Anyway, the SDMB has been instrumental over the past few months in answering my questions about mortgages and new homeownership and all kinds of fun stuff. It’s been invaluable advice and I am incredibly grateful. And last night, mr. e and I took the plunge and went to the mortgage company.
We walked out pre-approved, and were told to start looking at houses and put in an offer on one if we found one we liked. :eek:
We didn’t expect it to go that fast. Holy CRAP! We’re alternating between sheer joy and bliss and extreme TERROR. I am so excited about this, but I am absolutely terrified. Mr. e. was gripping my hand during the meeting last night when he said we were approved, and when we went to Bob Evans for dinner afterwards, I burst into tears from the stress.
Is it normal to be this scared? We’ve gone over the numbers, we know beyond a shadow of a doubt that we can afford this, and we’re so excited to get into our own house, but both of us are just scared to death.
Please tell me I’m normal (well, about this anyway - I know that no one will tell me I’m normal otherwise), and that being scared of buying your first house is a part of the process. I’m the girl who’s lived in apartments in Brooklyn and OH for six years, and out of a room in my parents’ house for a year, and my husband has lived in an apartment for the past five years, so the idea of an entire three-bedroom house to ourselves is just mind-boggling. We’re not sure what we’ll do with all of the room.
I’m so freaked out right now. But then I picture us in our house and I’m just HAPPY.
It is scary. But it’s also fun. The fact that you’re pre-approved (right? Not pre-qualified but pre-approved?) means that you can get any house you can afford. Sellers like that.
Take your time, PAY FOR THE INSPECTION, and enjoy your search. I don’t know if you have kidlets, but check out the schools too.
Remember, if you don’t get a house you put a bid on, it wasn’t your house. Try not to get all upset if that happens. It wasn’t meant to be, and your house is waiting for you to find it.
No munchkins as of yet - another year or two. We wanted to buy the house before we thought about kids, so we’re one step closer to that:). And we plan to be in this house 5-6 years, so we’ll probably move before the first one is in kindergarten.
My FIL, luckily, is a realtor, so he can help his clueless son and daughter-in-law through the finer points. We are pre-approved - he put our info in (well, my husband’s actually - my credit sucks, so we’re buying the house with his income only, and will refinance in a couple of years to put me on it - I’ll be on the title, though, so the house will go to me if something happens to him.), and came back with an approval through their computer system. He said he’ll fax the pre-approval letter to my FIL when we make an offer so that the sellers can see it and know we’re serious.
I think accepting that it wasn’t meant to be is going to be the one thing I’ll have trouble with - I get my heart set on things, so I’m going to try not to do that this time. It’s hard, though!
Thanks! I’m a little calmer now, but I can’t stop smiling - I figure that’ll stop when we have to pay closing costs - LOL!
I’ve been so preoccupied at work today - I can’t get my mind off of it!
I’m actually going to find a bunch of house-buying hints on the web and put them in a folder so we don’t forget anything. I’ll put your post in there, too - those are some really good points.
When we were buying our house, we looked at every house we could. We stopped at open houses, even if we felt they weren’t quite right, out of our range, etc. It really paid off: when we saw “our” house we had seen enough others to be confident about this one being right for us. We knew exactly what we liked and what we didn’t.
We also made a list of our must-haves, and our like-to-haves, and decided to only accept a place if it had all our must-haves and a certain percentage of our like-to-haves.
Oh yeah, what you are feeling is normal. I always tell my first-time homebuyers “this is the most exciting, scary thing you will ever do. Your emotions are going to run anywhere from scared, excited, elated, unsure, happy, nervous, and utter fear. It’s completely normal and the scared part starts to go away as you get further into the deal. Don’t worry about it and just try to focus on how great it’s going to be in YOUR new home.”
Also, be completely ready for buyer’s remorse. Most people experience it - first-time homebuyers or not. You get excited as you sign the contract and give your first deposit…then you go home. All you can do is think “what have we done??”. It’s completely normal. Hell, I’m a Realtor and even I have experienced it!!
