Great Lakes 4x4. The largest offroad forum in the Midwest banner

Looking at buying my 1st house.

3K views 48 replies 35 participants last post by  zjjamie 
#1 ·
School me on buying my 1st house. Go.
 
#2 ·
If you've got the time and patience and possibly money, buy a foreclosed house and rehab it. We bought a house for $153,000 finished the basement correctly (the previous owner did it wrong) and recarpeted the whole house, and repainted the whole house and now my parents reside in a house that appraises for $220,000.
 
#3 ·
i'll tell you what you probably already know. put as much down as you can and find a place that your payment will not exceed 40% of your net monthly pay. i didn't follow this but have since learned this information. good luck!
 
#6 ·
Depending on where you want to live you can buy for 50k and less. Also as stated not to exceed your payment to more than 30 to 40 % of your income. Be smart with your money.
Also google Dave Ramsey, finacial peace university.
This guy can show you how to retire a million air. He has a radio show every evening from 7 to 9pm at 103.5 fm or listen to him online at wmuz.com.
Good luck with your new home and save all you can.
As Dave Ramsey says, " live like nobody else now so later you can live like no one else"
 
#8 · (Edited)
PMI: if you don't have 20% down/own 20% equity in your house they will attach a PMI to your mortgage. WATCH THE FINE PRINT ON THIS SHIT! many will leave the PMI on there for the term of the mortgage. Make sure it is in there that you are allowed to terminate the PMI (if this applies to you) with a refinance once you gain 20% equity in the house. We had 19% down and had the PMI on the original mortgage. I refinanced after 3 months and had that removed.

negotiate the % that the agents are taking, get those as low as you can, don't be afraid to play hardball. it's a buyers market right now.

if you offer something on a house set the highest amount you are willing to go and if it turns into a bartering tennis match and they keep going past your highest amount walk. there will be another house around the corner. I say this because with a house comes unexpected repairs and being house poor is only going to leave you with buyers remorse.

never put an offer in after the first walk through. if you find something you like and want to put an offer in on it, schedule 1 or 2 more walk throughs a week or so apart. this will ground you back to reality and hopefully you putting in too high a bid based on first sight emotion.

Look at things in homes you walk through realistically. the chances the previous owner did everything the way YOU wanted are slim to none. deduct amounts off price based on fact, not on personal preference.

when you close make sure you have the mortgage company gets you the final amount you need to bring to closing at least 2 days prior to closing so that you can review the documents and take your time getting the closing check. Tell them that if you don't have the numbers and paperwork preview 2 days before you will not be closing. period. don't let them push you around you are THEIR customer. twice I received a call with everyone there and them asking me why i wasn't at the closing? I told them I requested the amount 2 days before along with the paperwork and terms so that I could review it. you did not do that and called me 1 hour before closing with the amount. too bad I said, we'll reschedule and if you can manage not to fuck that one up we'll close on the new date".
 
#10 ·
Be sure you get a really good inspector, that has a lot of attention to detail.

Home warranties can be kind of cool, if you buy a place with older appliances or utilities. Should be really easy to negotiate as seller concessions (if not a foreclosure).

Take the new home credit, also might as well start saving to get the energy savings credit (buy new windows, furnace, insulation, etc...).
 
#11 ·
House payment should not exceed 25% of your take home pay. No less than 20% down payment and 15 year mortgage. I'm not picking on any one but a lot of people would be in better shape if they would follow these standards. The faster you can pay off bills the faster you can start using money to make money.
 
#12 ·
When you think you have found the house you want. Have a famliy member and a friend do a walk through with you at seperate times. Theywill find things that you are over looking everytime. It will help you to see past theexcitement. Then you can submit your bid on the house. When i bought my house i offered 59k less than they were asking. They Laughed at me at the time . But i endedup getting it for 51k less than they were asking for it 2 weeks later so it never hurts to lowball the seller.
 
#27 ·
When i bought my house i offered 59k less than they were asking. They Laughed at me at the time . But i endedup getting it for 51k less than they were asking for it 2 weeks later so it never hurts to lowball the seller.
That's what happened with Kate and I. The house was originally listed for $160K, then down to 120, 100, 80, 60.


We offered them $52,000 when it was listed at $59,900. They came back with $59,000. 9 days later they dropped the price to $49,900 so we bought it lol.

