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So last night I found the house that FI and I want to buy!! My dad is going to come look at it on Saturday (he's a construction guy) and FI is going to look at it Tuesday, but I think barring anything crazy unexpected we will make an offer when we go to see it on Tuesday-- eee!!!
It just seems like kismit. We've been looking at both new-builds and existing homes and this past Tuesday FI and I found a model we both flipped over. It was per-fect. We loved it! The only two problems: no finished basement (FI wants a man cave) and its a brand new development they'll be building in for at least 5+ years (le sigh).
So I went to go see this house last night I'd scheduled to see weeks ago (fi had to work late) and I walk in and? Its the house! It is the exact model that we looked at except 2 years old and in a different community that is ALMOST done! The sellers put in all kinds of crazy upgrades we couldn't afford + finished the basement and it will be only slightly higher than what it would cost to build!!! Can you say meant to be?
So now the waiting begins... I couldn't even sleep last night I was so excited-- reminded me of the time leading up to the engagement! Except instead of laying awake thinking about the ring and the proposal I was laying awake thinking about the granite and hardwood floors- heh!
Now that I'm so in love with the house I'm really worried something will fall through... so cross your fingers for me girls!
Good luck!!! House buying is both exciting and stressful! Today we're 12 weeks from move-in :)
Good luck good luck good luck!
Are you fully pre-approved? That will make the offer process go much smoother.Also be prepared to determine how much of a good faith deposit you are going to put down. This is due when you make the offer. I totally wasn't expecting having to write a $5k check when we put the offer in.
Also, think WAY ahead about what price you want to offer and what additional aspects you want to include in your offer letter (ie closing costs, inspection times, move in dates, closing dates, etc).
I know you said your dad is in construction, but I really can't stress how important it is to get a certified inspector to come in there!
Good Luck!!!! Hope everything works out for ya'll and you get the house!!!!!!!!
Yay! I'm sure it will work out for you. Think of it as *your* house. Not "the" house, or "the seller's" house, but *yours*.
When we were house-buying, BF told me that it is not good to look over excited. :(
Regardless, I was still over-excited, but I think we did well. At least that's what people who work with houses regularly tell us.
Good Luck! Just keep a positive attitude and pray that it be yours! I bought a new car last week, well it's new to me, and I was so scared something would happen and it all fall through but God saved it for me and everything worked out!
@ottawa- thanks! its actually not been too bad :) we know what we want and where and how much we can afford.
@caszos- we are not pre-approved yet! We didn't expect it to happen this fast. we applied for pre-approvals yesterday so hopefully they don't take too long. This is the only part I'm worried about. I'll ask about the good faith money-- I would not be expecting that either! But, I have the downpayment just sitting in a bank so it wouldn't be a burden to get the money together. We have just about decided how much we're willing to pay, how much to offer, and what extras we're asking for. Just pending opinion from my dad this weekend. Also-- we will definitely have professional inspections done after we put in an offer! I just want my dad to do a pre-offer inspection so we know of any apparent problems before we even bother to put time into this.
That sounds like a great plan about the inspections! Also talk to your dad and see if you need a WDO inspection. The pre-approval helps show the seller that you are serious about buying and that you are ready to buy when they are ready to sell.
At the last negotiation of the offer, the sellers of our house asked to sell the house "as is" I had my FFIL come and look the house over before we spent the $400 on the inspection to see if it was worth the effort as well.
Another point, if your dad feels that the house is in good shape, another way to beef up your offer is to say you will buy the house as is. This means the sellers won't have to come in and do any last minute repairs. They can just walk away from the house. If you do this, I would recommend getting a 1 year at least home warranty policy. Again, you can negotiate that the sellers pay for this first year if you want.
The good faith deposit comes out of your down payment. So if you are going to do a 10K down payment, they maybe you do $3K up front. I completely forget what % they usually tell you to put as a deposit. I think maybe 3% or so. Again, depending on how serious you want your offer to look, the more money you can put down ahead of time.
If, during your 10 day inspection window (standard time frame but can be adjusted/negotiated I think) you decide to back away from the house then you get your good faith money back 100%. After that, if something falls through, the seller could be able to keep it.
