first time house hunting - questions!

[Anonymous]

How many houses did you look at before you made an offer? Did you have it narrowed down to one or a few neighborhoods before calling a realtor? How often did you go out to look at houses, because I can't imagine how we're going to fit this into our work schedules! Do you always go with your realtor to look at a house or can they sometimes just send you? We have an 18 month old, did you bring your kids on showings?

Also, any tips on anything that really helped you understand the process? I feel like the more I read, the less I know!

Thanks so much!

[Anonymous]

Narrow it down to where you want to be-contact an agent that people in that area have used. An agent that knows the area specifically makes a world of differnece. Have the conversation with the bank first. ask-What price house can we afford? Then cut that 20% because you do not want to be house poor. Then when you realize the price look for areas you can afford -not areas you want to be in.

After you know what you can afford and have the funding mostly secured then talk to many agents and interview them.

[Anonymous]

Before you do anything else, talk to a lender. Shop around. Ask friends who recently bought houses if they would reccomend their lender. You want to work with someone you trust because this is a big and involved process.

Before you talk to the lender, make sure all your financial stuff is in order. They will want bank statements, information about all your assets (retirement accounts, IRAs, insurance policies, etc), your credit card balances and interest rates, they will want pay stubs and all kinds of other things. Get a copy of your credit report. Make sure there are no inconsistencies or issues. Address them if need be.

The process will be much less stressful if you already have that info going in.

AFTER you talk to the lender and have a idea of how much you can afford, THEN you can talk to a realtor. I also second PP. Set your upper limit at least 20% below what you qualify for. That way, you know you will be able to afford your mortgage payments, pay for upkeep of the house and furnish it without feeling strapped or running up additional credit card debt.

Good luck!

[Anonymous]

Get preapproved first if you are serious about buying. I don't know why people insist on doing it backwards. Get your money in order so when you find something you are ready to go. As for the numbers- do what works for you. If we set our upper limit at 20% below what we were approved for then we'd need to move to Oklahoma. Everyone is not on a 500K budget.

I don't remember how many houses we looked at until we made an offer. We probably went out 4 or 5 times and looked at 3-4 houses each time. We made an offer when we knew we found THE HOUSE we had to have. I said I wasn't getting emotionally attached to anything but it's funny how things work out.

Yes, we brought our baby (15 months)- what else were we going to do with him? That's what baby carriers, slings, and wraps are for.

Good luck on your journey.

[Anonymous]

OP, the advice to look for something a little below what you qualify for is also good advice if you are looking in a really desirable area, were surprisingly, things can still go for above asking price (for example, Lyon Park in N Arlington).

Know what you can afford and know that if you end up in a house at the very top of what you can afford, you will not be able to make as many changes/updates or have wiggle room for unexpedted stuff. We just did not want to have to drain our savings each time something went wrong, so by ending up with a mortgage payment that was about 20% less than what we qualified for (a 400k house instead of 500k) we have more wiggle room each month for everything else that happens in life.

[Anonymous]

We looked at about 8 houses, bought the first one we had looked at.

Tip: You will not get everything you want, unless you have an unlimited budget. Pick 3 things that are most important to you (and, IMO, you are nuts if location is not among your top 3) and be flexible.

[Anonymous]

12:55 is right. You will not get EVERYTHING you want, even IF you have an unlimited budget. Something will always be off. Figure out your non-negotiables (locations, a particular school, etc) and then proceed.

[Anonymous]

While you definitely want to get pre-approval, I don't know that I'd go quite as far as to getting EVERYTHING ready. A lot of what you need are statements from the last 2 or 3 months. If you get it all ready now, and then shop for 6 months, it's a pretty big waste of time. But definitely make sure you know what you're going to need and that you can pull it together. Work with a realtor who likes working with first time home buyers -- they'll help you navigate the financing and what you need to be prepared for.

For our first house, we looked at probably 40 or so, but the vast majority were open houses. We went to those pretty consistently for almost a year. It was helpful, because by the time we purchased, we felt really confident that it was the right house for us, and what we felt was a fair offer. Open houses are what I'd recommend if you're unsure about what you want or exactly where you want to buy. That said, we didn't have a baby at the time, and now, on our second time around with a baby, it's a lot tougher. If we're going to more than a couple houses, we often try to find a sitter. I'd say about 90% of the houses that come on the market start with an open house the weekend after they are listed (as well as a handful of houses that have been on the market for a while). So it's a good way to see a bunch of houses, especially if you have a typical M-F, 9-5 job.