Good luck and I hope you find the house of your dreams!!
It’s normal to have that “oh SHIT, what have I done” feeling when you’ve decided to make any major life change. No matter how happy and excited you are, no matter how long you’ve been working toward it, the enormity of it all can be really scary. Don’t freak out about being freaked out. I’ve found that the more you fight it, the worse it gets, so it’s generally better to just cry, hyperventilate, scream, whatever you need to do, and get it over with.
One question - I’m looking on a couple of websites for the area, and my favorite house has a status of ‘contingent’. Does that mean there’s probably a sale pending on it? That’s the one we wanted to go see this weekend because we both loved what we saw.
But, if there’s a sale pending on it, I guess it wasn’t meant to be ours. (I’m keeping that in mind because I’m feeling some serious disappointment right now…we’ve both been eager to get a pre-approval so that we can look at this house first…).
I’ve never heard of the status being “contingent”. I would have your FIL call and ask for availability.
I highly recommend www.realtor.com - it’s the website that the MLS (Multiple Listing Service) directly links to, so it has everything up-to-date. From that site, you can get almost the same amount of information a Realtor can get from the MLS (excluding sellers names and phone numbers, of course).
Does your area have a homestead exemption for your taxes?
Another thing…have your closing as close to the end of the month as possible. You have to pay prorated interest for the month that you close, and I’m sure you’d rather pay from the 30th to the 31st rather than from the 2nd to the 31st.
In this respect, at least, you’re completely normal. The 2 scariest nights of my adult life were the first night in our first home (Ack! I have a mortgage now! I have to pay every single month! Responsibilities! Grown up stuff! Ack!) and the first night at home with our first child (Ack! More responsibility! More grown up stuff!). The good news is that the fear goes away. The bad news is that the responsibility doesn’t.
A contigency contract means that party “A” is planning on buying the house from party “B” as soon as a certain condition (or conditioins) are met. Could be that party “A” has to sell their house first, or party “B” has to make repairs, etc. Some sellers will accept contingency contacts, some will not.
I’m not entirely sure what a homestead exemption is - I’ll ask my FIL.
And thanks for that advice - we were hoping to find a place and close by the end of December, but at this rate, looks like we won’t make it until January.
I’ve used realtor.com, but I haven’t found as many listings as on other sites. I’ve been using Cutler GMAC and that seems to have a ton of listings, which is nice. We’ve got a bunch of houses saved that we want to call for showings on, so I’m going to call my FIL tonight and ask him to set them up. I’m a bit worried he’ll drag his feet, as we really want to go see houses this weekend while my parents are here, but he’ll get offended if we call and set up appointments on our own.
Does that mean we can still put in a bid on it? Or do we have to wait and see if the contingency contract falls through?
We’re calmer today - now we’re just ready to get out there and start looking.
I’ve owned houses in SC and FL. In both states you get a tax break on your primary residence.
In SC, you pay 4% instead of 6% taxes. In FL, you do not pay taxes on the first $25,000 value of your house. For example, if your house is worth $100,000, you’re only taxed on $75,000.
In both cases, you have to apply for these tax breaks, but you only have to do it once.
I’m noy a realtor, but I don’t think you can make an offer whole the contigency contract is in force. That’s why some sellers won’t accept a contigency, it limits their options. Generally, the contingency must be met within a given time frame or the contract is voided. The realtor or seller may let you know when the time limit expires.
An aside story:
A house we had been wanting for years (it’s next door to my elderly grandparents) finally came on the market. We immediately signed a 3 month contract with a local agent to list our house. After 10 weeks our house had not sold. The house we wanted was still available, but the sellers were getting many bites on it. It was clear it wouldn’t be available much longer. I called the seller’s agent and offered a contract contigent on our house being sold. He declined, saying he never accepted contigency contracts. I thought for a minute and said “OK, my listing agreement expires next week. If I list my house with you and buy the other house from you do you think you could sell mine quickly?” Not only did he say he would - he did! Double commission is a great motivator!
