To Buy or Not To Buy...

[eirenical]

O_O

I have just started the process of searching for a house. To purchase. For me. (Well, and Gabriel, of course...)

Grant you, I've looked at houses before, sometimes even with the serious intent of buying one... but I think this time it may really happen. O_O I don't know whether to be excited or terrified. Anyone have any suggestions? Or advice? Or anything? x.x;;;

Comments

[nightsea.livejournal.com]

Oooh! Oooh! I can help! *waves hand frantically in the air and grins*

Okay. I guess the first thing to do is figure out how much of a mortgage you can afford. There are a whole slew of financial calculators out there to help you figure that out. You can also go to your local bank and sit down with a real estate banker who can also help you figure out all that fun stuff. That will give you a ballpark price range to look in.

Next, make a list of your must-haves. Must have a fireplace? Jot it down. Must have bay windows? Same thing. This list will probably evolve somewhat - I didn't realize that I wanted something until I saw it at a particular house and added it in to my list. Just so long as you have an idea of what you'd like - it'll make it easier to consider certain houses and rule other out.

After that's done, realtor.com was my primary source of information. It's a fantastic site. You can enter a price range to stay within, age of the house, features that's you'd like (basement, fireplace, how many rooms, etc), and of course the geographical area too (I highly recommend Fort Wayne, Indiana - hint hint nudge nudge!).

Once you enter all those criteria as desired, it'll give you a list of homes in that area that match. They usually have tons of pictures and details on the house. All of the information is kind of overwhelming at first, but after a few of those you'll be a pro at deciphering them. Make sure you also look at how much the taxes are - that can be a quick dealbreaker, unfortunately.

What I did was compiled a list of homes from realtor.com that I wanted to look at, called my realtor, and we went out to go look at them.

When you get to the looking phase, make sure you Take Notes. Copious amounts. I jotted everything down on the back of the realtor.com printouts for each home. Trust me - everything is going to blur together after a while and you won't be able to remember which home had what you really liked and really disliked. It'll be a huge help.

If you find something you really love, do some more research on your own. Check out the neighborhood. Drive though on a weekend and maybe during the evening too. See what your neighbors are doing in a discrete manner. Check the local police department's web site for a list of crimes in the area. Google Earth it, too. *grins* Sounds crazy, but.. yeah. Did all of that. *blushes*

From there it gets a little complicated, but I can help there too when you get to that point.

Oh! I almost forgot the biggest part - have fun! No, really. Try not to get discouraged if you keep seeing houses that aren't The One. It's out there, I promise. Especially now with the market the way it is. Get what you want, within reason of course - there's so much to choose from out there that you shouldn't have to sacrifice too much from your list of must-haves.

*hugs and bounces* I'm so excited for you!

[rchan.livejournal.com]

*begins frantically taking notes*

O_O Ask and ye shall receive! ^_^ *glomps a Melissa* Thank you! That was actually all really helpful information. ^_^ This whole process is just a bit... scary. Every time I've started looking into buying a house, I've been stymied and stalled at the online stage. Never really gets to the 'actually going to look at the house' stage or the 'make an offer' stage. -.-;;; Very nervous about this whole thing! But excited. ^_^ Very excited. I'll keep you posted on how it's going!