Two questions for homeowners

[eddysnake]

Friends of the family knew we were looking & gave us an offer we couldn't refuse, ended up working pretty well in regards to any questions with the history of the house. Like nan said, location is everything, we got a smaller house but couldn't have ended up with a better location.

[Tomas]

Additional question:

When you went to view the home you eventually purchased what was your initial reaction to it? How long did it take you to decide that it was the right house for you?

I simply cannot decide on a house over, say, a weekend trip. So, in my case, I found my house after seeing 30+ properties over several months. I was not looking for a steal, but I simply had some requirements I did not want to compromise on. Usually, it took me less than 5 minutes to realize "this cannot be the house for me." The "winning property" was the first house where this did not happen.

[mac5155]

Something I always thought was good was to keep looking after you found "the one" as long as it didn't mean losing out on it.

[eddysnake]

Something I always thought was good was to keep looking after you found "the one" as long as it didn't mean losing out on it.

Do you have a history of second guessing yourself?

[mac5155]

Third fourth and fifth actually

[eddysnake]

Me too

[MWB]

Additional question:

When you went to view the home you eventually purchased what was your initial reaction to it? How long did it take you to decide that it was the right house for you?

We liked it from the start. It was just a matter of if we'd find anything better. However, we were in a bit of a time crunch and we really liked the neighborhood, so it was an easy choice.

Another thing, not a bad idea to get a home warranty. We had the seller include a year warranty in the deal. I've just kept it up since that year was up, at about $40 a month. Every summer we have AC issues, have had the oven repaired, and had a plumbing issue. Each was covered by the warranty.

[mac5155]

Yep, my fiancees mom bought a home in 2011 and got a home warranty. It's more than paid for itself. Clogged sewer main, gas pipe leak, and furnace blower all covered with like $100 deductible. If you only keep it for the first few years its still worth it. I think i'll definitely get one when we buy our first home.

[skullman80]

We have a home warranty too. It has paid for itself easily.

[joopen]

That is one of the benefits of building new. We get a 10 year home warranty with the house. Can't be happier about that.

[shmenguin]

One other thing: only after I bought my house, I realized how costly it is to maintain it (especially comparing to just renting an apartment). There are so many things that can go wrong in the crawlspace, attic, roof, plumbing system - even for well built houses. The deck needs to be re-stained every X years. Even relatively new HVAC systems can break, same with water tanks. Plus the costs of maintaining the property. Etc, etc...

Preach on, brother. After a couple years of owning my house I discovered that my main sewer line was infiltrated with tree roots to the point that the only way to fix it was to dig it up. The cost for that was $7,000. Seven thousand freaking dollars. That was years ago and it still hurts.

After several sewage backups into the basement, we just did the same thing a few months ago. It was 4 grand. Either your yard is a lot bigger than mind or your plumber's got some splaining to do.

[Shyster]

After several sewage backups into the basement, we just did the same thing a few months ago. It was 4 grand. Either your yard is a lot bigger than mind or your plumber's got some splaining to do.

Because I live on a hill and my front yard slopes, my sewer line is extra deep underground; I think it was somewhere around 10’ deep. it was deep enough that the plumbers had to bring in a bracing device to shore up the hole. That was the source of the extra cost.

[shmenguin]

That'll do it. We were lucky everything was shallow enough that they didn't need safety precautions. Though they tore up our side walk, clipped our water line by accident, found a mystery pipe that required the police and fire dept to come and then they couldn't shut off the water valve at the street because of 70 years of corrosion. So I had a nice argument with the township about who was responsible for that valve.

Yaaaay homeownership.

[cheesesteakwithegg]

We are in the process of selling our house and buying a bigger one. Such a pain in the rear. We need to sell our current house to buy a new one, and every house that we like goes off the market as soon as we see it. This bodes well for us selling, but we are worried about finding something we like since they are selling so fast around us. We just put our house on the market yesterday. Our agent said that she would be shocked if it didnt sell in 2 weeks. We shall see.

Also, for those who have recently sold, what % of the sale price of your house did you pay in commission to your agent?

[jimjom]

I wish that we never bought our house. The realtor and home inspector were in collusion as it turns out, the sellers covered a ton of stuff on our post-inspection list up or fixed it poorly which malfunctioned soon after we moved in, the house is a constant source of stress, and it is a lemon. Pretty much anything that could go wrong has. Oh, and the sellers directly lied on the disclosure and had their realtor represent them at the closing and didn't even bother to show up.

I'm lawyering up on this one.

I wish I could walk away right now but can't. So it's been a fun year.

I do not recommend Coldwell Banker South Hills by ANY means.

[cheesesteakwithegg]

We used Coldwell Banker South Hills for our first house, and had no issues. Though our realtor has since moved on from them and is with Prudential. Wonder if she left them because they are shady.

[Letang Is The Truth]

are closing costs usually a % of the purchase price of the home or % of the mortgage amount?

[dodint]

Second...that will depend solely on what your paying in rent and how expensive a house your buying.

Yeah.

My housing cost increases $200/mo, but also went from 1200sqft to over 2500sqft. I think it's a fair cost for the upgrade.

[skullman80]

I almost cut in half what I was paying renting an apartment compared to the mortgage is on our house. Not quite in half probably around 40%, but still a big difference. Our house isn't huge, only about 1300sqft, but compared to my tiny little 1 1/2 bedroom(the 2nd bedroom was barely adequate to fit a bed in it was more of a junk room haha) apartment its an upgrade.

[dodint]

I moved from the beach to WI though. That might be a factor.

[Malkamaniac]

kenny the kangaroo does not want to put any undue strain on kenny the kangaroos financial well being

This is key to being a happy home owner.

I know a few people that have extremely nice homes, but have to worry because if they lost their job or something happened, they have absolutely nothing to fall back on. Plus they pretty much live paycheck to paycheck sinking it all into their home.s They can't go on vacation, can't go to sporting events (used to love to go), and are building up some debt because they have to store some on their credit card.

You want to buy what you can afford, while still living the life you want. Sure, there are some adjustments, but if you do it right, you won't notice them after a few months.

Prior to getting married, the now wife and I had this discussion, and it's been fantastic ever since. Money is a driver in a substantial amount of fights, a mortgage is a constant thing for the next 15-30 years. Make sure you're comfortable with it.

[skullman80]

As I told my wife when we were house hunting...just because the bank says we can afford "X" amount and we are approved for "X" amount, doesn't mean in reality we can really afford that much.

[newarenanow]

It's funny that this was bumped from 2 years ago.

[skullman80]

I probably said that exact same thing as I did above a couple years ago in this thread.

[Malkamaniac]

As I told my wife when we were house hunting...just because the bank says we can afford "X" amount and we are approved for "X" amount, doesn't mean in reality we can really afford that much.

Haha we were approved for like 225K a few years ago. In no way could we even afford that. We bought a house for around half of what we can afford, and when we first got married it was still a struggle until we got more established jobs.