If you've purchased a home

[Deleted]

Where did you begin?  I'm casually browsing at condos online, but have yet to physically look at anything.  I'm thinking we should probably get serious about finding something by the summer/fall because the owner is likely putting the house up.  I'm nervous, but willing to make a commitment to the right place.  I pretty much know what I want, it's just a matter of finding it and it being at my price point.

Did you work with an agent or just browse until you found something interesting and contact that agent?  Also, as a first time buyer, did you get pre approved or just wait to find a place? Not sure if there's a time limit on approvals.  I'm pretty clueless. Tips appreciated.

[Deleted]

I looked around online a lot but later realized that doing that was a waste of time. I knew exactly the parts of town I wanted to live in and with a site like realtor.com you can only search by zip code I think. My realtor had a program where she could just highlight on a map the area I was interested in which was only like half the zip code. She also told me a lot of the sites aren't kept updated (like trulia and zillow), like the one house I found had an offer on it. And she knew the neighborhoods too. She was very knowledgeable. So I'd suggest finding a realtor first.

I don't think I got approval right away but only because I knew I would've been approved for probably double the price I was looking to spend so I think that is the biggest factor. If you aren't sure what you'll be approved for do that in advance.

[starburst604]

We got a recommendation for someone to give us a pre-approval, that was easy and done over the phone. We were approved for a lot more then we wanted to spend so we had him adjust the letter to the max we actually wanted to spend. We started looking around online after that, and my sister was our realtor. We did drive bys before asking to see a place, to make sure we liked the neighborhood and exterior. Definitely ruled out some places that way. We used the same guy who did our pre-approval to finance our mortgage.

I definitely recommend getting preapproved, to find out what you qualify for and they also help you figure out what you should spend based on what monthly payment you're comfortable with. I forget how long that approval was good for, but if it expires you just get a new one.

[idahome]

1) Get pre-approved first. You can go with a banker or a broker, but that part really will save you lots of time down the road. Plus, it does happen where you think you can afford a certain purchase price only to find out that isn't true at all.

2) Find a realtor you click with who will really advocate for you throughout the entire process. When we bought our house I had connections to two realtors. One came highly recommended through coworkers and I knew her, as well. The other was a personal friend who hadn't been in the business long. I felt like I had no choice but to go with the personal friend and I still regret it. The amount of effort she put into the entire process was disappointing especially given what I've seen her do for her other clients. The next house I buy, I will not use her as my representative.

3) Plan to have a bigger reserve on hand than you think the property actually needs. In the first 18 months of being in the home the repairs/replacements (sewer line, garage door, garage door opener twice, full fence, and all kitchen appliances) about killed us. We were prepared for some of that but certainly not all.

Have fun searching!

[bullygirl979]

I did mine kind of backwards (which I wouldn't recommend). I was casually looking and was going to open houses. I wanted to get a feel for the market. Went to my house at an open house and knew it was the one. Then, I was left scrambling because I didn't have an agent and there were already 2 other offers on the house. It was very stressful because I had to find a good agent and put an offer in in less than 24 hours.

I would recommend that 1) sit down with your budgets and figure out your max monthly amount you're willing to spend on mortgage, taxes, insurance and PMI (if you're putting down less than 20%). It's easy to find a $$$$, but beautiful house and say "oh, I'll make sacrifices" and before you know it, you're house poor. Know your limits 2) find a good agent. Do NOT sign a contract with them. A good agent will not force you to. 3) get pre-approved. Like starburst604 said, get pre-approved for the highest you're willing to spend. You don't have to spend that much. 4) relax you will know when the right house comes along!

ETA: do NOT use the sellers agent. They have the seller's interests at heart. I don't care what anyone says, they cannot fairly and equally represent the seller and the buyer. Get your own agent. If you contact a seller's agent directly, and they show you the house, that might be an issue. If you then decide you like it and get your own agent, you might have to pay your agent out of pocket because the seller's agent could get 100% of the commission because they are the one who showed you the house.

[lyssbobiss, Command, B613]

The first thing we did was visit a bank and get an approval, and we talked to a mortgage broker about what the breakdown would look like in monthly payments (like, we knew we didn't want to max out our loan because that would be stupid but we weren't totally sure what amount we could realistically afford). From there we found a realtor, gave her the budget and some ideas of neighborhoods we were interested in, and then started checking out houses.

Good luck with everything!

[Deleted]

inara, congrats! 
I think I will look into getting pre-approved because it seems like the right thing to do.  It's a buyers market and things do get snatched up quickly.  I need to be sure of something fitting into what we can pay monthly.
 There are lots of condos for sale in the area I want, but many don't fit my need list or need LOTS of work. I can deal with minimal improvements, but not somewhere that needs to be gutted because everything is from 1970--because that takes time and $$$$$$$.
 

[Deleted]

I'm closing this week on my first solo purchase; coming out of a divorce so I needed to find something quickly. I haven't been on a budget in years so I wanted to be very careful and prepared.

I sat down with my budget first and figured out what I would want to spend based on 20% down payment and a comfortable monthly payment. From some online reading I gauged I should focus on about 28% of my gross income as my max monthly mortgage payment. I wasn't really worried about being pre-approved (excellent credit, 20% down, only debt car, decent income) but I didn't want to take on more than I'd be comfortable with.

I found a great realtor and she referred me to my lender.

I found the place I'm buying on my own on Redfin. It was the 1st place we saw. Apparently that site gets updated the fastest with new listings, house status changes, etc. I think it has great search filters also so I highly recommend it.

I was NOT prepared for the endless fees - earnest money, buyer's inspections, lender's inspection, lender's closing fees, closing attorney, etc. I learned that a lot of the lender's fees are negotiable - ASK IF ANY CAN BE WAIVED OR REDUCED!

I also didn't initially think about insurance and property taxes in my 28% calc so I do recommend keeping those in mind; along with HOA if applicable! And be very aware of buying in a flood zone & related added insurance!

[verycontrary247]

I'm in the final stages of buying a house right now.

I looked at real estate online for a few months to get an idea of how much a property I would like would cost. I didn't know if I'd get approved for a home loan, so I applied for that first. Once I was approved, my bank has a realtor incentive program where if you use one of the agents associated with said program to buy a house you get $$$ after closing- so I let them just assign me one of their agents. I already had a list of properties I wanted to see. The townhouse I ended up putting an offer on (in December) was a short sale, which comes with it's own can of worms.

We finally came to an agreement on price and now I'm just waiting for a letter from the bank saying that we have come to an agreement on price so I can get a home inspection. Once the inspection is done we'll move to closing. Final stretch! I can't wait to start painting stuff.