I need to clarify (otherwise I look like a very moronic Realtor) - I’ve never heard of the status of a house being contingent. Obviously, I can try and help you in any way possible when it comes to a house that has a contract on it with a contingency.
Whether or not you can put an offer in on the house depends on what type of contingency it is. If the contract is contingent upon the buyer’s house closing (meaning they already have a contract on their house), then no, you can’t put another offer in. BUT if the contingency is what we call a “kickout”, you can. A “kickout” is when there is a contract on the house but it is contingent upon the buyer’s house selling - meaning there is no contract on their house yet. In this case, you can put an offer in and the sellers have to, by law, go to the first buyers and let them know they have another offer. The first buyer has the right to either A) cancel the contract or B) get rid of the contingency and tell the sellers they will buy the house whether their house sells or not.
Hope this helps and feel free to ask any other questions you may have!
Yes, it is perfectly normal to be freaking out. Some advice from my experience:
Searching:
(as others have pointed out) get a good inspection. They’ll reveal lots good and bad.
You will undoubtedly come across The (perfect) place. But don’t be too upset if it doesn’t work out (lesson: there’s more than one “ideal” home). It will be disappointing, but something good will come along.
As mentioned before, don’t settle for something just to get something. Everything doesn’t have to be perfect, but also don’t fool yourself with things that you think won’t be annoying. If you think about it more than once, than it is probably worth spending some time deciding whether you can live with it or not.
Be sure to check out the neighborhood at other times than the weekend afternoon the realtor took you there.
Bidding/negotiating:
For me this was pretty stressful (see the point about “The” ideal place above). But a good agent should handle this for you, and won’t bid more than you’re willing to pay.
Deals will fall through. Don’t be too discouraged (the “will we ever find a place ?” worries). You just have to take the lumps as they go and press on.
Once you’ve bought the place:
A friend/co-worker told me the wisest words ever on this subject. He said once you do it, you’ll be wondering if you 1) are crazy, 2) are doing the right thing, etc… But after it’s all said and done, you will say “why didn’t I do this sooner ?” And this has been SO true for me. Particularly when you file that first tax return with the big mortgage write offs ! You will feel like you are making this horrendous mistake. But in reality you are making a really wise move. It will suddenly dawn on you that all that money you spent paying rent amounted to…nothing.
The first six months of mortgage payments are the worst. It’s compounded by the fact that you’ll need to be shelling out money for all these piddly things (or not so piddly, if you buy a brand new house). But trust me, by 6 months, you’ll pretty much be used to the monthly mortgage payment and life will go on. Don’t forget to adjust your paycheck withholding since your taxes will (likely) be much lower with the write offs.
I missed the last few responses to this thread! So sorry - I wasn’t ignoring them!
I’m updating the thread, though, because we found a house! We went looking on Saturday and I expected to be in love with a DIFFERENT house - but this one knocked us both (and our parents) on our asses. His dad is our realtor, and he wanted us to look at this house - we weren’t very interested because it sits on a major roadway. But when we got there, we realized that while the house technically sits on that roadway, the entrance and the garage are on a much quieter street. And this is a BEAUTIFUL, stunning house - 2200 sq feet, 4 bedrooms, built in 1939. The current owners have made tons of updates, including a new roof, new furnace, and new a/c in the past year or so. It is absolutely gorgeous - and although it’s bigger than we were looking for, we’d never, ever have to move if we didn’t want to.
We’re researching one zoning issue today, hope to see it again tomorrow night, and make an offer by Wednesday. It’s in our price range, and is in fact, less than we expected - because it’s on the main drag.
I’m so nervous, but we’re both so excited - we knew this was the house the second we walked in. It’s perfect for us.