Post # 31
Member
7075 posts
Busy Beekeeper
I’d say it was about a year from the time we started looking at houses until we found a house we liked and closed.
August : Traveled back to our hometown and started house hunting in prep for the move. Found a house we love, and lost out to someone who beat us to it.
Sept – December : Continued to look at homes online
January : Made the move back to our hometown, lived with family while continuing to house hunt
May : Still hadn’t found anything, moved into a furnished condo
July : Found the house we wanted, started the process
August : Closed on our house.
Our house was FSBO and the whole process was really smooth. We found it end of July and closed within 3-4 weeks I think? That was 8 years ago so I honestly don’t remember. I just remember us looking a lot of houses. We were pretty specific on the style we wanted, and at the time we were buying there wasn’t a lot of inventory. We also didn’t HAVE to find a house so thankfully we could take our time and get what we wanted rather than settle.
Post # 32
Member
879 posts
Busy bee
The market in our area moves stupid fast. It’s not uncommon for houses to be on the market for less than 24 hours and have more than a few offers on it.
Wednesday: Got Preapproved
Friday: Looked at houses, and put in an offer
Saturday: Sellers returned with counter offer
Sunday: We counter-offered them and they accepted.
Now we’re in the standard 21 to 30ish days for inspection, appraisal, and mortgage approval — but once you actually find a house you like, it moves crazy fast.
Post # 33
Member
4891 posts
Honey bee
I purchased my condo back in 2009, and closed mid-June that year. But, I had the offer accepted at the beginning of May, and had looked shortly before that. So, it was roughly between 30-60 days.
I sold it in 2012 when I moved in with Darling Husband (BF at the time). It was on the market for 4 days when we got a full-price in cash offer. It was set to close 3 weeks later, and the buyer walked a week before closing. We had a couple offers after that, but nothing that was worth accepting. I then had an open house (FIL was my realtor) on a Sunday, and closed that same week (Friday) after a couple had put an offer in. I was already out of the place, so it was move in ready. For them, it was a quick closing after they saw the place!
Post # 34
Member
1828 posts
Buzzing bee
53 days is what it took from the time we saw our house and when we will close July 1.
We started looking to see what we wanted in mid-February, not really prepared to offer yet. We cooled it off in March-April, then in May started up seriously looking for a house and ready to offer.
Post # 35
Member
1034 posts
Bumble bee
I’m in NJ. We started looking at the end of August last year. We found our house on October 1 and had our offer accepted the next day. We got lucky as we were the first people to see the house, it had been on the market for 1 day. We closed December 2. However, we had an offer fall through on a different house in September, so if we had gotten that house, our closing date was Halloween. So it’s definately possible to find something in a couple of months and be moved in, but it’s obviously not something you want to settle on. Good luck!
Post # 36
Member
1261 posts
Bumble bee
Our first home took about 3 months from start to finish because it was new construction and picked out everything along the way so we had to wait for construction to finish.
Our second home we suddenly decided to move in September when a new development was built in our neighborhood and we were moving in on Halloween. It has gone so smooth and quick both times bit that is what you get with new construction.
Post # 37
Member
8916 posts
Buzzing Beekeeper
mightywombat: I interpreted “first looking” as meaning first looking at THAT house and answered 3-6 months. After reading your post though, I wonder if “first looking” meant first started looking at houses at all. If that’s the case, it took us over 3 years of serious looking to find a house that met our requirements within our budget. Then about 3 months from first visit to closing.
Post # 38
Member
29 posts
Newbee
- Wedding: January 2013 - Pecan Springs Events in Brookshire
First time it took 5 months because we were waiting on our rental agreement to expire. Then, we paid month to month on 4th and 5th month. It would have been 4 months but homeowners were still deciding which house they wanted and husband was having second thoughts about leaving the home we purchased. This time since we own our home it may take longer because we would like to sell our home before we buy our next home. Originally we did not mind driving in one hour to work. After trying that out for a few weekends, I would prefer to be 30 minutes or less. Also, both of us originally had different ideas about what type of home we wanted.
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