember that all else being equal, you should expect to pay more in monthly house payment that you would to rent a similar house. Why? Because rental prices are based on the market, which includes houses that were bought and sold years ago. Those owners have a lower monthly "nut", meaning lower monthly expenses and can thus charge less rent. Your new house payment is based on exactly the last house to be sold in the market: namely yours.

It is my experience that it takes about 5 years for the house payment to dip below the market rents for a similar house. The first 5 years are always the toughest, then please trust me, it will get easier.

Right now my monthly house payment is about $800-1000/month less than comparable rentals in my area.

Did I call Aunt the Queen of Finacial Wisdom...or did I call her the Queen of Financial Wisom?
Called it.

Ladies,

When you've reached 56, you learn a thing or to. Mostly from your own mistakes.

Some really good advice here! We're closing on our house on the 29th, so I'll share some personal wisdom gleened over the past few months. :)

Research the differences between conventional vs. fha mortgages before you shop around for rates. Both have their advantages/disadvantages. If your credit is compromised, a conventional loan with a low interest rate may be hard to come by, so FHA may be the better choice. But there are plenty of downsides to FHA as well... namely, all the government red-tape and mortgage insurance premiums. FHA is picky and meticulous, so give yourself PLENTY of time to close. Also, be careful in chosing a mortgage person- you are going to have to trust them through the process, and the initial scary paperwork known as the truth-in-lending statement. Mortgages are incredibly complicated... a seasoned lender can help explain things, but you need someone you trust and someone with a lot of experience- because at some point, you won't know what's going on.

Don't make any huge purchases in the next few months that may impact your credit. Especially the time between initial offer and closing.

It's going to cost more upfront than you think... in addition to any downpayment. Closing costs can be negotiated between buyer and seller, but can be in the range of $3,000-$5,0000. Buyer typically pays for the inspection- $500 and appraisal (especially FHA) $300. FHA and a few conventional loans also request that you pay the year's homeowner's insurance premium upfront before closing (~$600-2,000+). Don't forget application fees/earnest money deposit. Oh yes, and TAXES, yearly mortgage insurance premium, monthly mortgage insurance, homeowners insurance, homeowners association fees, and all the other little junk you dont think about- lawnmowers, movers, home maintenance, etc. I wanted to cry after we paid $3,000+ more than we orginally budgeted for, and still needed a watering hose. hah! It's a good thing we had a nest egg and didn't use it all for the downpayment, or we would would be looking for pennies in the sofa.

So yeah, that's my biggest advice- save save save, and aim much lower than your maximum qualified amount.
Best of luck! :)