We had the neighborhoods pretty well narrowed down to about 4 or 5 in DC. The kind of house you want will help with that. For us, we liked older homes, we didn't want a condo, and most of the SFH were out of our price range if they were renovated to the extent we wanted (which was basically totally renovated).

If you're not using it already, Redfin is a good source for listings. You can sort by a number of categories, and only show listings that have come on the market in the past day, 3 days, etc. You can also show listings for just the open houses that are going on that weekend.

Good luck!

[Anonymous]

Wow, I guess we got lucky and only spent 4 weeks shopping for a house. I would have gone NUTS shopping for 6 months.

[Anonymous]

I started working with a realtor as soon as I knew I wanted to sell my house and buy a new one. She handled both my sale and my purchase. I was looking at a low price range for Arlington, especially North Arlington, so I put every single house in my range on a spreadsheet and decided which ones to see. If there was an open house, I went to that on my own. If they weren't having an open house, my realtor would go out with me. I think we went out 4 times and I went to a bunch of open houses on 5 or 6 days. In total I saw 63 houses. Saw one I liked a lot about 30-40 houses in, and made an offer, but the inspection was bad, so we backed out. Then I saw 20-30 more houses, found one I liked even better, and bought it. We started looking in early May and had a ratified contract by mid June.

Using a buyer's agent is all upside and no downside. (unless you find a FSBO home that won't pay an agent, in which case you have to figure that out.) Definitely contact one as soon as you're thinking about looking. We talked to a mortgage broker before we even started looking so we'd get prequalified and then preapproved and know how much we had to spend.

And go to open houses of everything that interests you, even if you're not sure, and even if it's slightly higher than you'd hoped to spend. You never know. A few houses we saw were unexpectedly greater than the online pics suggested. I brought my daughter to a lot of open houses with me, even though they almost all occur during her 1-3 naptime. That kind of sucked, but she was a great little "helper" and the realtors got a kick out of the 2.5-year-old asking where the kitchen was. She could handle seeing about 5 houses; more than that and she'd melt down at the 6th or 7th house.

[Anonymous]

OP, it is good advice to look at houses that may not seem great online but still fit your needs. Pictures can be so misleading. Houses that seem wonderful online can be dumps IRL, so don't overlook something that may not grab you initally.

[Anonymous]

I love looking at houses and wanted to move for a LONG time before we could afford it, so for about a year before we started looking seriously I sporadically went to open houses in neighborhoods I was interested in to see what was out there in our projected price range. Therefore, by the time we were serious home buyers (had a contract on our condo) we looked at about 15 houses before finding the one we bought. Looking at all those houses beforehand allowed us to pull the trigger quickly when we found what we were looking for (we bought in a neighborhood where houses are still going for over asking when priced right) and be confident that we made the right decision. We also got preapproved (not just qualified) to be in the best position.

Re: agents, we ended up using an agent from an open house I went to. We were so impressed with the "staging" that we thought she would do a good job with out place. We were right!

[Anonymous]

I agree w/looking at open houses on your own. If a house is very different in person than it looks online, you can quickly leave. When that happens when you are a Realtor, they often want to "look at the rest of the house, anyway", even though you--the potential homebuyer--immediately know it isn't for you. Waste of everybody's time.

[Anonymous]

The good thing about looking at a lot of places is that you get an idea of what you can live with and what you can't, so that when you do see the right house, you know sooner. Plus you get a better idea of what features you can get for what price. (things like updated bathrooms, a 4th bedroom, a garage, etc.) The bad thing about looking at lots of houses is that it can get discouraging if you are in a low price range for the area and everything in your range kind of sucks. (I got discouraged for awhile! Buying in North Arlington under $600K is very difficult.)

[Anonymous]

Once we got an offer on our current house, we were under a time crunch to find a new one. Not counting the random open houses we went to, we probably saw about 15 or so houses before making our first offer. This was in the spring when the market was pretty hot and the good houses were going fast. I actually regret not making an offer right away on a house we saw on our first trip out with our realtor. It was taken about a week later - so we missed it because we weren't ready to jump.

You won't be able to get into a house (to look at) without a realtor with you. We have 2 young boys. And once DH went out with the realtor while I stayed home with the boys. When the came back, the realtor took me to see their favorites. One or two times we took off work a little early to see a few houses while the boys were at daycare. Other times, we took the boys with us which wasn't ideal but ok.