Very exciting, Corgi! Good luck! The home-buying process can be a roller coaster, so try to stay calm. As a Realtor, I would not recommend buying the house "as-is". If your area is anything like most of the country right now, you shouldn't have to. If iGreat to have your Dad in the construction biz!!
Yes I am very lucky that my dad is so knowledgeable! Thanks for all the advice girls!
I agree with surkim. Don't get too excited when you are around the realtor and you go to look at the house.
The seller will find out that you really want the house, then they won't accept any offer lower than the asking price since they know you really want the house anyway and will pay for it. This happened to us, because our realtor was the same as the seller's. Big mistake.
Anyways, act professional and play a little hard to get.
thanks for the tips about playing it cool-- honestly i think we have the upper hand and here is why:
- we have been looking at (and still have the ability to) build this exact same house for less money (with less upgrades, yes... but still less money) and the realtor knows that.
- I told the realtor yesterday (and I believe this is true and she agreed with me) that I think these people priced themselves out of the neighborhood. They literally put in EVERY upgrade available on this house almost to the point where it is "worth" 50K more than any other house in the neighborhood. Regardless of what they spent-- no one is ever going ot pay the amount they did for a house in that neighborhood (not that its a bad neighborhood, but they are just more expensive). They have already dropped the price by 30K but basically I'm not willing to pay more than any other house in the neighborhood regardless of upgrades because I don't think we'd recoup that money on resale (I dont feel that you ever want to be the most expensie house in a neighborhood).
So basically they know that if they don't give us what we want we can just walk away and build our own house. Which we will do if they don't meet our terms... and I am fine with that. I'm excited about the upgrades but i'm more excited about the house generally and if we end up building instead of buying to get the price we need I'm fine with that. So, I feel like we have the upper hand in negotiations.
New constructions are great! Does your have a 10 year warranty? The warranty and the new home California tax credit sealed the deal for our new home this year. We saw our model a year before we bought it. We could not afford it when we first saw it, but with the housing market crash, the revised price was perfect for us. It felt like fate with us and it sounds like fate for you and your fiance. Good luck! Everything will work out for the best.
@twinstar- yep! yay for warranties :) the only thing i'm checking on is the dry basement warranty bc they finished the basement and with this builder if you do that within 1 year of closing it voids the warranty. lets hope they were smarter than that!
I'm so excited for you! We've been in our house for 6 months but all of those feelings are still so vivid.
i'd say definitely have someone look at the comps and see what they are selling for, if they are selling for 10% under the list price, then perhaps you can start off offering 15% or something like that to meet at the 10%. I totally agree with you on pricing yourselves out of the neighborhood, but can I say EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE GRANITE AND HARDWOOD FLOORS?! I CANNOT WAIT TO SEE PICTURES
corgi, you got me excited for this house just from your post! my fingers and toes are crossed for you two! if i could cross my eyes i would, but i can't. lol.
Wow! This is super exciting! The waiting is by far the worst part! When my hubby and I put our offer in on our house, we ended up getting into a bidding war (yes, in this economy!). We won, but boy was it stressful! You just know when it's your house, and then that's all you can think about! Good luck and hope everything goes well! Congrats on your pre-approval as well!
Congratulations! That's super exciting! We're in the midst of a short sale and so we've been on pins and needles for the past month! (Short sale = the homeowners sell the house for less than what they owe on it in order to avoid foreclosure.) We're still waiting for their lender to approve losing money on the deal. I really hope it comes through soon!
Corgi - Comps are just comprable houses in the area. It will show you what other houses are selling for. Sometimes when houses have a lto of extra features that are over and above the neighborhood it can be hard to find comps.
For example, our house has a 15 by 30 foot (450 sq ft) enclosed back porch (I guess a similar feature to a finished basement in the north) and it was hard to find something in a 5 mile radius that was similar to ours. If you PM with your email, I can try to share with you the comps that our appraiser did for us. You can see the other houses and the features with those houses that increase or decrease the value. Then they basically come up with a price that they think your house is worth.
BTW, if you do not put 20% down and have to pay PMI, then with a conventional loan, you will have to get another appraisal showing that your house has increased in value and therefore you essentially have paid enough for the value of the home to not pay PMI anymore. Either that or you stop paying PMI once you pay off 20% of the house .
