Thinking about buying our first house. Advice wanted.

In My Humble Opinion
41

You’re already into the process then, but I’d still recommend THe Complete Idiot’s Guide to Buying a Home. This was useful when I bought my first house.

Other off-the-cuff advice:

-KNOW what your monthly payment will be before you make a commitment. The lender is required to give you a good-faith estimate that lists all the items you’re required to pay and specifies your monthly payment - but they give you this only after you’ve already chosen a loan size and payback period. Ideally you’ll get fluent with the equations for the time-value of money so you can calculate what your principal/interest payments will be using Excel for a given loan size, interest rate, and payback period. Find out what property taxes will be after you buy; they form a major part of your monthly payment. “Will be” is important, because the assessed value will reset at purchase time, and your property taxes will probably not be the same as what the current owner’s is. If you can’t find out the local millage, assume maybe $6000 per year for a $300K house. Likewise with insurance: it’s probably going to be about $1200 per year, but you can call your insurance agency and ask for an estimate/quote. If there’s a neighborhood association, find out the annual/monthly dues; some are minor (mine is $300 per year), but some are much more (I’ve seen $300/month elsewhere).

-The home inspection will turn up some issues. Guaranteed, because every home has some issues, even brand new ones. The trick is to choose a home with a set of issues you can deal with. Some issues are easy to fix/live with, others are not. Example, if there’s high radon levels in the basement, you can typically get that fixed for under $1000; if there’s a water intrusion problem, that could cost a lot more to fix. Don’t let minor troubles scare you away from your dream home. Your offer will be contingent upon an acceptable inspection report, which means you can usually negotiate with the seller for some concessions, e.g. splitting the cost of a radon mitigation system (or if it’s a buyer’s market, making the seller pay the entire cost).

-After you move in, I recommend changing all the exterior locks; you have absolutely no idea who has keys to the old locks.

-I second/third the recommendation for a trial commute. Arrive at the candidate property at the time you would leave for your job in the morning, and see how the drive in goes. Drive back there after work. Congestion due to accidents on that particular day should be discounted, but if there’s a lot of random stop-and-go nonsense, beware.

-Is there a neighborhood/homeowner’s association? If so, include a contingency in your offer that allows you to back out if you find that the rulebook is unacceptable, or if you find that the association’s finances are being poorly managed. Once your offer is accepted, request from the seller a copy of the association rules and this year’s association budget, and scrutinize them. Some associations have really officious rules (e.g. interior window treatments visible from outside must conform to certain style/color requirements), and some associations mismanage their finances, which may require a sudden/surprising jump in annual dues at a later date to restore solvency. Example, my own neighborhood owns its street, which means we are responsible for periodic repaving, which runs about $50,000, and for which we’ve all been chipping in to build up the pile of cash in anticipation. If your association has any major irregular financial requirements like that, find out what they are and make sure they’re being considered in the budget/dues.

That’s all for now.

42

Besides having a snow shovel you’ll need a common digging spade. As soon as you move into the house you’re going to go out in the back yard and dig a hole. Why? Because you can, it’s your property and you can do what you want with it.

43

I really like this idea. :smiley:

44

…and once you’ve done this, make however many copies you’ll need, make sure the copies all work, then store the originals someplace safe and use the copies day-to-day. Keys are intentionally made of softer material than the pins in your locks, so they’ll eventually wear down and stop working; you’ll want to keep the originals unused to make future copies from.

45

BTW: Where in SE PA are you looking at? I grew up there, still have family and friends there. I gotta say it’s a wonderful place to live and the only place I’d rather be than here in RI.

46

A town in Montgomery County called North Wales. It’s one town over from where we live now.

47

I can talk to this a bit. We are on a well and about 6 years after we bought the place, the pump started sucking up sediment. We called some well guys who told us we needed a new one. The old one was quite old and had already been serviced at least once. It’s been a while, so I don’t recall all the specifics.

EXCEPT it cost $8K to have a new one drilled. I think it’s over 400’ down.

Anyway, find out when the well was drilled, how old the pump is, and if the company that did it is still around - they can be a valuable source of info.

Also, bear in mind that if you lose power, you lose water, so think about having a generator available if the area is prone to power outages. We planned ahead before a hurricane and filled our tubs with water, so even tho we were without power for 2 days, at least we could flush.

For the record - our well water is delicious!

48

Lies. I have a half acre and I spent the first 3 years here cursing at my push mower! Give me a lawn tractor or give me death!

49

This. I have about a quarter acre, a substantial portion of which is wooded - and it takes me about 45 minutes with a push mower (including trimming and blowing clippings off of driveway/street). Anything larger, I’d want a riding mower and a place to store it (if not in the garage, then in a garden shed, which some HOAs might prohibit…).

50

Ok, very familiar with it. I lived in Tredyffrin Township. Well worth it to buy a house in that area. Good luck, hope it all works out.

51

I bought my house 7 years ago and have regretted ever since not making the home inspector physically get on the roof-- he used binoculars to look at it instead. It’s not uncommon for inspectors to do that, but I’m pretty sure if he was up there he would have caught some problems that I ended up noticing with a year or two later.

Trees can be expensive to have on your property. I have a giant oak that casts too much shade on my roof and allows moss to grow. Moss destroys shingles. Also, the leaves were constantly clogging the gutters, which got us to spend money on gutter guards, but now we get large icicles on the gutters-- a common problem caused by gutter guards in the winter. Tree removal seems to cost between $300 - $1000 depending on size and sometimes stump grinding is an extra fee, so it’s not always a viable option to remove them if you have several on your property.

This may seem like a small thing, but you may want to take note of where the water heater is located and how much space there is around it. I recently heard that water heaters now need to be more energy efficient (as of 2015 or 2016) and to do that the manufactures have increased the insulation around the units, so new water heaters are about 3 inches wider than they used to be. For me that 3 inches will mean that when it’s time to replace it again I won’t be able to close my laundry room door because the water heater will come out too far unless I go with a tank-less version.

After purchasing the house, do not overlook getting someone to do routine maintenance on the HVAC system to prevent problems. Even if you have a Home Warranty since they may require proof of preventative maintenance in the event something fails.

If you can, try making an extra mortgage payment every year or pay a couple hundred dollars more a month. This will allow you to pay off the mortgage a few years early and save you thousands of dollars in interest over 30 years.

I can only speak for myself, but I assume this is typical… eventhough I have a fixed rate mortgage, my monthly payment goes up every year because the property taxes continue to rise every single year.

Keep in mind that everything you intend to repair/change seems to take three times as long to complete and cost at least twice as much than you anticipate.

Good luck with your home. Oh, if you intend to do yard work and home repairs on your own you need to purchase the correct tools for the job-- for example, reciprocating saws are great, but if you’re trimming a tree, then a gas chainsaw is a lot more effective and efficient; and sometimes an old school screwdriver is a better choice for a task than a cordless drill with way too much power.