First Time Home Buyer advice?

Get pre approved so you know ahead of time what your loan can be.

Put 20% down so you aren't stuck with an escrow account.

Be willing to walk away.

Be prepared to bend over and take it from the mortgage underwriters requesting you to do a million tedious things.

 

Also if something is a short sale, be prepared for the process to drag on up to one year.

Foreclosures are usually better bang for your buck and faster.

If it's for sale by owner that's fine and can be very fast.

 

I'm sure you're already aware of it, but beware HOAs. I get the appeal of condos, but with HOAs it's like you're paying rent on top of your mortgage.

Biggest piece of advice: know what you want and don't compromise. We were looking for a few years and eventually got impatient (after years) and ended up buying a house that wasn't what I wanted - to this day I regret it. But the other week I calculated how much we would have paid in rent since purchasing our house and it was $96K - so I feel good that I didn't just flush that money down the toilet.

 

I don't usually do this, but if you need a mortgage broker, you should talk to my mom-in-law. She's dilligent, willing to fight on your behalf with underwriters/agents/anyone else involved in the process, and won't screw you over (she left SoCal before the big crash - everyone wanted the shady loans, such as subprime, and she wouldn't do them, so she foresaw the crash and cashed out before getting shat on). The company she works for is both a bank and broker, so she can shop your scenario to everyone to get you the best deal (as opposed to a bank-only that only have their short list of options available, and broker-only, which cannot make offers from their bank but will shop you to all the banks out there).

If nothing else, she's easy to talk to and can give you tons of easy advice up front, even if you choose not to use her for your financing needs. I'd advise you to start with that, as you're going to get far better guidance doing that than listening to us chumps on here.

 

It can turn out good for you if you get a good deal too.

I bought my house in early 2011 for 120k as a foreclosure and fixed it up. The house next door to me sold for 200k last month, so I might try to sell my house in the coming months and pocket the cash to apply to my next house. You can think of it as an investment.

Plus I pay substantially less in mortgage and tax payments than I did renting.

 

Depends on the cost and what you get for the money. HOA fees lower your purchasing power. Even if water and electricity are included, when buying a home, they factor your HOA dues into your maximum payment. They don't include water and electricity (even though they are necessaties) otherwise when computing your max payment.

Also, if you have a rigid HOA that covers too many exterior things and common areas, when there are issues that arise that could lead to legal issues, it can make things very difficult when you go to sell (there's a complex in Tualatin whose HOA was tied up in legal issues for 2 years, and it made things very near-impossible to sell).

 

And you get the tax benefits of deducting the interest and property taxes.

 

We've been thinking about a first time buyer loan as well Wheels. It's a great time to buy, but we find ourselves in between what we can probably afford and what we want. There's about a 30k difference between what we will most likely be approved for, and what we want in a house. It sucks.

 

BG and I are accountants, we literally sit around and think of this Shit all day lol

 

This.

And I bought my first place at 23 with no guidance or help from anyone, and I while my place was rad and I made money when I sold it 2 years later (even though we were in the crash), I had some regrets because I got hosed on a couple of items because nobody gave me advice.

My wife started in the industry working for her parents at like 15, and she worked in the industry until 2 years ago. My mother-in-law has been in the industry at least 25 years, so she's up on her game. She has a realtor's license too. She doesn't practice, but it keeps her up-to-date on the other side of thigns, as well.