Corgitales i just closed on a house two weeks ago! There are a lot of little extra costs to think about...I had to put down 2,000 in earnest money...but if you buy the house that goes towards your closing costs or downpayment...they will subtract that from the final costs so you do get it back...we also had an inspector come in and look at the house...make sure you are there for at least the end of the inspection or you SO is there...they tell you a lot of useful stuff
There are also a few little extra costs here and there..I got my land surveyed...make sure that the neighbors werent encroaching on my property and vice versa...makes sure the property lines are all in the same place. Make sure to ask for closing costs also...my seller ended up paying $6000 of my closing costs which was nice...and we got a whole year of landscaping and the refrigerator washer and dryer. If they wont negotiate the price there are a lot of little things you can negotiate to make it all worth it!
Oh, man. So happy for you!
FH and I have been house hunting, and I've talked to lots of lenders but my score (thanks to high balances on my two cards) are 20 points shy of being able to get a mortgage, which is heartwrenching at times. I genuinely can't wait to be where you are, able to spot a house you like and actually put in an offer. :)
Best of luck, I mean it!
I'm keeping my fingers crossed for you! We bought our house about a month ago and I remember what an exciting, yet nerve-wracking time it was!
So there has been a change in events! My dad went to look at the house yesterday (love him!) and pulled the plot map off of the tax website. turns out the property does not go as far back as the sellers said it does. In fact... we would have only about 4 feet of grass beyond the patio!!
Now we are back to thinking we're going to build the same house. We can get a bigger lot with an actual yard! It won't have all the upgrades, but I just can't deal with having NO yard at all. Regardless--- I'm still SUPER excited and I can't wait to sign the contract!
ick that's like no yard at all, what's behind that? i wonder if the tax surveyors have it wrong? i'd definitely ask. you may be able to get the builder to put in upgrades etc, just right them in the offer and see what happens. you're working with your own realtor, correct? definitely have them put in things like hardwood floors, etc you can also ask for builder credits to assist you in paying the closing costs and/or upgrades like finishing the basement, granite counter tops, appliances... can you tell i've built before? and have regrets about what i didn't ask for lol!!
@crebre- my dad measured based on the map on the auditor's website. behind the property line is builder's property then a field. The problem is that we want to fence the yard for my dog (and future dogs) and you can't fence what isn't yours! we ARE working with a realtor to build as well. we're already getting 2K towards upgrades and 2K off bc of where FI works (yay for corporate partnerships) and we plan to try to negotiate in as much as possible. We are getting certain stuff regardless like vaulted ceilings, hardwood floors, french doors, granite (maybe... we can afford it but it seems overpriced so we might do it afterwards). The thing will be: how much will we pay for it?
How exciting!!! My experience with adding all the goodies in at the time the house is built is that it would be great to have everything the way you want it when you move in, but you will be paying a premium for the convenience. Get as much as you can, but I think the granite can come afterwards.
yeah i gotcha, how about getting an independent contractor to come in and put the granite in for you versus having the builder do it? if the granite comes standard, then def ask for SS appliances or something like that. i would probably REALLY try to get that basement finished and come in slightly lower because hey you could go around the corner and get the same house with upgrades or something like that.
@crebre- you mean convince the builder to do a finished basement for me? It isn't a matter of money-- they just don't finish basements ever. they say that you shouldn't finish basements within 1 year of building because of drying issues and keeping the basement dry? I dunno... house comes with a 35 year warranty on the basement (very important!!) but to keep it we have to wait 12 mo to finish the basement then do it in a precise way.
I think finishing the basemet may have something to do with the concrete setting. It takes a long time for concrete to cure and the longer you wait the stronger that it is.
Congrats on building a house! I totally would never be able to live with 4 ft of back yard!
weird... our builder is finishing our basement (partially)!! they never mentioned anything about not doing it right away...
conrgats on building! it's SOOOO much fun! I really loved getting to pick out everything.
@ottawabride- a lot of builders will do it. ours won't because they do a 35 year warranty on the basement (staying dry) and to not void the warranty you can't finish the basement within 1 year of laying it.
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