Home buying thread

Met with our agent/friend last night for the first time. He seemed pretty cool about the whole process, was willing to haggle for us, answered most of our noob questions. Should be a good process with him.

I told my wife not to fall in love with any houses, but of course she did, and it sold and she was depressed. Kind of felt like slapping her around a little bit.

They're building up a new cul-de-sac down the street from where we live so we're starting the search there. There's quite a few brand-new houses in there (raised ranch, colonial, etc) that look really nice and fit our range ($250k). Is there anything we should look out for when buying a brand new house in a brand new cul-de-sac?

I would check the reviews online with the builders of the development. There is a company in the Rochester area who is building nice houses everywhere and they are built like absolute SHIT. My Realtor refused to even show her clients these houses and from the outside they look fine.

My only advise for home buying is if you have the luxury take your time. When I bought my current house we looked for close to 6 months. We had a house and did not need to sell it to purchase the new house so we just kept looking. I found a house online I loved that was a bit over budget and after 60 days they lowered the price and we still went in 20k below their asking and they accepted. Unfortunately it is winter and I bought the house for the 4.5 acres and I have barely seen it but looking forward to spring.

We fell in love with many houses during that time, but we made a list of thing we Needed, Wanted and would be nice to have in order to purchase the house and after seeing a bunch of houses we would sit down and fill in our lists. It was a great way to remove the rose colored glasses. The house we did buy did not have a Master bedroom which was on my wife's NEEDED list, so now that we have moved in we are having one built essentially making 2 bedroom and a bathroom into a master suite, so that is another way of evaluating the list.

Good Luck home buying can be a pain but it is also fun

Noodleface, for some reason I seem to remember you saying something about living in Oklahoma. If that is true, I can tell you which builders to avoid.

Massachusetts. same thing

Oklahoma, MA.

Oklahoma, MA, Canada

Pre-approved for $200,000 for buying a home in Northwest San Antonio TX.

Or maybe it was pre-qualified? My mortgage company did the whole you are approved, but we can get you a stronger approval letter as soon as we get your bank records, and tax documents, etc. lol

I wish they would have told me the max I would of gotten approved for. Would have been neat to know, but we knew we wouldn't go over $200k so didn't even bother.

Current house in Phoenix AZ isn't even on the market yet, but these numbers are good for a little while, so we have some time.

That sounds like pre-qualified to me, but I am a noob..

I'm surprised they didn't tell you anyway. Even after the bubble and subsequent shit show a lot of lenders are still giving people ludicrous approval amounts.

I remember getting approved for $380k in 2009 and thinking "Are they fucking kidding me? I can't afford that kind of payment, house poor for a year and then homeless after that". My salary was only $75k/yr at that point and I am single.

When we got our mortgage, the bank wanted to deny us because my wife carried too much student loan debt. First I tried to explain to them that she has like 30 years to pay that shit back and $~200 a month is a lot different than the ~$800 a month retarded calculation they use... basically they assume you will pay it back in 5 years and ignore any attempts to explain to them your income based repayment plan.

Then I asked if we would be approved if I removed my wife from the mortgage, and they said absolutely I would be approved... as if that loan payment magically disappeared from our debt because my wife was no longer on the mortgage.

And no, this wasn't a different person... this was the same guy and this all happened in the same conversation.

Eyashusa_sl said:

When we got our mortgage, the bank wanted to deny us because my wife carried too much student loan debt. First I tried to explain to them that she has like 30 years to pay that shit back and $~200 a month is a lot different than the ~$800 a month retarded calculation they use... basically they assume you will pay it back in 5 years and ignore any attempts to explain to them your income based repayment plan.

Then I asked if we would be approved if I removed my wife from the mortgage, and they said absolutely I would be approved... as if that loan payment magically disappeared from our debt because my wife was no longer on the mortgage.

And no, this wasn't a different person... this was the same guy and this all happened in the same conversation.

Click to expand...

Lol! With this job switch, my wife will be a stay at home Mom, and so she's not even on this loan like she is for our current house. Lucky me, as our biggest debts are under her name, so I'm looking like a star as far as the mortgage company is concerned. lol

And I agree, it's not official by any means Noodle until I get them more documents. But it seemed like pending any craziness I was going to get approved for $200k.

And things are still crazy. Friends of mine have a $160k mortgage on a condo. They bought at a bad time, and are renting it out in the mean time. Went in and got approved for $480k! They were like combined total with the $160k mortage we already have? They were like nope, in addition to it!

Yeah it makes no sense.. we were approved for $350k which is absolutely ridiculous. That's with my $55k student loans, her $20k student loan, two car loans equaling around $20k, and a few smaller things.