Now is a great time to buy if you can afford to. We were looking at renting not even a year ago. Our mortgage is about 1/4 of what we would have been paying to rent some shithole.
 
#14 ·
1. See if you qualify for MSHDA loans, down payment assistance, etc. With the MSHDA SF-DPA (single family down payment assistance) loan and the Obama 8k, I ended up with $13,900 off the cost of my house. The only caveat is that I have to pay back $5900 of that money at either refinance, sale, or pay-in-full of the house.
2. Find a real estate agent and a mortgage agent you trust. Mine were fantastic and answered all of my questions, staying patient even when I was being a pain in the ass.
3. Don't be afraid to do your own research and to mention it to your mortgage agent/ realtor. Things like looking up the ownership history of the house, tax assessment, insurance rates, etc. Pay special attention to those line items on the HUD1 (good faith estimate).
4. Keep looking, even after you've found your "dream home". Offers get rejected, sales fall through, etc... no point in stopping your search until it's time to start closing.
5. Talk to the neighbors, if you can. They'll tell you more about the area or about the home's history than a realtor will. Ours told us that the entire sewer system out to the main had been replaced recently because of root invasion, so that's one less thing to worry about. The realtor didn't have any idea about that.

Good luck, congrats. It's pretty awesome to walk into your own house.
 
#16 ·
Pay cash if possible.


I'm serious.

With the housing market in Michigan, it's possible to buy a foreclosure home for what the down payment on that home was a few years ago. Once the house is yours, you can get a home improvement loan to fix what's wrong with it.





Oh, and EVERY house has something wrong with it, even if it's only the color scheme.
 
#22 ·
I really can't recommend 0% down or down payment loans.


If you don't have 20% of the price range you are looking for, wait until you do.

Then go 15 year, not 30. The no money down loans are a big part of what killed this economy because they put people into houses they couldn't afford with no equity.


Do the math, and if the math says you can only afford a $50,000 house with 20% down and 15 yrs, then that's all you can afford. Don't kill yourself trying to impress a bunch of assholes on the internet.
 
#33 ·
Or is was Adjustable Rate Mortgages (ARMs) that got everything as bad as it is. If you can afford the house at 5% interest and then all of the sudden the bank raises it to 15% there is no way anybody can afford it. I would imagine that if your payment was only 20% of bring home then you would be okay but it would still be hard.

I wish I would have waited to buy a house. I built one a couple years ago before the market got bad and I have more into it then what it's worth.
 
#29 ·
In my opinion I think the market has yet to bottom out. Even though real estate seems like a bargain now, without any growth in the jobs market I feel that it will continue to fall. Especially with over half of todays mortgages being underwater. I would rent for a year to see where the economy is.
 
#30 ·
Thanks for all the great info.. a little more back groun on the house I'm looking at.

It is a HUD home, and have been told by my relator, that it is a repo. I've gone through it once. As far as I can tell, there is only a small roof leak in the breeze way between the house and garage. The asking price is 74K, the SEV is 47K, then the tax year 2008. I've been told that make the house appraised at 94K. It is in a Rural Development area, and I do qualify for the zero down. After talking with the bank, I can get a 5.4% interest rate, and have to have the PMI on it until I have the 20% equity.
 
#35 ·
So what does this Rural Development do for anyone? I live in one of those areas. Our neighbor has put their's up for sale instead of walking away from it. They originally wanted $489,000 for it.
With the RDA program could someone get assistance to buy that house?
 
#41 ·
One of the interesting things about this place, is that it doesn't have a furnace... It has Hot water heat, a boiler in the basement, and baseboard radiators all over the house. Theres no way in hell i'm gonna pay asking price. Its been on the market for a while now, and its a buyers market right now.
 
#43 ·
This is actually a great heat source. Much better than a forced air furnace. You get a nice even heat throughout the entire house. I strongly recommend a good home inspection. You just need to keep in mind that any house you look @ is going to need some repairs. With a good home inspection you can decide if the repairs that are needed are to much & you need to walk away or if you can handle it. Best to know before you buy than after you buy. Good luck on your purchase.
 
#46 ·
PMI blows ball, we were within 18 percent or so till the market went belly up. Now I will be stuck paying 75 extra bucks a month for while unless I can refi and put another 15k or so down.
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top