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Hooray!! Congrats! We also recently decided we are ready to move out of the city and into the burbs. We are currently in the process of negotiating on a house.
My advice is to not fall in love with a house! Try to keep emotions out of it and remember that it's a business transaction so you don't end up over-paying.
Have fun!!
@peanuthead: Congrats to you too! Good luck with the negotiations, I hope to hear soon that you got the house you wanted. Thanks for the advice, I think I'll be ok, I tend to be pretty practical most of the time with these things, but I can easily get emotional too, so keeping that in mind will help me out. :)
@dolphi99: CONGRATS!!! :) keep an open mind... get preapproved and find a realtor you like. If you have qualms about one, its not a big deal to leave and get a new one. :)
And push for negotiations; you can always write it up in the contract. :) when you find something you like, get your own home inspection, negotiate with your realtor to have them kick back 1-1.5% of the commission back to you. Helps if you look online at redfin and check out the homes yourself and find the open houses. Hence the realtor's aren't driving you around and aren't doing as much work adn are open to kicking back some of the commission. :)
@vickyness: Thanks for the advice! I will keep that in mind. The realtor was recommended to us by my MIL who works with a lot of different realators as she does closings, so here's hoping it all works out. Unfortunately redfin doesn't cover minnesota, oh well. We've been shopping around a lot online on the sites I have found to try and find houses we are interested in checking out.
Anyone have any other suggestions on websites, etc to check out?
@dolphi99: I agree with peanuthead, try to take the emotion out of it (its hard)!
Try to see the potential in homes. Buy something in a good/great neighborhood. Pay attention to your neighbors houses (this effects your resale too). Don't let little things bother you, sink, toilets, paont & wallpaper are all easy fixes.
Have fun, its so exciting!
@dolphi99: Is zip realty in your area? Zillow is good reference too.
I dunno if this is good advice, but if we had to do it again, we would have bought a smaller house. We went for the bigger is better, or at least cant be bad, mentality. And well, it CAN be bad, when you're looking at your cooling/heating bills. We have 3200 sf thinking it'll be great to grow into, and while its nice, its just not necessary, and I would have prefered saving some money on utilities. It depends a lot of what you're used to too of course, but I grew up in 1500 sf with 7 people, so I think we def went overboard.
@pinkshoes: Unfortunately zip realty isn't in our area, but I have been checking out Zillow.
Good advice too, thanks for mentioning that, we will keep that in mind, I know we want on big enough for us to grow into, and I grew up in a big house, but we are thinking around 1700-2000 sf range for a house. We are hoping to have a family of 4, so we want enough room for that.
Wow 7 people in 1500 sf, that is a big change going from that to what you now have.
@nickels: That will be the challenge, though thankfully I have DH to help with that, he's the one who can picture and imagine that sort of stuff, so he'll help me out with that I hope.
Good luck!
I agree with finding a realtor that you really like. You will spend a lot of time together. We had hesitations about our first realtor, and never felt like we had his full attention. Now that we have switched, and have seen what it can/should be, it's like a breath of fresh air. Our new realtor is so enthusiastic and attentive and accomodating. It's awesome, and it's helping me feel positive about finding the right house.
Thanks, we met with our realtor yesterday, and he seems nice, so we have to wait and see how everything goes as we get started on the home search. I am soooooo excited, I can't wait to get out there and see what's available and find a great house for us!
Hooray, congrats!! My biggest piece of advice is to make a list of things that are important to you and put them in order of importance. Like if location is the #1 thing that you aren't willing to budge on, put that as #1. That will help you prioritize when you are looking at homes, because the bedrooms might seem really small but if it's on the block you are trying to buy into, maybe you won't care too much about the bedrooms because of that.
My DH was only willing to consider homes in a certain 10 block stretch. Because of that, we had to compromise on some other things, but to us the location was totally worth it.
Also, set a budget for furniture and renovations and keep that separate from your DP cash. No matter how 'turnkey' a home is, you're going to want to update somethings and buy some new furniture that fits the space and you won't want to wait a year to finally be able to afford it. And if you see a house you love that needs a total gut reno, you should walk away if it isn't priced correctly based on what you have budgeted.
We made sure that we had enough cash to close, move and pay for minor cosmetic upgrades to our new home. Based on our cash savings, we had to only consider apartments that had recent renovations to the kitchen and bathroom, which are usually the most expensive rooms to remodel. We overlooked some water damage and minor repairs that needed to be made, because we knew they wouldn't break the bank to fix.
So we've seen a few houses now, went shopping this week, and we think we have found one, we just have to wait to hear if there is a bid on it or not, though we are hoping that the fact that it's only been on the market for 15 days that there isn't a bid yet. It's a nice size house without being too big, it needs a little cosmetic work, but nothing bad, and it's in the neighborhood we want! And for a great price too. Wish us luck.
And thanks everyone for your input and advice.
Thanks, so we didn't get that house, but we have found another house that we are planing on putting a bid in on, once we hear back from our realator.
So we put in an offer on the house! I'm so excited, I can't wait to find out what happens next!
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Yup, we decided we are both sick of renting and ready to own, so I got preapproved and we found a realator, so now, let the shopping begin! So do any bees have any suggestions, or tips we should keep in mind when shopping for our new home?