My poor credit killed us on interest and stuff, so the thought was they could take me off the mortgage, but because my income is 2.5x my wife's income it just wouldn't happen.

Brando_sl said:

Guidelines are standard and are backed by years of loss mitigation studies. Banks aren't going out of their way to give you debt that you can't repay as they want you making monthly payments for a very long time. Just because you can get more than you feel comfortable with doesn't mean the system is retarded, more that you financially have a limit in your head whether you admit it or not.

Click to expand...

Oh yeah? Is that how we got into our current predicament? With years of loss mitigation studies and good lending practices? You'll have to excuse me if I'm cynical that it magically changed overnight, especially when I was approved for something that quite literally would have made me house poor for the first year until my savings ran dry and then would have forced me into foreclosure AFTER all the regulation was supposedly put in place.

Is there a thought going into it that if someone has a cell phone or a house payment, for the most part they prioritize the house payment? I doubt it, since this is entirely subjective, but I always wondered about that.

And I remember reading those posts not too long ago Brando, and am fully aware that any kind of letter not signed by the under-writer is useless. I was just relaying what I had been told, and that it was nice to be approved for what we were looking for. Been through this situation before 2 years ago when qualifying for our current mortgage, and my situation is better now. I don't forsee any snags.

Then again, I say that now, and who knows, maybe next week I'll be back on this thread saying DAMN IT!

Crone_sl said:

Is there a thought going into it that if someone has a cell phone or a house payment, for the most part they prioritize the house payment? I doubt it, since this is entirely subjective, but I always wondered about that.

Click to expand...

Most people would more than likely want to not be homeless and instead lose some cell service. I think the point he was making was that cell phone payments aren't recorded on your credit, so the bank really doesn't care (unless it goes to collections). They're strictly looking at your credit report, which won't contain things like insurance payments, cell phone bills, medical bills, etc.


We went and checked out some houses last night. I was really excited about these brand new houses in a new cul-de-sac.. when I got there was slightly disappointed. It was about 30 homes, all looked identical and were really close to eachother. I wouldn't even have minded if, but they were all the same exact color and everything.

Meanwhile, we saw a beautiful house on a 2 acre lot in a great neighborhood for $169k. Needed a little interior work, but otherwise fine. The real catch was the house was painted bright neon green. I'm starting to have a WTF moment with every house I see. Not sure why woman insist on having ALL PINK bathrooms including the toilet either. I know my wife isn't like that. If any of you dudes have pink bathrooms I feel for you.

Noodleface_sl said:

Most people would more than likely want to not be homeless and instead lose some cell service. I think the point he was making was that cell phone payments aren't recorded on your credit, so the bank really doesn't care (unless it goes to collections). They're strictly looking at your credit report, which won't contain things like insurance payments, cell phone bills, medical bills, etc.


We went and checked out some houses last night. I was really excited about these brand new houses in a new cul-de-sac.. when I got there was slightly disappointed. It was about 30 homes, all looked identical and were really close to eachother. I wouldn't even have minded if, but they were all the same exact color and everything.

Meanwhile, we saw a beautiful house on a 2 acre lot in a great neighborhood for $169k. Needed a little interior work, but otherwise fine. The real catch was the house was painted bright neon green. I'm starting to have a WTF moment with every house I see. Not sure why woman insist on having ALL PINK bathrooms including the toilet either. I know my wife isn't like that. If any of you dudes have pink bathrooms I feel for you.

Click to expand...

So jealous that you can live out that far. Arrrg, I want to not have a mortgage. Which towns are you seeing those prices in?

Vinen_sl said:

So jealous that you can live out that far. Arrrg, I want to not have a mortgage. Which towns are you seeing those prices in?

Click to expand...

The $169k was in Freetown, which I don't blame you if you don't know what it is. It's basically between Taunton and Fall River and really small. The others are all in Fall River right now ($200-250k average for a new/newer raised ranch or colonial to give some idea).

Freetown is perfect because it's a very wood-sy town, the problem is the houses can be really old and/or dilapidated. Fall River has a lot of development, so there are newer houses, but all of the houses are really close together and the city of Fall River isn't known as being a great place to live (moderate crime rate).

We're also looking around Middleboro/Taunton/Raynham/Bridgewater - all about the same as Freetown with places like Bridgewater being way higher in taxes.

Also I'd prefer to live closer to work, but as you move that way the prices skyrocket like you said.

Edit: The good thing is although we weren't approved for a shit ton of money, at $350k we have a lot of extra money to really pick and choose the right house for us in this area. We're aiming at $250k but we aren't opposed to paying more for the right house.